Posted by Tamar on October 13, 2005, at 7:45:26
In reply to scared and tired **trigger**, posted by B2chica on October 12, 2005, at 9:31:18
When I wasn’t sure whether to go digging, I talked to my therapist about my fears and my inability to make a decision about how to talk about it. I felt that I should stop skirting around the edges of it and just jump in and engage with it. And (if I remember correctly) he said that I didn’t have to do things that way. I could also deal with it in bits and pieces, or simply keep going around the edges. He said there are different ways of going about it, but that he couldn’t choose for me.
I think he also said that talking about it would help me to feel I had power over it. And he said that I might like to think about how I wanted to feel about it eventually. I said that I wanted to completely forget it ever happened, but that I knew it wasn’t a realistic answer. And so I said that I wanted to get to a point where I could think about it without feeling completely overwhelmed by it (or something like that).
I discovered that, for me, the answer wasn’t to go digging. But I did need to keep talking about it, almost every session, for quite a while. Talking about it more helped me think about it less – or at least I became able to think about it in a less overwhelming way. But there were times early on when the only way I could stop the thoughts was by going to sleep.
Maybe dealing with it in little bits rather than digging will be less scary and help you get through the denial. You don’t need to say everything in one session… If you can say just one or two things and talk about those, it will probably help. Start by picking things to talk about that aren’t too difficult to talk about: things that you can actually say. And take it slowly. Trying to rush doesn’t actually get you through it quicker; if anything, it makes things harder. It sounds to me as if you’ve been making really good progress, so don’t be too hard on yourself!
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:566008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051008/msgs/566396.html