[granite1]

so after my T and i spent a bunch of time talking about all the mess that has been going on between us for the last few weeks she laid this bomb on me .she said that being stuck like i am is not being helpful or therapeutic. she started talking again about my past using the trauma word (i hate it .when she says it my stomach turns )and that she would like for me to start to share some of what is going on in my head. that she would like to get me to a place that it is a part of me in the back ground but not who i am . i think that was perfectly said . i so feel like this is who i am . when i walk into a room of people to teach them some crafty thing .i feel a fake . im not that person and it doesn't connect at all. im the horrible person who people don't know about . the one i have to keep hidden so they are not disgusted with me . i asked T what she is going to do ( completely panicked ) she said we need to figure out a way for me to start sharing this stuff so it isn't like im jumping off a cliff. she wants me to write down just one horrible thought i have or one horrible thing i did each week . she said that i don't have to read it if i don't want to .but to just write it . what do you think . has anyone done this . im kind of scared .i feel horrible when she tries to talk about this stuff . it is so overwhelming .i don't have a clue how to deal with it . she seems to think this is a way to start . has anyone done this

I think any way you can get that stuff out of your head, a little at a time, is a step in the right direction. Your perception that you think you have to others sounds very much like how I saw myself for the vast majority of my life. I felt different, broken, wrong, totally not like everyone else around me because of my past. Getting all that stuff out of my head and sharing it with my therapists ultimately was very healing.

My experience was that as my secret became less secretive (albeit only with my therapists), those secrets started losing their power over me. That experience of being able to tell and having the therapists support me and validate that what I had been through was truly damaging, that my reaction was justified and "normal" under the circumstances, that what I had experienced really was trauma (yes, you will get more used to that word and that is part of acceptance on your part that what happened to you was truly wrong) -- all of those things worked together to give my history less power in my present.

It's hard work, but my T kept reminding me that everything that happened to me was in the past and saying the words was not the same as the original experience, as hard as they were to say.

They are words, not nearly as painful as the original wounds. I know it doesn't feel that way when they are coming out, but he was right about that. The words and memories are history and need to be put in their proper place, but the only way to really do that for me was to get them out of my head and into someone else's so to speak.

So, give it a try. Start that slow purge out of your past out of your brain so you can start finding some peace in your present. It won't be easy, particularly at first, but it's time to start the healing. For me, the only way out was through the fire.

[granite1]

chris your past sound so painful for you . im sorry that you had to live through some horrible stuff. i always see you as so strong and ok with who you are . i forget it probably was not always that way . i always appreciate you words and insight .

[Perna]

Yes, getting stuff out of my head and onto paper really helps me too. I can have lots of problems with stuff constantly going round and round so I can't organize it (you get hold of one thing and grab another but when you grab the third thought the first one goes over to join the seventh one and you notice the sixth one consorting with the tenth one, etc. :-) and the anxiety just makes me want to shut down. But when I just grab one, any random one (dust on the door lintels meaning I am going to be a dirty old lady, alone and surrounded by filth and unable to help myself) and work with it for a bit, it's connected to others so when I fix it (by dusting the door lintel the next day, first thing :-) other, related ones either go away or get more manageable and I feel better and more capable of handling things.

One thought OR one horrible thing you did. When I first read that I didn't read the "or" correctly and thought it was "and" and was going to suggest you only choose one to do, not both. See? There's stuff we don't get right because we're so scared and overwhelmed but when we actually look at it, individually, it is manageable and actually a relief.

Were I you, I'd look at this post of yours and how detailed it is and look at a post of yours from early last year, the difference in how much you are able to articulate? It's the vague, messy stuff that trips us up; when we find the words and say, "I hate it when she uses the trauma word, my stomach turns" and get to realizing that we didn't run out this time, we didn't not hear the word, we didn't a lot of things we use to but are still here and the trauma word has been used, that's progress. No, it's not comfortable but before we thought we'd die and we haven't died so it's probably not going to happen with this word, this thoughts, this idea, so we can move on and eventually our stomach won't turn?

Originally Posted by granite1

chris your past sound so painful for you . im sorry that you had to live through some horrible stuff. i always see you as so strong and ok with who you are . i forget it probably was not always that way . i always appreciate you words and insight .

Thanks Granite. It was pretty horrible, but I have managed to get beyond it to a place where my past stays in its proper place now -- in the past. The work to get there is scary and painful, but you truly can get through it. It honestly isn't painful to look at most of the time anymore. I never would have believed I could possibly get to this place years back, but my therapists assured me that healing was possible.

But it is not like just putting a band-aid on a neat cut and it heals pretty much without any attention in a fairly short amount of time. It is more like having 3rd degree burns over 80% of your body -- wounds that require really painful treatments that at times themselves are extremely painful but absolutely necessary to prevent further damage. Those treatments can't be avoided without dooming the patient to life-threatening infections, etc. Healing from trauma is kind of like that. The process itself is often very painful, but the treatment isn't causing more damage if done with skill and care; the damage was inflicted with the original wound. That doesn't make the treatment painless though.

With time and work, that wound will eventually start healing, the wound will eventually stop festering and being a constant pain. I've reached a place where that original trauma doesn't bother me much anymore. It's kind of like occasionally I look down at a scar on my leg and say "oh yeah, that happened when . . ." It no longer hurts. I don't even think about it much of the time and it takes really intentionally being reminded for it to cross my mind. But I had to go through the "treatment" to get to this place, and that process at times was just as scary and painful as the original wound. The difference (and I had to constantly remind myself of this) was that this time, no one was inflicting a trauma on me. I was willingly and voluntarily (although with great trepidation) going through the process of healing the wounds left by that original trauma because I was tired of that old festering wound. It was time to do whatever it took to get it healed up.

I know you hate that word: trauma. But as you can read, I think of trauma as that original wound left by some very damaging events in my life. I find that use of the word to be actually kind of validating and realistic -- and yes, actually pretty healing.