Since my major PTSD episode, I have been trying to cope as
best I can. My therapist a trauma specialist, has cancelled on me a few times
which has hindered by bi-weekly stress release I receive when I see him.
Yesterday, I finally got in to see my therapist and discuss
what happened when I ran, unexpectedly into a cousin I had not seen in years.
This was the first biological family member I had run into since divorcing my
biological family. (You can read the entire excerpt, here.
You can read about divorcing my biological family here.)
Since my discussion with him I began to quantify some states
of being that I commonly associate with these period of extreme stress brought
upon me by a PTSD episode. This was promoted by my therapist who insisted on
creating a plan of action to deal with my current state of complete undoing.
Before I move forward, allow me to explain something to my
reader. There are several schools of thought regarding therapy and recovery of
trauma. I like to classify them by things they remind me of; however, they have
real psychological terms to.
Let’s Dissect Your
Trauma – Eye Movement Desensitization and
Reprograming (EMDR)
“EMDR psychotherapy is an information processing therapy and
uses an eight phase approach to address the experiential contributors of a wide
range of pathologies. It attends to the past experiences that have set the
groundwork for pathology, the current situations that trigger dysfunctional
emotions, beliefs and sensations, and the positive experience needed to enhance
future adaptive behaviors and mental health.”[i]
This approach to me centers on the world desensitization. This is a systematic exposure
to something in order to help a client have that thing bother them less and
less. Desensitization is used often when confronting phobias. For example, you
have a problem with bugs? Then they might bring you into a room with a bug in
it and utilizing some exercise of meditation to slow your physical response to
bugs, they will bring you closer and closer, over time, to the bug. Eventually, the goal would be that your fear
of bugs will not interrupt your ability to function.
I tried this approach with disastrous results. I was told to
write down the top ten most horrifying abuses in great detail to give to my
therapists. Then we were going to use these things to desensitize my physical
reactions over a period of time to these stressors. Once I realized what was
going to happen, I literally walked out of the second session. My life is not
about the past, it is about how I am able to function today.[ii]
Take this Pill, It
Will Help for A Little While – Medication[iii]
This therapy is one that I do utilize. Still, I object on
different levels. I am a holistic kind of woman who is trying to get away from GMOs,
different chemicals, antibiotics and medications of all types. So popping a
pill, for me, means I am introducing outside, unnatural things into a natural
system. I am very sensitive to side affects from all types of medications so
that taking “safe” drugs can be unsafe for me. I have to take drugs that are
formulated under name-brands, instead of generic because the fillers used have
an adverse reaction to my body which struggles with dysautonomia.
Father, this is not a permanent solution. Eventually, I have
to switch medications or take breaks from taking certain medications. None of
which helps me to LEARN how to better function after living a life overflowing
with dysfunction. I am not the only person who has issues with taking long term
medications.
Tell Them About Your
Trauma - Family Therapy
Utilizing the intimate persons in your immediate life to
deal with the trauma of your past can be extremely helpful. However, not if it
means reliving your trauma for your family. My husband has been involved in
sessions over the years when I find it difficult to communicate what is
happening. Taking him into the controlled environment of a session so that I
can use the mediation of a therapist to explain what is happening with my body,
soul, mind or emotions is helpful. Teaching family members about the normal
reactions and thought process of the person afflicted by torture can often help
them better deal with these reactions when they arise in day to day settings. One
thing my husband has always been clear about in these sessions is that I do not
need to give some detailed accounting of the abuse I suffered. He had come to
realized that I had a much harder time functioning when forced to make these accounting. Consequently he has very few “stories” of my abuse. Mostly it is
through my writing that he has come to know these things. He is absolutely
correct. Being forced, as part of therapy, to re-hash events I had no control over
then and have no control over now is not a type of therapy I find beneficial.
Tell me About Your Trauma
in Great Detail - Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral
Therapy.
Although readers of this blog know that I utilize cognitive -behavioral
therapy, what separate this focus of therapy with trauma-focused
cognitive-behavioral therapy is “trauma-focused.” This is includes a recounting
of past traumatic events.
Because none of these therapies seem to really appeal to me,
I developed a set of guidelines that I give to potential therapists. When I am
forced to find a new therapist because of a move or a therapist closes, I set
interviews with potential therapists and go and see them. I set down the
following guidelines.
- I am not a Christian so talking about the Bible or the Judeo-Christian God is not the way to make me feel better. I am Wiccan. If you don’t know what that is, I will provide you with a book about Wicca for you to read so you can understand my faith based perceptions. I need a therapist who is at least familiar with my spiritual choice.
- I am a thinking and accepting liberal. If you are going to find my handling of my life which permits that gays have equal rights to marry, my son can be gay, straight or bi-sexual and I am equally attracted to women and men as morally reprehensible, then I need to move on.
- I believe in rights and wrongs. Don’t tell me that my biological father had some dharma he needed to live through by raping me which in turn should prompt me to forgive him and continue a relationship with him. Bullshit. He was fucked up and should be in jail. If I was raped by a stranger no one would dare to suggest a close relationship with my attacker. I see no reason why the relationship to my attacker should change that opinion. Can’t live with that view point, then I need to move along.
- I have no plans to spend the first four or five sessions giving my new therapist a detail accounting of the torture and trauma I suffered at the hands of my biological family. I am happy to give one session to a brief over view of my trauma with my biological family and my trauma during my first marriage; however, I am not going to spend a month trying to give a counselor a full and complete accounting. As things come up in therapy, certain specific incidences will also rise and I may give an accounting at that time. It is likely to be general and not detailed. I share as much as I need in order to explain or quantify why I think there is a relationship between a particular issue in my present life and some violation of my past.
- I have spiritually, mentally and emotionally divorced my biological family. I do not forgive or forget my biological father, my paternal grandmother or grandfather or my biological mother. Although I may release my past as a way to ensure that it doesn’t have continued adverse effects on my present functionality, I will not be lulled into a false sense of security in trusting people who spent a lifetime destroying that trust. I know that pedophiles and rapists only stop doing those things because of age. Their testosterone decreases and they stop offending. My offender raped multiple girls who found me when they were adults and confronted me over my biological father’s behavior. My mother, despite having been given an opportunity to hear the truth, has rejected that truth as my biological siblings have. I do not deny their right to do this and my divorcing of them is to ensure that some objection registers. I do not want future victims to find me and continue to accuse me of doing nothing to stop a monster. So I took a stand and divorced them. If, as a therapist, you can’t or won’t understand why this is a good therapeutic choice, then I cannot work with that therapist.
- I see therapy as a two prong approaching to keeping the level of my ability to function in an acceptable range. First it is to relieve normal stressors in a safe environment. I want to bitch moan, groan and explore the stress I experience daily. Often, I am not looking for direction regarding these stressors, just a place to release them so that some of the internal pressure is also released. Second I am looking to use cognitive-behavioral therapy to change poor thinking patterns and behavioral habits in order to keep from repeating behavior that lowers my ability to function.
This inability to find positive therapeutic situations for
myself has baffled me for years. When I started my research into the cycle of
recovery from a major post traumatic event, I came across two theories that I
am currently trying to learn about and understand. Both have left me hopeful
that I am not completely out of my mind.
Complex
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)
“Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) - Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a proposed psychological injury that results from prolonged exposure to social or interpersonal trauma, disempowerment, captivity or entrapment, with lack or loss of a viable escape route for the victim.[iv]”
The biggest differences between C-PTSD and PTSD is around
the length of exposure is separated. PTSD victims may have had one or two
encounters where C-PTSD victims have had prolonged exposure that lasts years.
Another difference involves disempowerment, captivity and inability to escape.
PTSD include members of the military who have suffered trauma fighting in war.
This trauma was born of a place of empowerment (with the notable exception of
some Vietnam veterans who were drafted). Even if drafted, however, some
training was given before the trauma occurred. In the case of C-PTSD sufferers,
the victims are children born into the trauma without any warning or training
to prepare them for the coming torture they will experience. Further, although
war veterans may have felt the military had physical trapped them, there are
still options available to them (medical discharge, dishonorable discharge, not
accepting an extension in a commission). Children born to torture and rape have
no viable mechanism available to them to leave. Their torture continues under
the bounds of complete captivity.[v]
Having been part of group therapy sessions that include veterans
with PTSD and victims of PTSD who suffered one incidence of trauma, I can tell
you that the patients being treated do not see many similarities between the
PTSD of veterans and onetime sufferers or the class of PTSD sufferers who came from
years of captive abuse. This distinction also helps surviors of proglonged
captive suffering to understand that there was no alternative of escape available
to them. This may seem obvious to some and is not obvious to the sufferers
of abuse. After going to a battered women’s shelter at 18, I remember clearly
my complete shock when the director said, “Obviously, you can’t go live with
your parents anymore.”
“You aren’t going to send me home?” I had said in shock and
bewilderment.
“No! You can’t live with people who allow these things to happen or do them,” she replied.
“Oh Good. I haven’t wanted to live with them for so long and thought I didn’t have a choice,” I said.
This exchange is a common mind set of persons who have suffered long term abuse. There comes a point when they expect the abuse to continue and expect that there is no option of not suffering the abuse. C-PTSD is the an attempt at a clinical explanation of this phenomena particular to children who have suffered prolonged suffering without the ability to leave.
Resilience - George Bonanno
The research being conducted by George Bonanno is overturning previous ideas around the stages of grief. Bonanno asserts that psychological resilience, the ability of a person to cope with trauma and stress, is at the center of trauma and grief reactions.
He is utilized scientific method to prove his theories and further them and hasn't readily accepted that the Five Stages of Grief nor the ways in which persons of severe psychological trauma are currently being treated is the best or even the most efficent treatment.
Bonanno has demonstrated that there are four trajectories related to grief and trauma reactions.
Resilence, Recovery, Chronic Dysfunction and Delayed Grief or Trauma. What intrigues me at first blush with Bonanno and his research is his focus on functionality, the ability of a survivor to cope long term after a traumatic event or death.
Functionality is what I have, inadvertently focused my personal counseling on. I have focused on cognitive behavioral therapy that only looks at trauma in relations to the light it can shed on my functionality today. If issues come up during my coping with C-PTSD, the default question is, "How can I take this experience from my past and mimize it's impact on my now?"
"How can I change how I think or do something now, despite my learned behavior from my past trying to mold my thoughts or actions in a different and less desirable way?"
Further reading on this issue is going to be needed for me to fully understand what Bonanno is suggesting. However, these new views of trauma and loss, are for me extremely hopeful.
He is utilized scientific method to prove his theories and further them and hasn't readily accepted that the Five Stages of Grief nor the ways in which persons of severe psychological trauma are currently being treated is the best or even the most efficent treatment.
Bonanno has demonstrated that there are four trajectories related to grief and trauma reactions.
Resilence, Recovery, Chronic Dysfunction and Delayed Grief or Trauma. What intrigues me at first blush with Bonanno and his research is his focus on functionality, the ability of a survivor to cope long term after a traumatic event or death.
Functionality is what I have, inadvertently focused my personal counseling on. I have focused on cognitive behavioral therapy that only looks at trauma in relations to the light it can shed on my functionality today. If issues come up during my coping with C-PTSD, the default question is, "How can I take this experience from my past and mimize it's impact on my now?"
"How can I change how I think or do something now, despite my learned behavior from my past trying to mold my thoughts or actions in a different and less desirable way?"
Further reading on this issue is going to be needed for me to fully understand what Bonanno is suggesting. However, these new views of trauma and loss, are for me extremely hopeful.
[i] "EMDR
Institute, Inc. - EMDR Institute." EMDR Institute, Inc. EMDR
Insistute, Inc., n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2014.
<http://www.emdr.com/general-information/what-is-emdr/2-what-is-emdr.html>.
[ii]
This is my personal experience and I am aware that this type of therapy MAY
work for some people. Although my resent research has uncovered the Resilience Theory
by George Bonanno which suggest through the scientific method and research that
these types of therapy may cause more harm than good.
[iii] Symptoms,
Treatment and Self-Help. Helpguide.org, Dec. 2013. Web. 08 Jan. 2014.
<http://www.helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm>.
[iv] "Out
of the FOG - Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)." Out of
the FOG - Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). Out of the Fog -
Support, Information regarding Personality Disorders, 2011. Web. 10 Jan. 2014.
<http://outofthefog.net/Disorders/CPTSD.html>.
[v] Author's Note: C-PTSD would be considered a viable diagnosis for miltary personnel held as prisoners of war, any persons kidnapped and held against their will, women and children kidnapped and tortured by a perpetrator over significant periods of time. Age is not the most important quality for C-PTSD. The inability to escape the abuse is paramount.
[v] Author's Note: C-PTSD would be considered a viable diagnosis for miltary personnel held as prisoners of war, any persons kidnapped and held against their will, women and children kidnapped and tortured by a perpetrator over significant periods of time. Age is not the most important quality for C-PTSD. The inability to escape the abuse is paramount.
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