[googley]

My session was too hard today. My T wanted me to start talking about the details of my trauma. It was so hard. I felt like I was back there. I know I need to go through the trauma processing. But it leaves me a mess. I feel so awful afterwards. I just want to hide. I feel so alone and distressed.

[Missingno]

-covers googley with a blanket-

Feel safer now?

[skeksi]

It's very hard. It's like throwing up when you have the flu--you know you've got to do it in order to feel better, but every second of it is grueling.

Taking care of yourself is very important. It's super hard to do, but are you being kind to yourself, doing things to be gentle and careful and caring with yourself?

[hanners]

Originally Posted by googley

My session was too hard today. My T wanted me to start talking about the details of my trauma. It was so hard. I felt like I was back there. I know I need to go through the trauma processing. But it leaves me a mess. I feel so awful afterwards. I just want to hide. I feel so alone and distressed.

[Open Eyes]

Sorry for that feeling googley. It is very hard to talk about an upsetting experience in your past. But as is described the mission is to let it out so you can deal with it.

Keep in mind that emotions do come out but you are remembering and experience that provokes a normal response of emotion. After you are in therapy it is important to spend time and focus on not letting the emotions take over. It happens sometimes and that is when you have to take as moment to calm down and be in the moment and think about relaxing and getting yourself back together. Part of the experience has passed and you are taking another step towards healing, and feeling better. You have to put some trust in the fact that you are taking the steps to healing and you will get better.

We are always here to listen and help you calm down and ease up on those emotions. And some of those emotions will include anger. So you can always come here and rant and we can all work on that too. You are not alone.
Open Eyes

[googley]

Thank you all for your replies. It helps to feel less alone with all of this crap.

Originally Posted by Missingno

-covers googley with a blanket-

Feel safer now?

Thanks for the blanket missingno. I do like curling up.

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Sorry for that feeling googley. It is very hard to talk about an upsetting experience in your past. But as is described the mission is to let it out so you can deal with it.

Keep in mind that emotions do come out but you are remembering and experience that provokes a normal response of emotion. After you are in therapy it is important to spend time and focus on not letting the emotions take over. It happens sometimes and that is when you have to take as moment to calm down and be in the moment and think about relaxing and getting yourself back together. Part of the experience has passed and you are taking another step towards healing, and feeling better. You have to put some trust in the fact that you are taking the steps to healing and you will get better.

We are always here to listen and help you calm down and ease up on those emotions. And some of those emotions will include anger. So you can always come here and rant and we can all work on that too. You are not alone.
Open Eyes

Thank you open eyes. It is really hard to talk through this stuff. It leaves me feeling so raw and vulnerable. I know I need to use my good coping skills when this happens. But it is so hard. It would be so much easier just to use bad coping skills. My T said something I really liked in T. She said we were going to work on "overcoming the experience". I know that if I want to overcome it, I can't let it cause me more harm by hurting myself now. Because that would be letting the experience cause me more trauma. I need to try and hold on to that.

[Irine]

Are you doing relaxation work with therapist, too?
I know how it is! we all experience this: when we TALK ABOUT IT out loud, we acknowledge it on a different level! And we can never know how awful This really multiplies everything!

But the more you do it, the less you feel awful. We all need to remember that now it is a memory and not what happens. Its a story.

[Hunny]

Googley,

We agree, in the therapy room, about doing quiet, soothing and calming stuff after doing more intense stuff, preferably with a bear.

PS The youngster hummingbirds are about to fly the nest, maybe today or tomorrow! Phoebe's kids!

[Open Eyes]

I was thinking about something else googley. Perhaps what you need to do with the therapist is to plan the session in fragments. In other words you will only talk about one aspect of your past. And what you will do is plan a time period in that session for a focus on relaxation methods. So if your session is for an hour then you could plan on discussing a past event for the first half hour. Then use the second half of each session to focus on relaxing methods.

This way you wont be leaving the T all emotional and drained. Instead of building up stress before each encounter with the therapist thinking you will be addressing an outpouring of events that may allow you to feel that you are inviting your history to retraumatize you, you could know that the approach will be fractioned off and there will be a soothing period afterwards where you can focus on getting leveled out so that when you walk away from the therapist you will not be carrying any of the emotions with you.

I think that many patients go to see a therapist with a preconcieved idea that they have to all of a sudden be forced to expose every aspect of their past. So, in effect there is a great concern about a dam being opened and having everything come out all at once. So you have to think about how you can allow yourself to SLOWLY dip into your past, ONE FRACTION AT A TIME.

Perna posted a very interesting way of looking at a past trauma and I really like that idea or concept of thought.

So think about my suggestion and talk to your T about setting up that process with everything built into the session that way. Therapy should be just that (Therapy), not a time for being traumatized but a time to learn how to WORK THROUGH THAT PAST ONE FRACTION AT A TIME.

One of the things I noticed about the various members concerns in therapy are a FEAR of THERAPY. It is as if the patients FEAR they are in no control of the therapy and that should not be the case. By choosing therapy you are opting to work on your unresolved issues that are a constant source of emotional stress and uncertainty. But YOU know YOU best and what that means is that there is nothing wrong with HELPING the therapist to UNDERSTAND THE WAY THAT YOU FEEL THERAPY WOULD HELP YOU. Going to therapy does not mean that you will be forced to do something that you are not ready to do. So, before you enter into giving the details of the issues that you are hesitant to disclose you need to set up a PLAN OF THERAPY with your therapist that YOU would feel most comfortable with. Therapy is about forming a TRUSTING relationship with your therapist where you feel comfortable and walk away feeling that you actually RECEIVED THERAPY that has been BENIFICIAL to YOU. And all patients are unique and therefore that patient is the barometer for the therapist to learn about WHAT WORKS BEST FOR EACH PATIENT, THAT IS THEIR JOB. The therapist is there to HELP you HEAL. The therapist is not there to TRAMATIZE YOU. The goal is to be able to address your issues WITHOUT BEING TRAMATIZED OR EXPERIENCING THE LEAST TRAUMA AS POSSIBLE. So it is important that YOU interact with your therapist ON YOUR OWN BEHALF to discover YOUR COMFORT ZONE IN ADDRESSING YOUR PAST ISSUES. Yes there will be difficult issues that you will be addressing but the purpose is to pace the therapy so you can get the most out of the therapy that will give you the best way TO DO THE WORK in the most comfortable way you can. You are not there to be in pain, you are there to LEARN HOW TO DO THE WORK TO RELIEVE YOUR PAIN AND RESOLVE YOU ISSUES. The therapist is only there to GUIDE you and help you with this process. YOU are not dumping YOU into the control of the therapist. The therapist is there to help YOU control YOU and gain strength by learning TOGETHER WITH THE THERAPIST how to do just that.

Open Eyes

[googley]

Originally Posted by ladymacabethadmunsen

Are you doing relaxation work with therapist, too?
I know how it is! we all experience this: when we TALK ABOUT IT out loud, we acknowledge it on a different level! And we can never know how awful This really multiplies everything!

I know the coping techniques to use, it is just so much easier to want to use the bad coping techniques. It really got to a point where I just had to dive right in. I was totally avoiding it. So my T is helping me deal with it. But it is still really hard. Saying it out loud is so different.

Originally Posted by Hunny

Googley,

We agree, in the therapy room, about doing quiet, soothing and calming stuff after doing more intense stuff, preferably with a bear.

PS The youngster hummingbirds are about to fly the nest, maybe today or tomorrow! Phoebe's kids!

I went to look at the babies, they are so huge. I'm surprised they are still in the nest, they look like they would fall out. The hard thing for me is that it takes so long to get into the stuff at the beginning of session, if we left a lot of time at the end of session, well, I wouldn't have any time to discuss the trauma.

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

I was thinking about something else googley. Perhaps what you need to do with the therapist is to plan the session in fragments. In other words you will only talk about one aspect of your past. And what you will do is plan a time period in that session for a focus on relaxation methods. So if your session is for an hour then you could plan on discussing a past event for the first half hour. Then use the second half of each session to focus on relaxing methods.

This way you wont be leaving the T all emotional and drained. Instead of building up stress before each encounter with the therapist thinking you will be addressing an outpouring of events that may allow you to feel that you are inviting your history to retraumatize you, you could know that the approach will be fractioned off and there will be a soothing period afterwards where you can focus on getting leveled out so that when you walk away from the therapist you will not be carrying any of the emotions with you.

I think that many patients go to see a therapist with a preconcieved idea that they have to all of a sudden be forced to expose every aspect of their past. So, in effect there is a great concern about a dam being opened and having everything come out all at once. So you have to think about how you can allow yourself to SLOWLY dip into your past, ONE FRACTION AT A TIME.

Perna posted a very interesting way of looking at a past trauma and I really like that idea or concept of thought.

So think about my suggestion and talk to your T about setting up that process with everything built into the session that way. Therapy should be just that (Therapy), not a time for being traumatized but a time to learn how to WORK THROUGH THAT PAST ONE FRACTION AT A TIME.

One of the things I noticed about the various members concerns in therapy are a FEAR of THERAPY. It is as if the patients FEAR they are in no control of the therapy and that should not be the case. By choosing therapy you are opting to work on your unresolved issues that are a constant source of emotional stress and uncertainty. But YOU know YOU best and what that means is that there is nothing wrong with HELPING the therapist to UNDERSTAND THE WAY THAT YOU FEEL THERAPY WOULD HELP YOU. Going to therapy does not mean that you will be forced to do something that you are not ready to do. So, before you enter into giving the details of the issues that you are hesitant to disclose you need to set up a PLAN OF THERAPY with your therapist that YOU would feel most comfortable with. Therapy is about forming a TRUSTING relationship with your therapist where you feel comfortable and walk away feeling that you actually RECEIVED THERAPY that has been BENIFICIAL to YOU. And all patients are unique and therefore that patient is the barometer for the therapist to learn about WHAT WORKS BEST FOR EACH PATIENT, THAT IS THEIR JOB. The therapist is there to HELP you HEAL. The therapist is not there to TRAMATIZE YOU. The goal is to be able to address your issues WITHOUT BEING TRAMATIZED OR EXPERIENCING THE LEAST TRAUMA AS POSSIBLE. So it is important that YOU interact with your therapist ON YOUR OWN BEHALF to discover YOUR COMFORT ZONE IN ADDRESSING YOUR PAST ISSUES. Yes there will be difficult issues that you will be addressing but the purpose is to pace the therapy so you can get the most out of the therapy that will give you the best way TO DO THE WORK in the most comfortable way you can. You are not there to be in pain, you are there to LEARN HOW TO DO THE WORK TO RELIEVE YOUR PAIN AND RESOLVE YOU ISSUES. The therapist is only there to GUIDE you and help you with this process. YOU are not dumping YOU into the control of the therapist. The therapist is there to help YOU control YOU and gain strength by learning TOGETHER WITH THE THERAPIST how to do just that.

Open Eyes

Open, thanks for your input. I have been working with this T for almost 2 years. It is time for me to deal with this stuff. Both me and my T recognize this. I know the pain is something I will get thru. We only talked about a very small part of what is going on. It is something I need to work thru this summer for my own well being. But it still hurts.

[Hunny]

Googley, it's so good that you are doing this now after building the bridge between you and your therapist.

At first we did just snippets of trauma work and more calming time. As we progressed we could spend a bit more time with the trauma work and a little less with the calming. Taking into consideration its been over ten years you can see how the shift could be fairly gradual. We did a kind of trauma therapy that actually is pretty non-traumatic, so it was a little easier to recover. But there were sessions that were really harder than others and we always required to go home and sleep and reaaaallly rest.

But like you, lots got worked on during the days and weeks in-between. It's good you reach out here and elsewhere for understanding and comfort. There was a person we used to talk to in-between the early years sessions. It helped to figure stuff out.

I must admit though the therapy session have always been from 1 to 3 hours, (usually 1 1/2 to 2 hours). In the early years it was twice a week and went to once a week and now sometimes once or twice a month but the time to collect everyone and issue together and then work on a specific still seems to be about 2 hours.

Anyways, you are the 'YOU' expert and know what is best for you and just want to congratulate you on seeing it through.

[googley]

Thank you Hunny.

We have done some of the trauma work, ie, the secondary trauma of not getting any support when I reported the attack, and some of the anger over the attack, and identifying the ways that it has affected my development. However, we are just now getting into the details of the attack itself. Up until now, as my T said, we have been skirting the issue. It is getting to the details of the attack that is the worst. It is different having to say it out loud, to go into details that I have never shared with anyone else. It has taken time to get the relationship strong enough to be able to talk about this stuff. Like when it sounded to me like she was saying I shouldn't be bothered by my experience, but I knew she wouldn't be saying that. I was able to bring it up and talk about that instead of just feeling rejected and hurt. In the past I would have totally retreated and believed what i thought she said, this time I was able to recognize that she wouldn't say something like that. I was able to talk to her about it and make sure I was wrong in what I was hearing. Whereas before I would have felt so hurt I wouldn't have questioned what I thought she said. It is that trust that makes it possible for me to be able to do this work. Without that, our session would have stopped at that point. So it is good we have that bond.

[Nammu]

Originally Posted by googley

My session was too hard today. My T wanted me to start talking about the details of my trauma. It was so hard. I felt like I was back there. I know I need to go through the trauma processing. But it leaves me a mess. I feel so awful afterwards. I just want to hide. I feel so alone and distressed.

I've read everything and how you've been working with your T for 2 years and it was just time to dive in. I just want to give you so much credit and kudos for that. I've been working with my T for a long time too, I can't say how long because I'm not sure, my memory doesn't flow in a line. But wev'e been tryng for one trama that I never have talked about and I a reacted like a child, pouting and walking out. I've never done that before it was a surprise to us both, So I just really want to give you so much credit for "diveing" in and going for it.

[Irine]

I know what you are talking about when you say it is easier to use the bad coping technique. Avoidance is one of them. It will get easier with time...

[Nammu]

Originally Posted by ladymacabethadmunsen

I know what you are talking about when you say it is easier to use the bad coping technique. Avoidance is one of them. It will get easier with time...

Ah! Thats what its called, it just happened so we won't process it till after the holiday. I did call and say that I'd be there, I didn't know why I did that. Just to reasure her that I would be back and I wasn't really walking out. I'm always doing that,reasuring other people, I'm pretty sure T's can take care of themselfs. But I don't want to take over ((G's)) Thread here. But Thank you for the information.