(Long past) trauma might seriously exacerbate your complaints

[hippopotamus]

I have written this piece because I think that a lot of the people who suffer from withdrawal and side effects might, some more than others, also suffer from the consequences of (long past) traumatization, which can resemble withdrawal and side effects. Also, the interaction between unresolved trauma and side and withdrawal effects, could lead to a cycle, in which one activates the other, which in turn aggravates the other, etc.

 

A lot of the people who suffer from psychological and psychiatric complaints have been traumatized at some time in their life. Traumatization can destabilize the nervous and immune system to a great extent and is known to be related to several medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. The symptoms that traumatization can lead to are manifold and almost endless. Also, symptoms can show up immediately after the traumatic event, but can also take weeks, months or years before they start to appear.

 

Symptoms that can be caused by traumatization include, but are not limited to:

 

Anxiety

Panick attacks

Depression

Sleeping problems

Irritability

Agression

Tics

Concentration problems

Feeling numb and emotionally deadened

Social problems

Shyness

A myriad of somatic complaints

 

 

 

When you suffer from withdrawal complaints or side-effects of medication and you have been traumatized or have otherwise had to deal with seriously upsetting emotional business at any point in your life, you may want to consider the fact that unresolved traumatic and emotional business may also contribute to the complaints you're experiencing. Also, it is very likely that side and withdrawal-effects evoke unresolved traumatic stuff, which can in turn destabilize the nervous system even further and thus exacerbating the side and withdrawal-effects.

 

Side and withdrawal-effects can evoke trauma-related symptoms through physiological mechanisms. For example, when the withdrawal causes shortness of breath or heart-palpitations, you may subconsciously be remembered of a traumatic experience in which you also had shortness of breath and heart palpitations. This can then in turn trigger trauma-related anxiety and panick-attacks, also when you're not conscioulsy aware of the link between the two.

 

Another way in which withdrawal and side-effects may trigger traumatic experiences is more psychological. To feel out of control of your body, to feel betrayed by people you should be able to rely on, like doctors and psychiatrists, to feel left alone by friends or family who dont understand you, all those things can trigger unresolved traumatic stuff, which may show up in one of the forms I mentioned above, or in another form.

 

 

What makes this subject even more important is the fact that trauma, in one way or another, might have been the reason you went on psychiatric drugs in the first place. Because the drugs dont treat trauma, but in some cases only suppress some of the complaints, the cause of your complaints has not been taken away. When you go off the drugs, symptoms you experience may not (only) be withdrawal-effects, but might just as well be consequences of the untreated trauma.

 

The vicious thing about trauma is that, when symptoms start to show up and they go untreated, it is not uncommon for symptoms to grow worse and aggravate. So, you may start off with anxiety and depression, but as time goes by, when your trauma is not treated correctly, you may find yourself become progressively worse. One of the symptoms behind this mechanism could be the phenomenon of 'kindling'. (See Robert Scaer, 'The body bears the burden'for more in depth-explanation)

Another way to look at this is through the concept of freezing and re-freezing. This is extensively laid out in Peter Levine's 'Waking the Tiger''.

 

 

Peter Levine writes extensively about the enormous pressure that builds up in the autonomic nervous system in reaction to unresolved trauma. According to his writing, an essential part of resolving traumatic business is letting the body allow to release this built-up tension and frozen energy, in the way the body wants to release it. Shaking and trembling are ways in which this accomplished.

 

The important thing about Levine's writing and about other experts who focus on body-focused psychotherapy for trauma, is that it acknowledges that trauma and emotions are in their deepest essence about somatic and bodily experiences, that are stored in the body and that thus should also be released through the body.

 

In my own process of healing, in which I have gone through a lot of traumatic stuff, I have indeed experienced the very important somatic component of releasing trauma. My body trembles,sometimes lightly, sometimes vehemently. I can not control the way in which this happens. I also tend to yawn a lot when I start to work through traumatic material. This is accompanied by, or alternated by, the emotions that I couldnt process at the time of the trauma's. This process always feels liberating, even though it may emotionally hurt a lot. When I´m done, when its out of my system, I invariably feel very relieved and unburdened.

 

I hope I have helped people with this story. I will refer to appropriate books in the book-section.

[Barbarannamated]

EXCELLENT info! I alluded to this in a thread long ago but never thought of myself as traumatized. It seems i am seeing things very differently now, recognizing how warped many things were in my family.

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1995-memories-from-pre-drugged-years-surfacing/page__pid__19714#entry19714

 

 

hank you.

[Barbarannamated]

Also very interested in the "freezing and refreezing". I have mentioned several times that i feel i cannot fight or flee but am FROZEN by all of this. Is that the freezing Peter Levine speaks of?

 

He is AWESOME, BTW! I believe i heard him at the ISEPP conference in LA in 2011 (not certain). He also has several videos on YouTube. Great sense of humor. I think i first heard of him on Gia's Beyond Meds site.

 

Thank you again.

[GiaK]

yes!!

 

this is one of my drum beats...

 

It seems to me most of the really severe withdrawal syndromes are, among other things, also PTSD...

[hippopotamus]

Hi Barbara,

 

I dont know exactly what kind of experiences you're talking about, but here's a very short explication about freezing:

 

'Freezing' is one of the typical responses and survival-strategies that are evoked in response to trauma. If you dont fully resolve the reactions your nervous system and body as a whole were meant to resolve after the traumatic event has passed, those responses keep being activated by triggers (how unidentifiable they may be)that remind you of the traumatic event.

 

If you want to know more about how to handle this, you should really read 'Waking the tiger'.

[GiaK]

oh! some good stuff to release frozen energy is Berceli's work...

 

these exercises are very powerful...!! and the post talks more about neurogenic tremors etc...(the shaking and trembling etc talked about) I've had a lot of that come up spontaneously as well.

 

Trauma release exercises (or tension release too)

http://beyondmeds.com/2012/04/04/thebodyspeaks/

[Nikki]

Yes alot of PTSD from marriage, economy and job loss, fear and tons of it.

 

My daughter once told me after I lost my job in 2009 and I was crying because of the situation...Mom there isn't a pill in the world that will take this away. I had to walk thru it. It was murder.

 

I am still not over the trauma of what happened and how life changed. The good news is that I am working towards a goal. The sad news is that when I am not working I am worried.

 

Oh Brother

[hippopotamus]

GiaK,

 

Great info on the Berceli-thing. Thanks for that!

 

Lately, I have been walking around with some questions regarding doing trauma-exercises on your own. If I myself hadnt gotten in touch with some very powerful ways to get in touch with, and resolve, traumatic stuff on my own, I dont know if I would still be alive today. I suffered from such bizarre and uncontrollable psychiatric complaints, that life had become too unbearable to me. When I was given a way in which I could connect to (unconscious) traumatic material and that enabled me to, emotionally and physically, resolve the traumatic stuff, everything changed in an unimaginable way.

 

It turned out that 95 percent of the time, whenever I was having some strange complaint, there was some traumatic stuff just lying below the surface of my consciousness. Getting in touch with and resolving this completely, always made my incomprehensible complaints go away.

 

Now here is what I have been asking myself lately... for whom is it advisable to start to work with such trauma-releasing exercises and for whom is this not advisable? You see, by most standards in psychiatry today, but also by the standards of quite some trauma-therapists, someone with the complaints I was having should not have started such a path on her own. However, it was walking this path that saved my life...

 

I am wondering, because it seems that sometimes,according to experts, starting to work through trauma's seems to be able to trigger other traumatic events in a chain-like reaction, which can leave people overwhelmed and make them (at least in the short run) worse.

 

At the same time, I strongly believe that people should be empowered to take their health in their own hands as much as possible. In the case of psychiatric problems, I think trauma-work is of tremendous importance. Regrettably, there are too few knowledgeable therapists regarding this subject, which makes it even more important that people are handed as much tools as possible to do things like this on their own.

 

I would really like to hear others opinions on this subject...

[GiaK]

experts want control. The fact is there are not enough people who know how to help one through these things...finding competent people can be next to impossible...

 

what I've found, however, is the more layers of trauma I move through (and I've found very similar to you that things clear up...BUT to be clear I find that it goes hand in hand with discovering dietary things...for me...so deeply holistic...sometimes it requires finding an allergy and that shifts stuff for the trauma stuff to come up...stuff like that....)

 

anyway, the more layers I move through and clear up my energy changes and NOW I CAN FIND healing people better. My radar has gotten sharp and I know how to read people...so now I actually have some really healing folks in my life that I was in no shape to find when I was deeply toxic (in multiple ways)

 

anyway...the drugs are agents of trauma too...as Charles Whitfield writes: http://beyondmeds.com/2011/01/04/psychdrugscausetrauma/ and I believe they not only exacerbate but create whole new layers of trauma...

 

so, I figure those who are strong enough to take on healing themselves will...and it will work out...the alternative as you state can actually be death...

 

here's to LIFE

[hippopotamus]

Nikki,

 

How sad and difficult that you lost your job. Where I live, we have a fairly good social security-system, which makes such thing probably less anxiety-provoking, although it still has a huge impact on people.

 

What do you mean with 'when I'm not working'? Do you mean when you're not working towards your goal? Or something else?

[hippopotamus]

GiaK,

 

Very interesting what you're writing about diet and allergies. I know that it might be wise for me to delve into this matter, to make my withdrawal-process easier, but the thought of it tires me so much that I am putting it off for now. I just try to eat tons of fruit and veggies and to eat wholemeal stuff. I dont drink alcohol and quit smoking. Right now, I dont have the energy to make any more adjustments on that level.

 

However regarding the warnings that experts give out with regard to doing trauma-release work on your own, I dont think it does (all of)them justice to attribute this to their needs for control. I do believe there are people who become overwhelmed with chains of traumatic stuff when they start trauma-therapy and I do think these people might really need professional assistance when they start to work through their trauma's. I also think being able to experience some kind of safety in yourself and your surroundance and being able to regulate your emotions to a certain degree are important variables when doing trauma-work.

 

But I also think that working through trauma's on your own, maybe with distant support, is a possibility for far more people then are currently acknowledged as such. And I would really like to get more clarity regarding this matter. This is also because I am active on the internet and want to advise people about such stuff, but I dont want to maken them worse...

[GiaK]

yes, to all that you're saying in an ideal world...we don't have that...

 

those with the initiative to take on these things on their own have to do the best they can.

 

for now and for me...going to professionals much more often retraumatized me...and that is true for a lot of people.

 

giving people information so that they can ascertain for themselves what they can handle seems appropriate.

[GiaK]

and with the internet support via skype etc is a very real possibility..still it's very hard to find appropriate people and not everyone can afford it either...

 

we all do the best we can...I give info freely so that people can decide what they need...I don't pretend to know what is appropriate for anyone but myself. and professionals shouldn't either. (that said I was once upon a time a professional)

[hippopotamus]

Ok, thanks for your thoughts, this really helps. I think the key is indeed in giving information to people and letting them decide for themselves what they want to do with it.

 

Thanks again!

[GiaK]

right...I would have been much better served from the beginning if I had been told by professionals to trust myself.

 

the entire system is fraught with the infantilization of the client...this is true of both psychology and psychiatry.

 

sometimes we absolutely need others...but the wrong others is far worse than no one at all...

 

if we learn to trust ourselves then we know when and if we should proceed with professionals.

[Barbarannamated]

My husband (an MD, coincidentally) is currently at his appointment with his psychiatrist who is my former psychiatrist. I'm just realizing how much this is bothering me.

Sorry if this is inappropriate to post here. I'm having an extremely difficult time finding any safe people or places.

[GiaK]

oh, gosh...

 

Barbara...I get it...that would be a total trigger for me too.

 

I'm so sorry and I send hugs. I wish I could do more.

[dalsaan]

Hi Barb,

 

I dont think I would cope with that either, that would trigger stuff for me. Sorry this is happening for you, you dont need it.

 

Dalsaan

[Barbarannamated]

The good news is that i finally realized how much it does trigger me. It brought a moment of clarity.

 

Thanks Gia and Dalsaan. Your support is very appreciated.

[dalsaan]

Re trauma and withdrawal,

 

I have only just come to realize in the last six months the impact that childhood trauma has had on my health and my withdrawal struggles.

 

In some respects I am saddened by the fact that it took so long to work this out and that I had to do it on my own. However, I also think this was a positive in the sense that I came to it when I was ready to receive the information, willing to work on it and more confident in my ability to sort through it myself - to take charge of my engagement with my past trauma.

 

Had I been lead to this by someone else I may very well have resisted/denied it entirely. I haven't got to the point of being able to release the trauma - that's the next bit of work to do

 

thanks for the topic and the contributions

[hippopotamus]

Barbara,

 

Im really sorry to hear this. That must be really difficult for you.

 

Strength and good vibes to you.

[hippopotamus]

Dalsaan,

 

Thats one of the wondrous features of trauma, that everyone will start to acknowledge and work through it, or not for that matter, in their own time. Life would be so much easier, but probably in a way also much less interesting and challenging, if all people would be able to start to recognize and work through trauma immediately after the fact.

 

And yes, when I look back on my own life, I can see years and years that are lost to the effects of my traumatized childhood. In fact, my whole life has been characterized by things that I couldnt do, couldnt experience, couldnt accomplish, because I was so handicapped by the effects of traumatization. This is something that I grieve for, to this very day. I grieve for my lost childhood, my lost puberty, my lost adolescence and the years after that. I grieve for lost chances, all those things I would have so much loved to do, to be part of, to experience. It does however in a way make me deeply cherish all that has changed for the better and all the new opportunities that are arising.

 

On the other hand, this makes the withdrawal-effects harder to bear. I feel like life is finally starting to burst open to me and now I cant seize it, because of the drugs...

 

 

The denial /repression thing when it comes to trauma and the impact of it is a sad, sad feature of unrecognized trauma in general. What makes it so sad is that, in my opinion, it is one of the most important causes for inadequate and harmful mental health services, as well as of millions and millions wasted on research into the mysterious causes of mental disease like disturbed neurotransmitters and genetic aberrations.

 

I dont mean to say that all of this research is pointless, but I do strongly feel that all this time and energy could be much better spent if there would be broad awareness of how traumatized many people actually are and how vicious and self-perpetuating the effects of trauma are.

 

The sad and somehow mythical thing about traumatization is that it is precisely this denial and repression in people who are very traumatized themselves, that leads them to deny the effects of trauma in others. At least, this seems to be the case for a certain amount of traumatized people.

 

Take for example a person who has been brought up in a safe, loving and warm environment. That person will most likely grow up to be an empathically attuned person, who will be able to acknowledge and take seriously others people's distress and pain.

However, quite an amount of people who grow up in unsafe, harsh and traumatizing environments, will develop such convincing and necessary denial-systems and ways to restrict affect, that they will not be able to be empathically attuned to others in distress. In fact, they may actively deny and belittle it.

 

Ofcourse this does not apply to all traumatized people, but it is a much-prevalent vicious mechanism which leads to trauma being perpetuated.

[Barbarannamated]

Thanks to everyone contributing to this thread. This describes my experiences so thoroughly. It often feels like i cannot handle the anger and pain that comes up, ESPECIALLY UPON AWAKENING and through the early part of the day. Is anyone else familiar with this cycle or why it happens? I feel TOXIC for a good part of the day and have not found an effective way to handle it. I'm not working, am isolated and have very little (let's just say NO) real life support. I'm afraid I'm not going to survive this. I'm not suicidal, but it's all so overwhelming that I'm frozen and cannot see out.

 

I have ordered Waking the Tiger.

 

Regarding professional therapists... I've had several negative experiences but i realize i contributed to that because i hadn't realized the impact of my negative, verbally abusive family on me until withdrawal. I started most therapy out with "i had a pretty average upbringing" and it was only questioned by one therapist about 20 years ago. She is no longer seeing private patients. The last few therapists I've seen have stirred up more anger because they didn't grasp the complexity and tried to do CBT which felt that it was minimizing my feelings, something i did to myself all my life. My intuition tells me i need to bring the feelings up and out and not suppress or repress even further.

 

I have to believe the timing of this coming up is right for me or i will crumble.

 

Hippopotamus, i am at the same place with diet. I know i need to improve, but am in pure survival mode and doing well to eat anything at all.

 

Thank you again for this thread.

[Nikki]

I have PTSD from a previous WD. It was from Lexapro, and Paxil.

[hippopotamus]

Dear Barbara,

 

I just re-read your last post and wanted to say that I am so, so very sorry for your situation. I cant imagine what it must be like for you to have to go through all of this without any real-life support. That is just terrible.

 

Have you ever thought of contacting some kind of volunteering-organisation in the place or region where you live? That could be a way in which you maybe could find someone or perhaps even a couple of people who would want to give you some real-life support...

 

You know with the internet these days, there are many many ways in which people can get in touch with eachother,and ways in which the internet enables people to get real-life contact with one another. I realize that you may feel very vulnerable and maybe uncomfortable reaching out for real-life support, but considering the situation you are in, I think you really could use some face-to-face contact and support.

 

I wish you lots and lots of strength, warmth, love and support.

[Barbarannamated]

Hippopotamus,

 

Thank you again for this thread and your suggestions. I got Waking the Tiger and am having to take it slowly. I skimmed thru and the part near the end about different vortexes coming together hit home.

 

B

[peggy]

Barbara, I also am sorry that you are going through this.

 

I can relate to difficult childhoods and past neglect and it's influence on current withdrawal problems. My mother always denied us any mothering/sympathy/comfort when we were ill - 'don't be ridiculous, there is nothing wrong with you' was her familiar response if i ever told her i was not feeling well - physically or emotionally. I knew there was something wrong as i felt unwell - because we didn't get any support or validation i used to worry about myself a lot. I remember waking up at night sometimes and being sick, but scared to let my mother know so i would go outside and sit in the back yard - i was probably about 10 at this time. LAter when I was in junior high school - probably 12 or 13 i went through an anxious phase and tried to control my environment to get through the anxiety. Fortunately i had the support of a couple of older ladies who were Sunday School teachers and i would often go to their house to feel nurtured.

 

I think that has a lot of bearing on my anxious state as an adult when i would often wonder 'how bad will it get, will i cope?. Learning to recognise that now through therapy, but there is a lot of prior learning to undo!!!!

[hippopotamus]

Barbara,

 

Im glad you found something in the book that resonates with you. I really hope the book will bring you further in your search for freedom and alleviation from your suffering. I have started a topic about books on trauma elsewhere on the forum, maybe you'll find other books that can help you with other things.

 

For me, Waking the Tiger helped me a lot with a couple of things, but I really benefited from taking in info from other sources as well. I think that 'Waking the Tiger' is a very good source for explaining stuff about more or less 'everyday' or more common trauma's and ofcourse it's great for its detailed and well-explained take on the physiological aspect of traumatization.

 

But having had a traumatized childhood, I found it very helpful to also read stuff that goes more into the effects of such a kind of background, since the effects of that are oftentimes in several ways more complicated then the effects of single events of traumatization.

 

I can totally relate to your feeling that CBT was a denial of your experience and feelings. I've had that exact same experience and feeling.

 

(On the whole, I dont understand why there are so many psychologists and therapists who have such a narrow set of skills to offer. People are way too complex to be all helped by that one narrow set of School of thought that a lot of therapists limit themselves to. )

 

However reading about schema-therapy, which has CBT-components, has been very enlightening to me. (Schema-therapy is developed for people with traumatized childhoods). Also reading about dissociation (dissociative disorders) shed la lot of light on some very disturbing things I was dealing with.

 

BTW I read that you ride horses. I love horses and horse-riding! Do you still do that, or are you too sick from WD?

 

 

Peggy,

 

My heart breaks for your story.

 

I had the same experience, being left alone way too much when I was a kid, as a grown-up I didnt have any confidence that I would be able to cope with things. (The sad reality was that that fear was oftentimes a realistic fear, since I was so handicapped in my functioning because of the effects of traumatization that I realistically wasnt able to cope with things. Luckily that doesnt apply to all victims of neglect)

 

Can you find ways that allow you to be more free from that feeling?

[hippopotamus]

I posted this today in reaction to another topic, but since it's something that's so very integral and important when it comes to healing from trauma, I thought I'd repost it here as well.

 

 

"To emerge from your pain you have to enter it'. This is absolutely true. Pain wont go away by ignoring it, pushing it away, pretending like it isnt so. It needs to be acknowledged and felt for life to keep flowing.

 

However when it comes to old pain, traumatic pain, there are ways to 'feel it' that dont help, that actually will make you worse. And there are ways that will help. Ways that feel liberating whilst going through the pain, even though it may really hurt.

 

This has to do with something that some people call a state of 'dual consciousness'. It means that at the same time that you are making contact with the pain, you are still very aware that whatever you are feeling isnt happening now. Maybe another way of putting this is by saying that you dont over-identify with it.

 

For example, there have been countless times in my life when I felt overwhelmed with a feeling of unbearable loneliness. I would be completely consumed by it, feeling like the ground was swept away from underneath my feet, turning into a mess of excruciatingly unbearable pain. It would happen whether or not I was surrounded by people who really cared for me.

 

All the times that this happened, I got not a single bit better from it, it would not in any way unburden me or set anything in motion. All it would do, was traumatize me more then I already was.

 

This is what some people call a 'traumatic flashback'. In my case, it would be a purely emotional flashback, which I didnt recognize as such. I had no idea that what I was feeling was in essence a frozen feeling-state from my childhood. And if I would have recognized it as such, it would have been purely on a rational level, which wouldnt change anything about it.

 

When I started to work through my trauma's, those same feelings would come to the surface, but in a different way: Somehow they would appear in their 'proper context', meaning that, on an experiential level

, I would be able to realize that this feeling was about things that happened to me when I was a kid, while at the same time, on an experiential level, I was able to really know that it wasnt happening now, that it belonged in the past, that I survived it and that it was safe to let the feelings and emotions pass through me.

 

 

Invariably when I can process old hurts and trauma's in this way, it feels deeply liberating while going through the emotions and I can tell that something inside me is shifting towards a more unburdened state.

 

I think this is a very important principle in trauma-work.

[Barbarannamated]

I posted in the thread Books on Trauma that I've always thought of trauma only as sexual or physical abuse, neither of which i suffered. An AHA moment.

[hippopotamus]

O gosh Barbara.. emotional abuse can be devastating. The same goes for neglect. It is a serious misunderstanding to regard those things as harmless or non-traumatizing.

 

But I do understand it. One of the reasons for this is that one of the most common coping /defense-mechanims is a deep sense of denial. 'It wasnt that bad'. "I was never beaten of molested so I shouldnt be whining about it'. All those things...

[Barbarannamated]

O gosh Barbara.. emotional abuse can be devastating. The same goes for neglect. It is a serious misunderstanding to regard those things as harmless or non-traumatizing.

 

But I do understand it. One of the reasons for this is that one of the most common coping /defense-mechanisms is a deep sense of denial. 'It wasnt that bad'. "I was never beaten of molested so I shouldnt be whining about it'. All those things...

 

Exactly. That is what I've been doing all my adult life and it's led to boatloads of GUILT, self-flagellation, "I should be thankful for what i had / what's wrong with me..?" etc.

 

I also spent a significant amount of time in hospital as a little kid (for some vague kidney issue -requiring cystoscopies and anesthesia- that may have been bogus, i later found out) and in funeral homes because my father was choir director. Went thru a major flood as teen, found a dead body along a highway in my 30s (i clearly remember immediately dissociating on the scene). A succession of odd events that i never gave much thought to until recently.

[Sunita]

Hippopatamus, thank you for starting this amazing thread. I read through the thread and your comments are very insightful and I relate so much to your experiences that I don't know where to begin.

 

Like you, I've done a lot of the most important healing work on my own. On the other hand, I believe that no one heals from trauma in isolation and that those of us who were harmed by other people find social support vitally healing. I agree with you that the mental health industry is sadly remiss in recognizing and treating trauma, and I would never have received any help if I hadn't begun my healing process on my own through meditation. Once I knew the work I had to do, I took steps to find the help I needed--a somatic coach, supportive friends, and eventually a therapist whom I chose because she specialized in trauma and recovered memories and had a holistic approach. Community too was a big part of my healing.

 

For me too, the buried memories appeared through somatic complaints. Actually, the traumatic memories first started arising while I was on a meditation retreat. The whole retreat, I had a terrible, sharp pain in my chest. The pain was so severe that I stopped going to the meditation hall and sat outside in the woods watching the deer. When I returned from the retreat, suddenly the memories started pouring forward, along with a terrible sense of fear. The memories were not exactly "repressed". You know those pictures that just look like a bunch of colors and then you look at them in just the right way and see a dinosaur or some other shape? It was like that--like the memories were always there and I guess the meditation stilled my mind to a point where I could see the true picture. Before the memories were there but they were fragmented, disjointed and also had no emotion attached to them at all. It was like watching a movie. That's why I thought what happened wasn't very important.

 

A final thing I related to in your comments--when you said you feel sad about lost time spent suffering and just want to be out there leading the full life you know you can have now that you've done all this healing work. And that's why you feel frustrated with the withdrawal. I feel the same way--I know I don't need Celexa now and am just so looking forward to being off of it and pursuing the deeply fulfilling life I can have now.

[dalsaan]

I can really relate to the vicious circle of trauma exacerbating withdrawal that impacts on trauma ...

 

Trust seems to be a key way out of this. I struggle to trust. I struggle to trust that my trauma is in the past, that I can place my wellbeing in the hands of others,and that I won't some day decide to give up on life,

 

How do you build trust in yourself and your capacity to trust others?

[hippopotamus]

Dear Barbara,

 

You've really got a lot on your plate there, a lot of baggage from the past. I'm happy the things we're discussing are contributing to you getting your head around some of the difficult things you're experiencing.

 

I'm giving you a big virtual hug. To you and all the frozen, angry, scared and hurting parts that want to be acknowledged. And to the unburdened you that's somewhere underneath all that stuff.

[hippopotamus]

Hi Sunita,

 

You're really clear in what you're writing. I've said this before, you sound like you're taking such good care of yourself and I want to say it again..: WOW to the way you've come to heal yourself, wow to the people and other aids you've been so insightful connecting with to heal you from your hurts!

 

 

My journey has been a strange one. Before I started working through the trauma's, I'd been doing a lot of neurofeedback. If it hadnt been for the neurofeedback, I wouldnt have been here anymore.

 

I dont want to go really into the details, but when I started the nf I was in a state where I was completely unable to take care of myself. I wasnt functioning in any way and I'd been given up by the psychiactric establishment. I was suffering from such horrible psychiatric and emotional complaints that every minute was an unbearable hell.

 

In a strange twist of fate I stumbled upon the neurofeedback, which saved my life and also opened up whole new ways of experiencing to me. It improved my functioning to a miraculous degree and socially opened up a whole new world to me.

 

Before that I had been severely 'socially handicapped'. Social exchanges would evoke tremendous anxiety and insecurity in me and I suffered from a serious lack of empathy and ability to understand other people. Those were just *some* of the problems I was experiencing.

 

With the neurofeedback this all started to change incomprehensibly. One of the most important effects was that it opened up whole new experiences of trust, safety, mutuality, love and empathy to me. Also it lessened the ongoing panick-attacks, severe anxiety, irritation, angriness, concentration and attention-problems I was having to a great, great degree.

 

However the effects wouldnt hold. Normally the effects of nf are permanent, or almost permanent. Not in my case though. Whenever I stopped doing it, within a a month or so, all my complaints would start to reappear again. Also even while I kept on doing the fb, some deeply disturbing complaints would keep reappearing from time to time. These complaints were so disturbing that I felt I couldnt live with them.

 

I made a promise to myself that I should try anything that could reasonably be expected to help me and that, if that didnt work out, I was free to end my life.

 

That's when I got in touch with someone who is an expert in the field of neurofeedback. I consulted with him and he told me that my pattern of brainwaves was typical for someone with unresolved trauma's. He also told me that he'd seen more people with a head like mine and that they regularly were too handicapped to function and that the nf-effects wouldnt hold because of the unresolved trauma's.

 

So I sought out a therapist who specialized in treating childhood-trauma and whom I felt very safe with. At the same time I started to use a cd that I was told could assist my therapeutic process and that I could use on my own. It contained sound with subliminal messages and was also programmed accoring to EMDR-principles.

 

At first I didnt dare to use the cd, not knowing what it would do to me. However at some point I was experiencing disturbing psychotic-like complaints and I felt desperate enough to think 'What the heck' and give the thing a try.

 

At that point one of the strangest and most wonderful experiences I've ever had unfolded itself. Within 2 minutes, I was immersed in some very traumatic stuff that had happened when I was a teenager but that I had never been able to emotionally process. In fact it always puzzled me that I had *some* kind of factual knowledge of the things that had happened but that I never had an emotional experience with it. However, while listening to the cd, all kinds of things I never even realized had happened that way would come up, accompanied by all the emotions I should have gone through at the time, but that I hadnt been able to experience. The most wonderful thing however, was the fact that I didnt experience any anxiety.

 

And that, I think is a very important factor in my healing from trauma. Because of the way the cd was programmed, I think, it somehow erased (a very great deal of) the anxiety that so oftentimes is attached to traumatic memories. This made the whole process in a way quite easy to handle. I would ofcourse still experience the deep pain, but it wouldnt provoke terrible anxiety or panick. In fact it would feel liberating, although it might hurt a lot.

 

 

Anyways, that first time, after about 50 minutes had passed, the memories and emotions stopped coming and I felt like it was done, in a natural way. The most amazing thing was that the psychotic complaints I had been having were completely gone.

 

So after this first experience, I started to use the cd every time I would experience strange or unnerving complaints, with 95% of the time, the same kind of process unfolding: Traumatic stuff would come up, and if I allowed the emotions and memories to come up and take their natural course, I would emerge from it feeling liberated and without complaints and symptoms.

 

And every time, it would feel as if I regained a part of myself that I had lost a long, long long time ago.