Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[rainydiary]

I read what you wrote and resonate with many things you shared.  I hope that you find what supports you.

[dollyvee]

Sending you support SO

[SenseOrgan]

rainydiary and dollyvee
Thank you both for your support.
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I did take benzo's for two nights. Sleep quality wasn't good, but better than terrible is an improvement at the moment. It enabled me to do some proper fitness again. That felt good. It's clear I'm not out of the groove my system got stuck in months ago. A bit of a top down intervention might help here. It has before. Taking a benzo no more than three times per week should be okay, according to my shrink who I'll see tomorrow. My main goal with this is to get my exercise routine back on track. It's starting to really annoy me that the latest bout of whatever it is hits so long. That anger is going to be my fuel. There's a place for surrender to what is and there's a place for fighting. I'm actually doing both on different levels simultaniously, but that's another story.

Today I heard I got through all the PSIP screening. I'm in! I got an offer to do two sessions, starting a week from now. The pressure to arrange everything in such a short time got me really dysregulated. I thought about it for a bit and decided it was not a good idea to rush into it like this. I need some time to arrange the logistics, stuff to take, and acclimatize before I can do a session. I do not want to start off any more stressed than necessary. I want to ease into this. With a non medicine session first, just like my therapist suggested. So I suggested January. The fact that I fear a negative response (who do you think you are, bla bla bla...) is exemplary of what I'm aiming to address. Interesting. I did resist a fawn response by communicating my preference, which is a win. I've waited for two years, so a few more weeks is no big deal.

It would be great if my sleep starts to cooperate a bit before I jump into this. It's enough of a challenge as it is. There's only so much I can do and I'm going for this anyway.

[Hope67]

Hi SenseOrgan,
I hope your sleep improves.  I'm glad you enjoyed your fitness session - that sounds good.
Hope

[SenseOrgan]

Hope67
Thank you! 

[SenseOrgan]

dollyvee
Thank you for expressing yourself! I think I'm starting to better understand what you're dealing with. I can see that "disorganized Self energy" makes it hard to connect with another person. And that it's a complicating factor in therapy. Seeing something real that related to your experience instead of trying on an idea with IFS must have been a relief, I recon. So not coming from what is expected, presumed, or wanted, but connecting with what is real for you in the present. It's all just story as long as there is no felt connection with it. Dissociation doesn't allow that, does it? A sense of safety is key to relax that, I think.

It's great NARM has taken you further. I can see how your T's validating of your experiences can help to validate and honor them yourself, so to say. Much like what a good enough parent does for a child. The intellect is often the dissociating route. It takes a therapist who does not operate on that level herself to spot it and "block the escape" in you. Over here, they are hard to find when you can't afford anything else but what's covered by insurance.

You're absolutely right that there's a limit to how far we can get on our own. There is no substitute for relating to another person. The fire needs to be rekindled in the presence of other people in order to continue the path out of trauma. Nicely put! Survival operates below the level of the intellect. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) keeps us safe, regardless of how rational or desired we think that may be. The sense of safety needs to land on that level, which is notoriously hard to achieve. One way of putting it is that we're stuck with faulty neuroception, and we're looking for ways to give the ANS the message certain situations/sensations are not associated with danger. In the case of connection with others, I'd like to turn that around 180 degrees. I'm curious to see how this is approached in NARM. I've found the chapter in the book you referred to, but haven't had the time to read it yet. Thank you!

I like to think that relating connection to safety on a deep level becomes less difficult after a certain amount of corrective experiences in a therapeutic setting. With or without the aid of psychoactive substances. Over time, daily life preferably takes over the therapy room as the arena where post-traumatic growth happens. For me this is also where the identity of a victim, or a patient, shifts into something much more expansive and empowering. It makes a big difference if life happens to you or for you. I go back and forth between this contraction and expansion.

TW/spirituality
The pain body is a very useful concept in this regard. I prefer to call it reactivity though. Reactivity is resisting life as it is. A no to our experience. This way we create suffering on top of pain. That's all nice and dandy on a certain level, but this not wanting to be here is very deep programming (ultimately the illusion of separation itself). Resistance happens on a subconscious level too.

My failure to find an answer to intense suffering has morphed into something completely different. When the suffering reached a critical mass, the one who could no longer bare the pain started to crack and surrender. In hindsight, it was the start of a profound shift in my sense of self and the nature of reality. I can no longer see my pain solely as something to get rid of asap, or the thing which destroyed my life and ruined everything. This trauma has always carried the seed of seeing through the illusion of suffering, permanence, and self. I had a glimpse, and never was the same. Although I'm identified, a spell of sorts has been broken. It would never have without this trauma.

[SenseOrgan]

Even though it took me two hours to get out of bed, I had a good day. A big contrast with the depressive day I had yesterday. No dragging my corpse around today. I posted a card for a friend who has her birthday in a few days. The normal physical heaviness which also informs my thinking wasn't there. I just went and got it done. Then spontaneously hopped into a shop for some pastry, which I never do. I don't do sugar, pretty much ever. I just felt like it.

The doorbell rang. This rarely happens. I was busy, but okay. Two salesmen. Internet, cable. The kind with a FU attitude, only interested in what they can get out of this. I half opened the door, saw the logo on their jackets and said: "ah, ziggo, no interest", and started to close the door. They opened up their reservoir of tricks. I continued the motion of closing the door without a word. "Can I ask you about something else, sir?". Klick. Door closed. One of the punks started to repeatedly shout "I need to pee, I need to pee". To impress his mate, I guess. It felt really good to be so resolute and not play by nice rules with people who do not play by them themselves. It reminded me that I'm in charge of how I respond to whom, and that I don't have to go along with bs people shove in my face unsolicited and not with my interest in mind. I don't have to account for my behavior just because of an internal program saying I'm inherently bad. I can just act in my own interest, set a boundary and go about my day. Thanks for the opportunity guys! I've done something like this before, but with a bit more of the normal chit chat, stress, and guilt. This was better. I noticed a hint of guilt arise, but I didn't agree with it and it dissolved. Nice!

I was able to do some work in the garden I'd been wanting to do for a couple of weeks. I also managed to pulverize a personal fitness record. All I did was take half a benzo before going to bed. Two more of these to go this week. Sleep determines everything. Yesterday I barely dared to go out of the house because I was so ashamed.

[dollyvee]

Hi SO,

I'm glad you routine has returned to a somewhat normal. I'm quite busy with work at the moment to have a proper think and reply, but one of the ways NARM deals with the ANS is through a type of touch. I also believe that it's dealt with through creating an inner sense of agency. The example NARM session chapter deals with this quite a bit. I can find it for reference, but sounds like you have found it on your own!

Sending you support,
dolly

[SenseOrgan]

Thanks dollyvee. No worries. Thanks for dropping by.
It's chapter 9 in Healing Developmental Trauma, and chapter 10 & 11 in The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma through a more clinical lens, it seems.
Good luck with work!

[SenseOrgan]

"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe."
― Albert Einstein

This popped into my mind recently. I don't know the context in which he said this. It just strikes me how much this aligns with attachment trauma. Except in that case that decision is programmed with/as the the sense of self, rather than chosen by it. The "choice" however, goes on to color life. This basic conviction is projected onto everything. On the surface I don't even agree with the belief the universe is hostile, but this doesn't affect my most basic programming.

It was all night terrors this night. Constantly waking up. I had great insights from them, which I have mostly already forgotten. Among others, it was about attachment and not being able to truly trust. Not peoples intentions, but their ability to attune and understand. Being parented by a mother who could not, installed an existential loneliness in me. The smallest hint of misattunement triggers this. Misattunement being a normal part of interacting, makes connection often more lonely than being alone. This makes my world very small, whatever I choose.

These unfulfilled early developmental needs exist in me as an open nerve. It is the lens through which I experience the world as a cold and barren place. Every time I'm reminded in an interaction and when I'm alone.

I can't compensate for this, ignore it, live around it, transcend it, live with it. I used to be able to fool myself, but a lot of that has collapsed. There is very little in the world that appeals to me. There's nothing out there that can fill the hole in my soul, so to say. I realize this sounds awfully bleak. It is and it isn't. First off, things are how they are with or without my permission. I am not in charge of what lands on my plate on a moment by moment basis.

My focus has shifted from trying to manipulate life into something bearable, to relating differently to what is. There is immense freedom in this. Except when I'm overwhelmed by something so painful, I fight with reality. I keep finding myself exploring this. Over the years this intuition has guided me into what I suspect are some of the deepest layers of my psyche. It is very raw and practically not manageable when I end up there. And still I feel I need to go there if I want to have any chance of a higher quality of life. I believe this guidance is part of my own innate healing capacity. It has prompted me to let somebody in again and "go there" with their support. It's rare I really let somebody in. Being open to that is a good sign. I am more open to this than ever and more vulnerable at the same time. It's been like this for years already. I just couldn't find anyone I wanted to work with. This is indicative of what I carry with me. I have found a person and a modality I trust are a match. We will start the second week of 2025.

How I relate to what is within me determines how I relate to others. The more I can allow what is within, the more open I become for the world around me. I know what it's like to be present in interaction with other people. I know I have it in me and this is where I want to go.

[SenseOrgan]

It looks like the EF I was in is fading. It's too early to cheer, but it feels like it. The past couple of days and nights were horrible. I felt like I was dying of loneliness and there was nothing I could do to turn the tide. It was very hard to fall asleep with this overwhelming despair. I used an extra pillow to press tightly against my body. It did little, but at least something. I kept focusing on my physical sensations and blocking thought trains as best I could. When sleeping it was nothing but nightmares and constantly waking up sweaty. I don't even remember the last time this happened with this intensity and so many nights in a row.

Social anxiety also returned, making it a good old challenge to get groceries. I was even afraid to post anything here, fearing some sort of punishment or rejection. It's crazy how thorough this blast from the past takes over my entire being. And I don't think I'm ever more than vaguely convinced I'm having an EF while I'm in the midst of it. It basically becomes the reality I experience, period. The world, and especially people just become so incredibly unsafe I feel check mated.

Last night was similar, except the intensity was dialed down just a pinch. I honestly don't understand how I'm still alive when I think about the activity that goes on at night and that this madness has been going on for 30 years at least. I'm at risk for all sorts of things by that alone.

It was very tempting to stay inside again today, making it another hopeless day in front of the computer. It's cold and wet outside. When I forced myself to put on my running clothes and go for my usual run, I soon discovered it went quite alright and felt rather good. I don't get this, but I'll take it. It's a few hours later now and I still feel energized and I'm in good spirits. Yesterday I started doing pull-ups, but I had to give up after just a couple. I was just destroyed by a relentless mode I had gotten into lately.

A physical intervention has often helped me to stay afloat. The same goes for the routine of it. It's a double blow when I simply don't have the strength or the energy to do anything in that regard. It stresses helplessness and hopelessness.

Because I've been highly stressed, I decided to not add any extra so I stopped taking cold showers. A week or two ago I guess. I think I definitively did the right thing there, but I suspect it comes at a price too. Those showers are very much anti helplessness and hopelessness and probably a whole lot more goes on there. I get a lot out of them, even though they are very unpleasant.

Things can go downhill fast when sleep disables the already fragile pillars on which I stand. It's a puzzle which just doesn't always fit. Right now I feel good and I don't know where that came from. Being highly pragmatic, I wonder how to best use this mode to my advantage. Can I create more leverage right now? I'll start with doing the dishes. That usually is a counter helplessness and hopelessness action I don't get done when in bad shape.

[Chart]

Thank you SenseOrgan, I'm finding these PSIP videos very very intense and stimulating. I'm moving along similar lines, parallel, but without any assistance of medicines. I want to go deeper and am discussing this with my therapist... but anyway, all that's me...

I wanted to observe that (I think) humans are the only animals that experience chronique developmental trauma. I'm trying to find situations contrary to this idea, but so far haven't been able to imagine or find examples where animals are deprived of secure attachment or systematically traumatized. Perhaps this exists, but it must be extremely rare, especially coming from primary care-givers. Or, perhaps, animals exposed to this sort of treatment simply don't survive. For most of homo sapiens' history, infant mortality was so high and only something technology has recently turned around... Was this partly due to trauma as well as disease? I think it highly likely. Although, "primitive" societies and cultures seem to be much more naturally capable of providing secure attachement. So the trauma distinction seems to me to become important. Developmental trauma is not the same as being jumped by a lion in the grass no matter what age you are... (There's an annoying guy on YouTube that talks about "Big T" and "little t", but it is an important distinction to make I think...)

So I think what I find intriguing is the link between evolutionary nervous system complexity and developmental trauma. Obviously Cptsd symptoms simply cannot manifest in animals to the degree it has in humans.

Now the claim that we nonetheless have inherent systems to overcome and heal from trauma becomes important because effectively our systems to heal also come from an evolutionary chain of events. I'm wondering about healing from different forms of trauma. Does our ANS "really" know how to heal from attachment trauma? Or is it similar enough to classic survival trauma that it doesn't matter so much?

I guess we'll find out This is definitely the direction I am moving and again infinite thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences. Sending support!!!

[Chart]

I wanted to add all my best wishes for your starting PSIP therapy in January. I'm so very happy for you that you are coming to a concrete action after all these years of searching. Sending much love and tons of hugs!
 

[SenseOrgan]

Thanks a bunch for your support Chart! And merry Christmas! Do you have a place here on the forum where you regularly post about your progress? Behind the privacy wall perhaps? Thus far I haven't been able to find it, and I'd like to follow your steps and thinking.

I think the value of the PSIP model for addressing developmental trauma (DT) is more in the relational aspect than it is in the somatic. The trauma in DT is relational in origin and needs a relational solution. Getting it on board in the everyday secondary consciousness most modalities operate in, never worked for me. My ANS does not allow that type of vulnerability in relation to another human being. It's another matter when in primary consciousness, where I don't have access to my usual defenses and am more vulnerable by default. The psychedelic in combination with the process of selective inhibition of defense mechanisms, functions as a pathway to this vulnerability. With it, the traumatic material in the system becomes progressively more accessible. When the continuous, largely unconscious, effort to keep the traumatic material from entering consciousness is loosened this way, it can be processed. Since it's trauma and not some sort of minor discomfort, this does involve hyperarousal. Increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, involuntary movements, just to name a few. I don't think there's a fundamental difference between the processing of one type of trauma over another. Our system has a limited amount of options for it.

I have used the distinction between little t and big T trauma myself and I regret doing that. Little t trauma is a bit of an oxymoron. Gabor Maté has pointed out somewhere that it does not exist. When intensely stressful experiences overwhelm our coping capacity, and we can't escape the situation, it doesn't do it justice to refer to it as little t trauma. We may be inclined to do so if we project our adult mind onto that of the child and conclude it was not a matter of life and death. Especially in the case of very young children, the bond with the primary caregiver(s) is all that stands between them and death. The impact of the threat of losing it, or it being the source of danger even, while being utterly helpless, is hard to overestimate, I think. Let alone when it occurs chronically. When an infant is left alone in his crib all day for instance, I bet his ANS runs through a distinct activation pattern when his increasing despair continues to not be answered. His terror must be unimaginable.

DT and PTSD are not the same off course. DT is woven into the fabric of the person. Addressing it also involves a shift in identity and how we relate to others. I think those types of changes are pretty much impossible to achieve if our ANS responses aren't altered first. In my experience it hasn't been possible to change anything at the level of the ANS with altering behavior or cognition. It did not trickle down to the system charged with the most basic task of keeping me alive. It's because my ANS still operates with the programming that relating equals danger. This is what lives in my primary consciousness, that 90% of the iceberg under water obscured from every day secondary consciousness.

It's hopeful to me that it's possible to relate to others in primary consciousness. This makes it possible to generate experiences which contradict the existing basic programming about safety and connection. This changes the game. PSIP therapists insist on relating and expressing the experience you're having. There is no room for withdrawing inside and what is expressed and communicated is welcome. Even negative transference. Being allowed even that, without losing the connection, is profoundly healing for a regressed person expecting rejection. It takes a lot to go there from both parties, which makes it a rare opportunity.

We are social animals. Even those with severe DT. We all have a drive towards connection and belonging. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Our biology is still adapted to survival in connection, not in isolation. What we need is ways to lower the obstacles for it that have been internalized. Those obstacles are woven into our sense of identity in the case of DT. The undoing of aloneness at our core is the big axis around which other changes pivot, I believe. There is a difference between experimenting with new behavior and beliefs (about yourself) when the ANS is or isn't stuck in the past. I'm tempted to think that something like CBT can become actually very useful in a later stage, when it can land on fertile ground where it landed on concrete before.

It's all infinitely more complex and nuanced than the above implies. The comparison with animals adds another huge layer to it. This spills over into the question what it means to be human, and what consciousness is. I don't expect there to be a clear cut between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Our ability to project the virtual organ we identify as into past and future is likely unrivaled though. It has evolutionary advantage and I think it also comes at a high price. The risk for trauma may be one of them.

Having a sense of self inherently creates a sense of separation. This is exacerbated in the case of DT. I imagine that sense of separation is not there in other animals to the degree it is part of us. I think what we call trauma is interlinked with believing to be a self, separate from the world and living in time. It enables us to visit imaginary places, to not be here. This may spill over into the ability to dissociate difficult material, ironically insuring it's continuous influence on us. Without a sense of self, it's probably much more full on, yet not as enduring.

Research into the default mode network (DMN) shines a very interesting light on this, especially with regards to psychedelics and the healing power of mystical experiences. In those, the activity of the DMN is lowered. The DMN is the neurological equivalent of what in spiritual circles is called the ego. When ego death occurs, under the influence of high dose psychedelics or otherwise, there is no separation, only suchness or enlightenment. On the opposite side of the spectrum, high activity of the DMN correlates with depression, anxiety, and so forth. They are all very self centered states.

Sages have been telling us for ages "I" is an illusion. Neuroscience does the same. We may be the only species on the planet living in the dream of duality. This is where my mind goes when I think about DT and if it's uniquely human. My guess would be it's on a spectrum, which correlates with the sense of separateness on the one end, and suchness on the other. It's reflected in culture and how offspring is raised. In evolutionary sense it hasn't been long since we started raising children in a small family instead of them being part of a group of 50 or so people right away. The start of agriculture and private property likely did us not much good in this regard. I'm not even talking about us being born "prematurely" due to our large heads and so much of our basic neurology being sculpted by the social environment we happen to land in. The complexity is endless! I don't know how to determine if animals suffer from C-PTSD. I'd start with looking into the work of Jane Goodall, Frans de Waal and Robert Sapolsky, I guess. My guess would be they'd say we're not as unique as we think.

I don't recall who said it, but I've always liked the definition of life to be that which can repair itself. That includes us. It makes evolutionary sense to me our systems too are always striving towards equilibrium. I don't think DT is a sickness we can heal from, but rather something we learned about our environment and ourselves, which isn't updated because it happened in the period when the maps of ourselves and the world were formed. We still navigate life with those. I have faith in our systems to adjust themselves once we find a way to update the very basic programming. It makes no evolutionary sense to me that our systems would maintain such a highly energetically expensive way of operating if no threat is perceived anymore where there truly isn't one. Perhaps our systems aren't sick, but just ill informed. It's a better safe than sorry strategy, which is only preferred as long as nothing more optimal is introduced. Thriving emotionally and socially is more optimal than perpetual suffering in the absence of constant perceived danger. We naturally want to go there. Loneliness is a good clue our system is nudging us in this direction. It made me sign up here and seek therapy, for one. It sure does not feel like it, but it has my best interest in mind. All automatically generated, as an outcome of a highly complex algorithm, which constantly operates below the radar.

Each of us is a walking miracle. If you think for a second what our ANS'es pull off every second, it's jaw dropping. A beating heart, digestion, breathing, temperature regulation, chemical balances in the blood, energy to all cells,... I think it's intelligent far beyond what we normally realize, because we have trouble acknowledging anything other than our cognition to be intelligence. The irony is that the latter only comes in after the fact to claim ownership. We're a funny bunch.

In my mind we're still in the middle ages when it comes to understanding and addressing DT. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for science to catch up before I take action. I know what doesn't work and I know what resonates and makes sense to me in the light of my personal experiences and what I've learned from studying. The bottom line is that I pretty much don't know anything. I trust my intuition over anything. It has never let me down. I think it's an interface between the conscious and the unconscious, through which I'm informed about what is needed for the system as a whole to get in better shape. I don't expect miracles. I don't even expect DT to ever be no part of my life. All I need is a next step to take. I'll see from there.

Much love and tons of hugs right back at you! 

[SenseOrgan]

I wish you all would recognize when looking in the mirror...

Lamb - Gorecki