![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 18 of 18. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 15:38:22
hello, i am reading this book.
The Happiness Myth by Jennifer, Hecht.In the book she says that sometimes its almost impossible for people with trauma (abuse physical, sexual or natural disasters) to overcome their trauma.
I hear this in other places as well, most often in my own mind.
I was reading something by flutterby to someone else and flutter said that trauma can affect people their whole lives.
Of course being affected forever and overcoming something are 2 different things I suppose.
My therapist often talks about resliency in terms of healing. I dont get that. Does that mean I just get better at dealing with hating not being alive? Being resilient means you still hate your life, it just affects you less? I feel like if I look back, at all my attempts at healing, all my experiences in therapy, I am still a hurtin' puppy. I have not gotten well and I have worked my *ss off.
Posted by Sigismund on June 24, 2009, at 16:44:32
In reply to trauma and healing, posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 15:38:22
Well, my 2 bob's worth is that you will always feel ambivalent about being alive (as is only natural) and you will never feel how you want.
But it is possible to smell the roses, to explore the positive side of your ambivalence, and while you are still conscious, get some pleasure out of this extraordinarily beautiful world. I don't think there's much to be said for flatlining. Being conscious is a huge effort. That's why we need to sleep after 12 hours of it.
Posted by blahblahblah on June 24, 2009, at 18:54:18
In reply to Re: trauma and healing, posted by Sigismund on June 24, 2009, at 16:44:32
I have experienced pretty severe trauma and i have asked my T if I will get over it. She says I will learn to accomodate it. If that helps at all.
Posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 19:24:03
In reply to Re: trauma and healing, posted by blahblahblah on June 24, 2009, at 18:54:18
hi there, do you know what that means to learn to accomodate it? it makes me think its like having someone you cant stand living in your home and you keep them there but decide that you are just going to accept them living there. maybe its me. that makes me feel hopeless.
Posted by wittgensteinz on June 24, 2009, at 19:36:24
In reply to trauma and healing, posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 15:38:22
Deerock,
I think the question you need to explore is: what is it to 'overcome' a trauma? Of course we will NEVER forget and it will never be that these experiences didn't happen. In that sense, it's a scar that won't heal. They did happen and they have affected us - that's something we have to come to terms with.
However, the scar fades over time and with treatment. That's my experience anyway. I've been in therapy for about 2 years, a little over. I still 'feel it' but sometimes less intensely - sometimes I even feel like I'm free from it. Although at the back of my mind those things of the past are still there, I feel some distance from them. It seems my relationship with my traumatic past is going through change, gradually.
For a long time, before I came to therapy, I felt nothing and didn't even acknowledge the trauma I'd experienced although found my life unliveable. Then, once the therapy did start, I realised the reality of it and the feeling was suffocating and unbearable - it felt like my head was wrapped tightly with so many vivid memories - inescapable. Now, I'm gradually separating myself from those experiences. I can take some distance and can be a bit kinder to myself, can 'sit with myself' for a while without the company of an internalised abuser.
Things still hurt and sometimes they seem to hit me in the face again when something triggers me.
I think things are not so black and white. The future needn't feel so bleak. Change can happen and does under the right conditions. Things can start to feel better but it's a long process with ups and downs.
Witti
Posted by seldomseen on June 24, 2009, at 20:25:19
In reply to trauma and healing, posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 15:38:22
This is a very deep and provocative subject. I can only offer my opinion from my own experience. There was profound violence and trauma throughout my childhood. As witti indicated for years I felt nothing.
Then the feelings began to emerge. I have been in therapy, I think for 8 years now.
In my opinion one does not necessarily move on from abuse/trauma but one can move with it. There *is* happiness to be had, really good relationships with people, safety and kindness.
But, for me, there was a measured amount of grieving to do first. I had to grieve for my childhood that I never had, then I had to grieve for my life and the way it should have been. Then, of course, I had to grieve for the way it was. All of this grief came out in various forms - anger, anxiety, disappointment, apathy, but looking back it was all grief.
A big fat journey though grief.
Over time though I was finished grieving and ready to radically accept the way things are. Then I began to move with it.
I now think that moving with the scars means understanding how they affect me to this day. Recognizing and correcting behaviour patterns that are remnants of the trauma. No longer being a "slave" to the trauma empowers me to live my own life - finally.
I take my meds, I get plenty of rest, I try to maintain good mental health habits, but I simply can not withstand some of the stressors that my peers can. I'm more sensitive to hurt and guess I always will be. Is it a limited life? I don't think so. But perhaps I did get a late start on it.
Seldom.
Posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 20:42:19
In reply to Re: trauma and healing » deerock, posted by seldomseen on June 24, 2009, at 20:25:19
seldom, very nice message. much hope in there.
how old were you when you broke through the grief and started to live?
Posted by Daisym on June 25, 2009, at 0:09:23
In reply to Re: trauma and healing » seldomseen, posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 20:42:19
I think sometimes we all think we should be working towards NO unhappiness, NO sad memories, NO anxiety, NO bad dreams, etc. But that is an impossible goal - we are all human and live amongst other humans who hurt us - intentionally or unintentionally. And we can't undo the past.
But I do think we can still feel happiness with the sadness. We can appreciate peace and beauty when it comes into our lives. We can feel things acutely - especially with and for another. And as we heal - which is a slow, slow process for some of us, we are open to more and more possibilities - good things, not all bad. I think we get wise(er?) about expending energy on the "shoulds and shouldn'ts" and instead focus on acceptance of things in the moment.
I like the concept of radical acceptance. I also like what my therapist preaches - adjust and readjust. When you figure out a trigger, you adjust things to either avoid it or deal with it. And then you find another, and readjust again.
I guess I'm saying you can heal but not erase.
Posted by onceupon on June 25, 2009, at 0:16:12
In reply to Re: trauma and healing, posted by Daisym on June 25, 2009, at 0:09:23
I like the idea of "normal" sadness and "normal" worry.
I remember reading somewhere once (so specific, I know), that "successful" trauma treatment starts with helping people tell their stories, identify what they felt about their experiences at the time, and understand the influence of the trauma developmentally. Something like, "I know that is what happened to me then. This is how I feel about it. Now I feel like this about it. I know it's a part of my past, and influences me, but now I can look to the future."
That's super simplistic, of course, but I guess to me, it spoke to the process and power of storytelling, and integrating past trauma into our current view of the world.
Posted by InsideOut on June 25, 2009, at 2:50:42
In reply to Re: trauma and healing, posted by onceupon on June 25, 2009, at 0:16:12
To laconically articulate Caruths trauma theory is to say that trauma is the unspeakable and the unrepresentable. Author Whitehead and Caruth both understand trauma as a haunting. Caruth writes to be traumatized is precisely to be possessed by an image or an event (1995). When I can across this, that trauma is the unspeakable and the unrepresentable I became incredibly despondent in therapy. It felt as if my attempts at finding language to express the trauma, with the hope of certain healing, were useless, that there was no hope I, yet again, felt overwhelming despair at the futility of this life. With time I began to believe that it should not be disavowed that perhaps it is not alone the concern of narrating the unnarratable but so too discovering narrative space to discuss the undiscussable. I found respite from my despair in truly believing that language does, eventually, attend to the experiences of trauma and that therapy gives me time and space to find the words to my personal discourse of trauma. There may be a pause that seeks eloquence in words that will narrate that, which resists narrartivisation, but language does attend to and articulate trauma. And it is language that allows healing as it is that which lends to understanding and perhaps, one day, to a hint of acceptance.
Posted by deerock on June 25, 2009, at 8:56:51
In reply to Re: trauma and healing, posted by InsideOut on June 25, 2009, at 2:50:42
thats interesting. my therapist often talks about feelings that one has no words for. she also talks about feelings that get formed before a child can speak.
maybe she is not as crazy as i think.
Posted by seldomseen on June 25, 2009, at 17:03:15
In reply to Re: trauma and healing » seldomseen, posted by deerock on June 24, 2009, at 20:42:19
I'm probably not normal, because it took until my 30's for me to even begin to address the problems that were surfacing at a very disruptive and rapid rate.
Overall though, I would say my life (the part of my life that I can truly say belongs to me and not the trauma) began when I was 35.
Which, one could argue that age is not that different from when most people assume their own lives.
But I actually think what you are asking me is how long did it take for the grief to end. For me, about 4-5 years. BUT it is different for everyone and, to be honest, I think for some reason I wanted to hold onto it longer than most.
It's a wide open road and people travel it at their own pace.
Seldom.
Posted by softheprairie on June 26, 2009, at 7:18:33
In reply to Re: trauma and healing » deerock, posted by wittgensteinz on June 24, 2009, at 19:36:24
Posted by Dinah on June 26, 2009, at 7:40:41
In reply to I'm happy you're back wittgensteinz! (nm) » wittgensteinz, posted by softheprairie on June 26, 2009, at 7:18:33
Posted by wittgensteinz on June 26, 2009, at 16:09:02
In reply to I'm happy you're back wittgensteinz! (nm) » wittgensteinz, posted by softheprairie on June 26, 2009, at 7:18:33
Thanks :) - this is weird but since my computer was fixed I can't open babble on Safari or Firefox on my apple. It just crashes. I can't solve it. I now have a 2nd computer - an old pc - and it works fine, so I can view the site again :)
Witti
Posted by Nadezda on June 26, 2009, at 16:30:06
In reply to Re: I'm happy you're back wittgensteinz!, posted by wittgensteinz on June 26, 2009, at 16:09:02
Me, too!
I have a mac and I can open babble. It's weird that it won't open for you. hmmmm.
Nadezda
Posted by softheprairie on June 27, 2009, at 0:19:51
In reply to Re: I'm happy you're back wittgensteinz!, posted by Nadezda on June 26, 2009, at 16:30:06
> Me, too!
>
> I have a mac and I can open babble. It's weird that it won't open for you. hmmmm.
>
>
> NadezdaI use a pc w/ vista, and had that problem repeatedly some months ago, but recently I've been fine; I don't know what changed.
Posted by wittgensteinz on June 27, 2009, at 10:24:53
In reply to Re: I'm happy you're back wittgensteinz! » Nadezda, posted by softheprairie on June 27, 2009, at 0:19:51
I don't get it either. It worked fine, then my laptop was fixed (hardware problem) and reinstalled and since then it just won't work. I could reinstall the whole system but am too lazy :)
Ok, anyway this is a bit off topic - sorry everyone.
Witti
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.