Well, after 10 months I'm finally deemed stable enough for Prolonged Exposure (PE) , have the self harm under control, and yesterday was supposed to be the first imaginal exposure. Buuuttt ... I had had a pelvic ultrasound (both external and internal) about an hour before. I had to do this before working with a gyn specialist, something I've been avoiding for years. The procedure was harder than I thought it would be, and believe me, I was prepared. I had disclosed I was a child sexual abuse (CSA) survivor earlier, and insisted on having my wife in the room with me. The tech was just fine. Still, I was terribly triggered and had flashbacks (FBs) during the procedure when the tech tucked a hard pillow under my butt. I wasn't expecting to be propped up like that!!! Too many really painful and shameful memories associated with that position!!! The Greek Chorus that lives in my head was calling me all sorts of names and I was just waaayy too f*cked up to try to go there there in session. God bless my post-doc T, she went off-script and had me describe the procedure I just went through instead of a childhood memory.
It was excruciating. Although I may have been talking about a medical procedure that had just happened, the old memories were swirling around like puzzle pieces in a snow globe. Telling my T what I was feeling, physical sensations, my thoughts, etc., while undergoing the ultrasound was essentially disclosing some details of my past to her. This was the most I had ever told her, and the most I had ever broken down in front of her. With the meds I have on board now, I can pretty much shove all the messy, dangerous bits back in the box when I have to, at least long enough to look presentable (wouldn't have been able to work or concentrate, though), but I try not to do that too much in t. I'm trying to be both honest (tell the truth) and transparent (not hide how I feel, let myself do certain things with my body that I would never allow myself to do in front of someone else, like clench my fist or jaw, or cry.) I almost vomited a couple of times, which sometimes happens when I cry that hard or I FB to certain memories. I f*cking hate that.
But, bottom line, it was good work. Difficult, painful, embarrassing, but helpful. Made most of the rest of the night bearable. If I had had to process this on my own, late at night after my wife was asleep, as I typically do, it would have been harder, less productive, and more reinforcing of shame and getting stuck in memory than doing it in session.
I'm so used to keeping everything to myself and only allowing myself to feel things fully when I'm truly alone, but that's such a lonely feeling inside the snow globe. This way was more like being in a different snow globe, with old memories and new memories swirling around. I wouldn't exactly say that my T was in there with me, but she was right outside the glass urging me to grab those puzzle pieces and put them together into a cohesive memory with a beginning, middle and an end, and not stay stuck in the middle.
Then we processed after. She asked me about the shame ... and I told her. I told her what the voices in my head were saying, and she understands why they would say that, why I would feel that way. She really helped me differentiate between the past and the present, in unexpected ways. It was helpful. Exhausting, but helpful.
Whew.
