Confusing Session with T

So my session with T yesterday was really really weird. I'll spare the beginning and get right to the weird part.

She was having me do an exercise where we imagined the me thats in my head, the dirty, angry, frazzled and all around upset me, and we imagined cleaning her up. Making her look pretty and making her feel better. But all I saw was when we cleaned her up and stripped away the dirt the anger was gone but she was really sad. Really really sad. I could feel the sadness like a weight in my core and I just started to cry.

I don't know why she's so sad. I don't know what could make her feel so much despair.

After a little break of talking about other things T asked if we could go back to that feeling and if I could tell her what it feels like. I did and I told her that my stomach felt heavy and full of rocks, but what I couldn't tell her, the words just wouldn't come out, was that I felt my heartbeat, this throbbing sensation in my privates. In trying to get the words out I cried more and then started to have a panic attack in her office.

Eventually she got me to calm down but I was never able to tell her what the heck was going on.

I'm very confused. I don't know what the heck to make of that.

Thoughts??

Sounds like it might have been a body memory, perhaps?

I think she's sad about the things that caused her anger, but I don't know what they are.

(((hugs)))

Thanks tinyrabbit. What's a body memory? I've never heard of that before.

It's like your body recalling, feeling or acting out a physical memory. For example, I was often left with untreated headlice as a kid. Recently, I remembered this and my head itched so bad I kept getting out of bed to check I didn't have lice. It was like I was physically reliving it.

Body memories can have to do with trauma of one kind or another. It's like the physical memory of what happened is still stored in there and your body can experience it again.

No advice, but I have had the same sensation.

A body memory sounds terrifying to be honest. I don't honestly have a clue what the heck it could be.

I looked up body memory on google and I got that it could be apart of the body restoring and holding a repressed memory?? I don't know but that just sounds horrible.

I get these weird pains in my low back, as if I'm being beaten, when trying to talk about certain things, or when I hear others discuss certain things.

Raven, is your concern more about the fact that your body "holds" memories, or the location of the sensations you felt when you were exploring your sadness?

I know that, for me, when I feel fear, I experience it in part as a tingling between my legs--and while it feels kind of weird to me, I have not experienced any SA or anything like that, so I don't tend to read too much into it. But if you think it might be associated with experiences in your past, that might be why it troubles you so much.

Otherwise, while it may seem strange at first, everyone holds emotion in their bodies in one way or another. It doesn't necessarily mean repressed memories, though it could. It sounds like you have a T who is sensitive and moving you through this gently. Go at your own pace, take it slowly, know that you're not alone--many people struggle with intense emotion as it's released during therapy--and trust your work with your T. Little by little, as you feel ready, the answers will come. Hang in there!

I've had that feeling, too. Once when we were talking about something that happened when I was young, T said something about "little girl" and that totally set me off.

I think that the concern is more about where. I know I have a lot of places in my childhood where I can't remember what happened. I know my parents are also hiding what they call "a traumatic experience" from me and I wonder all the time what the heck it could be.

Wow, that must be a disorienting feeling, having "something" in your past that your parents are hiding from you. I know I would have a hard time thinking about anything else, if my parents knew something about me that they were unwilling to share. That would put all kinds of ideas in my head that I would be unable to prove or disprove. They may think they are protecting you, but in reality they are prolonging and magnifying the emotional charge that trauma carries.

Obviously, if you haven't shared that fact with your T, now might be a good time to do that.

Know that, regardless of the details, you are going through what millions of people have gone through: the painful, sometimes seemingly unbearable process of self-discovery and healing. You're not alone, and you're not strange or broken. When you're ready to talk about it, or write it down, or draw it, you have someone there who is dedicated to receiving it and helping you work it through. As they say, the hardest part is showing up, and you've done so much more than that. Hang in there.