Needing To Feel - Stages of Trauma Healing of PTSD
During the past three weeks, I have been adjusting to having had a pretty large trauma trigger that has opened a whole area of pain that I have not dealt with yet.
It is not easy.
You would think that after 10 years of intense, weekly trauma therapy I would be an pro at how to work my way through these situations. I am handling things better than a did a decade ago, but I am still fragile and stumbling along. While I can't speak yet of the trigger, I need to express what is happening in my life. I write for myself as much as I hope for others who: have similar experience, work in trauma therapy or live with someone who has PTSD.
When you have lived through much trauma, you are an expert at knowing how to not feel. It comes quite naturally, even at the youngest of ages. It does not have to be taught; it is a God given instinct that allows a human in danger to survive.
Technically, it is called Disassociation. Some who have been through much abuse and trauma become so effective at being able to Disassociate; they even develop alter personalities to deal with specific types of situations or trauma - this used to be commonly called multiple personalties - today it is more commonly referred to as alters. When you have alters, sometimes you are aware of when you switch; sometime you are not. That aids the psych dr in classifying you as what level of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) you have, not that labels or classifications really matter to the one living through it. DID is more common with people who have lived through child abuse, not people who have experience trauma in their adult life or if their trauma was a one time isolated experience. Both can have post traumatic stress.
We -- survivor of trauma--simply know that things are not functioning "right" (right being =like everyone else). Well, more specifically, we know that WE are not always functioning as most people do. We think, see, respond and sense things differently.
Some things trigger us to recall past experience. Often these experiences are so deep that we don't actually recall the experience but our body does; our body responds in panic as though it is --in a split second -- transported back to the time and place. We know we are loosing our ability to control our body; the autonomic system has taken over. Our body is working property to the danger -- it simply can't compute that the danger is no longer in present life. Chemicals fire, body systems speed up, we are prepared to fight, flight or freeze... but this response is not needed. NEWS FLASH: you can't just tell your body to stop; there is no on/off switch; it is automatic. An innate response tripped by a learned experience.
For those of us who are survivors of abuse and trauma, these kinds of panic response triggers are not wanted or enjoyed; we dread them; wish they could disappear; pray for them to go away. But in my life experience, I have had to face them head on and allow myself to see, to feel, to know what is beneath the trauma trigger in order to defuse it and cause it not to trip me up any more. God always gives me a blessing in its place, but still this does not rush me into therapy. It is hard emotional work.
The frustrating part is I have been at this for about 12 years. I worked ten years straight, week after week, making my way through intense and constant triggers after living through 18 years of hellacious child abuse. I have had a rest, about 2 years of mostly learning how to not be in therapy every week and learning how to function on a day to day normal basis. A lot of things go by the wayside and don't get done, so I have been digging myself out of a whole.
Then, slam, I get tripped up by a basic normal parenting scenario with my teen and can't stop the pain in my left chest and down my arm. After a visit to the ER, heart checks out beautifully, but a week later, I am still having a heaviness, numbness on my left side. So I make an appointment to see my therapist. I love her. I just don't enjoy facing trauma.
Within an hour we realize the deep source of PTSD. My therapist and I work very well together. She uses Brainspotting and it is quite effective at going deep quickly.
I have not been able to write about what we uncovered 3 weeks ago. I have only verbalized it a few times and I don't really want to think about it. But I know... I know I need to feel to let myself face it so that I can move beyond it. When an experience is surfaced often a deep held secret is unclosed. It is painful. It is something we did not allow ourselves to know so that we could survive. And most always, it will require me to accept and forgive. I know the drill, but it doesn't make it any easier.
So hear I am again, on the edge, I know when I step off into the deep end, God will be there for me. He will do whatever I need in order to heal. He will teach me Biblical truths about myself, others and Himself. I will grow and be better for having endured it all, but it doesn't make walking off the deep end any easier. I am vulnerable, fragile and frankly I dread that I must take this journey for the most part alone with God. It is not that I don't want to be alone with God. I just wish I had someone to hold my hand along the way. I must learn to feel God's hand. I must press in to Him.
So, while you might be facing every day ups and downs, longs hours at work, having to do your taxes, thinking about getting that lawn mower ready for grass cutting time, wondering what to eat for dinner, deciding what to wear today, or planning an event for the weekend, don't forget there are many people living in the world that only wish those could be some of the important decisions they must think about and deal with. Yes, we must frequently still function through those same daily ups and downs, but hidden --where few people know or see -- there are many people enduring a lot more than what you see.
I need to allow myself to feel so that I can heal. I have to take God's hand and trust He is going to see me through to the other side. He never has failed me yet, and I know He never will. Still taking the first step into the new unknown is never easy. So now that I have at least written about it, I will go to sleep and hopefully tomorrow I can begin the process of pressing into God and allowing Him to lovingly see me through this next healing journey. Pray for me, pray for them. Ask God to help you be aware.
Thanks for listening and letting me share,
Love, Lindy
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| Art by sweetcharade at deviantArt |
It is not easy.
You would think that after 10 years of intense, weekly trauma therapy I would be an pro at how to work my way through these situations. I am handling things better than a did a decade ago, but I am still fragile and stumbling along. While I can't speak yet of the trigger, I need to express what is happening in my life. I write for myself as much as I hope for others who: have similar experience, work in trauma therapy or live with someone who has PTSD.
When you have lived through much trauma, you are an expert at knowing how to not feel. It comes quite naturally, even at the youngest of ages. It does not have to be taught; it is a God given instinct that allows a human in danger to survive.
Technically, it is called Disassociation. Some who have been through much abuse and trauma become so effective at being able to Disassociate; they even develop alter personalities to deal with specific types of situations or trauma - this used to be commonly called multiple personalties - today it is more commonly referred to as alters. When you have alters, sometimes you are aware of when you switch; sometime you are not. That aids the psych dr in classifying you as what level of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) you have, not that labels or classifications really matter to the one living through it. DID is more common with people who have lived through child abuse, not people who have experience trauma in their adult life or if their trauma was a one time isolated experience. Both can have post traumatic stress.
We -- survivor of trauma--simply know that things are not functioning "right" (right being =like everyone else). Well, more specifically, we know that WE are not always functioning as most people do. We think, see, respond and sense things differently.
Some things trigger us to recall past experience. Often these experiences are so deep that we don't actually recall the experience but our body does; our body responds in panic as though it is --in a split second -- transported back to the time and place. We know we are loosing our ability to control our body; the autonomic system has taken over. Our body is working property to the danger -- it simply can't compute that the danger is no longer in present life. Chemicals fire, body systems speed up, we are prepared to fight, flight or freeze... but this response is not needed. NEWS FLASH: you can't just tell your body to stop; there is no on/off switch; it is automatic. An innate response tripped by a learned experience.
For those of us who are survivors of abuse and trauma, these kinds of panic response triggers are not wanted or enjoyed; we dread them; wish they could disappear; pray for them to go away. But in my life experience, I have had to face them head on and allow myself to see, to feel, to know what is beneath the trauma trigger in order to defuse it and cause it not to trip me up any more. God always gives me a blessing in its place, but still this does not rush me into therapy. It is hard emotional work.
The frustrating part is I have been at this for about 12 years. I worked ten years straight, week after week, making my way through intense and constant triggers after living through 18 years of hellacious child abuse. I have had a rest, about 2 years of mostly learning how to not be in therapy every week and learning how to function on a day to day normal basis. A lot of things go by the wayside and don't get done, so I have been digging myself out of a whole.
Then, slam, I get tripped up by a basic normal parenting scenario with my teen and can't stop the pain in my left chest and down my arm. After a visit to the ER, heart checks out beautifully, but a week later, I am still having a heaviness, numbness on my left side. So I make an appointment to see my therapist. I love her. I just don't enjoy facing trauma.
Within an hour we realize the deep source of PTSD. My therapist and I work very well together. She uses Brainspotting and it is quite effective at going deep quickly.
I have not been able to write about what we uncovered 3 weeks ago. I have only verbalized it a few times and I don't really want to think about it. But I know... I know I need to feel to let myself face it so that I can move beyond it. When an experience is surfaced often a deep held secret is unclosed. It is painful. It is something we did not allow ourselves to know so that we could survive. And most always, it will require me to accept and forgive. I know the drill, but it doesn't make it any easier.
So hear I am again, on the edge, I know when I step off into the deep end, God will be there for me. He will do whatever I need in order to heal. He will teach me Biblical truths about myself, others and Himself. I will grow and be better for having endured it all, but it doesn't make walking off the deep end any easier. I am vulnerable, fragile and frankly I dread that I must take this journey for the most part alone with God. It is not that I don't want to be alone with God. I just wish I had someone to hold my hand along the way. I must learn to feel God's hand. I must press in to Him.
So, while you might be facing every day ups and downs, longs hours at work, having to do your taxes, thinking about getting that lawn mower ready for grass cutting time, wondering what to eat for dinner, deciding what to wear today, or planning an event for the weekend, don't forget there are many people living in the world that only wish those could be some of the important decisions they must think about and deal with. Yes, we must frequently still function through those same daily ups and downs, but hidden --where few people know or see -- there are many people enduring a lot more than what you see.
I need to allow myself to feel so that I can heal. I have to take God's hand and trust He is going to see me through to the other side. He never has failed me yet, and I know He never will. Still taking the first step into the new unknown is never easy. So now that I have at least written about it, I will go to sleep and hopefully tomorrow I can begin the process of pressing into God and allowing Him to lovingly see me through this next healing journey. Pray for me, pray for them. Ask God to help you be aware.
Thanks for listening and letting me share,
Love, Lindy
Comments
I hear you.
I know about not wanting to go there
-not being able to say it yet.
How are you doing with it now?
I also adjusted my meds but I am back to normal on meds again also.
I have learned to do what I need to get stable again. By doing the hard work and adjusting to the situation, by dealing with the trauma head on, I can progress through it instead of being stuck in it.