During my session on Saturday things got heavy. We were discussing childhood trauma and it was like I completely checked out. I focused a picture of T's cat and literally could not talk for several minutes. It was kind of terrifying. I wanted to answer her questions but I couldn't do it. Has anyone ever had that happen?

[healinginprogress]

Yes. I think that's very normal in trauma. You may have been dissociating. Hopefully your T was able to help you through and after that.

When that happened to me, instead of answering my T I told her her picture frame was crooked and made her fix it.

::

[DP_2017]

Yep, only because I bring my dog with me, I focus on him and pet him and just zone out, it happens often to me. It sucks, but my T never pushes me, we just move on to something else

[stopdog]

Yes - I could literally not speak for about the first 10 minutes of each appointment. I could think, but when I tried to speak - nothing would come out.

[Amyjay]

I have that happen during most sessions at some point, for varying length of times. Recently I emailed T about some things I want us to try when it happens because she wasn't very effective at supporting me in that state. We have tried some of those strategies and it is working better.

[Tbhimscared]

This has happened to me before but I didn’t really notice it until you posted this. Sometimes I find I can be at a complete loss of words, or I revert back to my childhood self where I’m too afraid of saying the wrong thing so I can’t speak at all. I wish my T would push me harder in these moments, though, because I want to speak but I just can’t seem to get it out.

all the time.

[SalingerEsme]

It is a scary feeling, and it seems like your brain is struggling under the maximum pressure it can handle. My T gives a few reasons this happens. The trauma was preverbal. The conversation accessed the unconscious mind, which doesn't speak in words. The pressure on our minds is too great, and we dissociate as a defense mechanism.

Your post just makes me think of how brutally hard and brave it is to face childhood trauma, and how it pushes us to our absolute limits as people in the hopes of a better, freer future.

[RiseNRoll]

During the course of my therapy involving childhood trauma, I was sent back to the years that the trauma took place. For example, I started getting in touch with all the suppressed feelings that were too painful for me to process back then. There are times that I am so synchronized with what happened those years that I literally feel my life getting stuck, literally feels that my development/life just got paused back then. That feeling of being stuck, unable to change certain aspects in my life to get through it, is sometimes expressed through me feelings of being frozen or just stuck body language in general.

Perhaps that means you are getting in touch with the emotions you cut out in during your childhood trauma events. Hang in there, that is an effective process as I have known and experienced it.

[MRT6211]

With one of the ex Ts, the one I did psychodynamic with, yes, all of the freaking time. Sometimes for upwards of 10-15 minutes at a time. Her therapy was incredibly traumatizing and not helpful to me, though. In working with my trauma now (in CBT) I never find myself dissociating anymore.

[alpacalicious]

It happened with my previous T, I felt like I was unable to speak and even to make facial expressions I just stared at something like paintings. Also it was weird because the light of the room felt different, like everything was darker. We weren't talking about trauma, I think it was the type of therapy in itself. My previous T did hypnosis and looking back now I think it wasnt good for me at all because I felt dissociated like I was floating and I had my first out of body experience that lasted like 2-3 seconds once. It was scary I felt like my soul just jumped outside my body I was watching my body from the outside! I wasn't able to tell him all of this and my T never said anything, never commented on it and never made sure that I was ok. I realized that type of therapy wasn't for me.

[fille_folle]

Yes. As soon as I sit down with T, my mind goes blank. Then, if we're talking about something distressing, every word is a struggle and sometimes I can't manage to communicate at all. My mouth opens like I'm going to say something, nothing comes out, so I close it - I repeat this maneuver a few times before eventually giving up. Then I have to wait for T to also give up on me saying something and throw me a life jacket.