[Crook32]

Now that I am more stable as my T puts it "now the real work can begin". Well since we have started talking more about the past I am starting to recall memories that I had locked away a long time ago. I feel like I am getting flooded with these bad memories. They just kind of come up at random times throughout the day too.

Has anyone else had this issue? What did you do to lessen the pain?

[ABC1357]

I also started working on my trauma a few months ago. That is painful work, and my therapist warned me that I would even feel worse for a while, once I start facing the real issue. I didn't think I remembered most of my memories I found throughout the sessions, and it is obsessive. I think it's common, and that's the stage we need to get through to process the memory.

I asked to slow down a little bit, and did not do trauma work when I was really tired. Did you try mindfulness? That helps me a little bit, although I'm still practicing it.

[junkDNA]

Yes this is happening to me currently after talking about trauma with my T this year. I don't have a solution for it. It makes me want to do drugs so bad.

[Crook32]

Yeah I have been using my klonopin a lot.

[Out There]

feel this a lot , trauma work is very difficult. I use mindfulness and the music at the link a lot and it helps.

Yes, its happened to me, and really bad. The best thing is to slow down in therapy, let things come up slowly.

When its too much, doing anything distracting is good. Physical things with nature or being around others. Funny movies can help.

Being aware of triggers as you are more suceptible to them, and if something triggers you, the flooding can get worse. For example, staying away from sexual stuff if there was sexual abuse involved. Though anything can be triggering if youre going too fast in therapy. Eg, a cartoon

[MBM17]

In early November, I was having major flashbacks and attacks of previous emotion from the past. It was horrible and scary and I felt like I was losing hold of what was real and what wasn't.

We had done EMDR a few times around that time, too, but then we stopped because when I was in session and started the EMDR, the massive emotions came slamming back. I couldn't cope. Similar to what Skies said, my therapist said that part of EMDR is knowing when to put everything back in a box and set it aside until a better time. Things haven't been as bad since then even though some weeks I still feel like I can't grab hold of reality with all the stuff from the past coming back up. Also like Skies said, I made the mistake of reading my old journals, and it definitely triggers me.