Trauma work?

Neglect is a form of ostracism. Maybe some people will do more to avoid it, so they think everybody can. But ya cant.

I struggle with the word trauma because I fell its been overused and hijacked. If you think of anyone well known on social media and they go through something so so minor- like a starbucks manager yelling at them for mistreating employees they run to social media to talk about being traumatized by the experience and then begin to celebsplain trauma and what it means.. In otherwords if you use the word 'trauma' you better f******g know what trauma is and how dealing with it through therapy and IP stays at hospitals or IOP/POP can really hurt. Like a broken arm seems to hurt more 3 weeks after your cast because it is healing.

For me I dont think I have had any "official" trauma work. I saw the same therapist for 16 years and he heard and validated it all. I had my husband in sessions, my mother,brother,... many people almost a reverse AAamends process. But it wasnt a grand plan . I would say the first 3-6 months we just talked about me, and the present which would lead to a past event. So maybe it was trauma work. Sometimes I would get depressed or feel hurt for a bit after a session- again I felt like I did when I broke my arm- pain in order to heal. I broke the therapist relationship because at 16 years we had done all the work and were nearly friends. In fact he has 23 years of sobriety and brought me to my first AA meeting. But then again I was seeing him at meetings so it was time to cut the cord. I didnt have a therapist again until 2018 and she does indivivual for us and family sessions.

I am no expert but emotional neglect can create traumatic responses. It is what should have been there (e.g. been seen, cared for, loved, supported, safe, valued etc.) but never happened.

Trauma is not just something that happens and shatters your(*) world. It can also be what never happened and shattered you(*).

(*) general you

This rings so true for me, but I struggle with accepting it.

So L gave me a prompt to write about today. I agreed to it. It sounded like a good place to start. Now that I'm home from session, I'm realizing that this is going to be difficult. Not emotionally difficult, but because my memory is horrible. I don't actually have a ton of childhood memories. It makes me wonder what really happened in my childhood. Are the memories I do have, summarize my childhood? Or is that just the bad memories and I really had a good childhood? Like what was said before, I don't really have events, so I don't have too many specific examples. I'm so confused and frustrated with myself right now.

I hear you there. I remember so little of my childhood. Ex T used to tell me that I probably blocked it all out, but who knows. Even with 'events' it's so easy to doubt yourself. To think, was it? Was it really that bad? The thing I have learnt is that your memories, however sketchy, and your feelings, are all you have to go on. There's no point trying to drag up memories that aren't there (though they may come one day) and there's no point questioning your experience of your childhood. Just roll with it, if you can.

On another note, my T mentioned dissociation to me today, apparently I do this. She explained what it was and why it happens. I said "how do we fix it then" - which I guess is the essence of trauma work - for me at least. To stop the brain from kicking in with the freeze response and, as she put it, flooding the person with fear and turning off the rational thinking mind. What she said didn't make for a happy me. She said that trauma work is about (my words as I can't remember hers!) exposing the brain to it, and letting it happen in small amounts, but also letting it come back and see that it's ok. It didn't need to initiate that response because actually the current environment is safe.

We have had an email discussion since because the idea of constantly triggering me into that state really doesn't sound like a great idea to me, and she tried to clarify, but I'm still not entirely sure I understand what she means. Anyway, seeing as you asked about trauma work, and she is a trained trauma T I thought I would let you know.

Good luck with the prompt for writing, maybe just put pen to paper and see what comes out. Oh, ps, have you seen 'A Monster Calls'? That's a good movie about being open to your own truth. Owning your own truth. Not sure if you'll find it as relevant as me, but you might. It's a kids film, BTW

Thanks Waterbear! And I'll definitely check out that movie. I saw the trailer and it looks good!

So the prompt was to write about when I felt "small" or "silent". I have determined that is too difficult for several reasons. I'm hoping L will help me choose an easier prompt. Like maybe the times I've hid.

I am finding going through my memories to be really difficult. It's not that they're horrible memories per se, just really really sad and depressing. Like my memory with my dad...I realized tonight that it was between the ages of 7-13. I thought I was like 5 or something. Nope. A preteen silently hiding under a desk. And that's a happy memory... It just gets sadder with what I do remember.

Oh Scarlet, I feel for you. I really do, as this sounds like exactly the kind of work I was doing with K. It's really hard. Lots of sadness. Lots of processing. Lots of coming to terms with what should have been. But also lots of growing. Lots of finding myself. Lots of making new memories in the here and now.

I hope you can do both sides of the work.

So L agreed to the new prompt: the times I would hide. And then the next step will be a time line of things I found traumatic, but that won't be discussed until next Friday.

I was stupid and worked on the timeline tonight. To my surprise, I completely triggered myself. It was age 13 that got me. I'm not looking forward to going through it all...

Hugs, Scarlet. You don't need to go through the whole timeline all at once. I mean, I know that's a technique that some T's use, but maybe you can figure out something with L where you can just go through it a bit at a time and work your way toward the more difficult events/years.

Thanks LT. I'm sure L and I will work gradually on the timeline. Especially now that I was triggered by it just writing it down. It was just a surprise to me because I've written timelines before and have been okay. I guess since this time I got in touch with my feelings.

This s*** sucks!

Tuesday we went over two things. Neither were memories, just things told to me about my early years. That wiped me out. I slept basically from Tuesday to Friday morning, only getting up to do things I needed to do.

Today, we talked about what trauma is and whether I can own that word. L says yes. And though I trust her, I'm still having a hard time believing it. So we're going to do a PTSD assessment next Tuesday. We talked about one memory and somethings that I'm dealing with now. It was hard because we were using the word "abuse" in terms of my family.

I feel so confused and overwhelmed. Like what if what she says is really true? How she described it makes sense. And yet, it's hard to take in, like I'm in denial.

I asked her for "homework" to try to keep me busy and feeling like I'm accomplishing something. We determined that I do a worksheet that describes two feelings: "disappointment" and the opposite on the feeling wheel "powerful".

I'm exhausted again. Time for sleep...

I mean, I have no idea what your childhood was like or what you talked about in this session, but I would say skepticism here would be really healthy.

Because, I'm like.... It's so easy to scream abuse, when most people are far from saints and will most definitely have flaws and limitations and all relationships will definitely have lots of interactions gone wrong.

That's life.

I personally know that I dislike how serious words like "abuse" and "trauma" and "narc" get thrown around so easily nowadays. All this needs clear criteria to work with such "labels" and categories in a reliable way that won't cause harm.

I would also feel confused and overwhelmed if I were you, if I was asked to not trust my own gut feelings and my own understanding of my life story anymore and was told instead to consider the possibility that it was all really really bad s***. Especially if it comes to family.

What I do want to say though is, after all these words of caution: I did personally have resistance to the idea that childhood events could determine so much for later life. But they do do define a lot. And yes, there are probably ways to work through all that. I've tried to do some personal growth in that area myself. ME, who never believed in childhood stuff before.

All that doesn't have to mean we have to see childhood worse than what it really was (or better than what it was either), and call stuff abuse when it may not have been abuse. Even if bad things happened, even if family was far from perfect, parents, siblings, all that.

Try to keep all that in a grounded perspective. Stay grounded overall. If it's too much, if it makes you confused and overwhelmed, stop. Proceed at your own pace and trust your own gut MORE than any therapist's essentially unproven theoretical framework. Is my advice. Hope it helps.

Please don't apologise for liking definitions. I'm the same way with that. It's totally fine. I know others too who like them. What I go by as a rule is, if I didn't explicitly say x, then I didn't say x, and is not my responsibility if anyone else wants to change the actual words and hear x into it. My responsibility is to clarify if anyone asks me what I meant, if they are unsure, before they decide to change my words and hear x into it. If they don't ask, I have no such responsibility to clarify or apologise preemptively.

Definitions are important to me too. I think that's why I haven't accepted the word "trauma" or the diagnosis of PTSD. I can understand emotional neglect. I can understand invalidation. And in some instances, abuse. I also can say that I have felt things to be traumatic, but trauma?

I will say that when I was officially diagnosed BPD, I was relieved. Something finally fit my symptoms. Something that explained things. Because up until then, I was diagnosed wrong or told it's all in my head. And no one wanted to diagnose me BPD. But when I was diagnosed by my pdoc and ex-T, and they came up with the same diagnosis...I don't know. It just felt right.

That's why I'm happy to do an assessment. I cannot believe a diagnosis just because someone says so. At least L knows a LOT about me. Current pdoc barely knows me and diagnosed me PTSD. That bothers me. And from what L said, it's not just events or lack of events, it's symptoms and feelings.

Trauma work only helped me once I was strong enough to deal with the emotional fallout. I spent a long time trying to work on trauma and just ending up going backwards