“Que Sera, Sera” and the Manifestation of Right Brain Material

For the past several weeks, I have felt extremely nervous each time I have gone to my therapy session.  Since I have been seeing this therapist for over a year and a half now, I noted the nervousness, noted that it seemed odd but determined that it probably was not related to the relationship between my therapist and me, and then figured “Que Sera, Sera” (roughly “what will be, will be”), as Doris Day sang on Your Hit Parade, the weekly radio program that my friends and I followed religiously in the 1950s.  Knowing how I process material in therapy, normally from my right brain to my left brain, I figured that whatever trauma information was lurking in the right side of my brain that needed to manifest itself was getting ready to do that.  However, I had not figured that the manifestation would be so upsetting and so horrible! 

My therapy appointment is at 1:30, so I caught my bus at noon yesterday, knowing that I would easily make my appointment with time to spare for my crossword puzzle.  I like to center myself in the waiting room by working on the puzzle printed each morning in the Portland Oregonian.  By the time I arrived at the bus transfer point, however, I was feeling “odd.”  I wasn’t feeling dizzy or sick or in pain; I was simply feeling “odd.”  Because I still deal with occasional PTSD symptoms such as spaciness and flashbacks, “odd” doesn’t alarm me, so I sat down in the bus shelter and hoped the feeling would pass quickly. 
  
Bus 8 arrived, and I knew I needed to get into it, but I had a problem, very likely the same problem Alice had when she drank from the bottle labeled “Drink Me”:  the world I saw through my eyes was not the world I normally saw.  The lines that normally are parallel to the earth were slanted and actively tipping, like a teeter-totter, and the lines that normally are perpendicular to the earth were leaning, tipped in all directions.  I looked at the bus, saw it tilted oddly, and tried to figure out where to put my feet.  I did my best to put my feet where I needed to put them in order to get on and find a seat, and then I managed to tumble onto an empty place.  After I had sat down, I looked around me at the other passengers, wondering if any of them had noticed my awkward entrance, but nobody had. 

As the bus progressed toward my stop, I had a chance to breathe deeply and get myself calmed down.  I was not dizzy—the world was not whirling around in my brain.  My memory was intact, and I knew perfectly well where I was and where I was going.  And slowly the “Drink Me” sensation went away.  Then I remembered that in the past I had had episodes of what psychologists call “derealization,” times when reality doesn’t seem what it is supposed to be.  The world outside my head does not look like it should.  In fact, Lewis Carroll did such a great job of describing the sensation of derealization in Through the Looking Glass that I sometimes wonder if he suffered from trauma! 

During my session, I described this experience to my therapist.  She suggested that I use colored pencils and paper and see what evolved.  Since I have learned that I can easily access the memories and emotions lodged in the right side of my brain if I write or draw with my non-dominant hand, I sat down, took a red pencil, and began to write.  What I wrote absolutely blew me away!

If you have read my website and my blog articles, you know I was violently sexually assaulted by the neighbor woman when I was between four and five years old, 1943 or 1944.  I effectively repressed this memory until 1980, when I had a flashback and remembered the basics of the assault.  Over a period of twenty years, I remembered more and more until I thought I had captured the whole awful memory.  Boy, was I ever wrong about that!

What I wrote with my left hand on Monday in my therapist’s office horrified both my therapist and me.  My message said something like this:  That woman told me that she had magical powers and that even when I couldn’t see her looking into my bedroom from her kitchen window, she could still see me and watch everything I did.  She could tell by watching me if I was telling anyone about what she had done to me, and if I told, then she would find me and kill me—dead!  And what would my parents do with a dead little girl?  They wouldn’t want me at all, and they would put me in a box and bury me in the ground.  So I had better not tell anyone!   And for forty-some years, I didn’t tell.  Anyone!  Not my parents, my Godparents, my friends—not anyone!

Wow!  Did this explain a lot!!  I remember as a child always having the feeling of having “butterflies in my stomach.”  That feeling made me antsy when I was awake and busy, and at night, I had a hard time sleeping.  Even my kindergarten teacher noticed my nervousness and noted it on my report card, although she dismissed my nervousness as “growing so fast.”  I was scared a lot of the time when I was a child, but I never really understood why I was scared.  All I knew was that I had that feeling of being scared and had nothing to cite as a cause for my fears. In junior high school, every time the teacher closed the classroom door, my stomach would lurch, and I would run to the bathroom to be sick.  I had no idea why I did this.  I learned, however, that I could walk out of school and simply go home without consequences, so I did this frequently.  Nobody ever said anything to me about skipping school, and I never told.  I was so happy to be home by myself where I could have peace and quiet with no doors shutting, no kids and teachers, and no people to notice my discomfort.

I grew into an adult diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.  Nevertheless, I coped with life and took no medication for my anxiety.  I graduated from college, survived twenty years of spousal abuse, raised two kids to adulthood, survived the divorce process, earned straight A grades in two graduate programs, retired from community college teaching, and here I am, a senior citizen getting help for Complex PTSD and writing about the experience.

The memory of this experience, awful and horrible as it is, is an essential ingredient in my healing process.  Now, for example, I understand so much more about why I have always been afraid of confiding in most people and why I trusted nobody, not even my parents, when I was a child.  Even yet, today, as a senior citizen,  my trust level is low. That’s a fact.  And the feeling I have had of not fitting into the world may be at least partially explained by this experience.  After all, a child living and reaching adulthood with such a monstrous untold secret truly would feel marked, like a leper in filthy rags wandering in a world full of shiny, unblemished holy beings.  That is how I have felt all my life! 
 
Why am I telling you, my reader, about this experience?  Because I want you to know that it is important to have faith in your brain’s/mind’s ability to heal itself.  If you truly want to heal from trauma, you will.  But if you do not have faith in your own healing powers, the process will take longer.  Your mind is the vault where your healing powers are located, and this same vault contains the materials upon which your healing depends.  If you have faith in your mind’s ability to process these materials and heal, then your healing will follow its natural course.  It will happen.  That’s the way we humans are made.  Your therapist can support your process, and your therapist can support you when you get frustrated with the process, but you alone have the key to your own healing.  It’s up to you to unlock the memories as they need to be unlocked.  If you are patient, attend to the still, small voice of your intuition, and have courage, healing will happen. 

Therapist Appreciation Day: Have You Observed This Day?

My therapist and I have, in my opinion, a good working relationship.  We have had our ups and downs, but throughout this process of dealing with my C-PTSD, I have tried to be honest with her and have had the courage to tell her how I feel about how things are going between us—from my perspective, at any rate.  This past Thursday, however, as I thought about my session, I realized that perhaps I have, at times, failed to let her know how much I appreciate her and to include her in my process.  I intend to apologize to her for this lapse when I see her on Monday.

You see, I have hit a spot in my therapy where I feel as if I’m in transition from one phase to another.  However, I’m not sure where I am going or what the next phase truly is.  I feel a tension in my therapy, as if I’m dangling over a crevasse and don’t know which way to jump—should I jump back to where I was comfortable or should I jump to the other side, unknown territory?  As you may know, the unknown is sometimes scary, and at times it’s a lot more comfortable to stay in the territory that is known.  That was—and IS--my dilemma.  I don’t know which way to jump!

I am, however, highly motivated to get through the process of recovering from Complex PTSD, and my dithering frustrates me no end!  I get angry at myself, and I browbeat myself, knowing all the time that this activity simply makes the situation worse.  And then I say things such as, “If I have time, I’m going to get through this all by myself this weekend” or “I know I could do this on my own if I just forced myself to do it.”  That’s what I said to my therapist on Thursday.  And then later, when I was riding the bus home and reflecting on my session, I remembered what I said, and then I remembered something else:  I’m not in this process alone!  She is there with me!
 
As soon as I remembered this simple fact, a peace settled over me, and I resolved to make this coming Monday my personal “Therapist Appreciation Day.”  I am not in this alone.  I have a companion on this journey, and I need to include her.  She can help me make this transition.
 
How could I have forgotten this simple fact?  Well, people with my background of abuse often get through life without a whole lot of help.  If a child learns at a very young age that the world is not safe and that no person, including parents, can be trusted to help, then often that child learns to cope with abuse without asking for help.  If, later, the child-become-adult is abused, then the person still does not ask for help—with anything! Such was my pattern. I never asked for help and never expected any help.  Never, that is, until I realized one day in 1980 that my world was crashing around me and that getting help was a matter of life and death.  Then I asked for and received the help I sought from a skilled, kind, and compassionate therapist.
 
That was about thirty years ago. I learned a big lesson on the day I asked for help in 1980:  It is possible to ask for help and to receive the help I need and want with no strings attached.  And along with the help, it’s also possible to receive a bonus gift of unconditional kindness, understanding, and empathy.

But old thought patterns die hard.  I certainly realize that now!  So, as I said, Monday will be the day I observe “Therapist Appreciation Day.”  Have you observed this day with your therapist?  It can't hurt, and it might help.

More on Complex PTSD

I check my stats page for this blog every day, and when I check, I look to see which articles seem to be most popular.  So far, the article titled “Complex PTSD: Does It Exist?” has been read more times than the others.  When I wrote the article, I didn’t expect it to be this popular.  In fact, I wasn’t sure that anyone would want to read it because it struck me as being somewhat dry and academic.  However, now I know that the topic appeals to you, my readers, and I will do my best to address the topic more often.  In the meantime, here are two articles I found recently which you might find helpful:
 
• http://knowledgex.camh.net/amhspecialists/specialized_treatment/trauma_treatment/first_stage_trauma/FirstStageTT_ch6/Pages/criteria_complex_ptsd.aspx
• http://drkathleenyoung.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/complex-ptsd/


If you read the two articles listed above, you will have a good idea as to the hallmarks of C-PTSD.  You will, at least, have a good idea as to the nature of C-PTSD as the practitioners and researchers see it.  You may not, however, get much of an idea from the articles as to how the problem appears to those who live with the disorder every day—those of us who find ourselves in a C-PTSD cage and are trying to get out and join the rest of the world.

Each person who battles C-PTSD experiences the disorder differently because each person is uniquely different from any other person.  Thus, when you read my description of my experience in the articles I’ve written for this blog, it’s important to remember that my experience of C-PTSD is unique to me.  There are, though, certain common threads that run through the tapestry of each person’s experience of the disorder.

One such thread is the presence of typical PTSD symptoms—flashbacks, dissociative episodes, numbing of emotions, etc.  The presence of these symptoms has interfered with my life to the point where I have long known I needed and wanted to do something to alleviate them.  That’s the main reason why I am presently in therapy, and it’s the main reason why I have attempted to get help in the past.  At present, I can say that I have actually tamed the symptoms to the point where they don’t bother me every day, and I can ride public transportation without being knocked off kilter by the symptoms.  Possibly, if I had the “non-C” PTSD, I would be finished with therapy by now.  I would be thrilled if I were ready to leave therapy because therapy is hard work that takes a lot of my time and thought.  That time, however, has not yet arrived.  I know it will arrive someday, but it is not here yet.

The problem is that C-PTSD is, as the name says, “complex.”  If my parents had wanted me, had been understanding and nurturing and had listened to me with empathy when I was a child, and if I had grown to be a mature adult with all the attributes of an emotionally mature adult and had been raped one night when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then very possibly I would have been diagnosed with PTSD.  I probably could have finished therapy a long time ago because I would have had sufficient ego strength to go through a course of EMDR or one of the other therapies found effective for healing PTSD.  I don’t know this for certain, but it’s likely.
 
In my case, though, the factors mentioned above did not apply to me.  I was not wanted, was not understood, was not given the parental attention I needed, was not treated with respect, and was sexually abused and abused in other ways.  When I reached the age of adulthood, I did not have the ego strength I needed to be an effective and mature adult.  And then I married a man who continued the treatment my parents gave me.  So over a long period of time, forty-two years in my case, I endured the sort of treatment that leads to C-PTSD and thought my life was normal, that every woman endured what I endured and that there was no alternative. The threads of prolonged exposure to abuse and neglect run through my tapestry as they run through the tapestries of most others who are trapped in C-PTSD.  The material from which the threads in my tapestry are spun may not be identical to that of other people who have C-PTSD, but the basic threads themselves are present.
 
So what, in my opinion, is the most telling factor, the factor that brings me up short and causes me to recognize and acknowledge the C-PTSD elephant in my own living room?  It’s the seemingly interminable nature of the healing process.  Like Sisyphus, I roll the stone almost to the top and think, “Success!  I’m there!” only to stand with mouth agape in amazement as I watch the stone roll back down and wait for me to roll it uphill again.  I manage to reduce the intensity of my PTSD symptoms, for example, only to discover in the process that I have some developmental gap that I need to investigate, understand, and fill if I am to truly enjoy relief from my symptoms. The process doesn’t seem to end, and that fact tells me that I’m dealing with C-PTSD and not the “non-C” PTSD.
  
If the process of breaking out of the C-PTSD cage seems so interminable and is so discouraging, why do I continue trying?  I continue because as I work in therapy, the bars are beginning to become less rigid and more flexible.  For example, I can sit on a bus calmly and without dissociating now when somebody gets on, tries to avoid paying the fare, and then argues loudly with the driver.  I may become irritated at the delay and the fact that somebody is so crass as to attempt to bully the driver into letting him ride free, but I don’t let the voices raised in anger and the menacing or threatening demeanor of the bully allow PTSD symptoms to take over my mind as I would have done a year ago.  My present response to a situation that in the past would have laid me low for the better part of a day tells me that slowly the cage bars are weakening and freedom is possible.  The little signs of progress comprise the carrot on the stick that causes me to plod along toward my goal, in other words.

What would I suggest a person have available to aid in his or her escape from the cage of C-PTSD?  Here is my list of necessary equipment:

• A realistic VISION of what life may be like without the present constraints of C-PTSD;
• The necessary RELATIONSHIP with a therapist who specializes in trauma work;
• The MOTIVATION to do the job;
• COMMITMENT to one’s self and to one’s goal;
• A RECOGNITION of one’s progress, no matter how tiny the increment;
• The HOPE that springs from recognizing progress;
• A sense of HUMOR to help get one’s perspective back when times are bleakest;
• The FAITH in the process needed to keep plodding along no matter what!
 
The above is my list.  You will have your own list, no doubt, but maybe my list will remind you of something you forgot to put on your list.  And my list above may not contain everything I need, but it does contain the equipment most important to me right now. 

To conclude, I’m no learned expert on C-PTSD.  I’m not a trained mental health professional—I have a graduate degree in adult education and a graduate degree in rhetoric, neither of which qualifies me as an expert on C-PTSD.  I do, however, have something many of the experts may lack, a diagnosis of C-PTSD, and that diagnosis places me on the inside of the cage looking out.  I hope that whatever I say to you as I write “from the inside out” is useful and inspiring and facilitates your rending the bars of your cage and making your way to freedom. 

Another Way to Look at EMDR

On November 14th, I discussed my feelings regarding my “failure” to be ready for an EMDR session.  As you may be aware, I have spent almost thirty years trying to find a therapist with the training and desire to help me relieve my PTSD symptoms.  If you are struggling with the same symptoms, you understand how the flashbacks, numbing, dissociative episodes, and all the other hallmarks of PTSD can disrupt your life and damage your relationships.  Thus, you can also understand why I am highly motivated to do the work now that I have a competent therapist who is trained to facilitate trauma work.  After all, I am seventy-two years old, and I want to get the job done while I have some life left!

The problem is that at times my desire to do the work and to do it quickly makes me impatient and causes me to be a real “Debbie Downer” to myself.  Then I need a couple of days to recover my perspective on the situation.  Usually, I process this sort of thing while I sleep, and this incident is no exception, for I awoke this morning thinking of  EMDR differently from the way I had thought about it on Monday, the 14th.  On that day, I was thinking only of EMDR as a means for reprocessing trauma energy, and I was remembering the horrible reaction I had to an EMDR session during the time I saw my previous therapist (see “Why Take the Time to Prepare for EMDR?”, November 8th).  When I awoke this morning, I remembered that EMDR can also be used to install resources serving to strengthen the ego and help prepare a person for the reprocessing experience.  As I see it now, installing resources is a totally nonthreatening experience, something to anticipate with pleasure.  At least, I anticipate the experience with pleasure—I want to feel better!

How does one install a resource using EMDR?  I’ve read various articles, including one by Shirley Jean Schmidt (http://www.dnmsinstitute.com/doc/rf-emdr.pdf) discussing the use of EMDR to install resources, and perhaps the information that I stored in my brain from my reading somehow connected last night with the questions arising from the distress I experienced on the 14th.  According to Shirley Jean Schmidt, one installs resources by bilateral stimulation just as one deals with trauma memories by bilateral stimulation.  For example, on last Monday if I had drawn a picture showing the satisfaction I had felt at some point in my life when I had succeeded in mastering an important task or skill, then I would have kept that picture and the emotion and thought behind it in mind as I either did the bilateral eye movements or did bilateral tapping on my knees.  In theory, then, if I had done that last Monday, I would probably feel less threatened at a later time by the task of using EMDR to process a memory associated with trauma.
 
To me, therapy is a process, but it is also a task, one that I am attempting to complete in order to improve the quality of my life. While I know that I may not accomplish this task completely before I die, I want to work hard to accomplish as much as I can so that I can enjoy more serenity and peace of mind in my last years.  Also, I divide the general task of going through therapy into a number of subtasks, EMDR being one of those subtasks.  Therefore, to me it is perfectly logical to believe that if I have achieved good results and attained satisfaction when I have accomplished other major tasks at other times in my life, I can at some point in the future look forward to experiencing satisfaction when I use EMDR to reprocess trauma memories. 

So guess what I am going to discuss with my therapist this coming Monday, November 21st!  Right!  I am going to propose that we install a few resources that will take away some of the fear I have of reprocessing a trauma memory via EMDR!  More coming on this topic at a later date.

November 14: Today's Work . . .

As I mentioned in my post titled "Coming This Week . . . ," I needed to deal with my anxiety today, and I didn't get to the EMDR.  Today was hard for me because I had expected to get some significant EMDR work done.  It didn't happen.  So I am disappointed in myself.  However, as my therapist said, my work is just going to take a little longer.  I need to be patient with myself. 

Complex PTSD is just that:  Complex!  And it takes longer to deal with something that is complex than it does to deal with something that isn't so complex.  For more information on this, see the essay on this blog titled "Complex PTSD:  Does It Exist?" 

Knowing the above does not make me feel better about the fact that I didn't get any EMDR work done today, but on the way home, I distracted myself from the feeling of failure by treating myself to a much-needed pair of new athletic shoes--and they were on sale for $44!  So something good happened, and for that, I am grateful. 

Appreciate the little pleasures in life, for they can cushion the bumps and help you keep your perspective.

More news as time passes . . .