fear, disgust, struggling to talk about the past

Okay so Two sessions ago my T and I barely brushed the trauma subject. I have been seeing her since October and had not mentioned anything related to the past since our first session.

She seems to think that going there will help me better handle the pain that I feel like I'm wrapping tightly around me every day. She seems to think that the inner pull I always feel to destroy myself will be lessened if we talk about the past. But I feel disgusted with myself for blaming the past for my pain. I feel selfish and awful, weak and disgusting, and just flat out ashamed of myself for even CALLING something "trauma" let alone deciding that it's something I should work on or grow from.

Sometimes I think that "trauma work" would be useless for me, that it's just further dwelling on the past, that I should look forward and face my real-life fears and work on today stuff instead of yesterday stuff. Even if my today fears are wrapped up in yesterday's stuff, isn't examining the past kind of like fixing your eyes on a rear-view mirror when you should be watching the road?

But at the same time, the reaction I had to that session almost two weeks ago where we briefly touched trauma floored me. She brought up that my experience at work (feeling helpless and silenced) and my emotional reactions to it might be mirroring something that happened in my past. I have never broke down in therapy like I did after she said that. I cried and cried and couldn't speak. But then afterward I felt SO much better. Like the sun was finally shining. Finally someone understood why it was so incredibly hard for me to deal with this kind of work stress. Why I'd rather have a boss scream at me than have a boss who found ways to subtly coerce me into silence. This meant she would understand so many ways that the past has woven its thread into my life and choked me. And at that moment, I was sure I wanted to process my past with this woman who was just so simply and elegantly a fantastic therapist.

But now I am just feeling unsure. Not sure if it's worth it or not. Not sure how to start or not. Last session I just pretended I'd forgotten all about the session where we'd touched on these issues. I even told her, "I forgot all about that," because she wanted to talk about it and I was trying to avoid it. So, I lied to her. Then I changed the subject.

Don't know where to go from here.

Just keep showing up Jexa and being willing. Your t will lead the way. Remember she is your guide.

p.s. I think it is super cool to hear you talk about your new t and it seems to me like you two have a good connection. I don't want to be intrusive or anything but if you ever feel like sharing what happened about the whole legal issue and if you talked to her about it I would love to hear. I know that you were struggling with what to do.

Jexa,

Trust me, it's not worthless. In 96 I had someone try and kill me when I tried to leave him. Very soon after I got away. Went through the whole stalking and such. So I made it out alive. For me that's all that mattered. NO need to process that, go through therapy, heck I went overseas and never had to see him again after 98. (Unfortunately we worked in the same hospital). I didn't report him, which I should have, but I was just greatful to get away with my life. I was strong, coud and would do any and everything I wanted to do. No one could stop me. Past was past and it wasn't an issue.

In 99 I'm in a new place, other side of the country, living life which is good, then someone does something to his wife that ex tried to do to me. I went off the deep end. Absolutely floored with PTSD.

It came from no where years later. I'm not saying that this is what is going to happen to you, but not dealing with the past has a way of sneaking up on you in the present. If you have a safe place to process it, then please do.

A

The important thing to remember about working through trauma is that it's a process. It's not usually like you wake up determined to do it, have a few sessions, and you're done. That thing where you cried when you saw how the past and present were connected? That's trauma work. Avoiding it the next week, that's part of it, too. After the bigness of the emotion the prior session, maybe you needed to take a break from it. You can go back to it (or not) whenever it feels right.

Whenever I waffle with T and say, I want to do it but it's too scary, I can't! He says, "You are doing it." Just being scared of doing it is part of working with it.

I'm glad you've found someone you feel you can trust!

jexa, I'm learning that we can't walk away easily from emotional experiences from the past. They have to be processed my T tells me. I had also believed that the past is the past and forget about it. But it's not possible. It exists even in our bodies. I read the book, "Molecules of Emotion" and the author makes it clear that emotional experiences, even if buried and repressed and forgotten, have a HUGE influence on how we act in the present. I had resisted this idea but now I think I believe it.

I had revealed something terrible about my past in last session with T and the next day I called T and told her that we will pretend I never talked about it. My plan is to go into next session and ignore the issue discussed in previous session. So, I do understand where you're coming from.

I don't know how my T will respond since I left quite an emotional message on her voice mail about the last session so she knows I reacted badly. Whether she'll let me ignore it or not, I'll have to wait until Friday to find out.

I absolutely agree with skeski.

For me, I never went to therapy planning to do "trauma work", but over the years, it's woven a thread through my sessions. Sometimes the past comes up a lot, sometimes not at all. Sometimes I want to process it, sometimes I just want to hide from it forever. Sometimes I feel selfish and stupid for "letting" it still affect me, sometimes I am so grateful to finally be allowed to heal.

Your T sounds really good and insightful. I'm so glad you found her.

Hugs and hugs to you

the fact that you feel fear and disgust about whatever it is, tells me that you probably would benefit from talking about it. For me talking about my traumas and working through them has helped me see the trauma in a different way. Instead of hating myself for what happened, I have compassion for myself. I feel sad and hurt by what happened...but I also realize that it has made me stronger, and also affected me in other ways that I am not so aware of. I am beginning to see how these early traumas...maybe even things I haven't always thought were even a "trauma" have had a huge impact on me. They impact my thoughts to my behaviors....everything.

Acknowledging this doesn't make me a victim to the traumas. In fact I feel stronger, for acknowledging them and trying to understand how they fit into my life.

Best of luck. Trust your therapist. She is there to help you and not to judge you. Just let her listen.

I think your T will understand that you weren't ready yet when you told her you forgot about it; most likely she doesn't really think you did forget about it, not if it came with such a storm of tears.
Others have said so many good things. All I really want to say is that it's OK to be afraid and it's very much a part of the process, but don't let the fear be something that keeps you from the healing you do need and deserve.
Things I didn't think I needed to process either have revealed themselves to have much more effect on me unconsciously than I was ever aware of before.....becoming aware of the need to process them is painful in itself, so I know fear well, and shame too in the struggle to talk about the past.
The effects of the past are in the emotional present, so the past hasn't really gone away.....there needs to processing, so there can be change and healing.

(((((((Jexa)))))))

I agree with everyone else, there are things I didn't think were issues that ended up being HUGE. Sometimes we can't recognize what was significant enough in our lives to have an impact on it...we just thing they were things that happened and we delt with them...except we didn't.

The other day, my T said "something happened that told you had to suck it up and deal with your life, and there wasn't any reason to ask for help". And to be honest, those words didn't mean anything to me specifically, but it did something to me inside and I immediatly had a panic attack. I have no idea what the hell happened but I need to find out.

Trust your T, tell her what your fears are and how you feel about processing everything. Take care of yourself

It takes time to be ready to do trauma work, but I promise you - if you leave it unaddressed, it will come out in one way or another. These things don't just magically disappear, they have to be worked through. But it needs to be done on your time line and within your comfort level. Maybe you're just not ready?

I haven't done trauma processing or work, so I really can't comment much. All I can say is that this:
is very much how I think and feel. So I totally get it.

Hope you find your way thru. Good to see a post from you because I have missed you.

(formerly known as Eileen2010)

Interesting idea above about the rear-view mirror. My thought is that the guy in the truck behind me has his brights on, and the glare in my rear-view mirror (my past) is so bright that I can't see out the front windshield (mt present/future) well enough to drive safely.
Dude, I'm so totally gonna use that analogy with my T tomorrow!

HI Jexa

I went back and read again when you said this >> I feel selfish and awful, weak and disgusting, and just flat out ashamed of myself for even CALLING something "trauma" let alone deciding that it's something I should work on or grow from.

it seems that you self-stigmatize on the word "trauma" - but why? It's not a reflection on you; trauma is more or less defined as something coming at you from outside, which you are not able to deflect or defend from.

That's a pretty broad category! it covers big things like accidents, attacks, natural disasters, 9/11.... and it covers things that are big to children like a parent leaving, or a string of abuses or mishandlings during growing up years. The fact that a person of any particular age encounters an event which she cannot defend from is not a reason for her to be ashamed or to consider herself weak or disgusting. We can't control everything.

Please don't be so hard on yourself.

If you want to call it by some other name that doesn't carry the load of shame that this one seems to, fine; but those types of things that happen to us do shape us (or misshape us), and there's nothing wrong with asking for help to deal with it.

I know, you maybe are thinking that this is all easy for me to say; but I know myself how hard it is, I have my own struggles with working on it. Still, it's the way to healing. Jexa these are for you

In my family, for my mother, it was a reflection on me. Or more accurately perhaps, my mother felt it was a reflection on her, which she could not stand, so she had to direct her rage onto me.

Jexa, could something like this be true of your past too? Someone gave you the idea that trauma was so beyond the pale that it could not even be thought about?

No, more like, how could you think of that as traumatic, you are so weak, such a crybaby, get over it, you've never been through anything traumatic.

I will reply more later.

Exactly. Someone who fears "weakness" so much in herself (himself) that she has to attack it in others...

(((( JEXA ))))

I've missed you!!! And I'm sorry you're having a tough time right now.

Thank you guys so much. What I'm getting out of this thread is, it's important that I stay open to "going there," and that it will help me in the end (since clearly there is a great deal of pent-up emotion there) but that there is no need to push it before the natural progression of things brings us there.

It really kind of sucks though because I only have until August 1 and then I am moving away to graduate school. I am SO excited about going to grad school and finally starting my training to become a T and a psychotherapy researcher! But I am not excited about leaving this T that I've grown to trust and respect.

(By the way, to KC, and any others who remember that old thread, T and I talked openly about the lawsuit I found out about. Turns out she was stricken from the lawsuit almost directly after it was filed because she had the least to do with the allegations. She also chose to leave the university after the lawsuit. She said I can feel free to bring it up anytime I'd like to, anytime I have more questions. I feel okay about things -- I have chosen to believe what she told me.)

She's trained in many different trauma processing therapies - EMDR, PE, CPT -- so I really should take advantage of this while I still have her around. If she can help me comb out the tangled knots of my past so that I can move forward, I should take advantage of it.

Oh so much fear though. And stalling, procrastinating -- always finding something else to work on, something else, something else. First session I told her I wanted to process things from the past. Six, almost seven months later, we're just barely brushing it? I've procrastinated soo long. I only have so much time. Can I really trust that this will just unfold for me? Or do I have to push it? The problem is, to push it, I have to find that place inside of me that cares enough about ME to go there, to tell someone, to say, what I went through, that was trauma, and I want to work on it.

Oh Jesus Christ.

I'll never be able to do it.

Facing your fears is the best way to get rid of your fears. It feels much worse letting them follow you around all the time. They get annoying you know...........

I know. I know. But HOW.

jexa, would ditching the label of 'trauma' for now help at all? I can see how it's validating to be able to use it in the end, but for now it just seems to be an obstacle. I can really relate- I have had experiences which damaged me badly, but I feel so guilty talking about them or complaining or using the words, because technically 'nothing bad happened to me' etc etc. It is so constraining to live with the judgement on top of the experiences.

What if there was no 'trauma or not trauma' debate? Just you, and what happened, and your acknowledgement to T that there is something which was important for you, and you need help to talk about it?

Thanks Improving, that really does help. I think that is how I will approach it -- probably the only way it's possible.

I went to T today and it sucked. It's my last session until April 7 since she is going on vacation. I was just feeling really disjointed and all over the place which means that we never got to talking about anything in depth. I just kept bringing up one issue and another, and then another. I did tell her I lied the session before about forgetting the previous session. I told her I feel like Ella Enchanted when I don't take care of myself. I told her I finally did camel pose in yoga even though it makes me scared like someone's going to hurt me. I told her I had a good week, I told her I had a bad week, I told her I decided which grad school I am going to and why, I told her I'm visiting my family this weekend.

I feel like I had a bunch of thoughts whirling in my head and all I did was spit them all at her with no order or reason to it.

This sucks, sucks sucks sucks.

If you are waiting for the fear to go away before you do it, well, this isn't going to happen. You have to do it scared as hell.........