Why Am I Triggered By Cbt?

[ms spock]

That therapist also explained to me that thinking patterns developed during trauma are really hard to let go of because we believed them in order to survive. We are trauma bonded to those thoughts. Letting go of them can feel like we are letting go of the means to survival. Just like when we are trauma bonded to a person.

That is very interesting to me. I have had a lot of problems even just focussing on this stuff.

 

[shimmerz]

Idk, I think that there needs to be some sort of intimate understanding when dealing with certain extreme traumatic events.

Due to my conditioning I don't feel pain (emotional or physical). I will never (it seems) be able to find someone who will know the impact of this on my life. The people I use as T's are not cookie-cutter types. They have to be able to see that what I carry around with me because my experience is different and it effects me many times a day. It challenges my sense of being human. Any T is use needs to be incredibly good at observering first and foremost. They may not be able to anticipate my reactions in a normal way because I may never be able to articulate pain like others.

Any CBT experience I have had seems to work with a premise that we all have equal tools, so to speak. What about those of us who have 'lost' a basic human marker that is used in CBT (from my experience, idk maybe the therapists were crap). Should I be able to challenge the thought that I don't feel pain? Maybe. But there is good science out there that says if I lost my window to map pain that I just have to live with it and figure it out. That makes many therapies not useful to me. CBT being one of them. Maybe I have this all wrong and if so, please ignore. I feel like the therapies that call to me have done a tremendous job in helping me get back to myself. I won't ever, given my experience with CBT, use it as a therapy.

 

[ms spock]

I guess I developed an (irrational) fear that if I did CBT then the past abuse would be negated. That is a strong thought pattern within me that I found yesterday.

 

[shimmerz]

I understand this fear @Ms Spock. The issue with me and CBT (one of them) was that my ex and company were actually stalking me at the time and I did fear for my life. They kept trying to tell me it was faulty thinking. It was not. I think if one is actively in the midst of a dangerous situation that we should not be reprogrammed to forget the abuse because it is still going on. This may well be one of the issues that @DeathRay is having a hard time with. I am not certain if she is still having to keep on the low down due to her past.

In my mind 'safety first' old programming is better than 'fairy tale' new programming when one is not living in DisneyLand in the here and now. Better safe than sorry.

 

[ms spock]

That sounds like incompetent practitioners @shimmerz.

For me it was some deep yearning for acknowledgement and in my twisted thinking I thought it might not be valued or given credence. It was my faulty thinking at the time. So I didn't try it out, I stayed with the psychologist I was at with at the time, as I was so scared.

 

[wyrd_dragon]

I think if one is actively in the midst of a dangerous situation that we should not be reprogrammed to forget the abuse because it is still going on. This may well be one of the issues that [DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/18234/"]@DeathRay[/DLMURL] is having a hard time with. I am not certain if she is still having to keep on the low down due to her past.

I hadn't thought of this aspect of it but that's entirely true. I use a pseudonym everywhere online, rarely (if ever) post pictures, can't tell the names of or prosecute my abusers, and am in very real danger should they decide I'm a threat. Apart from being people in medical fields, they were also respected university profs. members of govt. police, etc. I've been threatened and stalked by them and had members of police call and threaten me.

I think there are certainly differences in working with people who are (in whatever way) still being abused/have ongoing abuse - though I have rarely thought of my situation as 'ongoing abuse' and it's really useful to recognise that, when the level of threat is still in some way present, challenging survival based behaviors could be far more difficult/potentially damaging.

I really appreciate the continued conversation from everyone here -- I've been at a really low ebb with my ME/CFS and Fibro and it's been keeping me from engaging much. But i'm still here reading and there's so much value here and many people talking about their perspectives. It's great <3

 

[ms spock]

At certain times on and off my father was stalking me - so CBT that I am fine is not appropriate. Currently my sister's ex has threatened me but he would have to find me first and I move around so much, it would be unlikely. So CBT that I am (on the whole - Barring alien abduction (almost no probability but high consequence) and barring sister's violent ex and he would have to drive to where I live, and then wait for me to turn up which he won't do because he works in a Catholic School, and is a drug addict as well, and is busy terrorising my sister and their children - so he is time poor) but I am pretty much safe. I know with my (potentially advanced) CBT I can confuse the Borg.

Seriously though it takes so much time for me to come down from that hypervigilance and be in this now. It takes a lot of concentration. Which means all the Ps really come in to play. Perspective, patience, practice, perseverance, etc really need to come into play.