[peaches100]

I've always had a problem containing things after my therapy session. In fact, I regularly experience intrusions from parts on an almost daily basis. Sometimes, it results in long-term rumination, other times, triggered feelings that spiral out of control, or memories that get tripped by something I"ve seen or heard. As a result, I'm often very forgetful and only halfway present. It makes it difficult for me to focus on my work and causes problems at home because my husband says I get into a "zone" and don't respond when he tries to talk to me.

Last week, my therapist asked me to practice grounding myself every 30 minutes, using the 3 sights, sounds, sensations exercise. I've been doing it for 4 days so far. I'm finding it very hard to remember to do it every 30 minutes! Sometimes, a couple of hours go by before I remember to do it (or my husband reminds me to do it).

Here's my concern...My husband says that he can already tell that I am much more aware and present when I regularly ground myself throughout the day. But ever since I've been doing this continual grounding, I've started having horrible nightmares every night! I'm waking up tired even though I slept all night because of how exhausting and frightening the dreams have been.

Do you think that this exercise keeping myself in the present is causing an increase in nightmares? Is all of the traumatic "crap" coming out in my sleep because I'm not allowing myself to think about or process it during the daytime?

I plan to ask my therapist about this when I see her, but I wanted to know if anybody here has experienced this happening or knows what might be going on...and what to do about it!

Peaches

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by peaches100

I've always had a problem containing things after my therapy session. In fact, I regularly experience intrusions from parts on an almost daily basis. Sometimes, it results in long-term rumination, other times, triggered feelings that spiral out of control, or memories that get tripped by something I"ve seen or heard. As a result, I'm often very forgetful and only halfway present. It makes it difficult for me to focus on my work and causes problems at home because my husband says I get into a "zone" and don't respond when he tries to talk to me.

Last week, my therapist asked me to practice grounding myself every 30 minutes, using the 3 sights, sounds, sensations exercise. I've been doing it for 4 days so far. I'm finding it very hard to remember to do it every 30 minutes! Sometimes, a couple of hours go by before I remember to do it (or my husband reminds me to do it).

Here's my concern...My husband says that he can already tell that I am much more aware and present when I regularly ground myself throughout the day. But ever since I've been doing this continual grounding, I've started having horrible nightmares every night! I'm waking up tired even though I slept all night because of how exhausting and frightening the dreams have been.

Do you think that this exercise keeping myself in the present is causing an increase in nightmares? Is all of the traumatic "crap" coming out in my sleep because I'm not allowing myself to think about or process it during the daytime?

I plan to ask my therapist about this when I see her, but I wanted to know if anybody here has experienced this happening or knows what might be going on...and what to do about it!

Peaches

I cant speak for what and why this is happening in you, only how and why in me....

in me it was not exactly the grounding. it was the healing process. the way my treatment provider explained to me is that sometimes when people get better no matter what the problem is, more problems come up because they now have the more healthy mind and body to handle it. I was noticing more nightmares because I was more aware, I wasnt living my life numb spaced out and disconnected any more. I probably always had nightmares just that because I was dissociating so much it didnt bother me so bad.

what we did for it was keeping a notebook and pen by my bed, this way the moment I woke up from a nightmare I could write it down, take it to therapy and we would work through that nightmare and discover exactly why I was having it by understanding what the nightmare content was. none of my nightmare content was about learning or doing the grounding exercises so we knew that it wasnt the grounding exercises that were causing it. the nightmare content was usually about being stressed out, or about a trauma event, .... even now I still have nightmares sometimes which my treatment provider and I consider normal and not related to my doing my grounding exercises because the nightmare content isnt about doing the grounding.

my suggestion is maybe you can do the same thing with your treatment provider.... write down what the nightmare is about and work with your treatment provider on the nightmare content which will tell you what is causing that nightmare.