There's a lot of backstory to this, but to just get to the point, below is a summary of what I think has been a HUGE breakthrough for me. *This has been a lon-n-n-n-n-g process. Didn't just magically pop from nowhere.
A few weeks ago I was wiped out by an emotional flashback of, well, it was a rape and it involved me being drugged, and I have harbored pieces of the memory for years. Over 40 of them, actually, and I never could understand why this seemingly disconnected series of memory fragments were so often running in the background of my head. The flashback: Wow. It was an actual, real live trigger. I've been healing long enough to now be able to accept that emotions are healthy, so I let 'em roll and cried hard, hard, for about two days. You might think that's a ridiculously short amount of time (ok, yah, it is) but I say, hey, I've my entire life dealing with mini-emotional overwhelms, so I think that there's been a ton of grief going on and now I finally got to see it for what it is and openly express it as it "should" have been expressed at the original time.
So, next step: In counseling the other day I brought up another memory that just wipes me out every time I get too close to it (which only happens in counseling). This time I realized oh-my-goodness. When I talk about the memory I am the small child who's there dealing facing the event. I am HER, emotionally. And in terms of time, I am THERE, at that moment. There's no separation. And bam, just like that, I realized that I can cut the cord. I can step back and break the timeline that has glued the now-very-present-moment to the then-it-happened-when-I-was-three moment. And if I cut that time cord, I can recall the memory from the here-and-now, me, now, where I am safe, and where I can let go of the terrible guilt, fear, and despair that the 3-year-old was living at that moment in time.
It's exciting to think that this could be the tool that I've been looking. Anyone know what I mean by that timeline connection? Use it? Thoughts? I hope someone can find it useful, too. I hope that six months from now I can still say, yup, yup, that works.
A few weeks ago I was wiped out by an emotional flashback of, well, it was a rape and it involved me being drugged, and I have harbored pieces of the memory for years. Over 40 of them, actually, and I never could understand why this seemingly disconnected series of memory fragments were so often running in the background of my head. The flashback: Wow. It was an actual, real live trigger. I've been healing long enough to now be able to accept that emotions are healthy, so I let 'em roll and cried hard, hard, for about two days. You might think that's a ridiculously short amount of time (ok, yah, it is) but I say, hey, I've my entire life dealing with mini-emotional overwhelms, so I think that there's been a ton of grief going on and now I finally got to see it for what it is and openly express it as it "should" have been expressed at the original time.
So, next step: In counseling the other day I brought up another memory that just wipes me out every time I get too close to it (which only happens in counseling). This time I realized oh-my-goodness. When I talk about the memory I am the small child who's there dealing facing the event. I am HER, emotionally. And in terms of time, I am THERE, at that moment. There's no separation. And bam, just like that, I realized that I can cut the cord. I can step back and break the timeline that has glued the now-very-present-moment to the then-it-happened-when-I-was-three moment. And if I cut that time cord, I can recall the memory from the here-and-now, me, now, where I am safe, and where I can let go of the terrible guilt, fear, and despair that the 3-year-old was living at that moment in time.
It's exciting to think that this could be the tool that I've been looking. Anyone know what I mean by that timeline connection? Use it? Thoughts? I hope someone can find it useful, too. I hope that six months from now I can still say, yup, yup, that works.
