So What Does A Bit Of Trauma Matter?

[ghotiff]

I didn't mean to apply it to your mother, I think that could be counterproductive to healing (at least in the early processing stages). I meant to apply it to other more random interactions from strangers that could "re-enforce" your negative self belief, but that shouldn't (in my example, that's what my child pulled me out of).

Can you really not hear me when I say these things?)

I hear you, and I also hear the pain.

Do you "believe" this logically, or do you "feel" this.
If you both feel and believe this to be true, than can you see a tiny crack that you can poke a wedge in. For me it would be: even if 20 of my closest friends/relations believe something it doesn't then make it true.

I am truly only trying to help, if it's not helpful, please feel free to let me know.

 

[scout86]

I wrote a long reply last night, but it didn't seem to hit the mark, so I left it sit over night. I'm glad I did because others have both gone in a slightly different direction and said things better.

does that become " It's all her fault".

No! It doesn't have to be about FAULT at all. It can simply be cause and effect. "You were neglected as an infant, as a result you have problems with____" Blaming ANYONE (including yourself) tends not to be helpful. If you pick things apart, there are usually reasons of some sort for all behaviors. That doesn't make them "right" or even acceptable. The young man who shot up the elementary school a few years ago had problems. That doesn't make what he did ok. It doesn't mean the children and the teachers deserved to be killed or traumatized. It was not their JOB to absorb his wrath. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was not your job to make your mother's life simple and uncomplicated. And it was not your fault if you weren't part of her plan. You happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That doesn't make you wrong and it doesn't make you the problem.

And, I think @FridayJones DOES hear you. I BELIEVE part of what she's trying to say is that allowing a child to grow up feeling like they are a problem not a blessing IS abuse of a sort. It may not leave physical marks (although my T suggests it leaves changes that would show up on the right kind of brain scan) but it DOES leave scars and you're living with them. You were SUPPOSED to express needs. You just were. There was nothing wrong with you doing that. Your mother may have had problems that made it hard, or even impossible, for her to response appropriately to your needs. That STILL doesn't make you wrong for having needs. The fact that those around you gave you the impression that you, yourself, were a problem was harmful. Whether they intended it to be or not. You don't have to blame them. In fact, my T says that blaming is kind of a waste of time and effort. There is a scenario where you don't blame anyone, you just accept that what is is and deal with the results.

I'm really impressed with how you're sticking with this topic. I think it would be easy, maybe, to get frustrated and quit. It reminds me of a conversation with @shimmerz some time ago. Keep picking at this! I think there's a light waiting to come on for you and I know I'm getting some valuable insights myself along the way.

 

[Eleanor]

The best I can come with is "It's just some stuff that happened"

Possible alternatives: "It was a train wreck." "It was a perfect storm, and I was the ship." "It was a tragedy." "I was profoundly injured although everyone did their best."

Blame, I agree, is not helpful. Keeping score "Morally" is not really the point. Suppose she WAS to blame and should burn in hell or something equally horrible. So what? Would that help you heal NOW? Probably not. What Scout said.

I've been struggling with a six week bout of incompetence from a large companies Customer Service

My H and I both get totally triggered by talking to Comcast. It takes a Long Time to recover. "Customer Service" indeed.

"I go out of my way to avoid showing any one any sort of distress." That's me. Except I don't have to go out of my way. Because I simply never show distress in public. How? I just stuff the distress in the closet in a microsecond. Unless someone reads micro expressions and looks at me they'd never know, and until quite recently, neither would I. I am good in an emergency this way, I never ever freak out. Because in my family Everything Is Always Fine. My H says "You have no "tells.""

"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.

At the risk of sticking my nose further in.... Are you saying "I believe this because it was TRUE?" Or are you giving a causal explanation?

Do you distinguish between normative (what "ought" to be) and descriptive (what objectively-everyone agrees IS)? I find it enormously helpful. The miscommunication between you and @FridayJones might be swirling around this.

Consider:

The descriptive: You WEREN'T - as a matter of fact - wanted. Your belief that you don't have a right to exist was caused (over time) by internalizing your parents' attitudes. This belief is a significant factor in causing problems in your life.

The normative: These facts don't, however, imply anything about your actual or potential value.

Parents SHOULD value their children, and if they take on/keep the child they've obligated themselves to be parents. The primary duty of a parent is to make sure the child's need are met in such a way that the child develops in a healthy way. This often requires subordinating their immediate needs to the requirements of raising a child. If this is not do-able they are obligated to find someone ELSE who can care for the child in part or in whole. Why? Because otherwise they do horrible harm to the child - like the child grows up feeling like they don't have a right to exist.

Crippling a child, mentally or physically or emotionally is... child abuse. No matter how overt or implicit the means. Foot binding deforms feet, but doesn't necessarily break bones.It can be very gently done.

 

[shimmerz]

Thanks for tagging me in this @scout86. I wanted to reply but feel badly because I just can't take in a long post and feel I should be reading it, which I can't. However, the thing that stuck out with me in what you are saying @stenni , is that you belief that the core of you is bad in some way - that your core beliefs (which you feel are all about you), have gotten you into your trauma (forgive me if I am a bit off the mark here - I am doing my best).

My shaman and I did a TON of work on core beliefs. It is a whole new step in healing from trauma or neglect or abuse of any kind.

As an aside, when my son called me because he was going into counselling, not so long ago, we had a long talk about his feeling that he was 'born defective'. I reminded him of all of the beautiful things about him. I was witness to that.

What he wasn't ready for was that I also was witness to the hatred around him, his taking things on that were not his to take on, that he was the cause of all bad things in the family.

Is it possible that you and your therapist could stop processing trauma right now and work on core beliefs. I mean, I think you are trying to say (but perhaps don't know it), that trauma is taking a back seat to how you feel about yourself. This is always a stage in trauma therapy. Doesn't mean you weren't traumatized, don't have PTSD, are a fake, phony, was mistaken all along....it simply means that it is time to see where those core beliefs came from. It is hard work because sometimes we see things we don't want to see (like how we were brainwashed into believing we were bad). But it doesn't mean that your trauma experiences were/are not valid.

 

[shimmerz]

Foot binding deforms feet, but doesn't necessarily break bones.It can be very gently done.

And if the process started young, you may never know how it happened and just believe your feet were like that when you were born. And try to hide them, be ashamed of them, be worried that your children will be born with that defect too. This is dangerous thinking. It has the potential to colour everything.

 

[Deleted member 30331]

I'm still doubtful that I can be classified as having PTSD, but my T - a psychologist - is adamant that t...

The term PTSD gets slung around so much that it is easy to doubt its usefulness. But we have to put a name to it. What we share is a sense of being under threat or having been damaged by events out of our control. But there are some less general factors which signal PTSD's presence. Recognizing those factors helps to isolate some of the possible causes for anxiety or "dysfunction" in us.

By acknowleging the symptoms and reviewing the facts, we are able to trace some causes. At times, if we are lucky, we find that some causes for anxiety no longer exist. They may have been entirely valid when they first occurred, but with newer experience and more maturity, some childhood fears, even phobias, can diminish or evaporate. That has happened with me several times when I have put some fears into their childhood contexts.

I've talked with my therapist about whether I might have been born with abnormal anxieties for very real reasons. My mother and I almost died in difficult childbirth, prompting our drunken doctor to clumsily deliver me with forceps. During the long labor, I'm sure that I shared my mother's pain and fight or flight chemistry. From the damage to my head, they suspected I would be brain injured. Then they discovered the birth "defects" that warped my self-perception for most of my life. My confusion, insecurity, hyper-alertness and fear of the unknown shaped me to be an outsider, a freak, to be bullied, taunted and perpetually threatened. As a result, I not only was a victim, but I accepted being a victim. I denied there was anything abnormal about me, but was unable to compete because of deeper knowledge of my "limitations."

My attitude showed meekness and set me up for emotional abuse in school and in my highly competitive career. I could go on and on here. But I'll spare the details. The point is that very early events can hamper a personality from healthy development, and even lead to additional traumas. I've been suicidal, a drunk and an immature person in many relationships. But I now firmly believe that I have survived this far, to a great extent by expert therapy for PTSD.

So if you trust your therapist, trust the PTSD label, and keep moving toward freedom from self-doubt and insecurity. You're probably a normal person who has experienced abnormal circumstances.

This is a very good site to join. You're making progress. Be well.

 

[Meadowsweet]

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.

I think, whether other people think you are thinking wrong or right, you have to acknowledge what is there first and foremost. I do a lot of saying "I know that's the wrong way to think, but right now that IS what is in my mind" - it's not that I'm thinking that, it is that I'm actually feeling it, and to me that's the difference between a core belief that is ingrained deeply into, what seems like my very being, and a negative thinking style.

I'm not sure that I can 'get rid' of those core feelings about what I am. And it seems important for me to acknowledge those feelings and to allow them to be there - not try and change them. I wasn't allowed to say "I feel this" as a child, it was always pushed away and treated as a 'bad' thing to do and I always felt that I was wrong for feeling. And this is why it's important to be heard and I can understand your frustration that this important aspect of what you feel is not being heard.

In terms of a diagnosis of PTSD. I think in the pinned 'what is complex trauma' thread, I shared that I was a mess in my teens and into my twenties, but it wasn't until I was attacked again in my thirties, that I developed full on PTSD symptoms. So to me, treating PTSD symptoms would have been addressing the trauma in my 30's that caused PTSD. But what frightened me more than anything was that I had related earlier abuse to my recklessness as a teen and young adult, and had left it behind to become a sensible, responsible mother making good choices in most areas of my life. And yet, I STILL didn't see the signs of the man I was inviting into my life, being an abuser. So a massive part of my PTSD was that realisation that I was not safe because I could not see who was abusive and who wasn't - a big part of treating that is dealing with the core responses I have that put me at risk of abuse - and they were formed before the incident that eventually led to PTSD.

So yes, the complexities surrounding abuse are so much more than the experience of the actual abuse, and that, for me, is what makes trauma complex. And in addressing that, trauma focussed CBT alone fails to address the non-trauma focussed cognitions that play such a major role in the mind.

I think, in the UK NHS, because of time/financial restrictions on therapy, there is a tendency for therapists to look at the diagnosis and treat that along the guidelines for that diagnosis, rather than look at, and treat the person. I ended up going to a charity that offers free therapy for people that have experienced rape and sexual abuse - without time restrictions, I was able to bring up those seemingly non-trauma related issues of childhood - and this therapist (whose experience was in the field of rape and SA) understood the additional issues that aren't directly related to the traumatic events, but form part of the overall experience of that childhood.

I would recommend googling 'rape and sexual abuse support... [your area]' to see what is available.

 

[Deleted member 30331]

I wonder if there is such thing as a "bit" of trauma. Unless a PTSD condition has been at least partially traced and recognized, the person with it may remain hyper-vigilant against a recurrence. Then it is very likely that a minor event can be misinterpreted as a continuation or reinforcement of the cause of the condition.

In my case, birth defects were part of the cause of my earliest awareness of "inadequacy" and hopelessness. Until I more fully defined and understood those factors and learned to adapt, I lived in shame and fear. And when any instance of seeming callousness, rejection or bullying occurred, the core feelings reared and compounded my condition. I know it can still happen, and as a result, I am a loner now. I've had about 25 years of therapy for a variety of very real traumas, as well as many circumstances which were related to trauma only in my on mind.

Having retired and cleared the decks of predatory and ignorant people who used and abused me. I am more able to differentiate between real threats and what I lump together as "just bad weather."

 

[Skylynx]

I soon realized this topic sounds just like me, and my history, and my defenses starting therapy. Stenni, I found that talking and remembering came easier as I stayed on in therapy. I hope your T is empathic and patient and trustworthy like mine has turned out to be. The journey starts out kind of rocky at first, but is so worthwhile as your life untangles and you gain strengths from working on all those things you mention.

 

[Skylynx]

I think another point in this discussion is your concern about the PTSD diagnosis itself. It looks to me that you don't believe you are correctly diagnosed PTSD because your problems originate from very early core beliefs; whereas "Post Traumatic Stress" is , or was, referring to what soldiers went through, or disaster victims, etc. However, it might help to know that the diagnosis is now being used more inclusively to early child abuse, as well. But, perhaps even over and above that, the PTSD diagnosis is a factor of your financial arrangement with the therapist, or clinic. The set of 16 sessions was difficult for you to get, and perhaps that was via that particular diagnosis, when it would pay zero for some other diagnosis. So, you play by their rules. For example, in my case the insurance will pay for someone being diagnosed as "Bi-Polar", but will not pay if the diagnosis is "anxiety neurosis". As I can fit the category of either of those, I get my therapy by being Bi-Polar even though I have the early childhood trauma that you describe. My med nurse once ask me what I thought my diagnosis should be, and I answered her, "Whatever the insurance will pay for!" That isn't being dishonest, either, as diagnoses are often combined, and different, depending on where you go.

 

[Sandstone]

So in discussing all this with T it became apparent that my ANP fears, hates and would like to kill EPS. T said I should leave it alone, but of course everything is out of the bag now. So I've taken an inner knife to that useless little inner child and rammed it into its belly, turned it and cut back and forth to shred its entrails.

 

[Deleted member 30331]

Stenni, Pretty disturbing imagery. I can't hate the child I was with all his flaws. By outliving serious helplessness, that little boy saved my life. I don't want to think that he was useless, but rather he is a distance marker on my present winding road. Amnesia would be a sleeping bomb for me.