the next step

[sanmagic7]

feeling pretty ok this morning.  i'm just gonna ride this wave and enjoy it.  gives me a chance to write, read, play games, sit back and relax.  i'll take it.

[HannahOne]

Yes to writing, reading, and playing games! Recreation for the win.

[sanmagic7]

indeed, hannah1, it does feel like a win.  thank you! 

therapy today.  we're slated to process what happened 2 weeks ago, but honestly, and i was afraid this was going to happen, i don't remember what it was about, only the aftermath.  i know, take notes, but i don't remember to do that either.  hopefully she'll have notes.  it makes me nervous that this will be brought up again and i'm going to react overwhelmingly again.

i've had a lot of that lately, it seems.  i'm finding it's still jarring, upsetting to talk to my D about her F and S.  these are the 2 people who are 2 of the biggest abusers in my life for the longest time, and who still have me by the neck.  i worked really hard w/ my previous T to help this not be so, and the impact has lessened, but it's still there.  they're the ones who will prevent me from going back to sleep in the middle of the night.  still haunted by them.

my D and i were talking about him the other day - he's moving into assisted living now - and i did something nice for him, and she relayed the messages back and forth for him and me, and he was grateful, etc.   but i discovered later that it still landed badly with me.  at one point he wanted to make amends to me, but that got botched, and i've thought about urging him to try again, that i might be ready now (i got a lot of anger out in my reply to him last time, and he backed away, so it never happened) but just after that little chat about him, i could feel my insides roiling around and remembered that amends are not to be made if they would provide pain/suffering, and i'm afraid i'm in that category.

i'd love to hear some heartfelt apologies from him, but i don't believe i can take it.  so goes the damage.

[NarcKiddo]

it makes me nervous that this will be brought up again and i'm going to react overwhelmingly again.

Maybe that is a sensible starting point for the session. Just because something is on the schedule does not mean it has to happen.

I hope the session is helpful, whatever you end up discussing.

 

[sanmagic7]

thank you, NK.  i'm already getting worked up about it, and it's not going down for several hours.  we'll see.  at least this is an example of how very fragile i am, and she can see it in living color, so to speak.  thanks for the support.  truly appreciated.    

[Armee]

 
 
I'll be thinking of you today. I almost always forget nearly all of what went down in therapy week to week and also forget to write it down or forget to read it...forget, forget, forget...That's dissociation for you. It isn't your fault, it isn't wrong, and honestly it's probably pretty protective and ingenious. Plus you have 2 weeks between appointments so it's even harder to remember. I agree with NK...you are in control of what gets discussed in a healthy therapy...if something is saying "no" then going slow in returning to that topic is probably essential. Slow is fast, and all that.


I recall that this was about love and that I had a theory or gut-level feeling about that that I wanted to share with you. But if your mind is telling you "no," you can ignore it and not read it. I'll treat it like a potential trigger warning just in case and will use white font. I hope it isn't upsetting if you read it. I will delete this if you want or need me to. 

But my theory is that you loved your Ds very strongly and they felt that love. But it was too powerful an emotion that your mind had to protect you from perceiving it, because somewhere along the lines you were taught that you had to block out emotions to survive...alexythymia... whether that's autism, CPTSD, or both. But I don't think you don't have emotions, I'm guessimg you just don't perceive them when they are over-powering. The love you felt for that cat was probably just the right amount of love that it didn't overwhelm you. So your mind let you feel it.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, armee.  your theory is very interesting, especially the idea that when the emotion might be too strong, it could be overpowering, in which case it does not show itself.  a different take than anything i've read, but not without merit.  when i think back to the time i rolled/flipped my van, as i was heading off the freeway after having hit black ice and knowing there is no stopping or control available in such a situation, i felt no fear.  i imagine most people would have been panicked, screaming, tensed up, something other than sitting back, relaxed, took my feet off the pedals, and kept my hands loosely on the steering wheel just to keep the van from overly curving, and saying in my mind 'here we go', which is what i did.   

i was knocked out for a while when hit in the head by the tv coming loose from its moorings, and had a concussion for about 2 months, but i walked away from it.  the van itself flipped over, and landed back on its tires and facing the opposite direction.  so, it must've been quite a ride, but i wasn't aware, and i never felt afraid. that would certainly fit with your model of emotions keeping to themselves in times when they might be overpowering.  thanks so much for this, armee. 

therapy was stressful.  she was extremely apologetic (something new for me w/ a T) and worried about whether she was the right T for me at all, cuz she didn't want to cause such a terrible response in me in the future.  i told her that's why my stuff needs to be in very tiny doses, cuz my mind takes what's said, and in its new state of now being able to explode w/ emotion at times, can be overwhelming to the point (this past time) of thinking of SH.

so, we went back and forth a few times - does she think i'm too much for her?  did she want to stop?  was i able to stay w/ her regardless of what happened?  in the end, we agreed to continue working together, probably mostly w/ me talking about my life experiences.  she thought i wanted to be heard, which i have to agree with.  i don't know how a T could work w/ me w/o knowing much of what's gone on w/ me.

since she works mainly w/ people who have become disabled, i don't know how much history or past trauma reporting is necessary.  i think her forte is mostly ptsd from accidents, injuries, illnesses and the like.  but, honestly, some of the other T's i talked w/, as soon as they heard 'dissociation' from me went right to the whole 'parts' idea, and i know i'm not ready for that.  so, this may be the way to go for now.

[Armee]

 

She sounds good at apologizing and attempting repair instead of forcing her way through. That seems positive for what you need right now.

[NarcKiddo]

 

It was a very long time before I was prepared to indicate to my T when I had a problem with something she said or suggested and, like you, I mostly do not really remember those occasions as I would just dissociate the heck through the rest of the session and then not make adequate notes afterwards. But when I did tell her about a historical occasion that had nearly made me sack her before we even really started her complete apology and repair efforts made a massive difference to my trust in her ongoing. She also made reference to the incident and my feelings in a few sessions afterwards. Not excessively but enough to reassure me that she was not just treating it as an "out of the way" problem because she had apologised. She was conscious of the possible need for ongoing repair. There have been other times where she has inadvertently triggered a bad reaction in me which I did not indicate at the time, but was a subject where she could not possibly know she'd hit a tripwire. I think this sort of incident goes with the territory, especially in the early days. If both of you are open to feeling your way carefully along then that would seem a good place to be.

No relationship is perfect but from this incident it sounds like this T could be good enough, at least for the moment. It's good you are processing it all so sensibly.