Hey Cat- my situation is different, so what I say could be all wrong... is it possible that you really are doing it? and like peeling an onion- the unfolding happens in layers? It is a process that can't be hurried, there are no short cuts. Also, it is scary to look at the pain and suffering we went through. Perhaps your T is recognizing your bravery in your willingness to look at the pain. For me... some stuff I can just say though not the sexual stuff- that is surrounded by shame,but some other stuff. My problem is connecting it to feelings. I can rattle off hurtful stuff that happened, just like reading a grocery list-totally devoid of feelings.

I think you are doing it... just give the process some time and be gentle with yourself. Night!

(((((cat))))

I feel like I could have written this post word for word. I'm not sure I've ever processed anything but maybe just trying to talk about trauma is part of processing. It is just messier and more confusing and more painful that we expect it to. At least that is what I'm hoping
because if not I'm failing too.

When are you seeing T2 next and can you talk to her about what processing looks like and then come back and tell me. I started to tell my T some stuff that has been haunting me lately on Friday afternoon. I warned him that it was petty and minor and now I wish I'd never said anything and I'm so ashamed I don't want to go back. It isn't getting any easier but maybe there is progress.

(((CAT))))

You haven't even been in therapy all that long have you? I'm still avoiding my stuff and I've been doing this 4x longer than you. When we are ready, we are ready. You had a really rough year last year and it would almost seem counterproductive to process the trauma until you have a solid foundation of positive stuff underneath you. Can you ask her more about what she meant, where she thinks you should be right now and why that would matter? I'm not exactly sure what trauma processing is except that I think now that it might be looking at how what happened to us made us feel the way we do about ourselves and how we relate to the world and others. And hopefully taking the pain away when we come to see it another way.

HUGS,

Liese

I'm sorry but also glad others can understand. Slow is the fastest pace in therapy.

I ha my session with T today sorry I can't be more coherent but... It was beyond all words awful. I couldn't understand or remember anything. Basically my T feels like I'm ready to begin deeper processing but that no one else on my treatment team is really comfortable with it. She tried today we have been processing but that if even being there is activating it makes it hard.

She said she was worried the conversation we were having was going to make me feel she was unsafe with her. That I've made some strides with relationship stuff but my "clinical frame" (ie my ego states and amount I am scared and biology) make it that we need to go extra carefully.

I can't stop feeling like this means I've never done well, and what little I feel I have accomplished hasn't been real.

We tried to communicate and it just wasn't working. I kept shutting down.

I have no idea what to do or how to be safe. I'm on the bus I don't know what to do when I get home except clean. I'm done. Lost I can't deal with the disappointment this is.

((((((((cat))))))))))
I'm so sorry it went so badly. I can really relate to a lot of what you have written.

I know it doesn't feel this way, but I think you have made huge progress in T, regardless of where the processing is at. But I know you are not where you want to be.

I was just thinking the other day that surviving the trauma was hard enough, surviving the recovery almost seems harder. I know you feel like you are not doing it right, but I think you are doing a lot of things very right and very well.

I wish I knew how to find the courage, to make my brain and body just be and do better. It's not working well. My T has suggested listening to my own resistence... look at what that itself is trying to tell me... a little like you are. It is scary, for a reason. Processing takes risk and vulnerability, and yeah, lots of time. I think you said it very well that the fastes pace in therapy is slow. You are doing the work, slowly, but surely. I see it in what you write all the time.

I hope things let up and get easier for you soon and that you stay as safe as you can.

jane

CAT-
I am so sorry it was not better for you today. Give it time...take baby steps.

I wish I could add more... but I do add- lots of hugs-

Ugh, I'm feeling still very fuzzy headed with next to no clue about what went on in my therapy today.

I just feel bad... and humiliated that we have to be so careful with me. I feel completely like a failure. I wish I could make more sense.

JD - I think you are right that surviving the recovery is harder. My T equated my frustration today that I'm not going faster to a person paralyzed from the head down wanting to run a marathon - my body just wasn't there yet even though I really, really want to.

I don't know what this conversation today meant or what is changed or changing. My T wants to start painting again, etc and pushing me when I say no - she says I'm skittish. She worries about times my observer self goes away so we had to talk about how often that happens (where I'm dissociated to the point I'm not "there" with myself).

Thanks everyone for the hugs and support, sorry I cannot be more concise.

I did call my T to check in today and she called back and that was okay, she was gentle, reassuring - it helped she woke me up from a nap so I was too sleepy to be anxious and . I'm not really having an issue with HER but an issue with me for sure. What T and I wish I could do is a trauma intensive somewhere but because I'm lacking a spare $50k it's not really going to work out

I just feel like it means for the past two years I've been doing nothing, I think mostly I feel like my T isn't happy with me even though she has said otherwise. I feel like I've been asking for too much from her somehow, even though she said I definitely have to schedule to see her 2x a week if we start this processing stuff. She said what we've been doing so far is 'calming stuff' and if the stuff we've been doing is supposed to have been calming... then yikes. It's already taken me 2 months to recover from a very difficult trip I went on.

I'm still not sure what to make of what she said and I wish I could remember more than just a few here or there comments. I'm trying not to act out on my ED right now, I'm trying not to hurt myself with SI... I'm just crawling from moment to moment. So foggy and unsure what to do

Have you ever had a big day/conversation with your T but unsure what it meant at all. I felt way too dissociated today. My T also used a TON of jargon and T talk which was totally unusual of her I have no idea where she was going with why or how that could be effective at all. It's hard for me not to blame how I feel on her talking to my P, I'm almost worried she has diagnosed me with something else and isn't telling me.

Anyway sorry, I know this makes no sense and is just more of my rabble but... I just feel very unhinged right now.




thanks for the support, ladies.

(((((CAT))))

I don't think she is disappointed in you. I think she thinks you've made great strides and that's why she thinks you are ready for deeper processing. She HAS to be cautious with the trauma processing or else she could retraumatiZe you. Or anyone. She wants to do it right.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Liese

Hang in there Cat. Hopefully the fog will rise soon and things will be clearer (for us both) Keep posting and reaching out for help and support.

quote:

Have you ever had a big day/conversation with your T but unsure what it meant at all. I felt way too dissociated today. My T also used a TON of jargon and T talk which was totally unusual of her I have no idea where she was going with why or how that could be effective at all. It's hard for me not to blame how I feel on her talking to my P, I'm almost worried she has diagnosed me with something else and isn't telling me.

Totally! Just recently - then she went and left the country for three weeks

I too wonder about what's going on in her head because she doesn't seem to come right out and tell me. She started talking about trauma and PTSD last time and it kind of unnerved me. She was saying how someone who's a specialist ~ can't even remember the name she was saying ~ would be proud and it was a new beginning to our work....we'll see.

I hope the fog clears ~ hang in there

((liese)) ((mayo)) ((raven)) ((ninn)) ((hugs above to those i didn't hug yesterday))

thanks for the support and for your gentleness it's helping me not to judge.

mayo - yes i hope the fog clears for both of us also. i've decided... emdr SUCKS, too.

liese - yes she does have to be very careful i just... don't like being handled with care i'm used to be bumped up a little but i think my t thinks it is bumpy enough

raven - i'm sorry your t left for 3 weeks ugh i hate T-cations! i'll keep you in my thoughts.

my t called and has an appointment free tomorrow - and as much as i was hoping i'd never ever see her again in a million years and should quit and she hates me and thinks i'm too much and awful and stupid and evil and bad... i'm going to see her anyway. i just need to continue our conversation and hopefully stabilize a little this week. i asked her if we weren't doing anything in therapy and i was just wasting time why i should even see her at all - why bother coming in and she said to keep the connection so i think... going in again this week will help us keep the connection so i don't spin out and stop trusting her. she's been very sweet with offering me extra sessions... poor t i feel a lot of pressure to be really good

right now i'm struggling with she said she was going to push and i feel a deep urge to fawn. i feel like i have to submit myself to her and do whatever she says and i think i'm going to be afraid to move without asking her what to do next so that i don't get in trouble. it's mostly a fear of rejection/abandonment i think and a way to keep me safe. it's what i did growing up - whatever they needed/wanted i'd do because not doing it was worse. so i can feel that urge in me that i think i will just be unable to move without her saying what to do or worse when she suggests stuff, even things i don't want i'm still going to do them. i know part of it is i need to push myself and part of it is i need to know when to say no also. it's going to be really hard to navigate without making more than a few mistakes

she really is keeping a good lifeline with me right now i feel like i need to be safe with myself because of our connection and i think that is really where i can see the relationship itself doing so much work and helping me to view and care for myself in different ways. even though i get activated by getting too close to her sometimes she is also safe - i still have a lot of approach/avoidance but i think as we keep going over it... i approach and it's safe over and over and over and over it is slowly getting better. she is the best person i can think of to talk about and process my own fear of her which... is backwards but seems like progress, right?

i just have no forgiveness/compassion for myself about the things i've been through to qualify where i'm at. i feel like my ts are thrilled when i do even the smallest most mundane thing and it makes me unsure if thats because it really is a thrilling thing to do and really is progress or because they just think i should be so much worse than i am. i think... i'm starting to realize i may be much worse than i think i am, it doesn't make the good things i believe about myself untrue but it's putting my life in a scope and perspective that is scary.

if you've made it this far, thanks again for listening.

quote:

i just have no forgiveness/compassion for myself about the things i've been through to qualify where i'm at. i feel like my ts are thrilled when i do even the smallest most mundane thing and it makes me unsure if thats because it really is a thrilling thing to do and really is progress or because they just think i should be so much worse than i am. i think... i'm starting to realize i may be much worse than
i think i am, it doesn't make the good things i believe about myself untrue but it's putting my life in a scope and perspective that is scary.

I did make it this far and I am listening....and geez, that could have come directly out of my mouth! So, I don't have advice because I'm in that same place, but I'll hang out here with you and send *hugs*

raven

((RAven)) It's a SUCKY place to be... I hope it gets better soon


Incase anyone is interested in a session update; I got lucky enough to be able to see her again this week.

Cleared up a 1000 little questions I had today. Which helped, the good thing about my T is she will really push back sometimes - not in a forceful way but she can really be unambiguous and direct. I often find it "defensive" but I've realized it's just her sometimes. I brought a list to help me remember

Today my T and I did some touch/energy work which was really nice, and scary because we hadn't done that before and she had to stand behind me where I couldn't see her. But that was at least a step in the right direction of trying new stuff. Next session she suggested painting but instead we are going to color/draw. We will see how it goes...

T is going to push me but we talked about how I can make sure I can still say no, and what I need to say if I MEAN no or need her to stop pushing something versus what is me resisting because I'm scared, etc. I feel like there is an unknown list of things that I can't say no to or my T is going to abandon me.