Armadillo's Not So Trigger Filled Journal

[sanmagic7]

   well done, my dear.  love and hugs

[Hope67]

Hi Armee,
Wishing you the best for your decision to leave the workforce, and I hope the transition goes well. 

Hope 

[Larry]

exciting new adventures,  so happy for you Armee !

[Not Alone]

  For making this decision for yourself and your family.

[Armee]

Thank you for sharing in my joy with me about making a decision to stop working!  I tell my boss Monday morning.

I had a very tough therapy session on friday. It was another joint session with my T and the developer of flash EMDR but this time it wasn't good. I felt like I was being grilled, like nothing I said was right, and like he completely did not understand me or how my brain works.

Part of it was he would ask how disturbing a memory was right now. But I can't access any information about a memory other than the facts of it when I am in therapy. There are no emotions, I have no images, only vague body sensations like I feel a little nauseous. And so I'd tell him I was a 3/10 and he'd grill me on why it was only a 3 and I'd tell him it was because I couldn't feel anything about it at the moment. Then he'd ask me well why is it a 3 then and not a zero so I'd try to explain because I know it's disturbing and it causes me symptoms. Then he'd lecture me about the difference between an event being disturbing and feeling disturbed and that it sounded like it should be a 0 not a 3. And that I was picking things that were not the right things.

I know I am not explaining this well.

But I felt really frustrated but also scared because I think how my brain works is very common among people with CPTSD and dissociation, and he developed the method for doing EMDR with dissociative clients and has tons of experience with this right? So if he isn't getting this...it must mean I am wrong or I'm more unusual than I thought.

Why is it so hard to understand having no access to emotions about an event until you are triggered? And that I can't be triggered in therapy because it just sends me deeper into dissociation and further from the emotional connection to these events? But that just because I can't be triggered in therapy in the way that accesses the emotions doesn't mean that I don't have flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, and other severe symptoms that can be helped by doing EMDR on these things.

I'm sure it was a lot of misunderstanding on my part too. But then feeling like I was doing it wrong triggered me the next morning and reminded me of something yucky with a couple seconds more detail but I don't know if it was memory or not, and then that caused my brain to bark at me. Then I just felt really ashamed the rest of the day and wanted to curl up and hide under the table.

It lifted today and felt a lot better though.

I also have been sorting through pictures I brought home from my mom's house. And there are no photos of her with me until I am 4 months old. Then there is a series of a few photos from one day at 4mths, two different days at 5 months, and then a bunch after my first birthday. Where was she? She didnt like having her picture taken so she probably threw out pictures she didn't like. She always said my dad stole all the baby pictures of my sister when she was a baby. Now I am not sure that is true.

[sanmagic7]

sorry to disagree with another professional, but i think he was off the mark totally.  i completely believe you know how your mind works as well as how alexithymia works, and i don't think he knows the alexithymia dynamic.  i understood perfectly what you were saying, why it was a 3 rather than a 0, and i think he was wrong for trying to change how you felt (or didn't feel), trying to change what you knew to be ok for you, how you are, etc.  i am totally pissed at him for you     cuz it sounds like bullying, denying you and your feelings, and manipulation.  i don't care how many years this guy has been in the field, how many clients he's had - i believe him to be wrong in how he worked with you in this case.

have you told your T about alexithymia?  have you checked out the Toronto Alexithymia Scale? (TAS-20)  i had to tell my T and explain it to her.  not very many people, even in the profession, know about it.  i had to explain it to my shrink as well.  this is a very real thing and you do not have to doubt yourself, think you did it wrong, or feel ashamed of you.  these people don't know everything, no matter what kind of an 'authority' they may pass themselves off as.  oooooh, this really irks me, armee.  i'm very sorry you had to go thru it, that it troubled you afterward, but i'm glad you're feeling better.

if you meet with this guy again, you may have to explain it to him, but i think it would be a good idea for your T to know about alexithymia, how it affects you, and ask him to back you up on how you are or are not feeling with this guy.  honestly, in my experience, sometimes the more a clinician makes a name for themself in this field, the more it can go to their head.  ugh!  i hope it never happens again.  ever! 

much love and a hug filled with you did nothing wrong.

[Blueberry]

Part of it was he would ask how disturbing a memory was right now. But I can't access any information about a memory other than the facts of it when I am in therapy. There are no emotions, I have no images, only vague body sensations like I feel a little nauseous. And so I'd tell him I was a 3/10 and he'd grill me on why it was only a 3 and I'd tell him it was because I couldn't feel anything about it at the moment. Then he'd ask me well why is it a 3 then and not a zero so I'd try to explain because I know it's disturbing and it causes me symptoms. Then he'd lecture me about the difference between an event being disturbing and feeling disturbed and that it sounded like it should be a 0 not a 3. And that I was picking things that were not the right things.

Armee, just reading this I feel like screaming. If a T had been working with me like this, I probably would have blown a fuse at some point. My current T did work with me on tiny nuances of language to try and make me differentiate between thinking about things and feeling things, but he did that work all on its own and not mixed up with me having to put a number on the scale of 1 to 10 and certainly not with him disagreeing with my response. So I'd tend to agree with san that your T wasn't working well with you no matter how much experience he has had with others in the past. It's not on you to understand something he can't get across to you properly. Here's a shelter from him 

[owl25]

I often think that professionals who have not experienced CPTSD themselves are flying blind. It's hard to understand how the traumatized brain may react or how it works. For a professional to argue with a client that their answers are wrong is just..  You aren't wrong about what you are observing in yourself! How can you be?

If there is anything I have learned is that what we need is for a therapist to be attuned to us. For them to truly listen to us, be curious about us, and to work with us if something isn't making sense to them. I doubt that if I hadn't had the lived experience of trauma myself that it would make any sense to me. Without the lived experience, it's all just theory and quite abstract.

So, you didn't do anything wrong Armee, I think your T did. He didn't take your word for it. He felt the answer should be A, even though it was B. He wouldn't accept B as an answer. He wasn't truly interested in your lived experience, he was after a specific outcome. I am sorry you had to go through that.

I'm not sure if you can take any feedback back to him, if you feel comfortable and if it would be of any value (with some people there's just no point). I hope you can internalize that you didn't do anything wrong. He wasn't listening to you or attuned to you, and that's supposed to be his job.

[Armee]

Thank you everyone for the reassurance and letting me know I'm not wrong and bad.

To clarify... It wasn't my T that was badgering me. It was the EMDR expert who is training him. We did a joint session with the 3 of us.  I think my T did a good job encouraging me to speak up for myself and then also sticking up for me a bit, which might have been tough since he is learning  from this hotshot. My T has almost always been respectful of how I experience things and has accepted them and worked with it without fighting to push it into some model. He doesn't always understand but he does a good job working with it and learning more to understand.

San thank you for pointing me to the alexithymia assessment. I think part is alexithymia and part is not accessing the memories at all unless it's a flashback.

I've gone through this slow realization over the past few years...at first I thought it was normal and everyone experienced things the same way as me. Then I thought: "ok. Maybe not everyone is like this but nearly all therapy clients are like me." Then I thought: "ok not all therapy clients but any with trauma." Now I'm realizing that it's a little more unique and it startled me that how my brain works stumps very experienced therapists. That is surprising to me. I guess that is the complex part of cPTSD.

I told my boss today that I am leaving and have started telling a few others. It went well but was sad too. We're all close and they have been so kind to me and they are really appreciative of my contributions.

But I'm looking forward to just getting to be myself.

[sanmagic7]

 

[Armee]

 

Back at you San.

[Blueberry]

Hi Armee, sorry for getting the EMDR expert mixed up with your T. I thought about modifying my post just now to reflect that but I can't, my brain is too mushy. So I'm glad you feel in good hands with your T, that is so important. 

[Armee]

 

No need to change a thing, Blueberry.

[Armee]

I think I have a bit of clarity today.

I've often felt like my mom wasn't my mom. Which of course makes sense when you think of how parentified I was and how vacuous she was when she wasn't screaming. But more than that it didn't even feel like I came from her. I know I did, biologically.

But as I sorted through photos and ended up finding only 1 with her before I was 4 months old but lots of photos of other family members holding me, my grandma and sister giving me my first bath...I realized she really wasn't my mom those first few months when we apparently lived with my grandparents. She might have been there I'm not honestly even sure she was but she was not the one caring for me. It was my beloved grandma and my 4 yr old sister and my aunts and uncles. And then she took us from there and moved us away from them. My mom wasn't really my mom and she took me away from the person who mothered me. It makes a bit more sense now.

[sanmagic7]