Being Understood, and Not
I’m trying to make hard decision. It doesn’t seem like everyone would think it hard, but figuring out what the right thing for me to do sometimes is–the decision that wouldn’t necessarily be what others want or think I should do. It’s that I’m having some uncertainty about the therapy group I go to, which maybe wouldn’t have to be difficult, but seems to be. My spouse thinks it’s not so good for me but I am not sure if that’s something to go by–also it could be about saving money for him too, and it’s hard to explain that sometimes struggly group experiences can be part of a good process. But sometimes it’s not just that but actual problematic things–the tricky bit is that sometimes it’s so good and helpful. And sometimes it seems a little uncontained and maybe some people don’t get thrown by that but I seem to.
I tried speaking up about it and it went okay, except i think people give advice out of reasons that are often their own rather than knowing what I should actually do. I don’t think that the things that apply to lots of emotional issues fit exactly with certain kinds of trauma–like the really early sexual kind by parents. People say to sit with the feelings, and while I normally throw tantrums about that but begrudgingly admit it’s the right thing, it’s not exactly the same with this stuff. Going through the feelings can mean reliving things, and reliving things with a different result and an Alice Miller style enlightened witness and safety and such is one thing; reexperiencing them just as they were the first time just deepens the trauma. The line is fine, or fine-ish. Not everyone seems to know this, even therapists sometimes don’t totally seem to get it.
The fact that I’m even trying to figure this out and taking a time out to let myself settle down from getting all triggered and overwhelmed is something in itself–not my usual approach. So that in itself seems like a step.
Like this:
This entry was posted on November 9, 2011 at 11:38 pm and is filed under attachment, Change, Fear, Memory, Social Experience, Therapy, trauma. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
