Suzzie, I watched a documentary on how when a person has a brain injury and has to learn how to talk and function all over again how therapies have been devised to help. One person could not seem to access the part of her brain for speech and how they helped her with that by accessing a part of her brain where she had retained music and songs with lyrics, she could not talk, but she found that she could sing songs. Isn't that amazing? So, they used songs to help as she slowly rewired her brain to being able to talk again and that was a lot of work for her.

You know what suzzie? When I suffered so much loss and developed PTSD, I got so I could not interact with my horses and even my farm, even my own family the way I had before. I would stand looking out the window and seeing my husband doing things, things I used to do and enjoy, and "nothing", it was "nothing" like I was suspended in no man's land. When you talked about a therapist trying to "push" you into yelling at an empty chair or some of the other things she wanted you to do and you went blank? I was like that too in my own environment. When you talked about how frustrated and angry that therapist was with you, I had that happen to me too and it only made me worse and I am so sorry that happened to you.

Well, what happened to me created more and more loss and put me into so much debt that I could not afford therapy at all. I grew worse and worse and began to pull back more and more and as I did that my family got more and more angry with me.

I got very bad and then I tried to look for help, maybe a support group and that is how I found PC. When I joined PC I had never done anything like it before, never interacted online that way before either, actually the most I had done with a computer is email back and forth with customers and sometimes look something up.

Well, with PC I was able to think and do something and interact where IRL I had been failing more and more at that. I did not even realize that when I posted and talked that often what came out was long and like a speeding train. I didn't even realize it until someone pointed it out to me. I was so bad IRL that when I came to PC what I was trying to do is "process" and read and post and read and post and just use my frontal lobe part of my brain that I could not seem to do IRL like I used to. Honestly, what helped me by coming to PC was that it was not anything like what I had been doing IRL that was so badly damaged to where I withdrew.

A lot of times I would read something and comment on it and I had never realized I had thought the way I was writing my thoughts. Oh, Idk, I guess it's like sitting down and drawing or painting something and being surprised at being able to actually do it.

Well, my point here is that because I was doing something a different way, I learned things about myself that I didn't realize before. I was not doing very well IRL at all, but I could interact and think at PC. I could also connect with "helping" others like I had done IRL, but could not seem to connect with IRL again as I had done, for example, teaching and training ponies, I could not do that, instead I would have flashbacks or disassociate and disconnect, it was not even a conscious decision at all, I would just go "blank".

What I am trying to say is that my brain was "injured" badly IRL and I was not doing well at all, but I found a different way to function and connect kind of like how that person who suffered a brain injury had to "sing in order to be able to talk".

When I joined PC and interacted, I was constantly having to "edit" because I often left out words and I would also repeat thoughts. It helped to be able to see it in writing too because it gave me a chance to notice how my brain was not really working very well too. Because I was doing so poorly IRL and people around me were mean to me about it, I had to take time and review whatever I had done the day before on PC. Who did I talk to, what did I say, was it ok? That is where I was for quite a while when I came to PC.

When I first joined PC I didn't know what "trigger" meant. Yet, I had been experiencing them constantly IRL. I had to study all my interactions too in order to see if I was responding and had been triggered. When I think back, I know I interacted "a lot" in PC, and honestly, I was desperately trying to figure out how to just "get my brain back IRL" and function better. It was weird because of how I could talk in PC, but failed and struggled and often shut down IRL.

My point here is that if a therapist isn't getting through, don't give up, you just need to try a different kind of therapy, something where you are doing something that you "can" do and work at that to get to whatever might "not" be working very well and is disconnecting. You know, people here at PC don't know that about me because I was so vocal, they didn't see what things were like for me IRL at all. They didn't get to see me staring out the window at my farm and all the things I used to do but just was completely disassociating from could not even verbalize it but I just shut down. I did not even know what disassociating was, I see it now, but I didn't have any idea back then. In many ways I had to do something "very different" to find my way to connecting, and it was a lot of work and people who know me at PC have no idea. And my family has no idea about how hard I had been working at it either. It was like there was suddenly a big hole in my brain that I could not seem to be or do and all I could do was function around the outside of it somehow because it just was "gone". It's the hardest thing I have had happen to me in my whole life, and impossible to explain to people. I still have a hole, but at least I understand what it means better, at least I can talk about it more. I do admit though, it is horrible when I talk about it and get invalidated or have someone tell me it isn't there.

So don't give up, you just need to be patient and look for other ways to "come out" more.

(((Hugs)))
OE