Writing When You Can't Verbally Express Things

[Deleted member 12723]

I have journaled so much and it has taught me so many things. I naturally write better than I speak since I too get frozen and mute at time. I think it is a wonderful tool to be able to express what is going on in writing and starting from there.

I have always been emotionally immature and stunted, but am now growing into a mature person.

I would celebrate your gift of writing. It is a very useful tool. I always would read aloud what I wrote and would get feedback and it really helped me out so very much. I wish you well in your process of self discovery.

 

[mzander]

I'm for the journal.

Write your shortcomings, your road blocks, your dreams, your wishes, your doubts, your fears, your failures and your accomplishments in your journal. Be detailed. Is there a common denominator for your failures? You may find that you do the same thing every time that causes you to fail. Why do you succeed at one thing but not the other? Thought provoking questions can only be answered through self-reflection that goes deeper than surface material. A journal keeps it all straight.

 

[ghotiff]

I feel like I'm coming from a different angle.

With my first T I could only tell her trauma things through me writing, and her reading it. This was a mistake for me as I shared too much too fast.

With my current T, I have spent a long time building trust and understanding before discussing traumas. I have used email to clear up miscommunications that happened in the beginning and this worked well for me. It was not to give her new information but to clarify and explain information that I had not presented well verbally. Now that she understands me more, these errors don't seem to happen anymore.

I didn't want to dissacociate and/or become mute so I spent a long time (many sessions) discussing day to day matters. To me this was an important first stage to my therapy.

 

[SabrinaB]

Looks like I'm going against the majority in my suggestion to continue finding your voice. Yes it's true, an activated fear response makes speech challenging (affects Broccas area of the brain) but this is something the therapist has to take into consideration and work through. Best to be open about your fears related to this so you can work together to set the foundation for safe trauma processing. Minds do of course blank out, so jotting some points down as a reminder to yourself is a reasonable step.

There are many helpful suggestions here for dealing with trauma content, however your post references other topics, including feeling misunderstood and the desire to discuss symptoms and current life issues. Given that this is a new therapist, exploration of these issues face-to-face Is critical to forging an effective therapeutic relationship. Not an easy path and one I'm struggling with too, but I'm desperate for healing so am pushing myself to be all in.

 

[Suzetig]

I agree with @SabrinaB on this one. You struggling to speak may be your minds way of stopping you going too fast, pacing yourself at a speed you can cope with once you're out of session. You're in the very early stages of your relationship with your therapist, it's part of the process that you gain trust and work through things.

Using email can quickly lead to over dependency, which I sense might have happened with your old T. It also distances you from your "stuff" which does make it easier to share, but you process things differently when you speak about them, the process of finding your voice and talking about the hard bits is therapeutic in its own right.

I know it's slow, and frustrating. It took me around a year to be able to turn up and just speak about what was on my mind, without planning it all out to keep me safe. I've shared my journal with her twice in this time, both times to outline what I felt I needed to work on over the next few months. It's helped keep us focused but the actual disclosure stuff has happened face to face. It's like chipping away at an iceberg but the process stops you becoming overwhelmed.

 

[Anarchy]

I'm not sure that the innability to speak is a specific defence mechanism

rather, it is part of a wider shut down of the cortex as the inner lizard takes over in a stress response, but with the Brocca's region particularly affected.

I'm hoping I've got the right video here, of van der Kolk, speaking in Virginia about the effects of trauma on the brain.

One thing that he does say, is that if you can speak about a trauma, you are not going to feel it, but if you can really feel it, you are not going to be able to speak about it. the two are mutually exclusive. (what I take from that, is that unless you can make the T aware of it by a means other than talking, you are not going to get any benefit in terms of re processing, and incidentally, if you dissociate, there is going to be absolutely zero benefit, because all of the rational parts of the brain go off line).

van der Kolk also explains that the only part of the brain that we have control over, that has a connection with the amydala, is the part which deals with breathing and proception - so the only way we can calm the amygdala is through the likes of breathing exercises and bodily feelings, from practices like Yoga and martial arts.

The key part is from about 1 hour three minutes, but the whole thing is well worth watching

 

[Hope4future]

I agree that continuing to find your voice is important. Using all ways of communication I think is helpful in processing trauma and emotion. We're too complex and our experiences are too complex for any one method to be always effective.

 

[GWhizz]

@ghotiff I feel I'm on the same page as you with this one, hence why I brought it up and really appreciate the varying insights from everyone. I do think it is important just to clear up misunderstandings that I didn't verbally communicate well. Though I don't want to use it for the deep trauma work either.

I agree @Suzetig it did create an over dependency with my last T and I certainly spilled too much too fast, which then led me to pull away as I felt so much worse as a result of disclosing stuff which I wasn't ready to yet.

I have something prepared for next week just to briefly cover topics I feel were miscommunicated in our 1st few meetings. And it was actually my T who brought up risk and dissociation, but I felt I evaded these very important topics, to the point where I made out that I'm not a risk at all and that I don't dissociate - I wasn't even denying either, I just failed to discuss the reality in context. I don't like feeling like I'm misleading her either. It's really important to me that I'm fully honest in therapy and to me, that means being upfront about real issues like this. And the incident of encountering a past abuser was something I really needed professional help with. But instead it took me almost the hour session to bring it up, and then she had to drag it out of me because I could only tell her I saw someone who made me feel uncomfortable. This meant she had to keep digging to get any info at all. And I never really got into it in the end as I wasted so much time. I want to build a solid foundation to this new therapeutic relationship. But half of me wants to just tell her to call my old T to get a background to save me the work - which is odd when I don't yet have any trust for this new T. I just feel childish in my resistance to actually speak about anything important at all. Even writing this is frustrating me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like quitting therapy.

 

[barefoot]

Ah, @GWhizz - I don't think this difficult means there's anything 'wrong with you'. Our experiences are difficult, therapy is difficult, sharing difficult things is...yep...difficult...! :-) Try to be kind to yourself about this - you say you want to build a solid relationship with your new T, you want to be honest in therapy and that you don't trust her yet...And I think they're really key things here. If you find it hard to share this stuff I general, it's going to be even harder if you don't yet have the relationship and the trust. I get very frustrated and impatient with myself in therapy, because I want to use the time well, I want to do the therapy 'properly', I don't want to waste time going mute or dissociating and when I do dissociate I get really embarrassed... I just think try to tune in as much as you can to your level of (dis)comfort and try not to rush yourself. If you and this T are a good match, the relationship and the trust will come and that should make all this a bit easier. Don't put too much pressure on yourself otherwise you just set yourself up to 'fail'/disappoint yourself.

 

[ghotiff]

@GWhizz for me its a frustrating concept to need to spend so long discussing only the trivial. But, my experience is that it is definitely worth it.

My T knows me now. Last week was the first week we did any trauma processing and I was frightened of symptoms after the session. This didn't happen and I believe it's because she understands me and I feel comfortable enough to be honest with her. I might not want to tell her things but I now never feel the desperate need to hide or lie to her. This is huge but it took about 6mths.

Good luck, and be patient. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

[Disquieted]

I always plan on being brave and normal and connecting and talking until I get in the waiting room. I become this mess of a person and can't think to talk. I have so much to say yet nothing comes out and I curl up into a ball and panic. Literally I hide my head in my legs and I can't breathe and my heart is racing and I think I'm going to throw up. This has been me for months and months. So I do email and it is releasing and healing and I wouldn't be able to share otherwise. Hopefully I will be able to speak soon because I'm tired of feeling so alone on this journey.

 

[GWhizz]

Yes @Disquieted me too lol. I have my session tomorrow at 11am. Still not sure whether or not to have a little written note or try speak. My intentions always fail and anxiety gets the better of me. I have been working the last 3 days 13hour shifts so I have barely had time to think about it or to prepare anything in writing...