trauma recovery

[Kid A]

Is it possible to fully recover from trauma? I have a great therapist that is helping me through the trauma but for me one of the biggest obstacles on the path to recovery is shutting down compleletey through numbing and fairly extreme dissocciation. When I make breakthroughs and am able to be me, free of the weight of trauma, I feel freer than I've felt in my life, but the weight always seems to return. I had a week where I felt trauma-free and it was amazing. While I wasn't necessarily happy I was so grateful to actually be able to let both pain and joy into my heart. I felt whole for a week and then something happened and I broke again and now once again feel stuck like I've felt my whole life. I guess my question is, is it possible to eventually end emotional numbing after years of habit?

 

[johnsurvived]

My T says yes to this question.

I think it takes time, and self-care, and the willingness to pay attention to yourself in new ways, so that you can gradually relearn what the causes, the whys and wherefores of your numbing and dissociation are, and, gradually learn to work through them by being conscious of them. I believe I am (finally!) just beginning to make some progress in this area after about 8 months of therapy. I still have far to go, but I feel optimistic about the future (and how strange that feels!). The causes are individualized and specific to you and your lifetime of experience. In my case, numbing and dissociation are ways not to be sad, angry, ashamed, and terrified. These are all emotions I have been able to reattach to my abuse experience in the past several months. The job for me now is to keep working on increasing my self-awareness to figure out and defuse these emotions when they become overwhelming, and to experience them without being overwhelmed so that I don't have to numb out and dissociate. Hope this helps you.

John

 

[Derdlecar]

Kid A

I know what you are talking about. Been there, done that, bought the T shirt. The two things that have helped me are both pretty simple.

1) Venting, this forum is great for that, back in the days before everyone had computers, I used to journal with a pencil in a spiral bound note book, I'd write things like hate male to who ever I was mad at, never sent it but I got it out.

2) Time. Doesn't require any doing, just waiting. And that is tough.

Hang in there

Darrel

 

[Kid A]

Thanks johnsurvived and Derdlecar,

I too feel like I dissocociate when I feel fear, shame, and anger are close to breaking through. I'm getting better at catching myself dissociating but sometimes, like this week, I feel like its impossible to catch myself cause I'm in a constant state of disocciation if that makes any sense. Its like I can't catch my mind trying to race away to protect me because my mind is already away somewhere and my heart and soul are lost. I wish I had some sort of way to instantly find where my mind has gone. I do have hope though that patience and understanding will eventually work. thanks again, Kid A