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LabRat27 · Mar 01, 2020, 12:37 AM

SH TW

Possible trigger:

He wanted to talk about how I felt about the last session. I didn't. Later in the session he noticed a bandage on my arm where my sleeve rolled up. He asked about what I did and I told him. He asked what I'd used and I answered. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have answered that question. I make a conscious attempt to not give details that aren't important and only allow him to imagine me SHing with more vivid detail.
He asked if it was before or after last session, because last session I'd said that I wanted to hurt myself. I asked him if the answer to that question mattered. He said it mattered to him. I didn't answer the question, which was probably an answer in and of itself.

I changed the subject and asked him how to stop having nightmares. He asked what the nightmares were about and I was like "what do you think?" and he said he didn't know, it could be many things and he listed off a few possibilities, one of them being the correct one.

He asked for more details, how long they'd been going on, what happened, whether I experienced them first person or whether it was like I was watching it happen.

At some point he asked if I was angry at him and said that's what he thought he was feeling from me. I stopped to think about it and told him I didn't think so, I think I was just channeling the preteen and adolescent me from my nightmares. I told him that my fight or flight had been very much set to "fight" and that at times it still was. That's how I react when I feel like someone is trying to control me. And he said that yeah, he'd felt that from me before in my reactions when I felt like he was trying to tell me what to do.

We talked about rescripting the nightmares. He asked what would let me feel safe in the dream, if like making my father six inches tall would help, and I said no because he would still be there. I just wanted him to go away. He asked some more questions and we eventually settled on me pulling a blanket over my head and having the rest of the world go away, being safe under the blanket and having my own space where he couldn't get to me.
So I'm supposed to write that out as a journaling exercise and try to imagine it happening that way. Even though I can't actually picture things in my head when I'm awake I can still tell myself the story.

I asked him my usual questions. Whether he believed me (yes), whether he really thought it was that bad (yes). He said he almost wished he could video me to show me what I looked like as I was describing the nightmare. I was curled up in a ball much tighter than usual and shaking a little bit.

We talked about how I was going to get out of that emotional state. That I'd used self harm to regulate it in the past. He asked about running or going for a walk and I tried to explain that no, it was like I had to lean into it instead of avoiding it, feel it, and then relax it, like progressive muscle relaxation where you tighten and then relax your muscles. I reassured him that I'd sit outside for a while and I wouldn't get on my motorcycle until I was safe to ride. It took about half an hour sitting out there until I felt confident that I was present and composed enough.