What Are The Benefits Of Saying Your Trauma Out Loud And Confronting It?

[Morphius]

Very few therapists I know have actually used this technique, but a student intern I once worked with used it and I don't know why, but I found it beneficial.

Her: You need to say your trauma out loud. _______ happened to me, but ________ because ________.

My current therapist has never used this method while with her and I'm currently in a state of "numbness." I feel nothing at all. Last night, I had a flashback of my therapist looking at me, saying "Breathe. Say it." So I did. I said it aloud even though I was hope, about to fall asleep.

What happened? Temporarily, my emotions resurfaced. For weeks I've felt numb and that one moment, one flashback helped me, because I literally said it aloud at the moment. I teared up after confronting my trauma by saying what happened to me.

Today, I'm stuck. I feel like I've aged in a few weeks, I feel numb but there's this small part of me that's tugging at me, asking me to open up to my current therapist again, because I trust her completely but my numbness won't allow it.

I guess my questions are: what are the benefits of saying your trauma out loud? How do you get yourself out of complete nothingness/feeling numb? I can keep saying my trauma out loud or trying to, but doing it alone, I don't want to feel that bad, alone.

Mind you, I've spoken about my trauma on paper, that's how I used to open up, but I've been numb for the past few days.

 

[MisterCatLady]

I think it simply just takes time. A lot of times in therapy I'll actually want to open up and get it out but somehow lose the ability to speak a word of it. My therapist said it's a defense mechanism. Anyway, slowly, as I'm ready, I've been able to release bits and chunks of my trauma in therapy. I feel like that concept applies to a lot of aspects of healing.

 

[J'qel]

I think it may be a case of familiarizing yourself enough with it so that it doesn't hurt so much. Enough repetition and it will cease to affect you as badly.

I could be wrong, but I know that they advocate that talking about our trauma makes it easier to talk about later and so, find constructive ways to manage it. If you can't even mention it, it gets rough to find solutions.

 

[mrsmegan]

Your post is timely as this is the exact thing my T and I are working on right now. Saying it out loud, being okay talking about it, knowing I'm in a safe space to speak I struggle severely with forming words in my head and then just having my mouth fail me in saying them. I am trusting that by continuing to speak of it will get us to a place where I can fully disclose to my husband, and then be able to do EMDR with it.

Sending you (hugs) if you accept - it is hard, I know.

 

[bring em all in]

Morphius- My therapist asked me if I would make a list of traumatic events in my life, the emotions they produced, and core beliefs that came from. She asked me to read it aloud. I was surprised that it sounded like I was reading a grocery list!! I guess for me verbalizing is a start- I guess connecting comes next.

 

[Mach123]

I was in my forties. I had tried to tell people, therapists. It was more complex that just saying that though and most of the therapists I told just ignored me. This is probably because of the way I said it. I didn't really say it. It was all repressed and I didn't remember. I knew something was really really wrong with the things I had done. I did not understand all those things were abuse reactive. I thought I was to blame. This went on into my early twenties when I first started seeing therapists. It wasn't ready. I tried to talk about it but you know you get silenced by the abuser and you lose your voice. Even when you are trying to say it out loud, you can't tell anyone. It's in your body, you have body memories. Anyway, in my forties, everything started to change. I told my wife. I'll never forget it. There was this one memory, I had always seen it but I just didn't pay any attention to it or it didn't seem real IDK. I walked into our bedroom and said: "I think that means I was sexually abused, I think I was sexually abused." In the next few years, I saw several therapists and I tried to "get help" but it was not time yet. It was cathartic getting it out/getting to it. I had to have a real life and death type experience to actually start talking about "it" and to be able to get real help with it or at least what was left of me after it had been trying to kill me all those years so it'd never come out. I still have a lot of trouble talking about it. It really has been like changing from one thing into something else. So I think there is telling and telling and one is not like the other. There are levels of awareness you have to reach before you can actually start to deal with it. Saying it out loud is a very important part of it I think.

 

[BoN-bOn]

Your post is timely as this is the exact thing my T and I are working on right now. Saying it out loud...

Me too @mrsmegan ...finding my voice, because when I go to therapy it’s just....GONE. It’s so frustrating for both of us.

 

[Rumors]

In the same boat... have zero advice...sending 100% support. Good luck and report in if you find something that works.

 

[Deleted member 37085]

I've talked about it so much...but NOT until after I initiated the Trauma Timeline and wrote all of the horrible trauma events in five year increments on legal paper sideways down on the paper...only then...was I able to come to terms and also out of denial due to the scope/damage/magnitude of what they so maliciously had done TO me. Hugs if you accept.