Traumarama

Posted by fxckfeelings on March 21, 2011

If trauma leaves you with bad feelings, then of course you want to get over it. The problem is that, unfortunately, you were traumatized, not, say, irked. And trauma, by nature and/or definition, haunts you to one degree or another for an extended period of time and doesn’t necessarily pass. If you expect it to go away, like a slight ribbing would, you might get lucky. More probably, however, you will blame yourself for not being able to “get better” and make that trauma worse. If you wind up with trauma, then expect trauma, and learn to manage it. Being told to ignore it doesn’t mean making the memory go away; it means acting as if it wasn’t there. And if we’ve irked you, well, at least it’ll pass.
–Dr. Lastname

I didn’t have any serious injuries after falling off some scaffolding, but I began to have nightmares and the thought of returning to work gave me anxiety attacks. So I took a medical leave, saw a therapist, and got some medication and now I’m much better, but I’m still far from 100% recovered and the thought of climbing a ladder still makes me feel like I’m going to have another attack. So I’m wondering whether to extend the leave until I feel better—I don’t know how long my disability insurance will cover this—or find something else to do, and it’s hard to make a decision when I don’t know whether I’m ever going to feel better. My goal is to feel well enough to make a decision.

Severe anxiety makes sissies of everyone. The primal part of your brain thinks it’s doing you a favor; it’s the part that says fire bad, sun hot, sex yay. Now it’s saying, ladders evil, followed by, run!

Meanwhile, anxiety attacks are so painful, the thing you’re most afraid of is having one again, the very thought of which makes you anxious, which feels like you’re about to have another. Your brain’s protecting you in a hellish spiral.

The scary thing you need to accept up front is that your anxiety, and your anxiety about anxiety, may never go away. If you think you’re supposed to make it go away, you’ll be more discouraged when you can’t; if you climb the ladder while telling yourself it will never happen again, you’re putting yourself into danger. That’s the kind of hope and optimism that will get you into trouble.

While you may never get over your anxiety, however, there’s lots you can do, and probably have done, to keep it from exploding and damp the explosions pretty quickly if they happen anyway. In addition to relaxation training of various kinds, there’s always cognitive therapy, which means stopping the negative thoughts from becoming negative beliefs.

That’s what we do here, arguing, as you know, that the most powerful tool for fighting negative thoughts requires facing your real helplessness first. You’re traumatized, you’re fucked, but you’re not without options, and the only way to see them is to accept your condition.

Once you’ve done your best to learn how to manage anxiety and the infectious negativity of fearful thoughts, your goal is to forget about it and make your work decisions the way you usually would. Assuming that returning to work may cause anxiety but that the anxiety will probably ease over time, add up the pros and cons of doing this work versus something else.

If you can, return to work and see how it goes before you decide to opt out. Take your therapist’s advice, your meds, and your lunchbox and get back to the site.

If your primal brain starts trouble, remind it that if ladder evil, unemployment worse, because food important. Then ignore your mental caveman altogether and start on that first rung.

STATEMENT:
“It’s a bummer that I now have to work so hard to get myself to work, when it was easy before, but that’s life. I now know much more about fear than I ever wanted to and I’m proud that I can manage it without letting it tell me what to do.”

What bothers me is that it feels so unreal to see my parents acting like nice, loving grandparents to my kids when my brother and I know that my father was a mean, physically abusive drunk and my mother acted like nothing was happening and was pretty mean herself. We tried talking it out with them once, when we were in our 20s, and they said we were distorting things and it was our problem, and after that, we didn’t talk for a year. Now, we have regular, though not frequent, contact because I want my kids to know their grandparents, but I keep it polite and superficial because a blowup would be good for no one, particularly the kids. The superficiality hurts, though, because it feels unreal and brings back memories of living a trauma no one else knew about. Am I making it worse by sweeping things under the rug?

Many people feel that overcoming trauma requires, at some point, a kind of “truth and reconciliation” procedure, or at least a public acknowledgment of truth, before it’s possible to move on. As loyal readers know, I am not most people.

The very fact that having your abuse experience validated would feel so good (that’s why it plays well on TV) tells you that expecting validation is dangerous. That’s because of what happens when validation is impossible, which it is, 99.9% of the time.

As you’ve experienced yourself, your abuser has his/her own view of reality, or doesn’t care. There are no witnesses, or witnesses have their own reasons for covering up or choosing sides. So validation usually brings back the pain, and the satisfaction, if any, is brief.

Even wanting validation is dangerous, because it makes you more reactive to others, particularly your abusers, and feeds your negative ruminations. Yes, you may argue that validation would make your ruminations go away and reassure you that you’re not crazy, but validation is like a post-Thanksgiving dump: great, if temporary, relief. The cycle begins again when you have pumpkin pie for breakfast, and see that your parents are still your parents, and still don’t get it.

A better way to fight the feeling of unreality is to assure yourself that you know what you know and have the strength to live by your convictions, whether they’re validated or not. Yes, you can assure yourself that your brother, who was there, agrees, but don’t spend much time seeking that validated feeling. It’s just another slice of pie.

What you need is not validation, but what you already have: the strength to believe in your own point of view and deal with your parents accordingly, which is what you’re doing. You’re carrying out your policy of having as little contact with your parents as necessary for minimizing conflict and maintaining overall family connections.

To do that, without outside support is a real achievement, just like creating your own family despite your traumatic history. Focus on that, because that’s all the “truth and reconciliation” you need.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I could forget my awful childhood, and it feels unreal to be chatting nicely with the monsters who abused me. What counts, however, is what I did with that childhood and, if it helps for me to maintain diplomatic relations with my parent-monsters, then I’m proud that’s what I’m able to do.”