I’ve been in therapy for 10 years. I’ve tried trauma processing during that time but was never able to get through it.
I’ve been seeing someone every week who has been attempting EMDR and IFS with me. It feels brutal. It feels so scary that I worry about whether or not my therapist knows what she’s doing. I worry about her tinkering around in my memories when I’m in such a vulnerable state.
I did a dedicated trauma course that was mainly CBT, with a few other aspects. It was indeed brutal, and a lot of work. It was very worth it for me. I called it my 4 credit course in learning to be a person. It felt like that. I had homework assignments and everything.
If you are concerned about your therapist, or about the way your treatment is working, would you feel comfortable asking her to talk with you about the process again so you can make sure things are working correctly?
With my physical therapist, I got much better results after I learned how to speak up when something felt wrong. There are a lot of times my PT assigns an exercise, because it helps most people, but it hurts me for some reason. Saying “ow that hurts” has helped a LOT more than when I stayed quiet and assumed the doctor knew better than me. He asks me to describe the pain, and from there he can tell whether the pain is a normal part of strengtht building, or a sign he needs to modify my treatment.
I imagine it might be similar for mental health. If you and your therapist can communicate about the emotional pain you are experiencing, they might be able to reassure you it is all according to plan. They might also be able to say “oh, that shouldn’t be happening,” and make adjustments.
Thanks for your response @Ninjastar. That makes a lot of sense, which makes me wonder why I didn’t speak up about it in the first place. I’m going to bring it up next week.
Did you have the experience that as soon as something shifts internally for you after processing some trauma, something else pops up? Like another memory or piece will take its place.
It feels like whack-a-mole.
Yes. My therapist said it would be like unclogging a drain. You start with a relatively clean bathtub that has several inches of slow draining water in it. As you start to pull out gunk, it gets really nasty and horrible. You start to wonder if it was maybe better to just deal with the standinng water than with the wads of foul-smelling gunk that never seems to end. But if you keep going, eventually you get it all out, and have a functioning drain again. You might need to clean the drain again later on, but it is easier next time because there’s less build up. That was a very accurate analogy in my case.
I don’t understand therapy
But I understand some people find it useful
Therapy is trauma for me
Tried it again for the second time recently
If I am being honest, I do not think I would practise whatever it is they’re trying to teach me
Seems like a sneaky and dishonest thing to spill your guts for advice and coping mechanisms
Do they have sexual like feedback over other people’s pain?
Why not just talk about tools
But even if they did this I probably wouldn’t apply them
I would clarify that the above is just bemusement on my part
Don’t get it
This analogy has been incredibly useful to me the past few days as old memories continue to surface. Thanks @Ninjastar.
It was useful to me, too. There were many times when I felt like I had made myself worse, instead of better. Turned out, I was particularly reliant on denial and avoidance as a coping mechanism.
I would block out all the bad thoughts and feelings except for the times I unpredictably exploded. I had thought I was fine the rest of the time, and just had a short fuse. Nope. I just got so used to living at the very end of my fuse, because I learned to ignore all the build-up. Midway through trauma therapy, I noticed things bothering me a lot more, and my threshold for “this is too much” getting lower. I thought I was becoming less resilient. What was actually happening is I was learning how to recognize the warning signs to my impending explosions before I got to the critical point.
Make no mistake, I have a MUCH lower tolerance for stress than I used to. I am also nicer to the people I love, and better at consistently following through with things, because I can accurately predict ahead of time whether a situation will lead me to my limit. I consider it a welcome trade-off.
Over the years, I have gotten better at switching between these two states. Sometimes, life requires me to push past my limits. When that happens, I revert back to the mentality of “everything is fine except that huge outburst that I immediately put away again and I am not bothered at all until the next time I explode.” Now, though, I know somewhere in my mind that it’s temporary, and that I will be able to get back to the nicer version after I finish what I need to. It’s still work, but it isn’t scary work anymore. I know the steps.
Done some EMDR. It’s helpful, it doesn’t get rid of the trauma for me, but it dials back the intensity. Unfortunately, I have to report that the original memories are still entirely intact.