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Retrauma and bad experiences help
- Post starter Rudolf
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coraxxx
Diamond Member
Hi @Rudolf , I'm very sorry for the reasons you are here. But glad you found us.
If in certain cases I think it's good going against our avoidance through exposure but in your case it doesn't look like it has worked out at all, so trying another form of exposure therapy without any frame, pharmaceutical or anything, to sustain it it just seems ineffective at best, dangerous at worst.
For what I've read here it's quite classical to get worse before you get better, but in your case you aren't getting better.
Did they suggest you behavioural therapies? Cognitive behavioural or dialectical behavioural? Or to work on your traumas in a secure place (as grief said, a hospital)?
I just don't see why rushing through everything like this, it seems very brutal to me and the brain has actually very good reasons to have psychogenic amnesia. When it's psychogenic. Did they check if you could have reasons to have amnesia that isn't explained by other causes?
To be entirely fair I find it quite a bad sign you are in a much worse place now than before since you did so much therapy. Something must be wrong in this approach :-/
If in certain cases I think it's good going against our avoidance through exposure but in your case it doesn't look like it has worked out at all, so trying another form of exposure therapy without any frame, pharmaceutical or anything, to sustain it it just seems ineffective at best, dangerous at worst.
For what I've read here it's quite classical to get worse before you get better, but in your case you aren't getting better.
Did they suggest you behavioural therapies? Cognitive behavioural or dialectical behavioural? Or to work on your traumas in a secure place (as grief said, a hospital)?
I just don't see why rushing through everything like this, it seems very brutal to me and the brain has actually very good reasons to have psychogenic amnesia. When it's psychogenic. Did they check if you could have reasons to have amnesia that isn't explained by other causes?
To be entirely fair I find it quite a bad sign you are in a much worse place now than before since you did so much therapy. Something must be wrong in this approach :-/
Survivor3
VIP Member
Im sorry that's tough. Maybe you'd feel better if you started taking up some of those activities again? It's tough I know. I also have no friends apart from on here and a walking group that I attend.
- Post starter
- #16
Hi @ruborcoraxxx
many therapists now don't understand why my therapist did this either, it's been 1.5 years since my last attempt at trauma work, but alas, neither dissociation has decreased, nor tastes have returned, nor smells, movies and music are the same. But I am wondering if I can go back somehow, or if this is for good. I would so like to rewind time and leave it the way it was. And now being almost dying, and almost disabled, it's hard to know how to fix it. But going to EMDR now I think it would just make me psychotic and suicidal. I've heard of cases like mine where people went from normal, to vegetables, with intense trauma work, with dissociation. My doctor did this because we hadn't progressed all 5 years, there was constant suspension on my part, and he found this radical method of 2-3 traumas in 1 session, over 20 sessions in a row. But alas, I almost died, and I didn't even know how to use the phone, and many other things. I read that it was supposedly the amygdaloid body that crushed the prefrontal cortex. Now I'm looking for a way out, trying to make it work. So I posted on this forum in the hope that maybe I'll find out what will help me. I'm thinking about going back on medication, but it's changing my reality and range of emotions so much that I don't look like myself. And now while I'm looking for a new regular therapist, everyone suggests I go to trauma, but I think it's doom, I think I need to grow myself cognitively somehow.
many therapists now don't understand why my therapist did this either, it's been 1.5 years since my last attempt at trauma work, but alas, neither dissociation has decreased, nor tastes have returned, nor smells, movies and music are the same. But I am wondering if I can go back somehow, or if this is for good. I would so like to rewind time and leave it the way it was. And now being almost dying, and almost disabled, it's hard to know how to fix it. But going to EMDR now I think it would just make me psychotic and suicidal. I've heard of cases like mine where people went from normal, to vegetables, with intense trauma work, with dissociation. My doctor did this because we hadn't progressed all 5 years, there was constant suspension on my part, and he found this radical method of 2-3 traumas in 1 session, over 20 sessions in a row. But alas, I almost died, and I didn't even know how to use the phone, and many other things. I read that it was supposedly the amygdaloid body that crushed the prefrontal cortex. Now I'm looking for a way out, trying to make it work. So I posted on this forum in the hope that maybe I'll find out what will help me. I'm thinking about going back on medication, but it's changing my reality and range of emotions so much that I don't look like myself. And now while I'm looking for a new regular therapist, everyone suggests I go to trauma, but I think it's doom, I think I need to grow myself cognitively somehow.
- Post starter
- #17
- Post starter
- #18
I've heard someone say that when there are a lot of injuries, it's better not to touch them at all. Could this be the case in my case? I shouldn't have even touched it. My mother told me that I had something mental happen in my early childhood that my legs stopped working abruptly and I stopped walking for days, at age 2, maybe it was something so strong that it scared me, traumatized me, that it was impossible to treat at all.
I spent my entire childhood peeing, screaming at night, kicking myself every night, stuttering. It seems I was traumatized very early, and didn't even have time to form. There's a lot of mystique in my childhood.
I spent my entire childhood peeing, screaming at night, kicking myself every night, stuttering. It seems I was traumatized very early, and didn't even have time to form. There's a lot of mystique in my childhood.
joeylittle
Sponsor
@Rudolf - from your description of your lack of senses, and feeling like you are dead - those are all symptoms of dissociation, true - but they are also symptoms of depression. Do you mind if I ask, what country are you receiving healthcare in?
- Post starter
- #20
@joeylittle I'm from Russia
- Post starter
- #21
1
1is1
Try Self Regulation Training. Or Somatic Experiencing. It's so much safer and gentler.
Hi Rudolf: I am a retired psychologist and trauma therapist and before my retirement had worked with a number of CPTSD individuals and also Dissociative D.Os including DID. It sounds as though you have had a lot of early childhood trauma and this typically comes with a lot of defenses, often including freezing. If a child is in a vulnerable situation and those who should be protecting him/her are not only not protecting the child but hurting the child freezing and checking out is often the only defense available, the child can't run, can't fight back, what else is there? So the mind dissociates as a defense, a way of splitting off aspects of the trauma that are too hard to deal with. Over time with stress this becomes a default pattern for dealing with life stressors.
The key point here is that a therapist cannot, should not attempt to go right at the trauma directly with a trauma processing therapy, like EMDR, or hypnosis, or cognitive trauma processing, etc. What happens is that the individual's defensive parts will block these attempts one way or the other, or the trauma work can become over whelming. If the client(now an adult) can even access the memories the freeze response will often come up, or hyperarousal will make the experience
too much. A good rule is that the individual needs to be able to hold the traumatic memory in mind and stay within the "window of tolerance" (research this phrase
online to see what I mean). This is even if the person can get to memories at all, which they often cannot do, because of the overwhelming nature of it, and the defensive parts blocking.
What I would strongly suggest is that you find a therapist well practiced in an ego state therapy like IFS (Internal Family Systems) which is what I eventually came to
and has proven to be immensely helpful to complex trauma individuals( by their say so, not mine). It takes the person right where he is at starting with whatever
part is coming up, typically a defensive part that is trying to protect more vulnerable parts of the person. If you do not deal with these protective parts in a cooperative way (they are after all trying to help by protecting) they will block any attempt to process trauma. I would encourage you to look into IFS as it is such
a strength based way of working which is an awesome way to work . All the best to you as you journey.
The key point here is that a therapist cannot, should not attempt to go right at the trauma directly with a trauma processing therapy, like EMDR, or hypnosis, or cognitive trauma processing, etc. What happens is that the individual's defensive parts will block these attempts one way or the other, or the trauma work can become over whelming. If the client(now an adult) can even access the memories the freeze response will often come up, or hyperarousal will make the experience
too much. A good rule is that the individual needs to be able to hold the traumatic memory in mind and stay within the "window of tolerance" (research this phrase
online to see what I mean). This is even if the person can get to memories at all, which they often cannot do, because of the overwhelming nature of it, and the defensive parts blocking.
What I would strongly suggest is that you find a therapist well practiced in an ego state therapy like IFS (Internal Family Systems) which is what I eventually came to
and has proven to be immensely helpful to complex trauma individuals( by their say so, not mine). It takes the person right where he is at starting with whatever
part is coming up, typically a defensive part that is trying to protect more vulnerable parts of the person. If you do not deal with these protective parts in a cooperative way (they are after all trying to help by protecting) they will block any attempt to process trauma. I would encourage you to look into IFS as it is such
a strength based way of working which is an awesome way to work . All the best to you as you journey.
internal
Diamond Member
any time someone comes here claiming to be a current or former therepist-please take this dude with a grain of salt. ifs is not foolproof and has a whole host of detractors. it works for some people but a lot of it is nonsense, too.
as for you, do you have ptsd? or are you just here to give unsolicited medical advise?
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