I WISH that I could control it enough to only deal with it in the therapy room. In my early days of working on it 15 years ago, there was definitely a period of all trauma, all the time, I could barely function even though I was at a high powered job then and I did just fine. It was just tough. Nightmares, flashbacks, lots of distress at little reminders of things, etc. I journaled, I did a self run survivor's group. I did 5 years of therapy and thought I was done for good. I got married, had a kid, left job for working for myself, been working with trauma survivors almost exclusively since then. All these things provided ample opportunity to work on my own stuff too, whether I wanted to or not.

So fast forward to now, where I'm heading close to my 2 year anniversary with current T. I am on a self imposed break from journaling right now, and that's a good thing. I have always used it to process trauma related stuff outside of therapy. Usually the trauma related stuff just comes up and sometimes I can container it until T and then let it rip then, then container it back up again. But whether it comes before T or out during T, I don't always need to container it. Sometimes it's just worked on enough that it isn't clinging to me like **** on my shoe or I'm feeling grounded and mindful enough to be fine with wherever it is. But some things are too big when they come out in T that I need to put them away.

I think it's a balance between learning to tolerate sitting with your stuff and being able to put it away. And like a box on a self, containering something isn't about avoiding it or trashing it forever. It's about "not now" or taking a break from it. It's there and you know right where it is when you are in a place where you can deal with it. For me it has partly been learning to be more gentle with myself and not hitting myself over the head with too much ****.

I think maybe that is where I was coming from, Chopin. I was just wondering if you were torturing yourself not in the complete service of dealing with your ****, but partly to punish yourself for your perceived wrongdoings. I think there have been times in the past where I have just bogged myself down in flashbacks, like a form of psychological self-injury.

Take good care.