So What Does A Bit Of Trauma Matter?

[The Albatross]

Examine negative/problematic thinking styles and cognitive distortions? Ms. Spock has a thread up about them right now, Anthony has an excellent article about this as well.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development

Anthony's Article "10 Primary Cognitive Distortions": https://www.myptsd.com/threads/10-primary-cognitive-distortions-negative-thinking-styles.51948/

Ms. Spock's thread, Name that Distorted Cognition (thought/perception), this morning she put up some more info about Paiget's take on Magical thinking: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/name...n-thought-perception.54277/page-2#post-871272

 

[KwanYingirl]

For specific behavior changes, you might try Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It's very structured, with specific skills taught. For instance, mindfulness, radical acceptance, distress tolerance (and a few more that I can't think of right now, oh interpersonal skills). I've never done the course as designed but have the workbook and learn via that and my therapists skills in teaching them. I've benefitted from it, especially in terms of rational vs. emotional thinking and distress tolerance. Now, we are working on my interpersonal skills (of which I struggle with because I was silenced as a child and have had to find my voice). You certainly can benefit from DBT without having PTSD. I've always been rejected from the formal training because I am very dissociative. There are threads on DBT here.

 

[Chava]

Not sure if I've followed everything perfectly, but it sounds like you hinted at pre-age 3 developmental stuff (maybe not being wanted or expected to live). I was a sick fetus and infant, stayed in the hospital. I had later traumas but we are down to working on what seems to be mostly pre age 2 stuff in therapy. It helps me to understand the developmental trauma perspective. Attachment with a caregiver is life-or-death for an infant. If a caregiver is neglectful, terribly inconsistent, or abusive, babies can die from failure to thrive. Their little systems know that they need a strong connection to another human in order to survive. Their is nothing they can do on their own. There is no fight or flight. There is just attachment or freeze.

As for early childhood, like the abuse that started when you are 3, there is still no real fight or flight. There is really no even understanding our boundaries strongly or what is okay. We are still very dependent upon adults for everything so tend to follow. Also, little bodies know they don't have power over adults. So the response used by young children is freeze (dissociation). If you used this when young, your body defaulted to it in later traumas. I froze during an adult attack.....I really couldn't have fought my way out of it anyway, but I froze so fast...was left feeling like I didn't even try. Lots of shame.

Anyway, I've long held the believe that I don't deserve to live...or just barely. I've had a hard time taking care of or protecting myself. I do have PTSD, which my current therapist consider complex trauma, but we are really down to working at developmental trauma. Developmental trauma can show up as attachment disorders, personality disorders, PTSD, or all kinds of behavioral disorders. All I have is CPTSD but relate well to Laurence Heller's description of the earliest form of developmental trauma (for some of us this can have traits that look almost autism spectrum, but I am just very avoidant, with some extreme sensory sensitivities). It doesn't all fit together neatly because we're still studying all of this stuff. But babies don't need a gun to their head to feel traumatized. They just need to feel uncared for, unprotected, or unwanted. They know, on a nervous system level, that they will die without a decent attachment, and it can later form beliefs that continually get reinforced.

My earliest body memory of freeze response is likely from my first year, possibly after birth (related to suffocating). I still carry that immobilization with me, 40-something years later. I've worked through the beliefs, but the immobility is still there (learning more about triggers). As an adult my beliefs probably set me up for some retraumatization. But as a kid, I simply couldn't flee my environment and survive on my own. So I continued to face triggers and almost always defaulted to freeze, even when my siblings in the same house were able to get angry. I became passive and blank and disappeared because how I was wired to respond to fear....I didn't learn another way soon enough. Anyway, this came before the beliefs, so I'm left working with the earliest trauma on a body/nervous system level. But it has helped to have a good relationship with a therapist to work beyond the beliefs. I've done a lot of quitting therapy out of shame and self hatred, based out of the old beliefs, and somehow been encouraged to stick it out and feel like I'm worth it and that there is hope.

 

[Sandstone]

There have to be holes in what I think, but I suspect beating myself into logical submission won't work. It seems to be more of a felt thing than one that is thought.

When I look at core CBT, I just end with " It's all my fault for thinking wrong. So I should just ignore it all, stop making a fuss and being a nuisance and get on with life" I was supposed t be doing trauma focussed CBT, but my T seems to have moved away from this.
And DBT, about which I know less, seems to be "It's all my fault for feeling wrong" It seems directed at telling people that feeling bad is a selfish lie, so they should keep it to themselves and not inconvenience others. Since I don't generally inconvenience others, it was decided that it wasn't appropriate for me. In fact T commented that my behaviour was usually the opposite of its target group, as I go out of my way to avoid showing any one any sort of distress. The behaviour I need to change is to get up off my bottom and get a job, but trying to do that has plunged me back into this morass of self loathing, which leads me to think that it's either cowardice or those core beliefs.

I've grappled long and hard with Mindfulness, it's the exact opposite of everything I've lived, so seems like a good start. There was talk long ago of Compassion Based Mindfulness, and if that had happened it might have been a good thing. I can have compassion for my parents - given their backgrounds it seems wholly reasonable for my mother to go for dishonesty and denial and my father for dissociation and rage. It's just a shame two children got in the way of it all.

So the response used by young children is freeze (dissociation). If you used this when young, your body defaulted to it in later traumas. I froze during an adult attack

The problem for me is that although it seems I've dissociated part of the rape - I have no recollection of most of it, I do recall physically acting to stop it, and one of them saying "Oh, you really didn't want to?" So once again, I do have evidence that I could act, I just didn't - until it was too late. And that leaves me wondering if it even qualifies as a rape. And why I allowed other assaults, if I was capable of acting in self protection?

 

[sun seeker]

No, I think I developed them, as I said, as a result of my complicated childhood. From being the unexpected, extra child, born to a mother who didn't expect me to survive, who didn't like being married or a parent, from being the ignored only child in a household of adults, from total social isolation, from being "responsible" every time either parent had an unpleasant emotion, from a family that had no grasp of reality and amended any truth they didn't like.

All of this adds up to a picture of developmental trauma. I haven't gotten through the rest of the thread yet, but have you looked at this? I'd highly recommend Lawrence Heller's work, either his book "Healing Developmental Trauma" or start with his interview on youtube.

There is processing treatment for the six and a half, but what do I do with the rest?

Eventually, process the core beliefs (and the trauma that led to them) just like the other trauma, because these things . Seems like you may not be ready for that yet, and that's fine. Just keep space for that possibility somewhere along the line.

I posted this in Complex in the hope of getting responses from people who recognise that there is more than just the obvious Criterion A stuff going on, but I feel like I'm being hammered into a round " process the trauma and everything will be all right " hole. The " trauma" I experienced is too little, too non-violent and too late to account for what I live with, what I am.

This was in response to a quote of mine from another thread, which is why I got notification for this thread. I want to clarify that what I wrote about this back in March has changed hugely. It began to change just over the course of working with the thread where I posted the quote, "I Wonder What Made Me This Way" and through my "Working With Body Memories" thread. Since then, new memories have come up, as have new ways of understanding what my body is telling me. I still have times of doubt, which make people who know me well and can see obvious symptoms of trauma roll their eyes (but they love me anyway... can't imagine why :rolleyes:) but I'm much more solid both in recognizing the effects of early trauma and in believing the information I am uncovering from flashbacks.

The point of all this work, and it is an uphill battle many days, is to know in every part of our beings that those core beliefs are not who we are. To question them. To develop new, more positive ones, and integrate them into every part of ourselves. To get to a place where we can live our lives as we choose instead of being controlled by the shackles trauma places on us. I believe you can get there. Some days, I even believe I can.:)

 

[Chava]

I might have some of your story garbled, since I don't know much of it. But are you doing CBT-type work for early traumas? That often leads to therapeutic failure...and leaving clients feeling more ashamed and wrecked. We can't be talking about the "thinking" of a 3 year old be molested by an old man. That should not even be part of the discussion. If you could come up with on, it would be another negative belief. And who needs those. Early child trauma needs to stay far away from CBT.

 

[Eleanor]

practically, do I do? How do I do it?

Changing beliefs is tricky - no doubt. And they don't yield to just argument along (mostly) Logic can indicate a path, but won't, by itself as you say, do the trick most times. (It is convenient when it does...)

One thing you can try is to identify things you DO based on the belief you want to change (a lot of people with developmental trauma/neglect have problems ... BIG problems with self care) and then change those habits. Usually feelings come up when we try to change our habits and actions.

Another thing to try is to imagine yourself talking to that three year old self and listening to what she says about herself and letting her EXPRESS that through your body. Stay present - conscious and a bit apart from her, but pay attention in a friendly sort of way. You can be reassuring/nurturing if you like but you don't HAVE to do that.

Another thing to try is to rewrite your early childhood how you would rather it have gone - live it out (re-live it out) in your imagination. If emotions come up ... see above.

Beliefs are HABITS at the end of the day. The only way to get them to shift is to consciously change them and retrain yourself. They tend to have ... roots? Shoots? out into lots of things that you might not initially expect. That's part of the process of discovery.

One thing my T has people do at the beginning is identify a belief - and wear a rubber band on your wrist - every time you catch yourself thinking that thing, snap yourself with the rubber band AND THEN (this is the important bit) repeat what you want to replace that belief with ten times with feeling. Sounds hokey but it makes a difference.

Another thing to do is to write some goals for yourself (with your T or here) in positive language. What do you want your life To BE in concrete terms - how do you want it to feel? Smell? Sound like? What emotions? What do you want other people to say? How they should respond to you. Creating these things is often a process itself. (Stuff comes up... I start "I will be..." and T says, "No say it in the present tense." OK, "I am .... " and I get a few words in and cry. Keep going. Let the emotion work through. Keep at it until you have something that is really positive and true and you can say without a lot of old emotion coming up.... AND you can really feel in an imaginary way the positive future you are aiming for.

Are these suggestions more along the lines of what you were looking for?

Here is the thing, I have NO major trauma. Zip. None. Super nice life. I have ONLY emotional neglect - but the emotional neglect was pretty comprehensive. I still ended up with structural dissociation. Plus, let me say this again - things seem life threatening for the point of view of a small child that DON"T count as Criterion A traumas according the DSM. So much the worse for the DSM, I say. For example; Here is the huge formative event in my early life. We moved. I had a regular babysitter who I had bonded to as my primary caretaker. We got to our new house on my fourth birthday. I was desolate as I came to understand I had lost her forever (no phone calls, not even a picture - she was just the sitter, right?) And No One Cared. They just ignored me and my pain. My little world had totally and utterly come apart at the seams and .... it didn't count for beans. It was just annoying that I was crying when I should be having fun. It took me a LONG time (ten years with my T?) to get that memory back. But I still start to tear up when I recall it. I split then I think. And didn't attach (really) to anything except animals for many many years. I don't know if that is on topic, but... lots of things came from that...

 

[Friday]

@stenni... Knowing our part in a thing can be helpful. The danger is when one assumes too much responsibility.

I don't think anyone is arguing necessarily... Most of us? Blame ourselves at some point or another. We were there, therefore it was our fault, massively oversimplified. Letting go of that? There are some things I'm just not willing to, yet. Even though I know first hand exactly what that does; it creates a traction free zone. Those core beliefs you want help on? Are tied up in exactly this.

When responsibility isn't reasonably & rationally apportioned? There's no traction. Nothing to get a grip on.

"I don't believe I have a right to exist." Why? ... Crickets

"I don't believe I have a right to exist," Why? ... "Because I was abused and that's what I was taught to believe through that abuse." Traction.

From there you can start to look at not just why, but how, and what things contributed or entrenched it, and patterns, and dozens of other things both past and present that reinforce those beliefs.

The crickets? Dead silence? Comes in the gaping void of a circular argument: If the belief caused your abuse, instead of the abuse causing your belief? You spend all your time staring at a blank wall. There's just nothing to work with. No traction.

 

[joeylittle]

And DBT, about which I know less, seems to be "It's all my fault for feeling wrong" It seems directed at telling people that feeling bad is a selfish lie, so they should keep it to themselves and not inconvenience others.

Nope, DBT is only about dismantling core beliefs and the ways in which they affect your daily life negatively. I actually think you'd like it.

In fact T commented that my behaviour was usually the opposite of its target group, as I go out of my way to avoid showing any one any sort of distress.

Your T is referring to the fact that it was developed by Marsha Linnehan as a technique for treating Borderline Personality Disorder. However, DBT has proven itself to be useful for many, many more things than that.

Four categories:

• Distress Tolerance: skills for coping when shit gets really bad.
• Emotion Regulation: concepts and techniques for turning the noise down on unhelpful thoughts and emotions without just shutting the door on them.
• Mindfulness: this piece really engages with the core beliefs issue, how we frame our perceived reality and how to either understand that it is skewed, or rooted in old beliefs that are no longer relevant, OR things that just cause us pain that we would like to change.
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to navigate relationships without losing track of yourself; also, frankly, how to communicate like a badass.

It's not narrow the way CBT is narrow, and it's definitely not 'oh all your thoughts are wrong' - it's actually incredibly non-judgemental and deeply logical. The best way to get introduced to it is through the video series that Marsha did - she's kind of a hoot, but she articulates the concepts very clearly, very practically.

The best book is The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Workbook, by Matthew McKay, et al.

Try it.

 

[ghotiff]

I haven't done CBT ot DBT but this is a thought.

Once I was walking and someone banged into me quite roughly, hurt me but just kept on walking. It upset me and I made a comment to my child who then said "she is probably having a rough day". This pulled me back from my initial feeling that she didn't care that she hurt me, because I "don't matter".

Maybe that small trivial example helps you to see how thinking differently and away from core beliefs can (at least sometimes) help.

 

[Sandstone]

But are you doing CBT-type work for early traumas? That often leads to therapeutic failure...and leaving clients feeling more ashamed and wrecked. We can't be talking about the "thinking" of a 3 year old be molested by an old man. That should not even be part of the discussion. If you could come up with on, it would be another negative belief. And who needs those. Early child trauma needs to stay far away from CBT.

What you say feels correct - can you tell me if you are basing it on experience or something more? I was supposed o be doing CBT, but my T seems to be moving away from it - I'm not sure what is happening now, and I wasn't in a fit state to ask her this week, as I've only just crawled out of huge wave of self loathing in the last few hours.

imagine yourself talking to that three year old self and listening to what she says about herself and letting her EXPRESS that through your body. Stay present - conscious and a bit apart from her, but pay attention in a friendly sort of way.

Interesting. I've been struggling with a six week bout of incompetence from a large companies Customer Services. A few days ago I realised I was physically tense from that, and made my self relax. As I did, I felt my body shrink, and felt blows landing all over it. I wasn't beaten as a child, but clearly that is what it felt like

to rewrite your early childhood how you would rather it have gone - live it out (re-live it out) in your imagination

I think I lived that with my own children. I enjoyed their childhoods so much, and loved loving them.

what you want to replace that belief with ten times with feeling.

Now there's a question. I hadn't considered replacement ideas. "It's all my fault" - does that become " It's all her fault". That in itself seems destructive, specially as I have to see her daily. Or "It's not my fault" Doesn't sound credible, and does sound horribly petulant. In fact it sounds exactly like my father. The best I can come with is "It's just some stuff that happened"

(@FridayJones you and I aren't communicating. I can't identify why.
"I don't believe I have a right to exist." Why? Because I lived a wholly isolated life in which my existence was an unexpected and unwelcome demand. Because whenever I expressed a need I was aware I was hurting someone else. Can you really not hear me when I say these things?)

"she is probably having a rough day". This pulled me back from my initial feeling that she didn't care that she hurt me, because I "don't matter".

But that is the problem. I can see very clearly that my mother was like that because her whole life was a rough day. She was, and remains a very unhappy woman with a detached take on reality. So it wasn't vindictive on her part, it just was.

 

[Chava]

can you tell me if you are basing it on experience or something more?

My experience, and newer psych and neuroscience. Personally, I probably learned a few helpful tools for some general anxiety through CBT. But for trauma (and my eating disorder, which is trauma-based) it was a very bad fit for me. I'm a very logical person, just very traumatized and irrational in ways that CBT can only make me feel more stupid about.

But in making a statement like this here I'd base it more on Bessel Van Der Kolk's writing about this topic in "The Body Keeps the Score." His approach to trauma, in general, is EMDR or body-based. He considers negative cognitions more like "cognitive flashbacks" that you can't just argue with, fault, or change without resolving the trauma on a nervous system level.

Similarly, Laurence Heller wrote, "...when dealing with developmental trauma, attachment difficulties, and early shock, the new understanding from the neurosciences supports the importance of working with affect regulation over cognition..." and "...cognitive therapy does not address the nervous system imbalances that drive cognitive distortions; particularly when working with early trauma cognitive therapy is only minimally effective." (from "Healing Developmental Trauma")