Do you tend to react differently at different times to same topic?

[storyworld]

Hello, all,
I find myself confusing! I can talk about a topic, so my mom, like I'm doing now and feel only mild anxiety. But I can also have an extreme reaction in therapy when I try to talk about her. Similarly, I've had times where I've shared things with my husband and, again, felt relatively mild anxiety, but get flooded when I share the same thing in therapy. And prior to starting therapy, I could say something (share a specific event) without feeling any emotion at all, and now it seems discussing that same event triggers strong emotion. I think maybe I'm able to detach more easily outside of therapy (as I discuss things as facts, when I do discuss them), whereas in therapy, I am prone to be more cognizant of an emotional connection? I also wonder if there's some level of shame involved as I know my therapist knows how much certain experiences were likely to affect me, and outside of therapy people don't always make trauma connections??? Meaning, outside of therapy, people might be apt to say something sucked but wouldn't connect it to attachment issues, etc.

I'd love to know your experiences!

[DD]

I do have that. For me I can dissociate from the emotional aspect of a thing or topic at some times, sometimes I feel a little and sometimes it feels like a truck hit as the emotions are so strong.

[NarcKiddo]

Maybe you feel safe to process the emotion with your therapist in a way that you would not with other people, even your husband. I would think that is a good thing. Both from the point of view of feeling safe enough to have the emotional reaction with your therapist, and from the point of view of being able to keep yourself emotionally safe with other people by not generating the strong reaction that may not be easy to deal with at that particular time.

It may be informative if you were to keep a journal note of such instances so you can discuss this with your therapist, perhaps.

[storyworld]

Thanks for sharing, DD. It's nice to know my experiences might be normal, or at least, not unique to me.
NarcKiddo, your perspective makes sense. I also appreciate your suggestion to journal on my experiences/these occurrences to talk about them with my therapist. As my mom was (and is) hugely manipulative and dishonest, and as she played so many games with my head, I both have a deep need to be utterly truthful and an enduring confusion as to when I am. Therefore, when I react in different ways at different times, I feel like I'm being dishonest, even if I'm not trying to be. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like I don't trust myself. I have found this is getting better, however, and I don't feel so much like a liar when I speak about my childhood. I think I read someone else sharing in this forum that they have a tendency to feel the same way, regarding not trusting themselves. I also read somewhere that this could be a "protector" response (IFS).

[Kizzie]

I sometimes feel less safe with my T mainly because I know she will ask tough questions, drill down and touch that incredibly hurt part of me and I will cry and have to face it things that terrify me, that I don't want to feel. Here on the other hand people will often just share their own experience and/or make some helpful suggestions. It's much less threatening with peers, at least that's my experience.   

[DD]

I have shared the feeling of not trusting myself and that which you described storyworld. It took me a long time to start believing myself and validating my own experiences. I still struggle at times with it. But now I can say that it WAS bad for me.

And hey, it makes perfect sense when a parent manipulates, to learn NOT to trust yourself. Because the truth is never the truth. And your experience is always wrong and someone else explains how thing REALLY are. So it makes perfect sense. And that, for me, was one indication of how bad it had been.

The thing that helped me most, I think, was this forum. The validation from others who have been there, cut through all the doubt. Also reading on trauma, attachment etc. helped.