Armadillo's Not So Trigger Filled Journal

[rainydiary]

Armee, that sounds like a lot.  I am glad you have someone like your T that is so responsive to you.  I will think of you as you move through the things the session brought up. 

[dollyvee]

Hi Armee,

Like rainy said, it's great that your T is responding to what works for you. Sending you support for the things coming up in EMDR as it's not easy to go back to those places.

Something also popped into my head about authenticity and how I felt it much more of a challenge to maintain it and be grounded when I had regular contact with my family. They would constantly spin me out.

dolly

[sanmagic7]

wow, armee, quite a session. it sounds wonderful that you and your t have found ways to move forward, stay still, back up a little, and laugh yourself through.  to me, that is great therapy.  i'm so very happy for you in that sense, like it's a collaboration between you and your T and using out-of-the-box creativity.  way to go for both of you! 

i also think it's good you didn't beat yourself up, but were able to get the emotion out nonetheless.  it sounds like anger.  at least, that's how i've responded to anger at times, even if i didn't know or feel it.  keep up the good work!  love and hugs, my dear.

[Papa Coco]

Hey Armee,

Sounds like you and your therapist are developing enough trust for one another that your brain and heart are starting to really open up in your sessions. As far as therapists go, I'm happy to hear you got one of the good ones, Rather than pushing you along on his textbook schedule, he's allowing you to experience the healing at your pace. He's compassionately using humor to lesson discomfort.

Sounds like he managed your EFs and triggers expertly. You are in good hands.

And PS: I love the Barf-o-rama scene in Stand by Me. Also, it's not lost on me that you and your therapist are watching scenes from a movie entitled Stand By Me. If there's anything in the world that can help CPTSD it's knowing that I'm not alone, and that someone would stand by me as I go through the complexities of recovery. Loneliness and isolation did the damage. Friendship and trust are needed now to recover.  I always say I can take on a world of bullies if I have but one trusted ally at my side.  Your therapist sounds like he's standing by you. He's an ally at your side.

[Armee]

Thank you Papa Coco. I love what you pointed out about the significance of watching a clip from Stand By Me together. It really hit me a few weeks ago when I was first able to really hold eye contact with him after 3 years working together and I felt him as a real human there alongside me. And that realization....that he felt REAL...made me realize the opposite too...that all that time he did not feel real. And how strange and hard it would be to show up week after week for a client so disconnected. And the fact he has been there for me through so much difficulty while I didn't even sense him as real? THAT is commitment! Wow.

But I also want to say: YES. I did get lucky and get a great therapist. One who is willing to listen and learn and grow alongside me. And at the same time, there have been a lot of times he has screwed up, especially around forcing and forcing CBT while it made things worse and putting too much faith in his CBT guru and not enough in his own instincts. I kept going back because I had faith he could help me. And when he fumbled in one area I'd pivot to stuff he could help me on.

It actually has been a very beautiful relationship though where I think we are learning and growing together: me personally, and him in how to treat CPTSD.

Oh I also want to note for myself another thing around the Stand By Me exchange.  I felt really understood...the dissociation and how it affects just normal day to day life. He asked if I had seen Stand By Me and I said yes. And he started rattling off different parts or characters or scenes and I just looked blankly. He finally caught on and said kindly: "you don't remember scenes and characters, do you?" And I sadly shook my head no. This is one of those "symptoms" while not hugely disruptive still kind of sucks. I can't follow plots or characters even kids movies and when I'm in social situations and people start talking about movies and tv shows I just can't participate and feel like a freak. But it was really nice that T saw and understood that.

[Papa Coco]

Hi Armee,

That's so great that you and your T have crossed that crucial trust boundary.

I still remember the day I realized I didn't trust my therapist also. I'd known him for over 10 years and had been his one-on-one client for close to three years when it hit me that I was subconsciously blocking his sincerity by not realizing how much I didn't trust him. It was an epiphanous moment when I realized that my parents and church had raised me to believe love was a full-contact sport, and if I wanted to feel love I had to be wary of the trauma and painful consequences that came with it. In other words, they taught me how to love wrong. I was telling my T about how I was worried I was going to lose my job, and that naturally my wife and kids would leave me because I was no longer of any use to them. He looked at me, surprised, and said "Knowing what you've told me about your wife, I don't believe there's anything in the world you could do to make her stop loving you."  I felt like my entire body just flushed gallons of old poison out of me. That was the moment I realized love was NOT a transaction, but a soulful connection. Right away I saw how I had never trusted him either. At over 40 years of age, I didn't even realize how distrusting I had always been until he showed me how wrong I was about my own relationship with my wife. Man, did that change my ability to accept healing. Learning to trust my T opened me up to accept his help without guarding myself against his earnest efforts.

It makes perfect sense though. We believe we are loved by our parents. So, we believe that's what love looks like. When they use love as a weapon against us, we learn that's what love is. A weapon. We recreate that love in every relationship thereafter, believing we are doing the right thing. I like to tell people that they need to build a long-term relationship with their therapists, because I know that there is going to be a long time period between starting therapy and making that epiphanous step of opening up and seeing that trust and love are not what we'd always thought they were.

I think it's awesome that your therapist is learning from you too. CPTSD treatments are just becoming a thing, and millions of traditional therapists need to learn about them. Those therapists who have CPTSD are the best ones, but those who don't have it, but are willing to learn about it, can become just as helpful to us.

[sanmagic7]

interesting observation, armee, about not being able to see/remember scenes and characters.  that often happens to me as well, especially with lots of characters or a complex plot.  i also find it hard to follow multiple directions from someone and have to back up, ask questions, and have stuff repeated.  it does get frustrating.  but, no, you're not a freak, unless i am, too.  love and hugs, my dear.

[Armee]

Thank you Rainy and San and DollyVee for the additional validation and encouragement. 

DollyVee you are right about authenticity I think. I can finally be myself because I am not trying to shove myself and my behavior into a fishbowl to be right for my mom.

I wanted to jot down a note here and I'm curious what people think...

Snowdrop talked about chickenpox and remembering feeling cared for when they had it as a kid. And it made me remember my own experience with chickenpox. Which was waking up on christmas morning as a preteen with a bad case. My sister had just had it and I caught it from her. My mom took my sister and left for the day to spend christmas with the extended family. They weren't far away. Same town. I felt abandoned but also I don't know how long they were gone. Maybe just a couple hours maybe all day. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. Like I feel a little hurt but also selfish like it was a holiday and family was around so of course they should have gone and visited?

[Snowdrop]

I think I would have felt abandoned and hurt in that situation, Armee. I don't think it's selfish at all.

[Blueberry]

I would have felt sad and hurt.  to you Armee. I don't think you were being selfish.

I remember now when I had a bad case of the measles as a child and some extended FOO mbrs arrived and everybody was sitting in the garden talking, laughing and having a good time and I was stuck in bed but hearing it all through the open window, I felt lonely and left out. I was able to say something though You weren't Armee. 

[Not Alone]

I think it's great that your T is seeing you and what you need. Sounds like he is growing too. It may have taken awhile, but that he could turn aside from his agenda (CBT) and begin to work with you to figure out what is helpful to you, says a lot about what kind of T he is.

Regarding being concerned about triggering others and the image you've been seeing; it is up to you about how much you share. I know those of us on OOTS want to be sensitive about triggering others. A trigger warning is helpful. There are times that I'm able to read someone's post and other times I'm not is a place to read something that may be triggering. I know that Bach has written "trigger warning" and then has written the triggering part in white. I thought that was a really good idea.

I felt abandoned . . . . . . . .  . . .. . I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. Like I feel a little hurt . . . . . .

You feel what you feel, no "supposed to." You feel abandoned and hurt. Even thought that's difficult and sad, it is okay that you feel that way.

[Armee]

Thank you Snow Drop, Not Alone, and Blueberry. I've always caveated my feelings, sought to understand and explain people's treatment of me to forgive and make it not a big deal so I'm just tiptoeing into trying to sense what my real feelings might be.

I realized this morning something that made me cry and still feel very queasy. I had that image as a little kid too, maybe 5. I explained it to my kid self as something else that would make sense to a kid but I think it was the same thing. I remember one night every time I'd close my eyes it would be there and I was terrified because my only explanation for it as a kid frightened me. I don't know.

[sanmagic7]

armee, i echo the others - feeling hurt, abandoned, sad, all that, sounds perfectly normal to me, and not at all selfish. 

i did some 'kid explaining' to myself after an incident in my childhood.  i had a doll i slept with, she'd help me fall asleep and was a comfort to me at bedtime.  one night, she was gone.  being taught not to ask questions, my only resource was to make up a story about how the fairy king needed her and took her away.  i think that was the beginning of my survival mechanism kicking in - telling stories to myself to make reality bearable.  years later i told my mother about that experience and she told me she threw the doll away because it was getting all funky.  it occurs to me now that my M would put the perfect cleanliness of her house above anything else.

i think it's nearly tragic that we didn't get the care and support needed for reassurance.  i think it could be part of the beginning of self-doubt and unconventional coping mechanisms. whew.

i care and support you, accept you as you are.  love and hugs

[Larry]

that was nice sanmagic,  i wish i could say something as helpful.  i'm just not good at it. 
hope you have a great day armee !