Revisiting Traumas

[Casey_03]

Is it bad or harmful in any way to revisit your traumas in your mind? I know I used to do that as a defense mechanism any time I was getting close to someone, but now I find myself replaying the events in my mind over and over while at work. Not sure why. Just wondering if this is supposed to be a bad thing or is it healthy and a sign of recovery? Any feedback appreciated!

 

[Anarchy]

on the scale of getting better or getting worse, it's probably fairly neutral to slightly negative. all that is happening is your mind is re playing intrusive thoughts of the trauma, not processing it or healing it. PTSD does that.

Have you listened to any of the "mindful way through depression" audio book? You can use the mindfulness to notice when you are starting to play those thoughts, acknowledge them, ground and, with a sense of self forgiveness, get back to something more productive, even if that is just noticing your breathing and bodily sensations, like the pressure on the soles of your feet.

Some of the people here use techniques like EFT, it might be worth looking that up or starting a thread to ask about it as a way to desensitize and process the trauma memories.

 

[shimmerz]

revisit your traumas in your mind?

I think it depends on what you do with the trauma....

My T-doc used to say that each time we replayed the event it was like playing an LP with a skip in it. The needle would just dig deeper and deeper groves, making the needle less likely to be able to recover from the skip. At times I replay the trauma within a framework of 'ah ha, I see why I am skewed on this -- because of this trauma, now how can I reframe'. Otherwise, I don't think it would do much good.