[zooropa]

such a hard session today. SO hard. Just working our way slowly, so slowly, through this trauma stuff. At moments my entire body was shaking. I felt pain, physical, emotional, every kind. I tried not to bite ALL the way through my lip. My legs were so weak when I got up to leave I could barely stand.

I had moments where I swear I wasn't even in the room, but my T was with me and helped me come back, every time.

I feel pretty proud of myself that I was able to tell the things I told today, my T told me and I know it's true that a couple of months ago I would not have been able to say even the little bit I did today.

I also worked really REALLY hard on keeping my eyes open and in the moments when I was in the most pain, and looked at my T, tried to focus on her eyes and keep myself there. I saw such compassion and strength in her face. I feel like I have finally found someone who can walk through this with me.

I asked her how this is helping, because it feels like torture. We talked about how I have to go through the emotional processing that I didn't do when the trauma happened. That once I go through it I can start healing. Finally.

The last thing my T said to me was "call me if you need to....or even if you just want to!"

[mixedup_emotions]

(((zoo)))

That sounds like an incredibly hard session. But WOW, good for you for being able to do this!!!! Amazing.

And your T is being wonderfully supportive. I am so glad you have someone like your T to help you through this.

[googley]

(((((Zoo)))))
I'm sorry you had so much pain in your session today. But I'm glad your T told you to call her. You are really strong.

[DivideByZero]

I envy your courage. Well done.

Okay, our T's must be twins or something... but that would make us twins too because what you are going through sounds just like what I am going though at the same time.

It is amazing how much our body works just trying to keep together because of past trauma. I know you feel weak right afterward, but do you also feel a release too maybe in a couple of days?

For me it is like I know I am in the room, but yet my mind isn't. It is weird because when I come back, I am just noticing the stuff directly around me, then I see the T, then I notice a little bit more. My T is usually asking me to name things in the room, etc. But then all of sudden the room gets so BIG colorful and I laugh when I realize I was so internal with myself. My T says, good you are back, (almost relieved I think especially after a tough session) She kinda laughs with me when that happens. Does this sound similar?
But anyway hugs to you for doing such hard work. Just knowing you and your journey helps me get through my hard sessions too.

[zooropa]

Originally Posted by exoticflower

Okay, our T's must be twins or something... but that would make us twins too because what you are going through sounds just like what I am going though at the same time.

It is amazing how much our body works just trying to keep together because of past trauma. I know you feel weak right afterward, but do you also feel a release too maybe in a couple of days?

For me it is like I know I am in the room, but yet my mind isn't. It is weird because when I come back, I am just noticing the stuff directly around me, then I see the T, then I notice a little bit more. My T is usually asking me to name things in the room, etc. ...

Just knowing you and your journey helps me get through my hard sessions too.

we can be therapy twins, exotic, I kind of like that idea. We can walk through this together, and maybe just sit with it together during those between-session hard times.

I've noticed that I feel either really good or really bad a couple of days after an intense session like this. It's like a delayed reaction, for sure, and I don't know what makes it go one way or the other but yeah. I kind of feel like waiting for the other shoe to drop

My T will tell me to look around at what's in the room, and to know that I am safe there. Today she asked me to name an emotion that I was feeling, and I said FEAR! and she said, "ok, now look around, see where you are, know that you are not in danger and that's how you can remind yourself that those are old feelings, it's not happening now, it's old stuff. It feels like it's happening now, but it's old."

today was SO hard, there was a moment in there where I almost couldn't sit on the couch, I felt like I had to get up, I don't know why or where I was going or what I was going to do but my body HURT in the way it did during the trauma and I couldn't stand to sit there and I just felt like I had to get up and GTFO of there. It was the most "out of control" I've ever been in T. It still scares me to think about it, and to remember how it felt. It hurt, in every way, in so many ways.

[Sannah]

Z, you did such good work! I am so glad that you have such a good T.

Zoo,

Sometimes in doing trauma work, especially the last time I couldn't stay still. A weird thing my feet-they start to feel a painful itch and I want to run. I feel tension in my legs because I want to run away and back then I couldn't. I wasn't allowed then. When my T asks me what I am feeling, I too want GTFO of there too! She asks me where to I feel it, in my legs and in my feet. My legs are hurting because I am forcing them to not run!

Remember when I was triggered about that other client who was working with another T next door that started to scream and hit that noodle thing against a pillow? Well I had that feeling too, I wanted to run, but I couldn't, I FROZE UP. My T kept saying, hey lets go for a walk outside during this trigger but yet I couldn't move, I couldn't even tell her at the time either. She asked me why I didn't leave and a younger part of me said I didn't know how.
I think the next stage in recovery is knowing that you can get away physically because you are a strong adult, well in most cases.
I think right now our bodies are trying to do what they instinctively they wanted to do during that early trauma, and we try to do that when we are re- experiencing it through our therapy.

Do you do EMDR? I forget, my memory isn't the greatest right now, I know you have told me.

When you told your T that you felt fear and she had you look around the room to see that it was really safe, reminds me of something in a book I just finished reading. The Wisdom of a Broken Heart by Susan Piver. Now even though this book is mostly about getting over a relationship like a marriage, I find it really useful in getting over any kind of loss.
But anyway in chapter 2 called Nothing Happens it talks about how when our minds are over working, and we are in SO much pain we can't think of anything else at the moment. If we somehow can look around the room and notice that nothing dangerous is actually happening around us. The pain is actually in our heads, not in the room right now. This made a light go on for me because it is SO true. When I told my T about this, I said it is kinda like a "duh" moment for me, but it was so true what she said. My T told me it is kinda like a grounding exercise.
So now when I am feeling overwhelmed with my feelings from therapy, I try to get out of my head for just a second and look around. My cat is still sleeping on the bed. My kids are downstairs reading or watching TV, the birds are singing (now that it is spring), my ducks are quacking and swimming in my pond, etc... My environment is peaceful, but not what is inside my head. So in a way it helps me realize that it is old stuff that I am feeling because I really am safe in the current. It is so funny because this seems so basic, but I guess it finally got through to my brain.
Sure, I will be your therapy twin... or if others want to be 100uplets because so many of us are suffering from the hands of really sick people in this world.

[peaches100]

Zooropa,

I feel alot of the same things you do when I process my traumas (or try to). I get physical feelings, not just emotions. I also notice about a day or so later, that the effects from the therapy hit me -- either feeling good, like something has been resolved, or bad -- like it has stirred up more "stuff." While processing, my head gets to feeling fuzzy or dizzy, and sometimes my t says the same things about noticing what's in the room, using my 5 senses to ground me, etc.

Just want you to know you aren't alone in going through this. I've learned the hard way that i have to take trauma processing very slow, or i get overwhelmed and crash. So take it slowly, one step at a time.

((((((((((Zoo))))))))))))))

You are doing such good, hard work. I'm sorry it hurts so much

Be extra gentle with you today. Breathe, knit, feel fresh air if you can, call T if you need (or WANT) to.

to you

[zooropa]

Originally Posted by exoticflower

. I feel tension in my legs because I want to run away and back then I couldn't. I wasn't allowed then. When my T asks me what I am feeling, I too want GTFO of there too! She asks me where to I feel it, in my legs and in my feet. My legs are hurting because I am forcing them to not run!

yes! Sometimes when I have an intense flashback like I did yesterday during therapy, when I get up to leave, my legs feel week and shaky. I've had to sit back down a couple of times because it feels like I will fall. Yesterday for hours after my session my legs were shaky and weak. I think it's exactly as you say, exotic, it's from tensing all those muscles for so long, trying to hold them still and not just go running from the room.

Remember when I was triggered about that other client who was working with another T next door that started to scream and hit that noodle thing against a pillow? Well I had that feeling too, I wanted to run, but I couldn't, I FROZE UP.

I do remember that I can also relate to the freezing up part. It's always like that for me, flight or freeze or faint. I never have the "fight" part, not yet, anyway.

Do you do EMDR? I forget, my memory isn't the greatest right now, I know you have told me.

no, my T is trained in EMDR but we have never discussed doing it. I'm in DBT and my T follows the DBT protocols pretty closely. As far as I can tell, that means doing exposure therapy for PTSD during the 2nd stage of DBT. I might do EMDR if my T thought it would help, but we have never talked about it.

My environment is peaceful, but not what is inside my head. So in a way it helps me realize that it is old stuff that I am feeling because I really am safe in the current. It is so funny because this seems so basic, but I guess it finally got through to my brain.

wow, this is EXACTLY what my T and I have been talking about, and why she has been really pushing me to do mindfulness many times each day. She has me keeping track of the times I do mindfulness on my diary card (which I give to her each week) and we talk about what mindfulness skills I've been practicing, and that's exactly what I've been doing. Reminding myself that I'm ok in THIS moment. Noticing my environment and letting go of the worry thoughts from the past and future and just feeling OKAY right NOW. It is such a "simple" thing but also hard to grasp somehow.

Sure, I will be your therapy twin... or if others want to be 100uplets because so many of us are suffering from the hands of really sick people in this world.

Originally Posted by peaches100

Just want you to know you aren't alone in going through this. I've learned the hard way that i have to take trauma processing very slow, or i get overwhelmed and crash. So take it slowly, one step at a time.

thanks for the reminder to take it slow, peaches. I have pushed myself too hard in T before and gotten overwhelmed, so I'm trying to learn that no matter how bad I want to be through this and DONE with it, it doesn't work like that.

[zooropa]

yes, I'm replying to my own thread.
Just to say that I've been remembering more about this specific trauma T & I talked about on Monday and it SUCKS. I don't want to remember this stuff.

I don't want to feel it and be with it and KNOW it and have it be part of me. I know it's been part of me all along, but it feels new because it's been buried so long.

I called my T yesterday and told her one thing I remembered because I HAD to tell her, didn't want to sit with it in my head for a week.

And I just keep remembering more, and more, and the flashbacks and nightmares and anxiety just keep going up and up and up and up...

[SpottedOwl]

(((zooropa)))

Every time you have a memory, put it in a special box. It can be a box you imagine in your mind, or something you physically create. This box is safe -- nothing can get out without you letting it out. It is there to hold these memories for you, so you know they are just memories. It is there to show you that the memories are NOT you -- they are separate from who you are.

(Just an idea...if it doesn't speak to you, just please accept my support.)

You are doing great work, zoo!!

[WePow]

(((((((( Zoo )))))))))))) so sorry today is harder for you. We experience that too when we have to share with T the "junk" stuff. Call your T today please. It will help you so much to hear her voice. Even if just for a few min. That is what she will expect anyway since trauma healing alot of times works like this. My T knows how I will respond and if I will need to call him or email him - often before I know! And he will toss out reminders as I am leaving to "be gentle" and to let him know if I need him.

This stage (the sitting with the stuff when not with T) is the hard processing of the trauma. Drink lots of water (it will help if you cry alot like I did - to keep you from getting dehydrated). And know for a fact that as bad as it hurts right now, there really is light at the end and I can testify for you that this really is a major major and vital part of your healing. Experience your truth. And hold onto T's hand real tightly right now.

(((((((((Zoo)))))))))))))

My T reminds me often that "what you feel is NOT who you are". He says it over and over again..."what you feel is NOT who you are".

I'm so sorry that so much is coming up for you. I know it can feel absolutely unbearable. But you CAN bear it...with T, and us, and group, and with all of the good coping skills you have been working on...mindfulness, knitting, etc.

I wish it could be easier. Sending as many safe as I can...

[Sannah]

Z, I'm sorry that you have to go through this............