[WePow]

Well, yesterday in session I was able to go through the "finalization" of the first ten years of life. That has been the focus of the past 2 weeks of very intense therapy both in the office and at home. I am on short term disability as I am doing this healing because it was just not working with trying to work under more and more new stress while going through all this junk. And my DID symptoms were making it to the point where I was about to be fired. So this is for the best - but we hope to be back to full functioning very soon!! I enjoy working!

What is strange though is that I am finding out that I tend to be more guarded in session although I feel very safe. It is an emotional lock of some sort. But when I get home, usually that night or the next day, it is like the floodgates open wide up. I also tend to get the major breakthroughs during these after-session windows. Of course that makes me email T because it really is important stuff - big trauma work with the walls coming down and such. And he is very supportive of me.

What I was wondering though is if others had this type of pattern in healing? I really wish I could have these breakthroughs in session so I could handle it with T "there" and "witnessing" what is going on in real time rather than just get the "news report" effect in the next session. It is like I feel that he is missing seeing what is going on and the depth of it - but I sense he totally gets it.

[gravyyy]

I think it's normal WePow. When I am in sessions T will say something and it will strike me a certain way but being human I don't really think about and process it all until after the session. Sometimes I feel like there's so much I want to bring up during the session that I don't want to spend time processing what she is saying at the time. I agree that it would be nice for T to be able to see what it's actually like rather than me just telling her about it but it's really commmon for it to happen that way. There's just no way to emotionally and intellectually process everything you talk about in session while still in the session, if that makes sense. (Incidentally, we are working on different issues...no trauma for me... in T but the fundamental idea of therapy is the same).

[purple_fins]

I find that this also has happened for me.-- usually the next day. I think it could be like gravyyy said-- that it's just so much to process in that one hour..... I think our minds keep on processing hours/days after we've left the session.

Wow-- it's nice you get to email T. I have never emailed T..... don't even have her email address.
--- I think I'd feel like too much of a burden, the shame and guilt after sending her an email, I fear, would disrupt the fragile relationship.

Sounds like you are doing some very great work

[WePow]

Gravyyy - we think you are spot on with what you said. It really is a lot that T hands over to me. All sorts of new tools and different ways to consider this and that.
Thank you for pointing that out! Certainly my mind wants to pause while in session and listen to T in order to gather up those tools he is handing us. That makes sense for sure.

fins - it was hard at first to not feel that shame for emailing so much, but T has been very supportive and making sure I know that is a resource he approved for me to use. He told me he would let me know if he thought I was abusing the email and he said he has had to call out people on that. So I feel better knowing if I were doing something wrong that he would bring it to my attention.

Hugs to both of you!

((((WePow)))))

A lot of hard, emotional stuff comes up in session, but a lot of times I am just lost in the pain of it - there isn't much "processing" going on.

T and I worked something out a LONG time ago where I call him after every session and tell him what I "need" (or sometimes what I'm spiraling out about), and he calls and leaves me a voice mail to hang onto between sessions. A LOT of processing gets done in those phone messages. I'm usually driving home, and something about being alone in the car, driving, talking to T's voice mail seems to tap into a different part of my brain. I think I have most of my "a-ha" moments during car rides talking to T's voice mail. Then he calls and leaves me all of his thoughts about whatever I left on his voice mail. It's funny - the calls used to be mostly about reassurance, but they've kind of turned into a little mini therapy session after therapy.

It does seem like the longer I'm in therapy, the more processing I'm able to do IN session - earlier in therapy, I had ALL of my feelings at home and it was 100% "reporting" when I went to see T. It took a long time for me - ALL of me - to feel safe enough to really open up with T IN therapy.

I think most of my processing happens after the session--later that same day and sometimes through the next day too.

I can email my T as well, and she responds. She knows that I usually have revelations after we meet and not in the therapy room.

I often wish I could experience more if it during that hour with her too. Sometimes I wonder if she realizes the depth of the impact of a session, because it hits me more later on....But I've learned to accept that this is just how the work happens for me.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who processes this way!

[zooropa]

I also experience this kind of slingshot effect, I will go through a feeling or memory or whatever in session and then kind of get myself together and go on, but later that day or the next I will have an even larger experience of the feelings, flashbacks, etc. I feel like most of the "work" I'm doing is getting done between sessions, alone, rather than during that 50mins a week. It is a lonely feeling.

[WePow]

wow! Well this is really helping me to not feel so bad or alone with all of this! Thank you all so much for the awesome feedback!

[Sannah]

Yeah, I've been working on my self for 2 decades now. The processing still takes days to do. I think that it is normal. It is like homework or a takehome exam!

[BlueMoon6]

WePow- I also process after the session. When I am working on really hard stuff in session its as if I am holding my breath, trying not to dissociate or go underwater. Its so hard that I can barely breathe. Then, after the session I can exhale. And with the next breath, it all comes up again in pieces on its own. I find I cant even remember specific details, but in some unconcsious way, pieces, something that was said, some feeling returns and I am more able to make connections.

I had one of these connection moments in a store yesterday and I took a tiny piece of paper and wrote things down. I still have to expand on it in my journal, but even if I dont, there is so much there that I could just wing in session. Or maybe even deeper stuff would come up if I began to write...if I had the time. Which I dont...sigh.

[MissCharlotte]

Hi We Pow,
I think that most of the actual cognitive breakthroughs for me come between sessions. I can't imagine how it would work differently because there is so much work to do connecting the dots, that I couldn't possibly do it all in session. But I know T is there for me if I need him, and I leave messages for him when I need to. I think this is also another good reason to journal, so we don't forget things!