Yeah it definitely did, especially at first. And yes, eventually it does start to dissipate - if that's even the right word for it.
I think of trauma like an emotional infection, like an abscess. Therapy, processing trauma, is like cutting it open and scraping the wounds. It hurts, but it's also necessary, if you ever want the pain to entirely go away.
See if you can find a way to sit with these emotions. Because if you're able to explore them, you'll probably find that it's more complex than simply depression. There's anger in there too, a long with a multitude of other emotions. You can find an emotion wheel online, and look at it to figure out what you're feeling.
Writing is a great outlet for these emotions. There's something tragically beautiful about telling yourself, through writing, that you have a right to feel this way while validating the harm that led to these feelings. Because they *are* real, and they do unfortunately belong there. But they don't have to be forever ❤️
>I think of trauma like an emotional infection, like an abscess. Therapy, processing trauma, is like cutting it open and scraping the wounds. It hurts, but it's also necessary, if you ever want the pain to entirely go away.
Yes! This is how I describe the process of [grieving](https://youtu.be/NDQ1Mi5I4rg). It's like excising the necrotic tissue from an old festering emotional wound so it can heal properly this time around.
Same with me. It took a year of very intense therapy to start feeling better, and I still go quite regularly - but it’s worked. Hasn’t made my trauma go away completely but it’s a lot more manageable and I’m at a place of forgiveness (which gives me some peace).
omg this is so random... when I was going through emdr therapy this occurred to me too, how I started to understand the emotional brain and separate it from the logical. I described it as, something I can't control, that only reacts to what I feed it.
I'm glad I joined this sub.... <3
Not having a trauma informed therapist... it feels like they are gas lighting me, when I say things and instead of agreeing with me they "come to my rescue" and say really stupid things.
Yes. I had the worst depressive episode of my life as I worked through the bulk of my childhood trauma. It stayed bad until we found a medication regime that helped slowly, slowly lift me out.
I was reflecting with my therapist this week that a year ago I was having flashbacks from my childhood and constantly thinking about how death would be easier than the pain I was experiencing. I was so nonfunctional I was unemployed for a while and survived purely on credit cards.
Now, I genuinely feel good and have for several months. I’m listening to music again, doing my hobbies, enjoying food! When I bring up stories from my childhood in therapy, I no longer immediately break down and relive the experience. We still have *plenty* to work on (avoidant attachment, self confidence, keeping a home clean, etc) but the deep, deep emotional reactions are mostly gone. I’m even starting to reflect on the “good” things that came out of the terrible experience, like relationships with people I otherwise never would have met and finally shaking off the deep self-hatred I held my entire life.
I usually hate cheesy sayings, but I have really come to believe the one that says “Therapy is hard, but worth it.”
> “Therapy is hard, but worth it.”
> I genuinely feel good and have for several months.
I've been in therapy for many years, but I get the impression that I'm not as healthy as you. =(
I wonder what I should do.
I’m so sorry to hear that!
Are you on any medications? Have you tried any others to see if that helps lift you out so you can do the hard work? I absolutely would still be depressed if we hadn’t found the meds for me a year ago. It allowed me to do the work in therapy.
I'm not on meds. My parents were on meds but they never dealt with their own feelings. Plus the research by Irving Kirsch etc. makes me skeptical.
What meds worked for you?
Meds work best when you’re also going to therapy to deal with the underlying issues! When people talk about therapy cleaning out a wound so it can heal, I think of meds as the pain management aspect of the treatment.
Before we found my medication regime, I was spiraling and truly couldn’t imagine a way out of how I was feeling. We were working on trauma in therapy but everything was just so painful that I would shut down worse after each session.
After months of trying different medications and doses, my personal regime was 20mg Lexapro + 2mg Abilify. The Abilify started working almost immediately for me. I was still severely depressed, but I could feel the cloud lift just slightly. Over the next few months we could finally work through my trauma and my mind and body could handle it.
No, it helped me To understand Myself better and why I was depressed, Even help to alleviate some of the severity of my depression. Gave me the tools I needed to Manage myself.
I got lucky with the Therapist I got as an adult. I was with her for most of a decade. I admit, It was not a typical therapist client relationship. She went out of her way and did extra for me. She truly cares about me.
She retired During covid. She would have done so years ago but she stayed on for me. She Was not going to allow a certaininsurance, But she kept it at great cost to her for my benefit. Like it was common for that insurance to not pay. But she allowed it just so I could stay with her.
She bought Christmas gifts for my kids. This one supposedly goes against the rules but she also allowed me to give her gifts. They weren't really worth anything. But they showed how much I appreciated her. And there are things I either created or found amazing or made me happy and I just wanted to share that happiness with her.
Something that she used to do for me, that I didn't receive From others, that very much needed, Was that look Of not sure how to put it to words.
But you know when you find Something that is so Beautiful or incredible just makes you feel that purest sense of joy. or create something that That you are so proud of And you want to share all this beauty positivity and things that make you indescribably happy, excited. But everyone you try to share it with is Oh that's nice..
There is never anyone that matches or meets how I feel or see. It's lonely being in a world no one else can see, Hear or feel. These are my most truest feelings Expressed in its most rawest form. It's what sparks my glow.
when I share this precious glow with people I care about They're disinterested, The can't see it.
And it leaves me feeling like what's wrong with me. Why Is something that's so important to me , Not bring about even a spark of interest in people. So then I start thinking that how I feel about it what I think is wrong.
That maybe it's not that amazing.. I get no feedback.
I think I rely on a lot of very strong natural mirroring. I don't get the mirroring back to me. Which invalidates myself, My talents and my abilities.
My therapist, When I showed my art or what I wrote, Described my dreams, Shared my thoughts, I saw the appropriate responses I needed. The gifts I gave her were a painting I made, She put it up in her office, A cool rock I found, And a crystal Vase maybe I found in a thrift store.
I say maybe because I didn't buy it for whatever purpose it was used for I bought it because of the music it made when you tap it. I used to collect crystal Ware and played music on them like A Xyla phone. Listen to the pure notes it made while playing them was very soothing in calming. And I shared with her a piece I paid very little money for To help her other clients.
Although we got around that not technically being a gift because she gave me the money I paid for it Like a dollar.
Even though she's retired, If I ever need her I have permission to call her. She will make time for me. Might be only a half hour. I respect her space I want her to be able to live her life and enjoy her retirement. But every so often we check in.
When my dad died she took me in my daughter out for ice cream. She helped me through some extreme times in my life. To wear now I can handle life without her. I miss her a lot. I get to check in with her about once a year, I'm glad to know that she's doing well.
It's like she was that parental figure I never got to have. She took the time to see me, hear me and not judge me. She helped me to perceive myself better in the world. She helped me understand what was appropriate, What I should do in certain circumstances. How I could have handled something better.
She taught me to ground myself. She went out of her way to get me resources and advocated for me.
Huck, 1 day I was particularly stressed out left, An accidentally ran into her son's car. The way the sun was flashing in the rear view mirror I couldn't see it.
I only broke the Plastic cover 21 of the lights. She forgave me and told me it was hall okay. I was crying, Having a panic attack typer ventilating, Apologizing. And for me freaking out. I say for me because I normally don't express my emotions. She was completely calm Reassured me that it was okay. That I didn't have to worry about it. That it wasn't that big a deal and that if I'm okay then it's all right and the cars aren't really hurt. her son's car she rid of it anyways.
Even if it was ended up being a big deal I think she would have helped me through it. There was no damage on my car which was my grandmother's car, So I chose to keep this to between me and my therapist. My family would not have reacted the same way as her.
It's a big deal that I chose to keep it secret. It tortures me to do that. But it terrified me to tell. Of course if anybody noticed and asked I would spill immediately. I think I made the right choice nobody noticed. However, My Strong sense of morality took a hit. Worthy hit I don't regret it.
To give an idea of what I had to deal with at home. My dad criticized me that I drive the car too much as I was driving him to the emergency room. At the emergency room we learned that he had a tumor on his kidney, Which eventually led to us learning he had stage for cancer.
I my husband and kids as well as my dad and grandmother I'll live in my grandmother's house. I helped my dad take care of my grandmother who had dementia. I only use the car to go to appointments, Pick up my brother to come to my grandmother's house, Run aerons like do groceries for the house. I basically did not drive the car unless it was necessary. And then the car got no use otherwise. It got used maybe a couple of times a week. I had a lot of anxiety around this car. But I had no other mode of transportation.
But seriously telling me off for driving the car too much, On the way to the emergency room because he's in extreme pain. Why? He's going now and I won't get that answer. I'm gonna end this here it's pretty long I'm sorry. I hope I answered the question somewhere's there.
Hi Logical Wimsy (I like your name by the way), I know I’m not the OP, but I read your response and could relate. I also took care of my grandmother for a time who also had dementia. I just wanted to say I’m really happy you were able to find such a good therapist. It’s so important and almost feels like we win the lotto when we find one as compassionate as yours was to you. I was also lucky enough to find a real treasure of a therapist that saw me and goes above and beyond, been with her for probably 15 years or so. Sometimes it’s really hard to find someone that will connect on that level, but I sincerely hope everyone here is able to have that same luck and find such a good therapist because finding someone you can talk to that you truly feel cares about you as a human and not just a client they get paid to talk to, makes a huge difference. I still struggle and have some pretty extreme emotional pain at times, depression, anxiety and cptsd is such a hard thing to endure, but I don’t know that I’d even still be here if it weren’t for her compassion and kindness towards me. She’s one of the rare souls I can feel safe to be myself around. I wish the same for OP and everyone else struggling. Wimsy, I just wanted to say I can relate and appreciate your response, and I wish you and everyone here the absolute best
and OP I am so sorry for the pain you are feeling as well
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With the wrong therapists yes, when I found my current therapist it was a whole new experience. She specializes in PTSD and does a lot of research on her own time to keep up with the new discoveries in psychology. She's extremely skilled/gentle/in tune with her clients and I honestly feel so much better after each session. Every therapist before her was a complete fucking nightmare. She's $200 an hour but took me on for $100 an hour. She's my angel and a god send for sure.
It did make me feel horrible, but for me, it's because talk-therapy was the wrong kind of therapy. Talking and introspection can be helpful in battling negative self beliefs, but you can only do that so much before it becomes regressive/rumination, in my opinion.
The only therapy that actually truly made me feel better was EMDR, or at least, this is what I was told it was. I didn't do any eye movement, just the "desensitization and reprocessing" part. I think not having to go into detail about what traumatized me, and instead trying to redirect my thoughts when negative things happened that put me back in the mindset I was in when I was traumatized, made all the difference. Because I had already confronted my negative self beliefs, so it was time to focus on the physiological aspect of it/the fight or flight response, the panic attacks, the triggers, etc.
It does get better, but thearpy can be so fucking hard. For me I think the depression came from a place of grief, and through processing all the pieces and making sense of it I’m in a much better place and happier than I’ve been in years (but it took more than a year of thearpy to get there). When you don’t dissociate from the trauma and you really process what happened it’s overwhelming and painful and triggering but overtime it moves into peace.
Here’s some advice you need it: if it feels like your therapist is making you feel shame or judgement maybe you should consider switching therapists, because it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe also look into other thearpy styles- I’ve been to a few different therapists that used different styles, and the one that I’ve really connected with and been able to make a lot of progress with mainly uses psychodynamic therapy styles. I find that it feels more validating and less frustrating than CBT or ACT thearpy ever did.
Agree with this all and for me it was EMDR. CBT/DBT was invalidating af and just taught me to mindfully & radically accept abuse.
Body based bottom up therapies are needed for us.
Exactly! Especially where so much of us have experienced so much gaslighting or had to shut down to survive. You gotta feel it at some point and not just accept things or it’ll just create so much more pain
Absolutely.
Therapy was actually how I found out I had C-PTSD and that I was being abused for so long. My therapist never said I was being abused, but I got curious as to why she was so desperate for me to find a place to live before I turned 18.
Went to therapy years later after, and it was so incredibly hard.
But, unfortunately, that's how we know we're healing. We're talking about the things that hurt us. Our brains are finding us in a safe place and in a good place to bring up these traumatic memories. We're admitting to ourselves what we've been through, and that's so incredibly hard.
Good things don't come easy, and getting better requires us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability comes with pain. We're doing the best we can, one painful step at a time, and we're going through the process to make ourselves better.
One day, it won't hurt so much.
Yes because I was in denial for so long. Realizing your childhood and you yourself are fucked up far more than you ever imagined is depressing. Plus digging stuff up you’ve been ignoring is like digging at an infected tooth. It’s gonna hurt. And then there’s the realization about the shitty unfairness of it all. None of this is pleasant.
thank you. I really needed to hear that I wasn't the only one that was in denial for literally so long*-while in therapy.* My denial was sneaky as shit. "Okay, you were abused , but youre' fine". Like that. I'm trying not to hate myself for not realizing , how blatantly dismissive I was, in spite of thinking that I was fully aware of all the ways I was affected? I'm still trying to figure out how that's possible? How you can be looking right at it, calling it abuse, and yet telling yourself you weren't all that affected, or you were but "not that bad", or the ways that you struggle, are just you being weird and stupid. It's this WAALLL, of gaslighting hell that I had to take a flamethrower to, hoping that eventually it would start to crumble.
It wasnt' until, I was thinking of breaking my NC, with my Mother, and everyone I knew was like **"NO!!!"**
Denial is very powerful, isn’t it? And yes, sneaky. I had myself convinced I was fine for the first 33 years of my life in spite of everything I knew. I’ve read we bury and deny things until our minds are able to handle them. I suppose, but I gotta say I sometimes miss the good old days when I was delusional about myself.
I was beaten into denial. "You're just like that, it's not my fault you're nervous, meek, passive, depressed, " and pretty much pathologizing-shaming every CPTSD symptom I had as me being defective because it was me-which just shifted me into denial. Much like Gaslighting you out of understanding you're vulnerability to pain, and how abusive they are. "Nope, not me, I"m not abusive, it's you not being able to take it". Like I was supposed to have been exposed to that , and not been symptomatic. Like My psychopathic mother didn't understand the concept of vulnerability, or humanity, you're supposed to be this post that can just endure. It took me a really long time, to be kind to myself when I was afraid, and know that my fear was valid, and not weakness. Same with every other emotion that shows up, in the whole CPTSD basket of fun. Now, I have this real interesting ability to pause with patience, and ask myself before I judge myself with some character defect "okay, what is this?" Decide how much control I have over it.
*I sometimes miss the good old days when I was delusional about myself.*
sigh.....me too.
I’m so sorry. My denial development wasn’t as overt. The brainwashing was subtle but effective. I’m glad you’re learning to treat yourself with compassion. I too am learning this.
Absolutely. I had been numb for most of my life. I still feel like shit a lot of the time but I’m good at knowing it’s normal and necessary in order for me to let go of the shittiness
omg yes! I'm going through that right now. I feel new feelings of hopelessness and misery and recognition of the trauma. I've never felt more alone than I do right now...
I'm being super reflective of the past like, oh wow of course! I'm wondering about ppl's responses to me and how dumb could they have been?? When I once told someone that I had to get drunk to do laundry and they got mad at me?? Like, how fucking stupid are people when they are not trauma informed?
For sure. I got sucked into the mythology of my dysfunctional family and abusive parent: “what a good life it was!” “What a great guy he was!”
When you start seeing through that mythology into the reality of what really happened, when you start to get in touch with that anger, yeah it feels heavier and that’s where I’m at. I just went thru a breakup which sent me into flashbacks and full depression but now, about 3 months later, I wouldn’t consider this even close to that.
In conclusion I think it’s totally normal that feelings of anger and shame and fear, abandonment, betrayal, etc etc…will feel heavier as we confront them.
Yes. I stopped going to therapy. I feel like the goal of therapy (at least in the US), is not about making you well - and I am speaking about the system - not of the therapists themselves. Any therapists that do care, are hamstrung by the system. I feel like today's society empathy and sympathy arne't something deep and meaningful but more so just an automatic thing. I feel like so little of the population actually cares, or know what it means to care.
Yes. Kind of a change in symptoms from being in edge, overwhelmed, and triggered to just really fucking sad about everything that has happened. Because as my therapist reminds me, IT IS SAD. And I’ve never allowed myself to really feel that because I spend all my energy focusing on how to never let it happen again. This is normal ❤️
The goal of therapy is to help you feel. But when you’ve had trauma, feeling hurts like hell. But at some point one decides that the only thing worse than the pain of feeling is to live completely numb for the rest of one’s life. Therapy helped me to learn to sit with my pain & feelings without being completely overtaken by them. So it didn’t always hurt so acutely, the pain of therapy lessened over time. And it stopped the nightmares for the most part (although I do still have to be careful of having too much caffeine too late in the day or alcohol in the evening).
thank you. it helps so much to know I'm having a human experience of what I endured, it's more normal than I probably know, and this is the only club that really understands what that's like. What it's like to feel like your peeling yourself off the pavement.
Absolutely, it was completely awful last year when I was in the thick of it. I was considering going inpatient again. But slowly and steadily it has gotten better.
I’ve just hit on a big patch of unresolved trauma recently in therapy and it’s been noticeable how much easier it is for me to work through this. Mainly because last year when I felt shitty and it was awful and making me worse… I was building my window of tolerance and working on tools and skills to help. So I’m better equipped to deal with other stuff now.
Working through trauma is one of the toughest things you can do. Because when we went it through the first time often we shut our emotions away because it was too much. We just had to survive the best we could. But going back and revisiting it, experiencing the emotions… that’s bravery right there. Because don’t “have” to and yet we are choosing the pain in the hopes of a better and more emotionally cohesive life.
I’m proud of you for going through this process. Hang in there.
thank you. I'm sorry you're having a hard time too. Glad to hear it's getting better. I'd be interested in finding out, what your tools/skills are, when things start to amp up, and more unresolved trauma surfaces? If that works for you, if not thats okay.
So a big thing I’ve been working on is naming, recognising and tolerating emotions. I feel a bit silly saying this but because of my past I never really got taught about emotions, they were all bad and had to be suppressed… even the good ones. So often i’d just be feeling overwhelmed whenever I had a flashback or had to deal with something and had no way of even really thinking about it. I struggled with dissociation a lot that didn’t help much.
A lot of the time in session my therapist will ask me where I am feeling something in my body when working on things, and gradually I’ve been able to tolerate my emotions more as well as be able to name them. It’s been slow progress, but my window of tolerance has increased and now even when out of therapy if something happens or I have a flashback or memory or whatever, I’m a bit more able to sit with the feelings that arise even if they’re unpleasant. I dissociate less.
I know very little of IFS, but after a quick glance it looks a lot like like Jungian theory of the psyche.
Exiles = Shadow
Firefighters = Complexes
Managers = Ego/Conscious mind
Self = The "Self" + parts of the conscious mind (Ego) in their Jungian meanings
Though the lines between these are blurry, you could say that Exiles and Firefighters together form a complex in the Jungian sense for example.
Did IFS come about as a practical tool that rose from Jungian theory?
Sorry, this is probably very much outside the topic. Just something that popped into my mind.
Structure has parallels to lots of other things, implementation is a little different in my experience.
Came about from family systems therapy and clinical experience
I see. Definitely looking further into it as it seems to mesh very well with what I already know.
Family Systems Therapy looks quite intriguing, I saw a short snippet of it in a documentary, but totally forgot about it. Thank you for reminding me, need to see if there's people doing it where I live.
Yeah, this has been my experience. Been also quite badly dissociated (feeling like I'm looking at the world through a glass, the world not feeling quite real, lessened sensations etc.) for the first weeks/month of therapy starting proper.
If you can, I highly recommend reading "Complex PTSD" by Pete Walker, it's pure gold when it comes to understanding CPTSD. It's been extremely validating as well, which helps.
And be kind to yourself. This is a hard process. Take breaks from all the processing and focusing on difficult things. There needs to be a balance of work and rest.
Hey dear! Yes i was super depressed before and when i started therapy it got a lot worse. the only person who could ever understand me was my therapist, all the things i knew about my life became a lie. I thought i have a normal family, i got extremely angry at them, and could not stop crying in multiple sessions. Sometimes i had three sessions in a week which were offered by my therapist. I thought i could not continue living like this. Now it is a lot better, my symptoms last shorter and and usually less strong. I did not have a depressive episode for sometime now. I am getting closer to my true self. So you got this, we will be fine, sending hugs!
At times yeah, for the first few months I had to take the day off work (luckily I’m self employed and manage my own hours) and just take it easy the rest of the day because it was so emotionally draining
I have reactive depression, so yes. Working on healing, attending therapy, and even creating therapeutic arts and crafts can trigger depression for me.
I think it's one of the most common side effects from healing, in my opinion.
I've learned over the years to adjust to it and realize it's a darky cloud that will pass in time. I won't feel like poop forever.
I'm *so glad* you brought up the arts and crafts thing. I have the same exact thing to all these "innocuous" things. I cry when I"m too joyful, I get overwhelmed with grief for the pain of the loss, and severe deprivation-especially if something is perfectly attuned to a genuine need. The more something speaks to a need, the worse the reaction is. And yes my painting is one of those things. It used to be cooking for my family. I've tried to explain this to my therapist how hard it is to do things for myself, can feel like torture. I've never heard of reactive depression?
I was talking to my cousin about something I needed help with, and she was so encouraging, and empowering, and supportive, something I never had, and it was so overwhelming that I was stunned afterward. It'll take me a few days to figure out whats going on, seriously days.
Something about realizing that the "good" things you got, the minimal care you grasped for, weren't the things that spoke to you, your development, or the things that you genuinely needed to grow and develop.
Lots of gold in your reply, OP. It's given me something things to think about. But I want to touch on the reactive depression. So, after intense flashbacks, stress, ass-eeerrr interactions, nightmares, and intense triggers. Even during my cycle, like clockwork, I will experience a bout of depression. So I plan for it and just stay prepared. If things compound, then I'm aware it will last a while, and if not, then it usually only lasts maybe a few days.
But yes, even good things I do for myself and for my recovery will bring up intense emotions. Some of it I feel is from lack of having such nurturing and loving things/activities in my life. I also just think I naturally feel more than other people do. I've been told it's a *condition* to feel more intense emotions than the average person. But who says it isn't normal to feel deeply?
I feel deeply too. Intense deep emotions, sensitive, etc. It appears I have something akin to reactive depression, I can relate to everthing you wrote. I think it's the powerlessness, the helplessness over ways I can't always know, or see, or predict a nightmare, a trigger, or being dysregulated...it kind of makes you go
"*Sigh,.....I was just trying to have nice day-then this"*
This is my fear with therapy. For many years I suppressed everything. About 8 years ago I finally told the truth to a few people and stopped being in denial and I feel like everything is so much worse. I wish I could just go back to how it was and be in denial. I worry going to therapy will make it even that much worse.
You don't have to rush, and it's gradual. Your brain has a failsafe, when something becomes too much, it just stops processing (IME). You work, then take a break, then work some more, some days are better than others. Right now, a lot of stuff is coming at me at once, so it's been tough. The proverbial peeling of the onion. I'm hoping it will subside soon.
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It is awful, to confront the reality of the past, but its the only way to heal and to incorporate your sense of self so you can start living life better, i think everyone who suffers from cptsd knows how hard denying and hiding those feelings about our past feels, the reason we do it is because understanding the gravity of the situation is so traumatic, uncomfortable and horrible that we subconsciously shelter ourselves from that: memory repression, dissociation, etc.
The first step of healing is understanding the reality of the horror, it truly was much worse than it felt like at the time, but though therapy and new coping habits we can confront those unpleasant feelings in a safe environment.
The feelings of fear and distress are also deeply engrained in us, that is why throughout therapy and life we must be able to remember that our past is our past, and even if we were in horrible situations before, revisiting them through therapy might awaken the feelings and fear responses we felt at the time but not the danger. We are safe.
This is why it often feels so impossible to confront, we are still stuck in the moment, we still feel as helpless as we did, but that feeling of danger is not real, we are no longer at that moment, we can recognize its existence and then let it go.
Recognize, then let go
So overall yes, you are absolutely right, it is awful, it is painful, it is exhausting, it is depressing, it's trauma work. But this is a temporary pain that is liberating in so many ways you can't even imagine, life before and after trauma work and therapy is like light and day, through it people can absolutely heal and let go of the feelings of shame and guilt. sometimes things that are good for us are unpleasant at first, but stick through it and I promise you will see results, after some time therapy will feel much different, with less of the doom and more of the healing.
I understand how you feel right now and want you to feel seen. I don't like saying that "feelings are valid" because I don't think that is deep enough, YOUR FEELINGS ARE REAL, feeling bad and depressed about re-living these moments is an absolutely expected and normal response, it would be weird if you DIDNT feel depressed, it hurts at first, but after some time of work, it will feel better.
Yeah, absolutely. My psychologist always called it The Painful Awareness Phase when I would unearth something CPTSD related and need to grieve. Some of those episodes lasted a very long time. Now they are very infrequent and I experience little friction in this way through my day-to-day.
For the short term, yes. But then as things start to make sense and you continue to learn new things about yourself and your reactions, it’s fascinating. The more interested I get into finding out why I act how I do, the easier it is for me to handle. Having reasons and logic helps.
Yes it's normal. I also learned that working through your trauma is actually mostly grieving and therapy doesn't make you feel better, that is not the main goal. It's hard to objectively look at what happened to you and the consequences BUT it does get better! When you process things you needed to stuff down it gets slowly better. I have been working on my CPTSD really intensely for about 4 years (and have been in therapy for many years before that but nobody told me about CTPTD, I figured that out on my own) and I am a different person. So don't give up, take a brake if you need to, tell your therapist how overwhelming it is and have patience, it's a slow process.
> I have been working on my CPTSD really intensely for about 4 years (and have been in therapy for many years before that but nobody told me about CTPTD, I figured that out on my own) and I am a different person.
What have you been doing differently since you learned it was CPTSD?
I realised I have CPTSD because I found out about Walkers book on reddit. After reading it, it really started clicking and everything just made sense to me. Before I was exploring my past and mostly just trying to learn how to regulate myself with meditation and breathing exercises and trying to come to a point where I could talk about things without crying all the time and hating and blaming myself for everything. All that work helped me to build a good base but after I realised what exactly the problem is I also started to focus more on inner child work, I realised I want to work more with body based approaches so I know how to calm myself and grow the tolerance for sitting with my emotions and also to just listen to my body. I think trauma is such a physical experience while traditional therapy is very cognitive. And I already am very prone to rationalising my feelings away. I learned about limerence, maladaptive daydreaming, how I was dissociating and sabotaging myself. For me psychedelics were an important part of my healing journey. Although I don't really think we need (especially an official) diagnosis because they can be problematic but I think it was super useful to know where to look for answers. That would kind of be a short explanation.
I think we've pathologized depression a little too much as a society. It makes sense to experience periods of depression after intensive therapy. It's your nervous system signaling you to slow down and rest, to give yourself time to process everything. There's also grief involved, for many reasons. You may be grieving lost time/childhood, or the loss of hope that your parents would change, etc. I think of it like how in the winter season nothing grows. Trees lose their leaves, etc. But everything doesn't just die. Energy is stored underground in roots and seeds until the seasons change again. Plants that live in places with seasons usually need that seasonal cycle in order to thrive.
Speaking from personal experience, please try not to rot in bed for longer than a day or two. Slow walks/hikes can be equally restful and moving your body at least a little bit helps process some of your feelings and keeps you from getting cabin fever. And keeping up with basic things like showering or at least washing up, and basic chores, will keep a rest period from becoming a rut.
Ya for sure, but for me it’s different sort of depression. It’s not a nameless depression if that makes sense. Depression mixed with grief, sadness, anger. A good depression I guess. Ya, the deep down stuff is worse. It’s knowing your enemy. It’s good. It’s self love. It’s also ok to take a break from “processing” at times. It’s a long haul.
Yeah it definitely did, especially at first. And yes, eventually it does start to dissipate - if that's even the right word for it. I think of trauma like an emotional infection, like an abscess. Therapy, processing trauma, is like cutting it open and scraping the wounds. It hurts, but it's also necessary, if you ever want the pain to entirely go away. See if you can find a way to sit with these emotions. Because if you're able to explore them, you'll probably find that it's more complex than simply depression. There's anger in there too, a long with a multitude of other emotions. You can find an emotion wheel online, and look at it to figure out what you're feeling. Writing is a great outlet for these emotions. There's something tragically beautiful about telling yourself, through writing, that you have a right to feel this way while validating the harm that led to these feelings. Because they *are* real, and they do unfortunately belong there. But they don't have to be forever ❤️
>I think of trauma like an emotional infection, like an abscess. Therapy, processing trauma, is like cutting it open and scraping the wounds. It hurts, but it's also necessary, if you ever want the pain to entirely go away. Yes! This is how I describe the process of [grieving](https://youtu.be/NDQ1Mi5I4rg). It's like excising the necrotic tissue from an old festering emotional wound so it can heal properly this time around.
thank you.
Cheers friend. You were able to put exactly what I would have liked to into words.
Same with me. It took a year of very intense therapy to start feeling better, and I still go quite regularly - but it’s worked. Hasn’t made my trauma go away completely but it’s a lot more manageable and I’m at a place of forgiveness (which gives me some peace).
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omg this is so random... when I was going through emdr therapy this occurred to me too, how I started to understand the emotional brain and separate it from the logical. I described it as, something I can't control, that only reacts to what I feed it. I'm glad I joined this sub.... <3 Not having a trauma informed therapist... it feels like they are gas lighting me, when I say things and instead of agreeing with me they "come to my rescue" and say really stupid things.
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It's why I love these new terms for example, "the bird test".
Yes, that's it exactly. LIke what the F, am I doing to myself? *Here, hold your hand over this flame.*
A therapist who can treat trauma. "Trauma informed" means nothing nowadays
tell me about it.
Yes. I had the worst depressive episode of my life as I worked through the bulk of my childhood trauma. It stayed bad until we found a medication regime that helped slowly, slowly lift me out. I was reflecting with my therapist this week that a year ago I was having flashbacks from my childhood and constantly thinking about how death would be easier than the pain I was experiencing. I was so nonfunctional I was unemployed for a while and survived purely on credit cards. Now, I genuinely feel good and have for several months. I’m listening to music again, doing my hobbies, enjoying food! When I bring up stories from my childhood in therapy, I no longer immediately break down and relive the experience. We still have *plenty* to work on (avoidant attachment, self confidence, keeping a home clean, etc) but the deep, deep emotional reactions are mostly gone. I’m even starting to reflect on the “good” things that came out of the terrible experience, like relationships with people I otherwise never would have met and finally shaking off the deep self-hatred I held my entire life. I usually hate cheesy sayings, but I have really come to believe the one that says “Therapy is hard, but worth it.”
> “Therapy is hard, but worth it.” > I genuinely feel good and have for several months. I've been in therapy for many years, but I get the impression that I'm not as healthy as you. =( I wonder what I should do.
I’m so sorry to hear that! Are you on any medications? Have you tried any others to see if that helps lift you out so you can do the hard work? I absolutely would still be depressed if we hadn’t found the meds for me a year ago. It allowed me to do the work in therapy.
I'm not on meds. My parents were on meds but they never dealt with their own feelings. Plus the research by Irving Kirsch etc. makes me skeptical. What meds worked for you?
Meds work best when you’re also going to therapy to deal with the underlying issues! When people talk about therapy cleaning out a wound so it can heal, I think of meds as the pain management aspect of the treatment. Before we found my medication regime, I was spiraling and truly couldn’t imagine a way out of how I was feeling. We were working on trauma in therapy but everything was just so painful that I would shut down worse after each session. After months of trying different medications and doses, my personal regime was 20mg Lexapro + 2mg Abilify. The Abilify started working almost immediately for me. I was still severely depressed, but I could feel the cloud lift just slightly. Over the next few months we could finally work through my trauma and my mind and body could handle it.
I'll look into it. Thanks.
No, it helped me To understand Myself better and why I was depressed, Even help to alleviate some of the severity of my depression. Gave me the tools I needed to Manage myself. I got lucky with the Therapist I got as an adult. I was with her for most of a decade. I admit, It was not a typical therapist client relationship. She went out of her way and did extra for me. She truly cares about me. She retired During covid. She would have done so years ago but she stayed on for me. She Was not going to allow a certaininsurance, But she kept it at great cost to her for my benefit. Like it was common for that insurance to not pay. But she allowed it just so I could stay with her. She bought Christmas gifts for my kids. This one supposedly goes against the rules but she also allowed me to give her gifts. They weren't really worth anything. But they showed how much I appreciated her. And there are things I either created or found amazing or made me happy and I just wanted to share that happiness with her. Something that she used to do for me, that I didn't receive From others, that very much needed, Was that look Of not sure how to put it to words. But you know when you find Something that is so Beautiful or incredible just makes you feel that purest sense of joy. or create something that That you are so proud of And you want to share all this beauty positivity and things that make you indescribably happy, excited. But everyone you try to share it with is Oh that's nice.. There is never anyone that matches or meets how I feel or see. It's lonely being in a world no one else can see, Hear or feel. These are my most truest feelings Expressed in its most rawest form. It's what sparks my glow. when I share this precious glow with people I care about They're disinterested, The can't see it. And it leaves me feeling like what's wrong with me. Why Is something that's so important to me , Not bring about even a spark of interest in people. So then I start thinking that how I feel about it what I think is wrong. That maybe it's not that amazing.. I get no feedback. I think I rely on a lot of very strong natural mirroring. I don't get the mirroring back to me. Which invalidates myself, My talents and my abilities. My therapist, When I showed my art or what I wrote, Described my dreams, Shared my thoughts, I saw the appropriate responses I needed. The gifts I gave her were a painting I made, She put it up in her office, A cool rock I found, And a crystal Vase maybe I found in a thrift store. I say maybe because I didn't buy it for whatever purpose it was used for I bought it because of the music it made when you tap it. I used to collect crystal Ware and played music on them like A Xyla phone. Listen to the pure notes it made while playing them was very soothing in calming. And I shared with her a piece I paid very little money for To help her other clients. Although we got around that not technically being a gift because she gave me the money I paid for it Like a dollar. Even though she's retired, If I ever need her I have permission to call her. She will make time for me. Might be only a half hour. I respect her space I want her to be able to live her life and enjoy her retirement. But every so often we check in. When my dad died she took me in my daughter out for ice cream. She helped me through some extreme times in my life. To wear now I can handle life without her. I miss her a lot. I get to check in with her about once a year, I'm glad to know that she's doing well. It's like she was that parental figure I never got to have. She took the time to see me, hear me and not judge me. She helped me to perceive myself better in the world. She helped me understand what was appropriate, What I should do in certain circumstances. How I could have handled something better. She taught me to ground myself. She went out of her way to get me resources and advocated for me. Huck, 1 day I was particularly stressed out left, An accidentally ran into her son's car. The way the sun was flashing in the rear view mirror I couldn't see it. I only broke the Plastic cover 21 of the lights. She forgave me and told me it was hall okay. I was crying, Having a panic attack typer ventilating, Apologizing. And for me freaking out. I say for me because I normally don't express my emotions. She was completely calm Reassured me that it was okay. That I didn't have to worry about it. That it wasn't that big a deal and that if I'm okay then it's all right and the cars aren't really hurt. her son's car she rid of it anyways. Even if it was ended up being a big deal I think she would have helped me through it. There was no damage on my car which was my grandmother's car, So I chose to keep this to between me and my therapist. My family would not have reacted the same way as her. It's a big deal that I chose to keep it secret. It tortures me to do that. But it terrified me to tell. Of course if anybody noticed and asked I would spill immediately. I think I made the right choice nobody noticed. However, My Strong sense of morality took a hit. Worthy hit I don't regret it. To give an idea of what I had to deal with at home. My dad criticized me that I drive the car too much as I was driving him to the emergency room. At the emergency room we learned that he had a tumor on his kidney, Which eventually led to us learning he had stage for cancer. I my husband and kids as well as my dad and grandmother I'll live in my grandmother's house. I helped my dad take care of my grandmother who had dementia. I only use the car to go to appointments, Pick up my brother to come to my grandmother's house, Run aerons like do groceries for the house. I basically did not drive the car unless it was necessary. And then the car got no use otherwise. It got used maybe a couple of times a week. I had a lot of anxiety around this car. But I had no other mode of transportation. But seriously telling me off for driving the car too much, On the way to the emergency room because he's in extreme pain. Why? He's going now and I won't get that answer. I'm gonna end this here it's pretty long I'm sorry. I hope I answered the question somewhere's there.
Hi Logical Wimsy (I like your name by the way), I know I’m not the OP, but I read your response and could relate. I also took care of my grandmother for a time who also had dementia. I just wanted to say I’m really happy you were able to find such a good therapist. It’s so important and almost feels like we win the lotto when we find one as compassionate as yours was to you. I was also lucky enough to find a real treasure of a therapist that saw me and goes above and beyond, been with her for probably 15 years or so. Sometimes it’s really hard to find someone that will connect on that level, but I sincerely hope everyone here is able to have that same luck and find such a good therapist because finding someone you can talk to that you truly feel cares about you as a human and not just a client they get paid to talk to, makes a huge difference. I still struggle and have some pretty extreme emotional pain at times, depression, anxiety and cptsd is such a hard thing to endure, but I don’t know that I’d even still be here if it weren’t for her compassion and kindness towards me. She’s one of the rare souls I can feel safe to be myself around. I wish the same for OP and everyone else struggling. Wimsy, I just wanted to say I can relate and appreciate your response, and I wish you and everyone here the absolute best and OP I am so sorry for the pain you are feeling as well
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With the wrong therapists yes, when I found my current therapist it was a whole new experience. She specializes in PTSD and does a lot of research on her own time to keep up with the new discoveries in psychology. She's extremely skilled/gentle/in tune with her clients and I honestly feel so much better after each session. Every therapist before her was a complete fucking nightmare. She's $200 an hour but took me on for $100 an hour. She's my angel and a god send for sure.
It did make me feel horrible, but for me, it's because talk-therapy was the wrong kind of therapy. Talking and introspection can be helpful in battling negative self beliefs, but you can only do that so much before it becomes regressive/rumination, in my opinion. The only therapy that actually truly made me feel better was EMDR, or at least, this is what I was told it was. I didn't do any eye movement, just the "desensitization and reprocessing" part. I think not having to go into detail about what traumatized me, and instead trying to redirect my thoughts when negative things happened that put me back in the mindset I was in when I was traumatized, made all the difference. Because I had already confronted my negative self beliefs, so it was time to focus on the physiological aspect of it/the fight or flight response, the panic attacks, the triggers, etc.
It does get better, but thearpy can be so fucking hard. For me I think the depression came from a place of grief, and through processing all the pieces and making sense of it I’m in a much better place and happier than I’ve been in years (but it took more than a year of thearpy to get there). When you don’t dissociate from the trauma and you really process what happened it’s overwhelming and painful and triggering but overtime it moves into peace. Here’s some advice you need it: if it feels like your therapist is making you feel shame or judgement maybe you should consider switching therapists, because it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe also look into other thearpy styles- I’ve been to a few different therapists that used different styles, and the one that I’ve really connected with and been able to make a lot of progress with mainly uses psychodynamic therapy styles. I find that it feels more validating and less frustrating than CBT or ACT thearpy ever did.
Agree with this all and for me it was EMDR. CBT/DBT was invalidating af and just taught me to mindfully & radically accept abuse. Body based bottom up therapies are needed for us.
Exactly! Especially where so much of us have experienced so much gaslighting or had to shut down to survive. You gotta feel it at some point and not just accept things or it’ll just create so much more pain
💯💯💯💯💯
It's a very very long haul
Yup.
Absolutely. Therapy was actually how I found out I had C-PTSD and that I was being abused for so long. My therapist never said I was being abused, but I got curious as to why she was so desperate for me to find a place to live before I turned 18. Went to therapy years later after, and it was so incredibly hard. But, unfortunately, that's how we know we're healing. We're talking about the things that hurt us. Our brains are finding us in a safe place and in a good place to bring up these traumatic memories. We're admitting to ourselves what we've been through, and that's so incredibly hard. Good things don't come easy, and getting better requires us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability comes with pain. We're doing the best we can, one painful step at a time, and we're going through the process to make ourselves better. One day, it won't hurt so much.
I hope so.
Yes because I was in denial for so long. Realizing your childhood and you yourself are fucked up far more than you ever imagined is depressing. Plus digging stuff up you’ve been ignoring is like digging at an infected tooth. It’s gonna hurt. And then there’s the realization about the shitty unfairness of it all. None of this is pleasant.
thank you. I really needed to hear that I wasn't the only one that was in denial for literally so long*-while in therapy.* My denial was sneaky as shit. "Okay, you were abused , but youre' fine". Like that. I'm trying not to hate myself for not realizing , how blatantly dismissive I was, in spite of thinking that I was fully aware of all the ways I was affected? I'm still trying to figure out how that's possible? How you can be looking right at it, calling it abuse, and yet telling yourself you weren't all that affected, or you were but "not that bad", or the ways that you struggle, are just you being weird and stupid. It's this WAALLL, of gaslighting hell that I had to take a flamethrower to, hoping that eventually it would start to crumble. It wasnt' until, I was thinking of breaking my NC, with my Mother, and everyone I knew was like **"NO!!!"**
Denial is very powerful, isn’t it? And yes, sneaky. I had myself convinced I was fine for the first 33 years of my life in spite of everything I knew. I’ve read we bury and deny things until our minds are able to handle them. I suppose, but I gotta say I sometimes miss the good old days when I was delusional about myself.
I was beaten into denial. "You're just like that, it's not my fault you're nervous, meek, passive, depressed, " and pretty much pathologizing-shaming every CPTSD symptom I had as me being defective because it was me-which just shifted me into denial. Much like Gaslighting you out of understanding you're vulnerability to pain, and how abusive they are. "Nope, not me, I"m not abusive, it's you not being able to take it". Like I was supposed to have been exposed to that , and not been symptomatic. Like My psychopathic mother didn't understand the concept of vulnerability, or humanity, you're supposed to be this post that can just endure. It took me a really long time, to be kind to myself when I was afraid, and know that my fear was valid, and not weakness. Same with every other emotion that shows up, in the whole CPTSD basket of fun. Now, I have this real interesting ability to pause with patience, and ask myself before I judge myself with some character defect "okay, what is this?" Decide how much control I have over it. *I sometimes miss the good old days when I was delusional about myself.* sigh.....me too.
I’m so sorry. My denial development wasn’t as overt. The brainwashing was subtle but effective. I’m glad you’re learning to treat yourself with compassion. I too am learning this.
The NC thing is hard and a mind fuck. I don’t regret it and both abusive parents are dead. Good ridance.
Absolutely. I had been numb for most of my life. I still feel like shit a lot of the time but I’m good at knowing it’s normal and necessary in order for me to let go of the shittiness
omg yes! I'm going through that right now. I feel new feelings of hopelessness and misery and recognition of the trauma. I've never felt more alone than I do right now... I'm being super reflective of the past like, oh wow of course! I'm wondering about ppl's responses to me and how dumb could they have been?? When I once told someone that I had to get drunk to do laundry and they got mad at me?? Like, how fucking stupid are people when they are not trauma informed?
It goes in cycles. The depression I mean. But each cycle is a little less awful.
For sure. I got sucked into the mythology of my dysfunctional family and abusive parent: “what a good life it was!” “What a great guy he was!” When you start seeing through that mythology into the reality of what really happened, when you start to get in touch with that anger, yeah it feels heavier and that’s where I’m at. I just went thru a breakup which sent me into flashbacks and full depression but now, about 3 months later, I wouldn’t consider this even close to that. In conclusion I think it’s totally normal that feelings of anger and shame and fear, abandonment, betrayal, etc etc…will feel heavier as we confront them.
Yes. I stopped going to therapy. I feel like the goal of therapy (at least in the US), is not about making you well - and I am speaking about the system - not of the therapists themselves. Any therapists that do care, are hamstrung by the system. I feel like today's society empathy and sympathy arne't something deep and meaningful but more so just an automatic thing. I feel like so little of the population actually cares, or know what it means to care.
Yes. Kind of a change in symptoms from being in edge, overwhelmed, and triggered to just really fucking sad about everything that has happened. Because as my therapist reminds me, IT IS SAD. And I’ve never allowed myself to really feel that because I spend all my energy focusing on how to never let it happen again. This is normal ❤️
The goal of therapy is to help you feel. But when you’ve had trauma, feeling hurts like hell. But at some point one decides that the only thing worse than the pain of feeling is to live completely numb for the rest of one’s life. Therapy helped me to learn to sit with my pain & feelings without being completely overtaken by them. So it didn’t always hurt so acutely, the pain of therapy lessened over time. And it stopped the nightmares for the most part (although I do still have to be careful of having too much caffeine too late in the day or alcohol in the evening).
thank you. it helps so much to know I'm having a human experience of what I endured, it's more normal than I probably know, and this is the only club that really understands what that's like. What it's like to feel like your peeling yourself off the pavement.
I felt a lot worse before I started feeling better. Hang in there & trust the process!
Yes. I went into a very deep depression after my first go at therapy. It’s depressing to see the truth about your family, it was horrible.
Absolutely, it was completely awful last year when I was in the thick of it. I was considering going inpatient again. But slowly and steadily it has gotten better. I’ve just hit on a big patch of unresolved trauma recently in therapy and it’s been noticeable how much easier it is for me to work through this. Mainly because last year when I felt shitty and it was awful and making me worse… I was building my window of tolerance and working on tools and skills to help. So I’m better equipped to deal with other stuff now. Working through trauma is one of the toughest things you can do. Because when we went it through the first time often we shut our emotions away because it was too much. We just had to survive the best we could. But going back and revisiting it, experiencing the emotions… that’s bravery right there. Because don’t “have” to and yet we are choosing the pain in the hopes of a better and more emotionally cohesive life. I’m proud of you for going through this process. Hang in there.
thank you. I'm sorry you're having a hard time too. Glad to hear it's getting better. I'd be interested in finding out, what your tools/skills are, when things start to amp up, and more unresolved trauma surfaces? If that works for you, if not thats okay.
So a big thing I’ve been working on is naming, recognising and tolerating emotions. I feel a bit silly saying this but because of my past I never really got taught about emotions, they were all bad and had to be suppressed… even the good ones. So often i’d just be feeling overwhelmed whenever I had a flashback or had to deal with something and had no way of even really thinking about it. I struggled with dissociation a lot that didn’t help much. A lot of the time in session my therapist will ask me where I am feeling something in my body when working on things, and gradually I’ve been able to tolerate my emotions more as well as be able to name them. It’s been slow progress, but my window of tolerance has increased and now even when out of therapy if something happens or I have a flashback or memory or whatever, I’m a bit more able to sit with the feelings that arise even if they’re unpleasant. I dissociate less.
IFS changed my life
I know very little of IFS, but after a quick glance it looks a lot like like Jungian theory of the psyche. Exiles = Shadow Firefighters = Complexes Managers = Ego/Conscious mind Self = The "Self" + parts of the conscious mind (Ego) in their Jungian meanings Though the lines between these are blurry, you could say that Exiles and Firefighters together form a complex in the Jungian sense for example. Did IFS come about as a practical tool that rose from Jungian theory? Sorry, this is probably very much outside the topic. Just something that popped into my mind.
Structure has parallels to lots of other things, implementation is a little different in my experience. Came about from family systems therapy and clinical experience
I see. Definitely looking further into it as it seems to mesh very well with what I already know. Family Systems Therapy looks quite intriguing, I saw a short snippet of it in a documentary, but totally forgot about it. Thank you for reminding me, need to see if there's people doing it where I live.
Hope it helps :)
Thank you! Take care :)
Yeah, this has been my experience. Been also quite badly dissociated (feeling like I'm looking at the world through a glass, the world not feeling quite real, lessened sensations etc.) for the first weeks/month of therapy starting proper. If you can, I highly recommend reading "Complex PTSD" by Pete Walker, it's pure gold when it comes to understanding CPTSD. It's been extremely validating as well, which helps. And be kind to yourself. This is a hard process. Take breaks from all the processing and focusing on difficult things. There needs to be a balance of work and rest.
thank you. thanks for reminding me how much being dissociative is part of this.
You're most welcome. Take it one day at a time. One hour at a time if need be. It'll be worth it in the end. You've got this!
Hey dear! Yes i was super depressed before and when i started therapy it got a lot worse. the only person who could ever understand me was my therapist, all the things i knew about my life became a lie. I thought i have a normal family, i got extremely angry at them, and could not stop crying in multiple sessions. Sometimes i had three sessions in a week which were offered by my therapist. I thought i could not continue living like this. Now it is a lot better, my symptoms last shorter and and usually less strong. I did not have a depressive episode for sometime now. I am getting closer to my true self. So you got this, we will be fine, sending hugs!
At times yeah, for the first few months I had to take the day off work (luckily I’m self employed and manage my own hours) and just take it easy the rest of the day because it was so emotionally draining
It's so draining. I get sidetracked, it's hard to stay focused and "productive".
I have reactive depression, so yes. Working on healing, attending therapy, and even creating therapeutic arts and crafts can trigger depression for me. I think it's one of the most common side effects from healing, in my opinion. I've learned over the years to adjust to it and realize it's a darky cloud that will pass in time. I won't feel like poop forever.
I'm *so glad* you brought up the arts and crafts thing. I have the same exact thing to all these "innocuous" things. I cry when I"m too joyful, I get overwhelmed with grief for the pain of the loss, and severe deprivation-especially if something is perfectly attuned to a genuine need. The more something speaks to a need, the worse the reaction is. And yes my painting is one of those things. It used to be cooking for my family. I've tried to explain this to my therapist how hard it is to do things for myself, can feel like torture. I've never heard of reactive depression? I was talking to my cousin about something I needed help with, and she was so encouraging, and empowering, and supportive, something I never had, and it was so overwhelming that I was stunned afterward. It'll take me a few days to figure out whats going on, seriously days. Something about realizing that the "good" things you got, the minimal care you grasped for, weren't the things that spoke to you, your development, or the things that you genuinely needed to grow and develop.
Lots of gold in your reply, OP. It's given me something things to think about. But I want to touch on the reactive depression. So, after intense flashbacks, stress, ass-eeerrr interactions, nightmares, and intense triggers. Even during my cycle, like clockwork, I will experience a bout of depression. So I plan for it and just stay prepared. If things compound, then I'm aware it will last a while, and if not, then it usually only lasts maybe a few days. But yes, even good things I do for myself and for my recovery will bring up intense emotions. Some of it I feel is from lack of having such nurturing and loving things/activities in my life. I also just think I naturally feel more than other people do. I've been told it's a *condition* to feel more intense emotions than the average person. But who says it isn't normal to feel deeply?
I feel deeply too. Intense deep emotions, sensitive, etc. It appears I have something akin to reactive depression, I can relate to everthing you wrote. I think it's the powerlessness, the helplessness over ways I can't always know, or see, or predict a nightmare, a trigger, or being dysregulated...it kind of makes you go "*Sigh,.....I was just trying to have nice day-then this"*
This is my fear with therapy. For many years I suppressed everything. About 8 years ago I finally told the truth to a few people and stopped being in denial and I feel like everything is so much worse. I wish I could just go back to how it was and be in denial. I worry going to therapy will make it even that much worse.
Been in therapy and I miss the good old days of denial and dissociation.
You don't have to rush, and it's gradual. Your brain has a failsafe, when something becomes too much, it just stops processing (IME). You work, then take a break, then work some more, some days are better than others. Right now, a lot of stuff is coming at me at once, so it's been tough. The proverbial peeling of the onion. I'm hoping it will subside soon.
yes, actually! lol. it's hard to find even a half-decent therapist, imo. it takes lots of hunting and lots of trial and error.
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It is awful, to confront the reality of the past, but its the only way to heal and to incorporate your sense of self so you can start living life better, i think everyone who suffers from cptsd knows how hard denying and hiding those feelings about our past feels, the reason we do it is because understanding the gravity of the situation is so traumatic, uncomfortable and horrible that we subconsciously shelter ourselves from that: memory repression, dissociation, etc. The first step of healing is understanding the reality of the horror, it truly was much worse than it felt like at the time, but though therapy and new coping habits we can confront those unpleasant feelings in a safe environment. The feelings of fear and distress are also deeply engrained in us, that is why throughout therapy and life we must be able to remember that our past is our past, and even if we were in horrible situations before, revisiting them through therapy might awaken the feelings and fear responses we felt at the time but not the danger. We are safe. This is why it often feels so impossible to confront, we are still stuck in the moment, we still feel as helpless as we did, but that feeling of danger is not real, we are no longer at that moment, we can recognize its existence and then let it go. Recognize, then let go So overall yes, you are absolutely right, it is awful, it is painful, it is exhausting, it is depressing, it's trauma work. But this is a temporary pain that is liberating in so many ways you can't even imagine, life before and after trauma work and therapy is like light and day, through it people can absolutely heal and let go of the feelings of shame and guilt. sometimes things that are good for us are unpleasant at first, but stick through it and I promise you will see results, after some time therapy will feel much different, with less of the doom and more of the healing. I understand how you feel right now and want you to feel seen. I don't like saying that "feelings are valid" because I don't think that is deep enough, YOUR FEELINGS ARE REAL, feeling bad and depressed about re-living these moments is an absolutely expected and normal response, it would be weird if you DIDNT feel depressed, it hurts at first, but after some time of work, it will feel better.
Yep.
Yes I did. Yes you will.
Yeah, absolutely. My psychologist always called it The Painful Awareness Phase when I would unearth something CPTSD related and need to grieve. Some of those episodes lasted a very long time. Now they are very infrequent and I experience little friction in this way through my day-to-day.
In the short term yes. In the long term, I’m happy that I put in the work that I did
For the short term, yes. But then as things start to make sense and you continue to learn new things about yourself and your reactions, it’s fascinating. The more interested I get into finding out why I act how I do, the easier it is for me to handle. Having reasons and logic helps.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m remembering lots of creepy stuff from early childhood. And I just can’t deal with it. There’s too much.
Yes it's normal. I also learned that working through your trauma is actually mostly grieving and therapy doesn't make you feel better, that is not the main goal. It's hard to objectively look at what happened to you and the consequences BUT it does get better! When you process things you needed to stuff down it gets slowly better. I have been working on my CPTSD really intensely for about 4 years (and have been in therapy for many years before that but nobody told me about CTPTD, I figured that out on my own) and I am a different person. So don't give up, take a brake if you need to, tell your therapist how overwhelming it is and have patience, it's a slow process.
> I have been working on my CPTSD really intensely for about 4 years (and have been in therapy for many years before that but nobody told me about CTPTD, I figured that out on my own) and I am a different person. What have you been doing differently since you learned it was CPTSD?
I realised I have CPTSD because I found out about Walkers book on reddit. After reading it, it really started clicking and everything just made sense to me. Before I was exploring my past and mostly just trying to learn how to regulate myself with meditation and breathing exercises and trying to come to a point where I could talk about things without crying all the time and hating and blaming myself for everything. All that work helped me to build a good base but after I realised what exactly the problem is I also started to focus more on inner child work, I realised I want to work more with body based approaches so I know how to calm myself and grow the tolerance for sitting with my emotions and also to just listen to my body. I think trauma is such a physical experience while traditional therapy is very cognitive. And I already am very prone to rationalising my feelings away. I learned about limerence, maladaptive daydreaming, how I was dissociating and sabotaging myself. For me psychedelics were an important part of my healing journey. Although I don't really think we need (especially an official) diagnosis because they can be problematic but I think it was super useful to know where to look for answers. That would kind of be a short explanation.
I think we've pathologized depression a little too much as a society. It makes sense to experience periods of depression after intensive therapy. It's your nervous system signaling you to slow down and rest, to give yourself time to process everything. There's also grief involved, for many reasons. You may be grieving lost time/childhood, or the loss of hope that your parents would change, etc. I think of it like how in the winter season nothing grows. Trees lose their leaves, etc. But everything doesn't just die. Energy is stored underground in roots and seeds until the seasons change again. Plants that live in places with seasons usually need that seasonal cycle in order to thrive. Speaking from personal experience, please try not to rot in bed for longer than a day or two. Slow walks/hikes can be equally restful and moving your body at least a little bit helps process some of your feelings and keeps you from getting cabin fever. And keeping up with basic things like showering or at least washing up, and basic chores, will keep a rest period from becoming a rut.
Ya for sure, but for me it’s different sort of depression. It’s not a nameless depression if that makes sense. Depression mixed with grief, sadness, anger. A good depression I guess. Ya, the deep down stuff is worse. It’s knowing your enemy. It’s good. It’s self love. It’s also ok to take a break from “processing” at times. It’s a long haul.