Life After Trauma

[Dhara]

. Five Basic Needs Often Disrupted by Trauma

Safety for yourself: The need to feel that you are reasonably protected from harm inflicted by yourself, by others, or by the environment Safety for others:

The need to feel that people you value are reasonably protected from harm inflicted by yourself, others, or the environment

Trust in yourself: The need to rely on your own judgment Trust in others: The need to rely on others

Control of yourself: The need to feel in charge of your own actions

Control with others: The need to have some influence or impact on others

Esteem for yourself: The need to value what you feel, think, and believe

Esteem for others: The need to value others Intimacy with yourself:

The need to know and accept your own feelings and thoughts Intimacy with others: The need to be known and accepted by others

Adapted from L. A. Pearlman and K. W. Saakvitne, Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychotherapy with Incest Survivors. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995, p. 62; and I. L. McCann and L. A. Pearlman, Psychological Trauma and the Adult Survivor. New York: Brunner/Mazel,

http://ucenickiparlament.weebly.com/uploads/9/2/4/7/9247538/life_after_trauma_-_prirucnik.pdf

I'm interested in talking to others about trauma recovery and here is a resource to stimulate discussion.

 

[Dhara]

At 17, Linda was raped by someone she had just met. It was years before she told anyone what happened, and, even then, she did not talk about it in much detail. At age 30, she still often thought about the assault, questioning what she could have done differently and blaming herself for not preventing it. Her belief that the rape was her fault prevented her from trusting herself with the men she met later. Whenever there was a man she liked, she fled as soon as he expressed an interest in getting emotionally or physically closer to her. She froze if a man asked her out or touched her, even in a friendly and nonsexual way. Over time, Linda grew increasingly frustrated with herself because she wanted to be able to develop a friendship or intimate relationship with a man. What prevented Linda from being able to change, given her awareness?
http://ucenickiparlament.weebly.com/uploads/9/2/4/7/9247538/life_after_trauma_-_prirucnik.pdf

 

[pillars]

EMDR is an excellent therapeutic intervention for trauma. It seems to help people with PTSD reprogram the traumatic memories and stop the constant recall. EMDR seems to work better with more recent, isolated incidents of trauma.

Seeking safety is a trauma based substance abuse modality that is also evidence-based. It is also supposed to be very effective.

I highly recommend EMDR. It provided me with a massive level of relief.

I have come to believe though that people with early trauma exposure are more vulnerable to later trauma.

If you have PTSD, I would urge you to check it out.

 

[Dhara]

EMDR may be helpful to some people, but isn't a cure all. What has helped me the most has been Feldenkrais ATMS (Awareness through Movement) and a modality called Focusing, discovered by philosopher and psychologist, Eugene Gendlin.

Gendlin discovered that people who succeeded in psychotherapy did so because they were able to go inside their bodies with their awareness and be present to their emotional experience without being merged with the emotion.

 

[Dhara]

I find the info on Adult Children particularly the "Laundry List" to be relevant to trauma recovery. Later on I will add a few excerpts that I find inspiring.

 

[Dhara]

The Promise of Recovey:

We learn to love and accept ourselves for who we really are. (Not who our abusers tell us we should be)

Self-esteem increases exponentially when we offer approval to ourselves on a daily basis. (Not constant criticism and belittling)

We let go of fear of authority figures and the need to "people please" lets go.

We are attracted by strengths and tolerant of weaknesses.

We feel peaceful and secure.

We play and have fun in our lives.

Healthy boundaries and limits become easy to set. We love people who are responsible for themselves.

We are no longer a victim, a rescuer, or a perpetrator.

 

[ChrisL]

I find the info on Adult Children particularly the "Laundry List" to be relevant to trauma recovery. Later on I will add a few excerpts that I find inspiring.

Very interesting posts, Dhara.

What about your own personal experiences with trauma? Do you suffer any symptoms to this day?

 

[Dhara]

I find the info on Adult Children particularly the "Laundry List" to be relevant to trauma recovery. Later on I will add a few excerpts that I find inspiring.

Very interesting posts, Dhara.

What about your own personal experiences with trauma? Do you suffer any symptoms to this day?

My symptoms are greatly minimized and no longer hold me back from life forward energy. I will be working on this the rest of my life, and I'm very determined to make sure I raise healthy adults.

 

[Dhara]

The Laundry List Workbook just arrived in the mail today. It's quite impressive.

 

[Dhara]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

 

[ChrisL]

The Promise of Recovey:

We learn to love and accept ourselves for who we really are. (Not who our abusers tell us we should be)

Self-esteem increases exponentially when we offer approval to ourselves on a daily basis. (Not constant criticism and belittling)

We let go of fear of authority figures and the need to "people please" lets go.

We are attracted by strengths and tolerant of weaknesses.

We feel peaceful and secure.

We play and have fun in our lives.

Healthy boundaries and limits become easy to set. We love people who are responsible for themselves.

We are no longer a victim, a rescuer, or a perpetrator.

I'm not that tolerant of "weakness." I find it very annoying for some reason. I know it's wrong, but I feel almost angry when I see a person who seeks "pity." I don't know why that is, but it really bothers me. What does that say about me? Lol.

 

[ChrisL]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

 

[Dhara]

The Promise of Recovey:

We learn to love and accept ourselves for who we really are. (Not who our abusers tell us we should be)

Self-esteem increases exponentially when we offer approval to ourselves on a daily basis. (Not constant criticism and belittling)

We let go of fear of authority figures and the need to "people please" lets go.

We are attracted by strengths and tolerant of weaknesses.

We feel peaceful and secure.

We play and have fun in our lives.

Healthy boundaries and limits become easy to set. We love people who are responsible for themselves.

We are no longer a victim, a rescuer, or a perpetrator.

I'm not that tolerant of "weakness." I find it very annoying for some reason. I know it's wrong, but I feel almost angry when I see a person who seeks "pity." I don't know why that is, but it really bothers me. What does that say about me? Lol.

It says you won't let yourself be manipulated by someone else's seeming "helplessness". That's a good thing.

What I think the tolerance of weakness means is that you can love and accept(weaknesses in) yourself even if you're not at your best.

 

[Dhara]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

 

[ChrisL]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

 

[pillars]

EMDR may be helpful to some people, but isn't a cure all. What has helped me the most has been Feldenkrais ATMS (Awareness through Movement) and a modality called Focusing, discovered by philosopher and psychologist, Eugene Gendlin.

Gendlin discovered that people who succeeded in psychotherapy did so because they were able to go inside their bodies with their awareness and be present to their emotional experience without being merged with the emotion.

So a visualization I have used, because like you, some of my PTSD is from childhood, is to think about that scared/sad child inside me, and compassionately wrap my arms around that child and comfort it, like a mother would. And, just be in that moment, self-comforting, if and when I need to (I have not needed to for a really long time, probably 7-8 years). So in essence, you know how in yoga/meditation, you go outside yourself to watch yourself, and then watch yourself watching yourself? Sort of like that, but becoming aware of the unseen but traumatized child inside you, visualizing that child when the injuries began to occur, and comforting that inner child when you are in one of those emotional places that is stirred up by something that reminds you of those injuries.

 

[pillars]

I find the info on Adult Children particularly the "Laundry List" to be relevant to trauma recovery. Later on I will add a few excerpts that I find inspiring.

Very interesting posts, Dhara.

What about your own personal experiences with trauma? Do you suffer any symptoms to this day?

My symptoms are greatly minimized and no longer hold me back from life forward energy. I will be working on this the rest of my life, and I'm very determined to make sure I raise healthy adults.

This is true, but there will be a time when you really don't have to spend much time focusing on your past trauma. I totally believe that. I haven't had a flashback in literally years.

 

[Dhara]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

 

[pillars]

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

Damn. Your upbringing sounds a lot like the stuff that some of the kids I work with go through.

that must have been incredibly painful. I'm sorry you went through that.

 

[ChrisL]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

My mom was quite abusive (emotionally, sometimes physically but mostly emotionally and verbally). She never planned things out. She was just batshit crazy and would totally lose it for silly little things. For example, one time I cut my own hair, and she carried me over to the window (third floor apartment), and dangled me out while threatening to throw me out the window. She was a very violent and scary woman, and I used to have recurring nightmares about her. I HATED her when I was a teenager and I totally rebelled against her and I would purposely do things to piss her off.