Couch 52 - Are you being served?

I don't think I have seen it around others either. And most of the time when I talk to people, they don't understand the point I am trying to make. That woman I see does not seem to understand my point either. Perhaps I go to see a therapist for reasons that are not weight sharing analogy appropriate. Or perhaps I am just odd or dense or an alien.
But it is fascinating to watch others talk about the weight lifting by sharing thing both here and in real life. I often feel like an anthropologist observing.

This makes no sense to me - the therapist carrying weight thing. Well, the cake thing either, but the weight thing is a fairly commonly used description around therapists. I hear things like this, and I see people respond like they understand this sort of language use and idea and have experienced such or can imagine it - and I am left as though everyone else is speaking aramaic.

(This is not criticizing hankster - I am simply astonished at how I cannot - and I have tried- even come up with something close to it in my mind)

I have use for the woman, but it is not what people describe here.

Good morning...
As far as trauma work, personally I don't see the point. I was advised by a top trauma facility that it would be better for me not to try to get into it. 18 yrs of it would take too long to process, it would put me in trauma work for the rest of my life. The best thing for me personally, is to learn how to change my reactions to myself and others. To learn coping skills. I am getting really good at keeping myself from dissociating. I have said things about my past in T, but we have just talked about emotions, never details. I had a T once that was all bent on revisiting every incident, and I learned quickly that that was impossible. I'd have to sign up for a rubber room.

* again this is FOR ME, not anyone else. We all do T differently.

T tells me that by not talking about it, I'm keeping it alive...and that it's not fair for me to carry the burden of it by myself. He tells me that I will go from feeling demeaned, nauseated and injured to feeling angry to then feeling a sense of peace by going through this process. I don't see how that's going to happen, but I'm going to try to trust in the process. It just feels yucky at the moment, and that's to be expected. He said that I need to expect to feel awful for a few months and that we need to put a game plan together of how to deal with the craziness that comes from this work - what to do with my daughter so that I don't feel like a bad mom, how to tolerate and tackle the emotions, what to do at night when I feel so out of control. So much to consider. No wonder I've been putting this off.

And about retraumatizing....that's another issue. T tells me that we need to do this in a way that keeps me from feeling retraumatized. I'm not sure how that works. But one thing that seems clear to me now is that the anxiety, shutting down and dissociating that's occurred in group T are all signs that it was traumatizing for me to be there - but apparently that's because I avoided doing the real work involved in dealing with my fear of groups. We never made the connection before, so who knew? If I would've talked about my past trauma with T, then it would've been clear. Oh well.

My daughter was so tired when she got home. She just fell asleep and I started to doze off when my niece called me. Her calling me at this hour usually means she's upset and needs to talk to someone. So, I answered. Surprisingly, she just asked if she gave me the materials if I would make a bracelet for her that she wants. I'm glad it wasn't what I was expecting, cuz I'm too sleepy to be supportive to her at the moment.

I have a feeling that I'm not going to have any problems falling asleep tonight....staying asleep, not having nightmares or flashbacks...well, there's no guarantee there. *sigh*

Goodnight, couch peeps.

Well...no, it actually made me relieved. I had read so much about "the only way out is thru" and the thought of trying to detail everything, or explain every incident was traumatizing in itself. The specialists I saw last year, when I went away for 2 weeks, said "you barely lived thru it the first time, why go thru it again". And I though...dang, you are right. I mean 18 years of at least weekly csa, physical, mental abuse...that's almost 1000 incidents...in an hour or two a week...I'd never get thru it all. Plus a lot of it runs together in my mind. My best bet is to grieve, say geeze that sucked, and try to put some semblance to my life that's left. Learning how to cope with the panic attacks, dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares...etc is my best bet. And gradually I am doing that. I am med-free, and currently t free...but I haven't si'd or really gone psychotic in almost 2 years. I have a life to live, and I'm going to live it...damitalltohell.

Funny thing...
My niece likes to trace the letters on my tattoo with her tiny fingers. She thinks it says "I love [her name]" (it says unbreakable). She's getting older, and she's learning her letters and yesterday she said "hey, I don't see an S S I E, maybe you spelled it wrong". lol. I hope she doesn't hate me when she figures out what it really says.