Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

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Around minute 25:00, Saj makes the assertion that all mammals have the capacity to cope with trauma and that this is not new to the autonomic nervous system. However he fails to mention (so far) the difference between singular trauma and repetitive (complex) trauma. I would argue that this distinction is a critical difference.

(I'm so excited by this video I can't help myself from stopping and commenting as it goes along! Sorry :

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N20vPGFCg7M

The videos of the somatic work are VERY intense.

[Armee]

Thanks. That's interesting because the times I feel grounded and centered are when I am with my kids. I can be in the deepest of trenches and as soon as I go to pick up my kids or wake them up or wall in their room it's like I am a new totally OK person

[SenseOrgan]

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Thanks again!
Did Saj address your point further along the talk?
Yeah, a lot of PSIP vids are very intense. I didn't expect anyone to watch more than the oxytocin part, to be honest. To me the vids I relate to are a bit like watching a miracle though. Especially when the client's system is playing out attachment ambivalence and finally goes for connection. I've experienced a bit of that with ayahusca, before I knew there was a modality centered around this healing potential.

Armee
Amazing. I'm happy for you that you have those moments in the midst of all this. Thinking about this, it makes sense that this plays out in the repair of attachment in PSIP sessions too.

[SenseOrgan]

Yesterday I had the second online consultation with my PSIP T. Since the last one, I had noted some things I thought would be important to add and expand on. One of those was having a panic attack in a vipassana retreat. The issue there was having my eyes closed and being visible to the teacher. Since sustained eye gazing can be part of PSIP, that scares me quite a bit. T insured me that the eye gazing happens in an advanced stage of the therapy, definitively not right away. But wearing eyeshades is part of the usual ketamine assisted sessions. I'm close to certain this would bring up the same thing for me, which would be very soon in the start of the treatment. T is flexible though. I also mentioned that I'm scared for what's coming with PSIP in general.

It feels good to bring up these things. Even though my T is basically still a stranger. Thinking about it, I realize it has helped me to feel safe a lot more to communicate things like these and personal stuff. Simply bringing it up helps. There's a bit of empowerment in there too. And trust in relating as a source of safety. I noticed that I don't have much reservations, which is a good sign to me. My T feels safe.

I'm going to need to arrange some blood tests and an ECG with regards to safety and the ketamine part of the treatment. I have developed a bit of a needle phobia, so I'm not looking forward to that. And I just got a message from my T saying a consultation with the psychiatrist at the ketamine clinic she works with will be scheduled next week. These guys are fast! I wonder if my family doc is going to help me out, because I'm paying for PSIP out of pocket and nobody referred me. I'm thinking about just telling him I've been looking for a suitable treatment for complex trauma for 27 years and just can't find it within the current Dutch health care system. So I've become a therapy snob and am going for a private solution in a foreign country. I'm already dreading having to explain myself. By now more out of frustration than anything else. There is a backup plan if he refuses though.

[rainydiary]

Best wishes navigating this therapy approach.

[Dalloway]

SenseOrgan,
I´ve just read your whole thread and somehow it made me feel really connected and at peace, so thank you for that. Wishing you all the best with your therapy. 

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Thanks again!
Did Saj address your point further along the talk?

No, actually he didn't make the distinction that I mentioned (that being that animals do not experience complex trauma). But this takes nothing away from the overall importance of the presentation and the subject. Thank you again, SenseOrgan, for this information about PSIP. Can I ask where you plan on doing the treatment? Belgium?

I plan on watching the presentation again. There are many VERY interesting correlations I made on a personal level and with the various techniques I've been working with. Thank you thank you!

[dollyvee]

Hi SenseOrgan,

I'm sorry that you're experiencing so much isolation at the moment. I hope the forum is a way to relieve some of that.

I just finished reading your journal and the parts about dealing with PSIP. I have been microdosing for a couple of years now, and perhaps have hit a wall, but initially it's helped me uncover and deal with some things along the way. I hadn't read about PSIP, but did find a group in the Netherlands that was using MDMA as a means to go deeper into things instead of just psilocybin. The author from the institute (?) had written about the effects on psilocybin and dissociation and how MDMA is a much better way of bypassing dissociation. It is only a short trip over the channel for me and have thought about doing it.

What also stood out to me from your journals was how you describe not being heard and the need to describe things in a perfect, or crystal clear manner so that you're understood. I feel like I also struggle with this to some degree and waonder about it's connection to developmental trauma. For me, I have a feeling/idea that when I talk about things, I'll destroy them. It also sometimes takes me a very long time if asked a question to formulate what I want to say (as a way of perehaps being understood and not being talked over etc). It's interesting that in NARM when discussing the connection survival strategy, they talk about the right to exist and how at that young age, the child needs the caregiver to mimic them, or to kind of "give voice" to the things that are going on inside of them. At least this is how I understand it. However, for me growing up in an NPD household, my m didn't have space for my needs and I think that process was warped.

This are just my thoughts and connections and it's interesting if that is also the root of your experience as well, but please disregard if it doesn't fit.

Sending you support,
dolly

[SenseOrgan]

rainydiary
Thank you for your support!

Dalloway
Wow. The whole thread. I'm honored. Thank you. I'm so happy to hear it made you feel really connected and at peace! The feeling is mutual Dalloway. I'm so happy to meet you and others here. It touches my heart to interact with you. OOTS is such a beautiful place. It's rare to find a place where people connect from such vulnerability and are so supportive of each other. Thank you for being here.

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I'm happy to hear it didn't stop you from getting value out of the talk. Please do share about those correlations if you feel comfortable to do so. A lot came together in discovering PSIP for me too. I think the most important thing Saj said in the talk is that it's not about the medicine. It's us. We are the magic. In the end, it's all about connection, about love. Complex trauma developed in it's absence, and crumbles in it's presence. Love is the medicine. My T is in Poland.

dollyvee
Gosh, you read it all too!? Thank you so much for that and for sharing your thoughts and experiences. This forum sure helps to relieve isolation. And it further erodes the obstacles for connection IRL.

It's great microdosing helped you to uncover and deal with some things. From my own experience with it, and with "mini dosing" I'd say the therapeutic potential is there, but also has it's limitations. Especially in isolation. I understand you were/are looking for ways to go beyond that. I'm ALL EARS with regards to the group and the info you found about the use of MDMA. I understand why you'd consider hopping over for something like this. If I would have known, I think I would have joined that group somewhere in the past two years. Just before I found my PSIP T, I was considering to ask if an aya facilitator I met during a ceremony would be up for a PSIP type session with me. It's crazy the therapeutic use of these compounds is still not incorporated into the health care system and people like us have to resort to the gray area. But health is not a luxury, so whatever it takes!

The need to explain myself clearly is absolutely connected to developmental trauma. Thanks so much for sharing your insights. For me it needs to be so clear so the chance of being dismissed is the smallest. This is what I've come to expect and fear every time I have something to say. So in essence, I'm still reacting to my M. Would you say you feel like you only have one chance and you better hit the mark because you won't be permitted another? Or rather, you don't feel you have that one chance to begin with? Would you say your truth remains intact as long as you don't articulate it, and when you do it can be destroyed by not being received? So expressing yourself feels like it equals the destruction of (a part of) you, because that would happen to you as a kid? I'm risking derailing the conversation, but I wonder to what degree introversion can be an adaptation to an unsafe social environment. In the sense that it may be a fawn response woven into ones personality at the time it developed in interaction with the environment.

If I'm not mistaken it was Beverly Engel who talked about caregivers as mirrors in which a child sees who she/he is. They need to hear and see you and communicate that what they hear and see is worthy and lovable. Whatever we get as feedback in our formative years, we absorb as part of who we are. I think what you said about the NARM connection survival strategy relates to this. How does a helpless child develop when it's met with rejection or when it's not met at all? I'm sorry your M didn't have space for your needs and this vital process got warped. I can relate.

Being treated like this from a young age does tell you that you don't have the right to exist indeed. I suspect implicit messages land even deeper than explicit messages, because the violence in it can be hard to detect. In fact, this is an important reason why I'm having trouble stating outright that I suffer from cPTSD or developmental trauma and not fearing it'll be dismissed or worse. I have not so much to point to in terms of "classic" traumatic experiences. A few of these little "t" incidents don't get you there, but growing up in such an environment does. It's complicated for me, because I do see narcissistic traits in my M, but it was mixed with genuine love and care. My F who had more outright NPD issues nowhere near affected me as much as my M did. The clarity of him not caring about me was so obvious there was some peace in that, if that makes sense.

Thanks for your support dollyvee. I appreciate having this conversation.

[dollyvee]

Thank you for letting me have this conversation with you in your journal. It also feels helpful to me to explore this.

I went back to the bookmark as I read it a couple of years ago and had to laugh because it's the same person that you've quoted:

https://www.psychedelicsomatic.org/post/why-mdma-psychedelic-therapy-may-not-work-for-you
https://www.psychedelicsomatic.org/post/psilocybin-mushroom-therapy-part-2

In the second link, he talks about the psliocybin centre in Amsterdam, which is what has stuck in my head.

Would you say your truth remains intact as long as you don't articulate it, and when you do it can be destroyed by not being received? So expressing yourself feels like it equals the destruction of (a part of) you, because that would happen to you as a kid?

I think you've very much hit the nail on the head here. Through dreams, IFS etc, I often feel like there are parts that can remain "in tact" as long as they're separate from other people. So, as you suggested there is very much a polite social part that seeks "connection," but underneath I think the message is that connection to my "authentic self" is actaully very painful, or not something I want to do. I've seen this in IFS as two parts where there's one that kind of takes care of the day to day while the other one can do the things it wants to do. This very much feels like social interactions as well. However, I think it's perhaps more subconscious ie parts of me want to believe in the "fantasy," or the have attachment limerance and that which I did not have growing up, but it's not actual connection. So, in a way I still remain isolated. I also feel a lot that other people just put their "stuff" on me. The saying of don't shine too brightly rings true, and when I do, I find myself dealing with other peoples' ego states (IMO, whether it's projection or not, let's see).

I was also the (self-diagnosed) truth teller in my family, where I did have other peoples' "realities" put on my to be accepted as truth, but often stood up for what I believed, which was met with consequences. One thing about hiding the authentic Self that's helped my understanding of the above is John Bradshaw's, Healing the Shame That Binds You where shame is a core wound that impairs authentic connection. I do have some difficulty linking, or connecting it to the preverbal part of me as I think shame at that age often feels like annihilation (exploring this might be helpful with psychedelics).

I'm trying to find the reference to what I wrote about and can't remember if it came from Healing Developmental Trauma, or The Practical Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma, but you are perhaps correct that the original idea came from Beverly Engel. What I think is perhaps different about NARM is that it strives to incorporate somatic awareness into the mindful awareness of attachment theory and development. So, in my experience, it has been about stopping and being mindful of my own internal world during sessions, which never had a chance to properly develop, and then reflect on that if that makes sense. This is where the experience of not naming, having words for, feeling defensive when things are named for me comes from and what I have been noticing/exploring with my t.

I have not so much to point to in terms of "classic" traumatic experiences. A few of these little "t" incidents don't get you there, but growing up in such an environment does. It's complicated for me, because I do see narcissistic traits in my M, but it was mixed with genuine love and care. My F who had more outright NPD issues nowhere near affected me as much as my M did. The clarity of him not caring about me was so obvious there was some peace in that, if that makes sense.

Ah yes, the very familiar to a lot of us on here I think adage that nothing that bad happened to me. I'm not sure how much you've looked into covert narcissism? I used to think my gm loved and cared about me very much because that's what I was told and had to believe for survival. However, the reality is closer to that I was something that made her feel better about herself, and what I actually needed, thought etc was quickly shut down as it showed too much independence. Essentially, she didn't have any space, or ability to cope with that. Again, it sort of links back to language and me talking about my truth (reality) will destroy it.

Some excerpts from Healing Developmental Trauma that might relate:
When there is early trauma, the older dorsal vagal defensive strategies of immobilization dominate, leading to freeze, collapse, and ultimately to dissociation. As a result, the ventral vagus fails to adequately develop and social development is impaired. Consequently, traumatized infants favor freeze and withdrawal over social engagement as a way of managing states of arousal. This pattern has lifelong implications.

Early trauma compromises their sense of safety, their right to exist and be in the world, and their capacity for connection. Therefore, they do not learn what it feels like to have a sense of self, to be connected to their body, and they are left frightened of intimate connection.

Having experienced prenatal trauma, the nervous system of an individual with the
Connection Survival Style develops around a core contraction/withdrawal and freeze/paralysis response. The fetus, as is seen clearly in videos taken in utero, goes into physiological contraction and withdrawal when it experiences stress or threat.

Infants need loving parents in order to learn to regulate the various forms of arousal their vulnerable nervous system experiences. A mother must be able to respond to and match her infant's positive emotions and join in the joy and excitement of their shared play. It is through these attuned interactions that children develop secure attachments and acquire the resources and autonomic resiliency that lead to a capacity to live life fully.

NARM attempts to bridge this gap by grounding Attachment Theory in bodily experience and working with the mindful awareness of adaptive survival styles.

Also, as I was of going back over the chapter on Healing Developmental Trauma quickly this stood out when reading about the precursors to the connection survival strategy:

"In infants, states of threat and distress are expressed through crying and screaming, reflecting sympathetic hyper-arousal that is accompanied by elevated levels of stress hormones."

I wonder if perhaps the first experience of language (crying/screaming) was shut down, and it was learned that to talk about it will destroy it? Of course, for me, this reality was recreated over and over by having my own truth shut down, but I wonder about the origins of that thought? I was just going to write, perhaps I was punished for crying and had a memory pop up about being spanked for crying, with the thought, I'll give you something to cry about. Of course, this is my own experience, and I'm sure yours might vary.

[SenseOrgan]

dollyvee
Great! Thank you! All roads lead to Saj, lol. It's both wonderful and painful to read the articles (and to go over other PSIP material). I'm so happy Saj has connected the dots and found a bottom up approach to erode dissociation gently and rather fast. I'm tempted to call the selective inhibition part guided mindfulness on psychedelics. So many therapists I worked with assumed you can will yourself to access difficult material. One outright blamed me for "not getting there". Those endless encounters have been incredibly painful, lonely and even re-traumatizing. I hope you had better luck finding qualified help. It sounds like you have. If I may ask, have you been able to go where you needed to go with NARM/IFS/other modalities? Or is there a point which they can't take you beyond, that you feel needs visiting?

I never linked PSIP to the Psychedelic Society, but I knew there were trainings over here somewhere. I reached out to the PSI two years ago and they couldn't help me. I think those sessions in Amsterdam were only for therapists in training.

What you describe about connection as such being so painful sounds utterly lonely. Social interactions aren't quite connection if it's not possible to be really present, is it? I know what that's like. It can feel more lonely than being physically alone. And I relate to the difficulty of having to deal with other people's ego states. I acknowledge that there can be projection involved, but people dumping their stuff on others is very common, unfortunately. It's more difficult to deal with when boundaries have been violated so profoundly in your FOO. Since cPTSD folks are prone to seek fault in themselves, I'd say it's probably helpful to assume it's the other way around when in doubt.

It's been a while since I looked into NARM, so forgive me if I'm missing the mark. It sounds sophisticated, hyper-mindful. Would you say this approach is helping you to form your own internal world, so to say? Or perhaps making it more robust by holding it in a space of great attention and acceptance, and validating how you felt with that in relation to the environment you grew up in? That would be a beautiful and also painful process, I imagine. Writing this, I realize that I've been doing something like this for many years in isolation. I couldn't in connection. Mostly not. If I was a tiny fire in a storm, I have been guarding it from the wind and taking great care to add extra twigs carefully, so it won't extinguish but grow. It seems to me your flame has also been bordering on being extinguished, but you've found a way to rekindle your fire. That's great!

Your point about shame and annihilation is spot on. After reading Bradshaw's book, I dove into interpersonal neurobiology and found those two meeting in Patricia DeYoung's book. Her definition of shame: "Shame is an experience of one's felt sense of self disintegrating in relation to a dysregulating other." In this context, shame is an "attempt" to not exist in order to survive. It's an existential paradox, in the middle of the split of authenticity and inauthenticity. The developing self is faced with the threat of annihilation, and the only way to escape that is to not be, and to present something else, which won't be annihilated. At the heart of it, authenticity has come to mean death. And connection without authenticity is not possible. I feel this play out in most social interactions. The charge around it can be through the roof. I've developed around hiding what's going on inside me. Including this pressure cooker, which turns up the fire even more.

Over time, and exponentially more so after some high dose psychedelic interventions, opening up around friends has become much more natural. The default really changed. Also on a visceral level. The protection mechanism of shame runs deep though. It shows up in many interactions and this is the realm I feel I need to explore (with PSIP). Feeling the terror of annihilation while committing to connection with someone who can be trusted is where there's big healing potential, I think. What my system needs is experiences proving it's fundamental predictions about itself and the world around it wrong. It will continue to project this early life terror onto situations until there have been experiences in that vulnerable state with a different outcome. This is my beef with many modalities, which never could help me inhibit my (involuntary) defenses and land me in an age regressed state. Psychedelics could. When that first hurdle isn't taken, it doesn't land in a deep place, in my experience. So therapy remained basically bla bla for me.

I don't actually know to what extent my issues have preverbal roots, do you? I have a strong suspicion based on hints from inside and literature, that's pretty much it. My M's personality was most likely not any different before I learned language. In a way you could derive the impact of your caregiver on your preverbal development from the personality you later got to understand. I remember being obsessed by Allan Schore and what he had to say about the first 1000 days of development (including in utero), but I must confess that I forgot most of it. I do believe that a fetus is influenced by the emotional state of it's mother. This would also make sense in the light of evolution and epigenetics.

Learning to regulate our nervous system in later life is a very big part of the challenge, I think. I've found a meditation practice to be helpful, but I clearly remain vulnerable to overwhelming stress responses. What I've come to see as also an important challenge, is to connect when this is happening. Connecting is not only a goal, but also a tool, which made that a sort of check mate for the majority of my life. Co-regulation is a bit of an alien concept in therapy land, but I think this is more natural and in line with our biology than our hyper individualized culture suggests.

Yes my M was of the covert variety. She did a lot of damage, primarily below my radar. I have allowed myself to go all the way with feeling resentment and hate, which I think was very healing for me. The full picture just isn't black and white. I would almost invalidate my experience of the confusing ambivalence I grew up with by reducing my M to an evil narc of sorts. I once described her as genuinely caring and relentless. Both come from my own experience and acknowledging however it was, is important to me. I'm aware that I don't know what I don't know, so my view may change if I become aware of blind spots. I'm not happy with the paradigm of personality disorders anyway. It may have it's use, but what has helped me more is to see that both my parents were emotionally immature and needy and how that affected my trajectory.

I understand the following is a delicate subject in a space where people gather who have been treated so badly. Perhaps it's a bit too much for this forum, but after working through a lot, I eventually could see my parents as two human beings who perpetuated suffering because they were largely unaware of their shadow. They were/are very human. Letting go of a victim identity is deeply healing and this perspective has been helpful for me in that regard. I find myself going in and out. A huge part of my bitterness and resentment has gone since my aya experiences and that is awesome. From time to time some more shows up. That's alright. It ain't over until it's over.

OK, this is a long entry. I'll better round it up. Thank you for the links, the excellent excavations from the NARM literature, and your input overall.  

[SenseOrgan]

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In case you read this, I thought about you when watching another PSIP vid. Saj mentioned the difference between humans and (other ) animals with regards to dissociation at around one hour and 7-9 minutes into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nn_qyBxlKw