Neurofeedback

[Chart]

In about an hour I'm going for my first EEGq scan to begin a treatment of Neurofeedback in August.

References: Sebern Fisher's book, "Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma".

Here's a YT video of Sebern Fisher explaining the fundamentals of Neurofeedback treatment for Developmental Trauma (DT)
https://youtu.be/fiG3DXysqBs?si=BGe8Dtz1ZZWCSf4j

I've researched my Neurofeedback therapist's training credentials. (She's actually Swiss, not French, which already seemed a good sign.) The center where she trained is in the south of France and the information on the site clearly indicates they are aware of the specificity of Developmental Trauma. I also had an excellent feeling with her and she has been very competent and reactive since our first meeting as well as being understanding and supportive. I've not known her long enough, but in this life we sometimes have to take chances.

I'll use this thread to recount my experiences. As usual, any thoughts, reflections, experiences of others is MORE than welcome.
🙏 chart

[Cascade]

🤞

Hiya Chart,
Thanks for starting this and keeping us posted!
   -Cascade

[dollyvee]

Good luck with the appointment Chart

[Chart]

Meeting went well. My therapist seems really really good. She is open and extremely knowledgeable. Seems we have a very similar trauma history. This fills me with extreme hope that I can bring down my fear-factor... soon???

I've been in a medium EF since... well, weeks maybe? The past three days have been strong constant fear, crying from the tension 2-3 times a day... anyway, ok, the ball is rolling...

Electrodes all over my head. Apparently there is in fact a brain in there. Waves shooting out across the cosmos... I just stared at the dot and did what I was told.

My therapist will now analyze my scan, which took less that ten minutes. It takes far longer to get everything set up.

The analysis will determine the protocol of what waves we want to encourage and "where". I will understand all this better with time and experience.

We'll begin working in a little less than three weeks. There is homework:
Cardiac Coherence
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGJkzyKHKUE

Breath in through the nose as the dot moves up... breath out through the mouth as the dot moves down. Three times per day minimum. I was complemented on my natural breathing from my diaphragm.

[Cascade]

Chart, this sounds awesome!  Great job!   


   -Cascade

[Cascade]

And just for your own self (you don't have to share here), I hope you get a copy of the scans!  I'm sooo curious about my own brain after watching the first 25 minutes or so of the Sebern Fisher video you posted. 
   -Cascade

[Chart]

Thanks Cascade! I'm curious too, only I have a lot to learn for all this to make sense.

Two other important things I forgot to talk about. One, I need a blank journal...

Two,

TRIGGER WARNING *Fear*

My therapist asked me to identify what I wanted to "focus" on. I replied that I want to reduce my constant Fear. The Fear that parasites my mind on a nearly hourly basis. The Fear that binds me to my bed. The Fear that violently grabs my guts when I hear a door open in the hall. The Fear of morning light because it means I have get up and face a universe that terrifies me.

T asked if I could find an image that represents that Fear. I thought of those images of black holes, the Event Horizon clearly defined by the lens-distortion ring... ultimate black in the center... once past that point, crossing that line, I disappear forever... it is death, destruction, oblivion...

Death, destruction, oblivion is what I hear on the other side of that door. Downstairs the screaming means death.

Tears run, I am so afraid, and so ashamed of being afraid. Can I please ever be free of this?

End TW

[dollyvee]

You know Chart, that's a really interesting image you have of what your fear is "like." A few years ago when I was starting to learn about IFS, I did one of the exercises around procrastination in the Jay Earley book (can't rememeber if it was the Inner Critic one, but I think it was the first book). I was immeadiately dropped into what I call the "black." There was no part as per normal, or an inkling of a part, just surrounded by black, but it was as if it was alive. There was some sort of life or vibration to it. So, I did what I could think of (I guess coming from a place of fear perhaps) and challenged it. A spider came out. On the edges of this black ( I can't remember if it was before or after the challenge), it was like there was a golden light with these figures (not human, sort of like stone faces, but benevolent). It sort of recalls to mind the vision of your even horizon.

I started trying to find out what this was. It wasn't like a part, but it seemed real. I came across someone called Michi Rose, who helped Richard Schwartz develop IFS and was one of the first teachers of IFS, talk about working with the Void as a great source of healing and likened it to Buddhist traditions version of the void, or as Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche says, the ultimate source of being and infinite possibility. For me, I've also sort of come to understand this fear that comes up as a understanding of that place without the experience of love or "mother" as interestingly, that is also the name for that space (in my understanding). So, this began my journey into buddhist meditation. I wasn't able at the time to find out very much on Michi Rose or how she used the Void. I took a course on the four elements meditation, which is essentially a form of soul retrieval. I asked my teacher/mentor on the course about what had happened, thinking it was the Dharmakaya. He suggested that perhaps it was the kunzhi, or the base from which all things come. I feel like this is perhaps why the spider (interestingly linked to the grandmother in Native American traditions, and women as the creator goddess) came out at that time.

I'm going into detail because I think it might be interesting that perhaps what you're seeing is not from the recesses of fear of just your own mind, but a place that is accessible to us all, which might help reframe your experience of it and make it a little more manageable. I understand that this is not on the science end of the spectrum and these are just my own experiences.

https://bon.miraheze.org/wiki/Kunzhi

[Chart]

Dollyvee, I did a "spiritual cleansing" about four months ago. My immediate memory here is foggy as usual, but at some point the shaman asked me "something" and a vision appeared in my mind of a spider crawling out of my mouth. It was not repulsive or frightening.

I'm going to go back to my journals and see if I documented the experience. The memories will also slowly come back if I let them.

Everything you wrote interests me deeply. As a diehard atheist I sometimes feel disconnected from the spiritual. But it's clear now that our sense of "self", that deep knowing/loving spiritual sense of self is clearly totally out of whack in developmental trauma, if not entirely absent.

I did Vipassana years ago and firmly believe, from that experience, that if I spent one year doing the technique, adhering to the strict routine, it would bring immense healing.

The connection or lack thereof with the void and emptiness is clearly a big element in finding ourselves and healing on the deepest levels.

The spider symbol needs research as well.
🙏🕷🙏

[Chart]

I found my journal documenting the shamanistic ritual. The objective was a "reintegration of the in-utero infant". I can't claim either then or now to have fully understood the ceremony. It's a friend who has a doctorate in plasma physics... But now makes ritual drums out of roadkill animal's skins. She offered me the ritual to try and help me. Sweet person. And I'm open to ANYTHING and all.

At a prompt from my friend doing the rite, I had a clear vision of a spider appearing, climbing the front of my body and crawling INTO my mouth. I was neither frightened or disgusted. The spider seemed to become part of me...

I can't remember what she thought and didn't note that in my journal. Funny I've been thinking of calling her recently as it's been awhile...

Spiders... and black holes...

[dollyvee]

Thank you for sharing that Chart. I made a post in my journal because I went back and looked at the spider symbolism again. I found a couple references that talk about the "spider-woman" as teaching us about that is repressed, and/or are afraid of. I think my experience of that spider would likely mean different things than yours. For example, in challenging the black (which was probably because I didn't understand it and was scared), it brought out the spider, which was again, more fear, and then was dropped into a cave of probably repressed feelings around how my mother treated me. I was also doing IFS around a specific idea, procrastination, and these are the things that came up around that. Your spider could just be a beginning awareness that there are things that are repressed perhaps, or that are maybe just being awoken? No idea though.  Your friend might be able to teach you how to go back there again so you can experience it and see if there's anything you need to know. IFS might also be another way to do this.

I also think that perhaps the event horizon as a place and the spider could both be similar and different if you see what I mean? For me, the spider happened in the similar "event horizon" place, and is associated with fear. Perhaps, your even horizon is also associated with fear, but the spider event (even tho it may be associated with something repressed, or maybe not and could be more along the lines of a body protector) is something else.

Either way, I hope it lessens the fear you are experiencing. Also, thank you for letting me hijack your thread a little bit. It's been helpful to go back and revisit this experience and my own fears during it.

[Chart]

All that's really interesting Dollyvee. You're not hijacking, your augmenting the dynamic of the thread. And that's invaluable, thanks!

I'm going to explore this a little more as well.

As an aside, I adored the film "Kiss of the Spider Woman" when I was a teenager. William Hurt... I even had the movie poster in my adolescent room.

[Desert Flower]

Hi Chart, just wanted to say this neurofeedback does sound very interesting and powerful. Good luck with that!

And also, my take on Buddhism is that all these things that are bothering us in our present times, are just learned patterns, they are not innate. Our core in fact, if you will, is intact, it is whole, it is always present, although we do not recognize it all the time. We are shrouded in the veils of our trauma, but that's not who we are deep down.

Take care dears!

[Chart]

I find what you wrote very interesting Desert Flower. Neurofeedback is clearly very scientific. However my T has clearly stressed the immense importance of the Spiritual. I'm slowly starting to have an inkling of the "relation" between the concept of "the self" and how this concept is profoundly spiritual. Construction of the Self seems to get severely interrupted in DT (Developmental Trauma). Thus the necessity to "rebuild" our "selves" in the healing process. Buddhism also stresses these ideas for expanding consciousness and reaching higher levels of contact with our "core" as you mentioned. And I think this Core is what can link us to the higher or expanded sense of being.

Perhaps, in a way, our "torture" in childhood now pushes us to do the extra work, through healing, of finding or creating that core ourselves. It's like a nightmare-shortcut to enlightenment.

I'm mostly guessing here. And rambling. Like so many others here on the Forum, I feel a deep drive to make "sense" of what happened to me. I think we are desperate to find ANYTHING of "positive" from our Trauma.

It's not easy...

[Desert Flower]

Before I move on, I just wanna say I don't want to push onto anyone any of my beliefs. I'm just saying what is helpful for me.

And also, maybe we should be changing the topic of this thread now ;-) But anyway.

What you're saying is also true Chart. It is awfully hard to make anything positive out of our experiences. And in case anyone has any doubts: no, we did not do anything to deserve this. We were normal children who were entitled to a normal chilhood like everyone else. Only that's not what we got. And now that we had such a * start in life, I do think maybe, in some cases, (certainly not in all cases!), there may be a silver lining to this cloud, like Pete Walker says: we may be rewarded with an emotional intelligence far beyond the norm. I'm sounding all positive here, I know. And I also know that some days, we cannot see any of this. Still, wishing everyone the best on our worst days.