Messages

Just coming down off a 4-hour long emotional flashback that was brutal. I felt the overwhelm, helplessness, and hopelessness I repressed from my 26-year marriage to my ex wife. I think a work related project I don't yet have under control triggered it or maybe it was post processing the therapy yesterday. I am clean/sober over a year but understand why I drank alcoholicly. My main consolation is they always pass and I have more days without them than with them.

Blueberry, thank you for the link on Shrinking the Inner Critic (http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=62.msg263#msg263).  I have read the book but having the information here on my monitor at work is very helpful.  I struggle a lot with the horrible voice of my inner-critic.  It causes me to dissociate away from my adult recovery healthy self and into my wounded child or a dysfunctional coping part.  Once there, an EF is usually not far away.  I am starting to make progress with breaking the habitual pattern but it is hard.  Breathing, stretching, hard exercise, prayer, and talking to supportive friends all help.  I am finding that spending time on OOTS is becoming helpful also.

Thanks Again!

Hi,  I read your post and feel for your desire to be connected and not disconnected to yourself.  Dissociation has been my means of survival since I was 12 when my brother was murdered.  Disconnecting allowed us to survive but at a very high price. At this point in my life, I am reconnecting and it is very painful because I have to accept things I never wanted to accept and feel things I have avoided my whole life.

As I looked for an appropriate trauma-informed therapist I did a lot of research.  It is one of the ways I parent myself and take responsibility for me.  I recommend: "Complex CPTSD, From Surviving to Striving" and "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma".  I have also found research into internal family systems therapy to be helpful as well.

I just watched a YouTube from South Pacific Private called "Complex CPTSD, From Surviving to Striving" that was fairly good.  Doing this research gives me a sense of empowerment which is helpful in taking on the often overwhelming task of recovery from complex developmental trauma.  I hope this helps and that you can find a good therapist.

I have been a lurker on this Site and others for some time now but the broken and traumatized part of me wants connection with those who understand so here I am.  I am at work, which is where I experience my most intense and regular flashbacks.  They seem to be getting worse since I started doing EMDR and I thought about slowing down that therapy because these EF's are horrible.  It's like I am falling down a bottomless pit with no light and I can't breathe - but worst!   EF's are not new to me but I experience them more consciously now.  The one I just had lasted about 2 hours.  I started journaling about it and ended up writing in a circular pattern that resembles a downward spiral: nothing is good - everybody sucks-I suck-I am unlovable-there is no hope- and on and on.  What a relief it has passed.  Knowing that it always passes is one of my main comforts.

Back to EMDR: has anyone experienced more painful EF's associated with their EMDR therapy?  I am the type that just wants to get it over so I don't do any drugs or drink and am facing all this stone cold sober for the first time in my life.  I was considering doing one week of EMDR followed by one week of just talk therapy but am unsure.  The only other thing I would add is that my traumatized part is very empathetic so I must say how much I respect you who have faced your trauma and are facing your trauma.  It is super hard stuff and is likely the most courageous thing we will do.  This stuff is unbearable, intolerable, and it feels like facing something worse than death.  No wonder so many of us are not here anymore and so many are sticking their arms with drugs or drinking themselves into oblivion.  It's understandable, I just want something better for the traumatized boy inside me who stopped being to help others survive a really bad time.  I respect him very much and know he is worth it.