[Oceanwave]

I sometimes wonder whether it is possible simply to move on, put things behind me and start a completely new phase in my life. Do you think we are getting something out of holding on to our illnesses, traumatic memories and painful feelings? What would happen if we just let go? While it seems impossible, there is always the nagging question of what holds me back, why not just get rid of this baggage. Maybe I'm just lazy. Or take pleasure in suffering and cherish my past troubles. Maybe it's just easier to not let go. Does anyone ever feel like this?

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Maybe it's just easier to not let go. Does anyone ever feel like this?

For me, I began the process of letting go when I was ready. I really REALLY didn't want the yuck following me around forever, but I didn't know how to make it go away.

Telling my story to T, and feeling the feelings that went along with it, were the first step to being able to let go. It was a process. It didn't happen all at once, but it did happen. ALL of the different parts of me needed to feel heard, seen, cared for. I needed someone to finally witness my story, and to BELIEVE me.

It still comes back sometimes, but it doesn't define me. It's part of who I am, not the whole of who I am.

Why do you think you might be holding on to it, oceanwave?

[Melbadaze]

I think its a process, realisation that one is holding on is the first step, and for a while we hold our heads up high in a sense of relief that at last we know what that heavy weight is, but then as we travel forwards, our path isn't as clear as we first thought, and we sometimes stumble and fall, sometimes take wrong turnings having read the sign wrong, sometimes we feel so afraid not carrying that familiar weight that we turn round and pick it right back up, but then some time further on, we want to continue on our journey so we perhaps this ask someone if the route we are taking is the right way, and we begin again, accept we're not so afraid of the stumbling and pot holes and we are determined that no matter how many times we fall, and fall we do, we're just pick ourselfs up, dust ourselfs down and continue on regardless, well thats how letting go has been for me.

[granite1]

i agree with tree i think the process of letting go happens when you are ready.and able.i dont think holding on makes you lazy or anything it may make you scared of the work and feelings but not lazy at all

[Sannah]

It isn't as simple as just deciding to drop it and moving on. It is an active process where you have to work and focus and feel all of those things that you don't want to. You also need a good T who will guide you through it and help you to interpret.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Do you think we are getting something out of holding on to our illnesses, traumatic memories and painful feelings?

I used to get so angry when I would hear this question. It felt so much like blaming the victim. How could anyone dare to think that there was any benefit in a state of such pain.

After a long time, I came back to the question again and I saw it differently. Maybe the benefit is, it's familiar. You know how they say, better the devil you know, than the devil you don't know? Sitting by the water's edge, you can never drown. Inside the shell it's dark and there are protective walls. Even if it is lonely and painful at times, or most or all of th time. And maybe the big world outside looks too bright, too open, too scary, just by comparison.

But we were never meant to live in shells. The thing is to work away at it, till you can imagine a life that doesn't have a devil (not that life will ever be perfect, but not THAT level of pain, not that kind of pain). It takes a while to get there, and as Melba and others say, the work is sometimes confusing, uphill, start and stop, one forward and it seems like two back sometimes, but you can get there. And then - dance off in the sunshine. and T will smile too.

[Oceanwave]

You know what. There's only one way to find out. How about I just try now and let go, and see what happens. From now on I'm a different person, without the baggage. It already feels quite liberating. Who would like to try it with me? And then we report back, after the experiment is over, what's better: pain or no pain.

[Melbadaze]

I think I've already begun, but dont let go in anger, let go in love, its easier that way.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

From now on I'm a different person, without the baggage.

If you're going to try declaring yourself different, I'd change your physical "location" in your profile too :-)

[Oceanwave]

Originally Posted by Perna

If you're going to try declaring yourself different, I'd change your physical "location" in your profile too :-)

Yeah, it should now read "even more in denial"...

[Perna]

No, it should simply read, "New"

[zooropa]

personally, I have spent the last 20 years trying to just "let it go" and pretend it didn't happen. That didn't work out for me so well. I really believe that the only way to TRULY let go is to let it go through me. I can't just drop it behind me, I've tried that for years. But I can let it pass through me and then it will go away forever. I hope. That's what my T and lots of wise people here have taught me, anyway.

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Yeah, it should now read "even more in denial"...

(((((((((((Oceanwave))))))))))))))

I just want to say, sooo gently, that denying our experience and truly letting go might not be the same thing.

I spent years and years and YEARS thinking I had "let go" and "moved on", when all I was really doing was suppressing my thoughts and my feelings. It took a LOT of energy and more than a few bad coping skills to pull it off. I managed to not feel the bad feelings, but I didn't get to feel good feelings either.

I couldn't deny it forever, it got to be too much and I started falling apart.

BUT...working through my story and my feelings in therapy has brought me to a point where I don't *have* to deny stuff anymore. My experience is still my experience, but it's just *part* of my life. I have feelings now, because I don't have to run from them anymore.

I remember telling my T that I wanted to just put everything in a box and forget about it, and him telling me that I could do that, but that eventually it would come back - and I knew he was right, because I had tried that, again and again, and it never worked for long.

I guess those are my thoughts after I read what you wrote.

And here are some

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

I sometimes wonder whether it is possible simply to move on, put things behind me and start a completely new phase in my life.

I think having some new goals in one's life can add a lot of positive. Maybe you can't do the moving on and starting new things completely simultaneously, but maybe while you are working on letting go, you can also be working on starting anew. That is kind of like the approach I am taking....

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Maybe it's just easier to not let go.

It can indeed be very hard to move past the pain. It's hard work, takes courage--I know you've heard those things before. I think my therapist is really helpful to me here, because he serves as a witness to my work and progress. That's a very valuable role. He has seen a lot of what I have been through and accomplished in the last few years. I treasure his knowledge of my trying to turn my life around.

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

How about I just try now and let go, and see what happens. From now on I'm a different person, without the baggage. It already feels quite liberating.

Are you still feeling liberated? If this approach works for you, then great! Please report back.

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Who would like to try it with me? And then we report back, after the experiment is over, what's better: pain or no pain.

I think many of us are working on this in our own ways and we do report back here on our progress and setbacks. Please join us! (Wait, you already have. ) Hope it is OK to offer some hugs:

[Sannah]

It is true that if you want to be a different person just start acting like who you want to be. I don't think it is that simple, there will be some glitches possibly that you will have to work through but it will get you somewhere.

[Oceanwave]

Thanks to everyone here for the wise and tremendously insightful responses. And I can agree with every single one of you, even though your posts talk about many disparate solutions.

I think I am at a stage where I have done quite a lot of working through, with several past therapists, and at this point I am looking at what it is that I can bring, outside of therapy, into moving myself forward. Denial, of course, can never be the solution and we have to work through the thick of it, in therapy, as many of you say. But there comes a point when we realise that what had happened happened; it is part of me now and I can't undo it. Now it is my responsibility to find the good things that make life worth living. No therapist can do that for me.

And that's where I am now. I haven't worked through everything completely, but I got to the stage where I went back to the place where I had once been abused a very long time ago and I now confronted my past abuser. He is alive and well, even successful, and has done the same to others since. And this is the world I still have to live in; it is unjust and it shouldn't be like this. But still, beyond therapy, it is just me there and the world. And at this point I just think, I will have to look after me and make sure I make the most of my life. So to put the initial question differently, how do you make this happen? What do you do outside of therapy that helps you on the way to let go, what's the energy that thrusts you forward and helps you find peace?

[WePow]

I once heard the following:

"A wise man will read the textbook, learn the lesson, and sell the book back. A fool will read the book, learn the lesson, sell the book back, and then forget the lesson and will have to buy the book again."

I think we keep going through the processing until we actually GET the lesson - and it sticks. Once it sticks, we don't have a need to go through it again.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

at this point I just think, I will have to look after me and make sure I make the most of my life. So to put the initial question differently, how do you make this happen? What do you do outside of therapy that helps you on the way to let go, what's the energy that thrusts you forward and helps you find peace?

What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

That's something I am thinking about...

Yes. There is a lot of truth in what you say. I think holding on to the past does have its rewards however painful they might be.

[zooropa]

What do you do outside of therapy that helps you on the way to let go, what's the energy that thrusts you forward and helps you find peace?

I'm going back to school next month, after 20 years. I don't know exactly what it is that made me decide now is the time, but I do know that having that sort of plan for the future is new for me and is helping me as I go through some really difficult trauma processing in therapy. At times when I feel overwhelmed by the work I am doing and the things from the past that are being dredged up, I can spend even just a moment thinking about my new future, and know this life I'm living right now isn't all there is for me, and it gives me hope.

[WePow]

I think it really is more challenging to know the abuser is still free to harm others. Uggggg. Sorry it is that way for you too, Oceanwave. I love that name BTW!

I do sense what you are saying though about not allowing trauma to define who you are as a person. I think that there is a time and place when it has to be your work to focus on the healing. But I do know now that there is more. I had my first T once ask me a question that ticked me off big time.

"What would it look like for you to live a single day without a conscious memory of any past trauma?"

It ticked me off because I thought about how unfair it was that I had been abused SOOO much by so many different people in so many different ways that something every day would trigger me. But I didn't realize at the time that I was ticked of for another reason as well. I had to admit to myself that I would not know what that day would feel like because I never had one of those before. In fact, I was living with constant triggers! I told my T that and he said "What would it feel like for you to go a single hour without conscious recollection of the trauma?" I told him I thought that would be the best hour of my life. He then had me feel harder on it and I realized there was another feeling there - fear and terrror.

I had no idea what that experience would be like - to be FREE for even five min of time. T told me that humans do tend to stay with what they know. If we only know pain and living with trauma every second of the day, even the idea of NOT being in that place can terrify us. I started watching myself to see how I felt when I was just going about the process of living - doing the laundry or going to the store. I discovered that I would be having a great time and then I was the one who would end up stopping myself and thinking "What is this? How can I be happy like this! Don't I know that XYZ could happen again and did happen??? How can I trust THIS state of living to be MY life?" That would trigger the downward spiral and depression. I discovered I was actually feeling "better" when I was sad about the trauma than I felt when I was just living life and waiting for the bottom to fall out.

I did not TRUST the act of being alive.

Hope this makes some sense.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Now it is my responsibility to find the good things that make life worth living. No therapist can do that for me.

I agree, the therapist can't do it for you. But the therapist can definitely help you move forward in a positive way, try out new ideas, come up with action plans, share in your successes and setbacks, trouble shoot when you get stuck, etc. etc. The therapist is not just for doing painful trauma work.

In an early session with my T, he described to me 6 areas of life in which to develop oneself. Some people focus more on a couple and some people give lesser effort to more of them. I can't remember the 6, but they were something like work, love, friendship, spirituality, creativity, etc. He was talking about making a plan for your life, and then doing it. At that time in my life. I was so not ready for that, as I was stuck, had all these major problems, and we ended up doing trauma work to get me unstuck. And then I had my divorce to do too, which occupied me for months and months. As I was doing all this difficult work, little by little I started doing more positive things too. Looking back, I see I was starting to develop in some of these 6 areas T had listed. Now I am doing that much more, and have less of the trauma stuff hanging with me. But still I go see my T. It's not like for the first year of therapy we do trauma work, the second year we do divorce, and the third year we do positive development. It is all mixed up and overlapping. I don't just wake up one day and suddenly change my life in a positive way and leave all the difficult stuff behind. I work on these things simultaneously. I wouldn't want to have my T just for the trauma work. That would be so sad! Right now in therapy, our topics include: my career change (I have recently quit my job and gone back to school fulltime--after 20 years- in a completely different field); my grief over the coming end to my father's life and trying to improve relations with him; improving relations with one of my daughters (always a challenge and something I have worked very hard on); and events from my past when I was a teenager that have haunted me for decades (some trauma here, but this is an era we skipped over when we were doing our main trauma work). There is a ton of stuff to work on.

I guess my point is that you don't have to quit therapy just because you are ready to do positive things in your life. Being in therapy doesn't mean you can only work on past traumatic events. There are so many things in the here and now that therapists can help with, such as learning to communicate better, having better relationships with family members and friends, being happier in work and love and life, etc. It is great to have a T along as you do those things. I don't see my T as often now as I used to when we were doing the difficult work, but I see him often enough that he can help (every 2-3 weeks).

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

What do you do outside of therapy that helps you on the way to let go, what's the energy that thrusts you forward and helps you find peace?

For me, the big thing now is changing careers and going back to school. I cleared a lot of negative stuff out of my life. There would be a hole if I didn't have something new. Another motivator is that I'm not a youngster anymore. I don't want to end up at an advanced age looking back and having regrets: "I wish I had done this, and I wish I hadn't done that, etc." I feel that the time for me is now or never.

[Sannah]

Make a plan and get started. When things come up that get in your way, this is what you need to work on in order to keep moving forward.

[Oceanwave]

On moving forward, these are all really helpful points and I can also understand the setbacks:

Originally Posted by Sannah

It is true that if you want to be a different person just start acting like who you want to be.

Originally Posted by pachyderm

What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

That's something I am thinking about...

Originally Posted by zooropa

I'm going back to school next month, after 20 years. I don't know exactly what it is that made me decide now is the time, but I do know that having that sort of plan for the future is new for me and is helping me as I go through some really difficult trauma processing in therapy.

Originally Posted by WePow

I had my first T once ask me a question that ticked me off big time.

"What would it look like for you to live a single day without a conscious memory of any past trauma?"

I told my T that and he said "What would it feel like for you to go a single hour without conscious recollection of the trauma?" I told him I thought that would be the best hour of my life. He then had me feel harder on it and I realized there was another feeling there - fear and terrror.

Originally Posted by sunrise

I guess my point is that you don't have to quit therapy just because you are ready to do positive things in your life.

For me, the big thing now is changing careers and going back to school. I cleared a lot of negative stuff out of my life. There would be a hole if I didn't have something new. Another motivator is that I'm not a youngster anymore. I don't want to end up at an advanced age looking back and having regrets: "I wish I had done this, and I wish I hadn't done that, etc." I feel that the time for me is now or never.

Originally Posted by Sannah

Make a plan and get started. When things come up that get in your way, this is what you need to work on in order to keep moving forward.

I guess my question here would be whether you could use anything of the past bad experience and turn that around: in other words, use it productively to move forward. For instance, my experience of trauma is filled with a lot of anger. And I think that anger moves me forward, because I want to feel that I can be bigger, better, stronger, cleverer, etc. than my abuser. I want to grow and stay healthy to outsurvive him, so to say. So it's a competitive approach: even though you harmed me I win, because I can use that experience to make the world a better place. I know this sounds rather sad but so far that's been my most productive coping mechanism. This is not straightforward and easy either but perhaps less harmful than other coping mechanisms. Has anyone had this experience, and did it work?

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

I guess my question here would be whether you could use anything of the past bad experience and turn that around: in other words, use it productively to move forward. For instance, my experience of trauma is filled with a lot of anger. And I think that anger moves me forward, because I want to feel that I can be bigger, better, stronger, cleverer, etc. than my abuser. I want to grow and stay healthy to outsurvive him, so to say. So it's a competitive approach: even though you harmed me I win, because I can use that experience to make the world a better place. I know this sounds rather sad but so far that's been my most productive coping mechanism. This is not straightforward and easy either but perhaps less harmful than other coping mechanisms. Has anyone had this experience, and did it work?

Short term maybe but in the long term you need to keep your anger to continue with this approach and this isn't good. (Because once you lose your anger you lose your power.) Building real empowerment is the best long term approach.