Kmay- so sorry to hear about the pain you`re going through. Your description of your feelings and reactions now does sounds very normal to me though. I know that`s not much comfort in knowing that right now though. I am sure there are meny here that could offor you much more helpful inputs about this topic, just wanted to send you some support and say well done for being so brave for procsessing this severe trauma with your T. Even though you`re wery triggered and feel scared about it all right now, i am sure it will pass and eventually get better again. Just do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe.

Don't have anything helpful to say Kmay, but am feeling your fear and anxiety - so want to send you some supportive hugs and lots of good wishes to help you stay grounded.

LL

I felt that way when I processed my CSA w/T. She brought me back by the end of session (on a Friday afternoon) and then I fell apart for an entire weekend and made an emergency call to her on a Sunday afternoon.
I'm sorry you are going through this.
What I found helpful was, I think, grounding techniques to bring myself back-I researched it because I couldn't get a hold of T. Basically, feel the ground you are standing on or crouch down and sit on the floor and feel it. Feel things with your hands and fingers. Concentrate on breathing and feel yourself breathing. Look at a calendar and remind yourself that you are in a safe place (if you are) and it is a current date...you are not back in the trauma-

Also, when I got back to T's office for the next session I sat in a different chair then the one I processed the trauma in. I was amazed at how much that helped. I learned that thanks to an interview I listened to with Babette Rothschild. You may also want to read or look up her info on processing trauma.

I hope in some way that helps kmay!

's Kmay!

Been there, and so I would say your reactions are normal under the circumstances. That floating feeling normally precedes a panic attack for me, or seems to happen on the verge of what would be a panic attack...not sure about others, but that is how it is for me. Hope you are able to calm yourself down. Just want you to know that the feeling will pass and there is nothing abnormal about you.



B2W

Wow this sounds so scary and unfamiliar to you. But you still are dealing with it head on .how courageous of you. Not something I have yet been able to do at all. i can only offer you big hugs and to let you know I am reading and wish for you the continued courage needed to continue this work with your T and to communicate openly and honestly with what you are experiencing

Well, I am going to go out on a limb with this.

Processing trauma isn't supposed to be like reliving it. If it feels like reliving it and if you get a lot of bad aftereffects especially, you are being retraumatized and talking about the trauma is doing more harm than good.

I think you should talk to your T about this and find a way to slow down the pace and keep you more in the present. Depending on her training, you could do some EMDR with small pieces of the trauma, or intersperse the talking with somatic work or grounding. Anything to keep you from being overwhelmed and just left swimming in the trauma.

Another suggestion - I had 2 sessions this week and we chose to use the 1st session to do the trauma and tough work so that I only had to get through 2 days before I saw T again and the 2nd session was more gentle.

Thank you so much for your responses everyone.

BLT - I am afraid that you are right. It was like I was reliving it and it retraumatized me. I could barely walk when I left T's office that night. I don't know how I drove home. And literally for about 4 days afterward, every muscle in my body ached and would almost spasm or twitch sometimes. I felt sick and threw up alot for a few days. When I saw her this week, she said that the idea is definately to get the trauma out of me, but not to retraumatize me and that she wants me to try journaling about it a little bit. I don't know if she has any specific experience in trama processing. Seems like maybe she was just as unaware of what was going to unfold as I was. What is EDMR?

Kmay, EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's a popular type of therapy for processing trauma, where bilateral stimulation (eye movement or something else) is used to help with processing instead of reliving the trauma.

Back in the day, the only type of therapy for trauma was prolonged exposure, which means you just relive the trauma again and again until you become desensitized to it. It works for some people, but for many people the treatment itself is so miserable that they can't stick with it. That is why they developed all the newer trauma therapies like EMDR, sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, etc. For me the bottom line is that if you want to make the processing tolerable, you have to "titrate" or break it down into smaller pieces and add resources or something to keep you more in the present rather than just being back in the memory.

BLT -

Thank you for the info. I think T realized afterward that what happened had hurt me more than helped me. She gave me a workbook "Healing from Addiction & Trauma for Women" to work through and asked me to journal about the trauma in pieces. Small pieces that I can remember. The problem is that I am scared to put it in writing. Like I am afraid that it will jump up and run away before I have a chance to destroy it and everyone will read it and know the horrible truth about me and then they will all hate me. If I say it, talk about it, its not as concrete as writing it down. Unless it was recorded(which she doesn't do), then no one else will ever be able to hear it accept T and that feels safer. I don't know if that makes any sense. But I feel unsure of how experienced she is in processing traumas now. Bottom line is I could never go to anyone else anyway. It's taken me a really really really long time to even get to a point where I can trust her enough to start dealing with these things. So I guess we will just keep trying to figure it out together.

Athenacus,

Same thing happened to me. I completely fell apart afterward. I felt like I was outside of myself. I couldn't think or concentrate or understand alot of what was going on around me. T kept texting me and telling me "To fell my feet on the ground and breathe". I guess that is a grounding technique of sorts? I didn't know that at the time, but either way it made me feel better. She also kept telling me to go to a safe place in my head. To picture her face and her office and try to hear her voice. It did help. And I also, sat somewhere else when I went back. I sat on the floor...like a little kid

Geez...It's all so overwhelming!

(((Granite))) - Thank you. T says I am courageous too. I don't feel that way...AT ALL. But thank you

(((Frog))) & (((LL))) & (((B2W))) - thank you so much for the support.