Wow... that sounds pretty intense lavie. I can't imagine revisiting trauma. I can appreciate the value especially in terms of avoiding fear tasks. I think sometimes fear prevents us from even trying to do something that was painful at one time or another.

I know it isn't the same but it reminded me of the first time I was sent to a psychiatrist. I was 18 I think and I had survived my 2nd suicide attempt. My GP said to me that I needed to either agree to see a pdoc or he woudl have me institutionalized. I agreed to see the pdoc.

I didn't even make it through the first session before I bolted. He took me through some kind of regression exercise. He had me close my eyes and remember being 9, 10 etc..... When I hit age 13 I went totally off the wall crazy. I was mmediately flooded with a memory of a terrible arguement with my dad in the bathroom. I bolted from the chair, ran out of the office, jumped on my bike and rode home crying histerically.

You see, my mum had been run over by a tractor in a farm accident when I was 12 and it left her paralyzed from her waist down. She was confined to a wheelchair after that. It ended her life as she knew it and our family life as we knew it. This in the late 60's and at that time there weren't even ramps onto the sidewalks let alone any other accommodations to access buildings or public washrooms. Our house had to be totally refitted for her. Counters lowered, doorways widened. Carpeting removed. Even an outdoor elevator was installed so she could get outside on her own.

Anywasy... back to the memory triggered the pdoc's exercise.... my mum was due to come home after a year of hospitals and rehabilitations (which I might add only served to put her on the road to addiction to hard core psych meds that eventually put her in and out of psych institutions and shock treatments to get her off the meds that within weeks the doctor was prescribing to her again and again and again)... anyways... she was due to come home when my dad announced that he was considering sended her to live in a group home in Mexico, where she would live with 'other people like her'. My sister thought, 'cool, can we go visit her.' I don't remember my brother saying anything one way or another but I went completely nuts on my dad. Screaming and yelling at him insisted there was no way in hell he was going to send my mom away anywhere. She was coming home and if he didn't like it he could leave.

I don't know how we ended up in the bathroom but I do remember him saying to me, 'Well if you are going to fight me on this then you better be ready to take care of her for the rest of her life.' I said, 'You bet I will. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you don't send her away. I would do even if you hadn't come up with this heartless plan of yours.' We never discussed it again but I will never forgot how willing he and my brother and sister were to just cast her aside.

As it happened my dad did move out and in with his current and final mistress (now his wife) within a year of my mum coming home and my sister followed to live with him within 6 months and my brother went off to university about a year later. It was just mum and me until a couple of years before her death following yet another one of my suicide attempt on my mum's meds while she was in the hospital where she spent probably 6 months of every year for one thing or another. I pretty much raised myself alone through highschool. It was decided after that that I needed to get out of the house so my brother who had by then finishing his university came to live with my mum until she passed away from a drug overdose 2 years later. I was 26 when I moved out but I still came for daily visits and we talked on the phone several times a day. But it was healthier for me to not be living there. Had my brother not stepped up it wouldn't have been possible for me to leave.

Sorry for the long trip down memory lane. I am not sure why I shared all of that. I have gone through a lot of healing since then including reuniting with my dad after a nearly 30 estrangement and I more recently re-establishing a fairly close relationship with my sister. I have always remained close to my brother because as much as he could he would always be there for me and mum. It will be 30 years next month since my mother's passing so it has been a long arduous process trying to come to terms with everything that happened during those years. It has been a very slow and long healing process but I am much better with the memories now then ever before. Maybe that is part of my reason for sharing. I think it makes me feel better to be able to talk about it. My family prefers to leave the past in the past and they don't like me to talk much about her. I hope you guys don't mind if I do. I need it even if my family doesn't.

Kind a long ways away from the pdoc and his stupid regression exercise. It is a big reason it took me so long to ask for help from doctors. I blame them a lot for what happened to my mum on top of that one experience I had with the pdoc.

The interesting thing is that even though I didn't go back to the pdoc my GP never brought it up nor did any talk of institutionalize me ever come up again. I do remember within days cycled into full mania (though I didn't know to identify it as such at the time... I just enjoyed being happy after a long time being sad). I know it was summer and I was full on having a good time playing ball, riding my bike, playing tennis and training for field hockey season in the fall. That was pretty much my pattern from my late teens through to my early 40's. I would rise and fall, rise and fall at least 3 or 4 times a year. As I aged it became harder to rebound until I fell so far down that I couldn't function at all and my life totally came apart at the seams. That was almost 10 years ago now and here I am still trying to get some kind of normalcy back in my life.

Again... I apologize for getting so deeply into my past but if you don't mind the self indulgence I appreciate your letting me share some things that are 'off limit topics' in my family still to this day.

Thanks for being people I feel safe enough with to share some of my story.