Tips For Making A Timeline?

[Nessa7]

Anyone have any advice about how to go about making a timeline of events? My therapist asked me to do this a few weeks ago, and I've been working on it mostly steadily. I have hit a bit of a wall. I have already written cards for the memories that come to mind easily. Now, wrapping my mind around a memory takes a lot of effort. I'm really struggling to put events into any kind of an order. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing detective work, because I have to go hunting for evidence to try to piece things together.

My therapist gave me some advice about pacing it and how to place limits on the people that I ask for help. Last week, I got triggered very badly. I had a panic attack, dissociated, and ended up in the backyard. We tried social media, but I find social media pretty frightening under normal conditions. I do have a lot of supporters that want to help me, but it is hard for me to explain what kind of help I need because I do not know what I want to try next.

 

[Deleted member 34328]

Hi @Nessa7

This does seem like a pretty challenging exercise. I'm not surprised you'd be hitting difficult walls. It's never easy to call up a memory of trauma. Causes quite the mess... at least for me.

I've done timelines before, but I think I'm unsure what the reason is for your therapist asking you to do this? What is the goal?

 

[Justmehere]

What type of trauma therapy does your therapist use? How will the timeline fit into your therapeutic work? This impacts how to do the timeline.

I would suggest putting the cards in groups and not worrying too much about it being chronological right now. The first time I attempted a time line, it took me 4 months do write and another year to actually bring any of it into therapy. Yeah, I was pretty slow at it for many reasons...

My therapist knew types of trauma and current difficulties, and for me, it just took a long time to open up to the point of a full timeline of childhood trauma.

At first, I did it 1-9 years old, 9-15 years old. Etc. Things were out of order in those groupings but it still was a useful timeline.

Later, as we worked through bits of it, I was able to go back and refine it.

When writing memories, don't push to be more detailed or get your head around it - that's what therapy is there to help you to be able to do over time. Especially if you are becoming increasingly symptomatic, be as vague as possible. List in brief words what comes to mind. My timeline even now still has a traumatic event listed as "my hands, yellow wall."

I know exactly what trauma this is. My therapist doesn't, but if we need to, I'll be able to put it into words with her. It's still incredibly useful because we can actually use various trauma therapies to work on that trauma and she helps me with how hard it is to talk about.

Other traumas started off as vague as that, and over time, I can now talk about them like I talk about ordinary weather.

Hope that helps a little and you find a way that works for you.

 

[rosey]

I struggled with this too. My memories are akin to a messed up ball of wool. What i did eventually is broke it down by person. Having had a multiple of traumas from various people all covering the same sort of time period i decided to forget time lining and person line. It helped untangle it a little.

 

[Nessa7]

My T is trying to do Prolonged Exposure, but we aren't doing it too strictly. She is not a trauma specialist, so I think there is a lot of stuff that usually goes with it that we aren't doing. It does fit me in some ways, because we do have a really good relationship and I get grounded really easily after a session. I think that it is kind of hard to do with a patient that doesn't remember things.

Starting with just putting things into groups is a really helpful suggestion. I can put some events vaguely into the categories of "high school" or "college," which is better than nothing. Person lining might help a lot, too. There are some people that were only around for one or two events that I don't really have much trouble recalling.