Posted by Tamar on December 31, 2005, at 20:27:20
In reply to trauma and cycles in the present, posted by alexandra_k on December 31, 2005, at 18:57:04
> i have been thinking...
>
> about trauma.
> about the notion that if someone has experienced trauma... then they relive that over and over and over.
>
> they were victimised and they go on to elicit that same victimisation from new people in their life...Hmm… There may be something in that… but maybe also it’s a misunderstanding of statistics (one of my usual rants…)
> and i think maybe... i do that a little...
>
> but sometimes... they were victimised and they go on to persecute in the way they were persecuted...
>
> and i think maybe... i do that a lot...
> i think...
> i do that :-(
> and i hurt the people i care about the most.
> :-(
> because i do get scared.
> and it is kind of self defence...
> only...
> people probably need to protect themself from me really :-(I only know you from Babble but...
I don’t think you deliberately hurt people.
I don’t even think you try to hurt people in self defence.
Maybe if people feel hurt it’s because of their issues rather than yours?> which pains me so much :-(
> and comes back to the truth in the 'i'm not fit for human company' idea...
>
> how are you supposed to stop with that???
>
> i have heard...
>
> abbreaction.
> thats what that is supposed to be about.
> if you can experience the initial trauma...
> and work through that...
> then it will stop the cycle being played out over and over indefinitely.
>
> does that really work do people think?
>
> what i've read about it...
>
> hard to say...
>
> do things have to get worse in order to get better?I don’t think things have to get worse. Sometimes things *feel* worse, but that’s not the same.
> what if...
>
> you relive it...
>
> and can't find your way back out?Is it really about reliving it? I don’t think we can relive it precisely. But perhaps we have to acknowledge every aspect of it.
> is that how...
>
> you learn about the distinction between the present and the past?
>
> cause they get all messed up and tangled together for me... and i can't tell where i am and what i'm responding / reacting to.I find that too. I find it hard to tell myself that my responses are responses to past events rather than to present events.
> or...
>
> does it just make people worse...
>
> (like anna o...)
>
> etc.I wish I had answers for you. I think people who have been very badly hurt can be a bit defensive. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It takes a long time to learn how to deal with being hurt again, especially if every hurt brings back memories of a kind of original hurt. I think part of it is recognising that most mundane hurts are not as catastrophic as the fundamental hurt we’re trying to avoid re-experiencing. But sometimes those mundane hurts can feel disastrous because we imbue them with the feelings that belong to the past. When we are able to separate today’s hurts from the hurts of 20 years ago, maybe we can begin to handle both.
Just my two cents.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:593810
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051229/msgs/593832.html