HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR THERAPY
How to stay safe (ish) when researching your trauma
You've been on a long journey to get here. I’m glad you’re still here.
This is huge. Go steady.
It is often a gradual, niggly realisation about your past that is bubbling into a sense of dread about what happened to you. Maybe a scene in a movie, safeguarding training at work, or being around children the same age you were when the bad thing happened. Having your own children can also bring a visceral realisation of how innocent kids at that age are and how easy it is to NOT harm them the way you were.
Sometimes it a sucker punch to the gut kind of realisation and the clarity of what “it” was is overwhelming. Maybe you are realising that “it” was worse than what you had thought for years. The ground shifts and now you try to come to terms with words like “trauma”, “violence”, “victim”, “abuse” and how they MIGHT apply to you. Feels extremely jarring, surreal and weird because it doesn’t fit how you see yourself? Labels are meant to help our understanding and guide treatment. That is their only purpose. If labels don’t fit or help, discard liberally.
Stop and fast forward as needed
Whether you’ve known for a long time or are new to figuring out what happened. Go at your own pace, stop, take breaks as needed. You know your own brain.
It can be useful to dedicate a time window to “trauma research” to make sure there is an end in sight and to make plans with solid people afterwards. To debrief or to just be around people who recharge you and remind you of the good things in life. It stops us from getting lost in rabbit holes all by ourselves. It doesn’t always stop the falling but it’s always better to spiral in good company.
Question everything
Not everything you read is correct and not every source is trustworthy. Fact check and consume thoughtfully and critically like you would with everything else. Researching your trauma hijacks your emotions differently than researching roombas obviously, so check in frequently with your rational brain.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If they are experts in 101 psychological issues, run. Trauma teaches you to read people well and to notice patterns quickly. Listen to it.
No, you’re not fucked for life.
Every single therapy client asks this question in some shape or form: “Am I completely fucked for life now?” No, with a lot of hard work you can build a life that is worth living. We can’t erase memories. Those events will always rank among the worst things you’ve ever experienced. What we can do is turn a traumatic memory into a shit memory. That’s the best we can hope for. It might not seem like much but you have plenty of shit memories that do not trigger and retraumatise you daily. You are proportionately affected by what happened.
In short, you are proportionately fucked up BUT not beyond repair. A good life is possible for you and that is what we will work towards.
