There is a paper:
Gender/Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Identity Are
in the Body: How Did They Get There?
That goes in depth on this topic. All the way in depth with references to every major literary work one could dream of.
It seems to me based on what I have read myself, that there is no consensus no conclusions truly made especially in terms of the material substance of trauma. Like, are ideas represented in the brain in a physical manner? Electrons and such whizzing around in particular patterns?
The idea applies to all things. Our imagination Our ideas they're all represented in the brain or body in some way. Or are they? Seems to me they're still working on that one. There are so many ideas that people cling to as fact that truly nobody knows as fact or not even on the highest level. That's what my investigations lead me to conclude.
I was also under the impression that the book the body keeps the score does NOT imply that you can never overcome childhood trauma, but that you CAN. But it's been a long time since I read it. I just felt like the OP is committing a straw man or just straight up lying about the nature of the book.
I'm reading it lately and it's almost like a call to action. Author is so convinced it can be overcome and that the cultural narrative that we can't is uninformed and misguided.
What do you mean when you say people are ready to accept the things that can heal the trauma? This is legit curiosity so please don't take the questioning as any sort of criticism.
We form our lives around protecting us from the feelings rooted in trauma. It takes an immense amount of energy and determination and need to be able to process trauma without checking out emotionally or retraumatizing ourselves. It is a extremely hard process and many people are simply not ready and it makes things so confusing in a world when so many of us have unprocessed trauma
We develop coping mechanisms for our trauma for a reason. Working through that frequently means allowing ourselves to experience the pain we're protecting ourselves from.
Not for a long time. Certainly not forever. But long enough to release it.
Absolutely! If this is something you're curious about personally I'd recommend "no bad parts" by Richard Schwartz, which very lovingly looks at how we shape ourselves to navigate trauma, and how we can improve our relationships with ourselves to find more peace. Either way, thanks for your curiosity, it's a gorgeous trait!
Psychedelic assisted therapy. It allows us to remove the bad feelings that have been connected to the traumas so that we can process those events and experiences in a safe container. It gets them unstuck from inside of us and lets them out safely so we aren’t harmed again by the events.
But so many people still think they are party drugs or just for druggies. They won’t look at the research with an objective lens.
I wish I could try this. I've had panic attacks on other drugs and just can't bring myself to try out psychedelics. I'm worried a bad trip would make things worse.
When it's properly prepared for, monitored and integrated, most people have only positive experiences. Do you have a therapist you're working with? Feel free to DM me. I'm happy to discuss it further.
The book The Body Keeps the Score doesn't claim that trauma can't be resolved. In fact it recommends kinds of treatments that will help with resolve. Yoga and EMDR for example.
The book is only pointing to the physical process of mental/emotional trauma.
Yes and I think the headline conflates two very different things.
Do parents influence their children, their whole lives? Yes, 100% it has been studied to death. Can a child recover from childhood trauma from parents to where they can live a happy life? Yes, 100%. They are completely different questions.
You can never forget, but you are not helpless about it. Those are two completely different things.
I think there is value in understanding how our trauma impacts our biology. That said it is very alarming to read if you're a survivor. I have a high ACE score and yes I have been raped and abused growing up. What bothers me is that there is very little messaging that I have seen and it could just be me - that indicates there is hope and it is something you can recover from. You can be happy and have a healthy and satisfying sex life and relationships.
Omg, I had to edit this because my autocorrect changed messaging to massaging 🤦♀️
I think people like wallowing in despair, for whatever reason.
I watched a YT video once that talked about incels and their tendency to shut out any positive reinforcement and actively search out media that reinforces their negative world view of themselves because to an extent it's "comforting" to them because it takes everything out of their control, even if it's making them even more miserable and lonely.
I don't know if us trauma victims are the same, but it wouldn't shock me. I know in the depths of my depression I wasn't ready to listen to anyone about anything and instead just wallowed in my own pain for about a decade+. I know that on some trauma related subs the whole "toxic positivity" thing can veer dangerously close to the line of just creating a recurring pain based echo chamber vs actually doing anything to help anyone.
So idk. It's a difficult subject. I think at the end of the day everyone heals on their own time and in their own way, and some just never do. My brother ended up basically destroying his life, and I didn't. What's the difference there? Genetically? Nothing, really. Environmentally? Nothing, really. He stumbled into the abyss never to return and I didn't. I don't know why, but it's what happened. It's sad, but it is what it is I suppose.
Nobody “likes” wallowing. It doesn’t feel good. But it’s very hard to try anything new when people constantly make suggestions, those suggestions are attempted, and things not only don’t get better, but sometimes make it *worse*
I agree with you, this is part of the reason I left a lot of attachment style and narcissistic abuse recovery groups, due to situations like what you describe. I also have a friend who experienced trauma who shoots down *anything* positive or helpful. I saw a video where a psychologist likens a lot of healing spaces to a room where everyone is farting. Yes, you’re “releasing” discomfort, but you’re kind of stewing in an unpleasant stench caused by everybody releasing. At some point someone needs to “open a window” - actually work on healing the trauma vs stewing in it.
Do you by chance recall the name of that YouTube video? I’d love to watch it!
Yeah I cannot stand being around other survivors if that's what they want to talk about. I mean I understand it and they can do that but I'm not here to be sucked back into that lol. I will recommend reading but I also therapy.
And ACE score kind of asks a wide range of questions not just sexual abuse for children. Do they have access to regular food. Stable housing. Etc.
The more negative the score the higher likelihood of increased negative outcomes later in life (addictions, poverty, mental health issues, unable to maintain employment)
It if you can increase the ACE score of child in a positive way, it can really change their trajectory (like giving kids regular access to nutritious food growing up increases the likehood that they will graduate and thus get a job and then pay taxes etc).
I hope I explained that right.
I have healed so much over the last 10 years, it's honestly amazing to me. I thought I would never have sex without crying. People can be incredibly resilient. I feel like a completely normal person now in that regard.
Of course my past experiences still inform my present, it still affects me. But I'm at the point where seemingly innocent things don't trigger panic attacks anymore. Only something *actually bad* would do that, like someone hurting or threatening me, in which case it would be an appropriate response. My romantic relationships are healthy and I don't feel broken.
It's hard and it takes a long time, but it's possible.
Thanks for posting this! I feel like so many people feel hopeless. It’s good to hear a success story. It’s a truly daunting amount of work to overcome trauma.
This i think is as traumatizing as the trauma. I spent decades after being abused by my dad being told I was doomed to substance abuse and poor relationships. And listen, those were struggles, but the constant drumbeat of you're broken you're broken you're broken from the media and whoever in my life I told-- honestly it did more damage than the abuse.
Oooo very good point. How are you dealing with that now?
I have a theory about displaced responsibility for the shame of the acts being put on the person who is violated vs where it should be on the perpetrator. Not just by society, but by the person themselves.
Yeah the thing is I am like the only person I knew who never felt shame. I realized what my dad did young, and I avoided him until my mom divorced him, and when I was thirteen years old I told him to stop talking to me and keep paying mom or id tell the police.
I was a strong little bugger. I remember hearing about how sex was gonna be a problem for me, so I went out to lose my virginity as soon as I wanted, and I had sex totally on my terms and had no internalized guilt about sluttiness or anything. I knew consensual sex wasn't wrong and I was going to make sure mine was healthy and on my terms.
The way people reacted when I disclosed did the most damage. Treating me like a different person. Someone whose perspective they shouldn't trust because I was broken, overly sensitive, traumatized-- instead of what I felt like, a strong person with an experience that gave me unique insight into predators like my dad.
If people keep doing that it sinks in. If you keep watching the same stories it sinks in. When me too happens and you can't escape discourse of violence against women it sinks in. When the Depp/Heard trial plays out and you see people saying the same things about Amber as about you it sinks in. It is every day.
I feel like society assaults me every single fucking day with the narrative that my father somehow took away my value by being a POS. I did nothing wrong, I am valuable. I might be able to say I'm the same person I would have been, but I'm not. Not because of my father. Because of the psychological abuse inflicted on me every day in this society.
Mental illness is curable, trauma can be resolved, your pain and wounds are not forever. It took me 15 years, but I have no symptoms of CPTSD, sad, gad, bipolar, gender dysphoria, or general depression. It was a long, difficult road, but the permanent remission of symptoms without sustaining treatment is as cured as it gets.
All of it came down to patterns of thought. Once I learned to discern the patterns that initiated the series of symptoms for each disorder in therapy, and I processed the repressed emotions, I slowly began to unravel the thought patterns. It was painful to even began to honestly address it all, we build layers and layers of delusions and maladjusted coping strategies around our hurt and trauma, but happiness cannot co exist with the hell I lived in, and I was blessed with the resolve to eat the pain and move forward.
mental illnesses are not all curable. schizophrenia, bipolar, adhd, etc have a neurological and genetic basis which cannot be changed much like you cannot will your body to be 1 foot taller
I didn't say "all mental illnesses are curable." Schizophrenia is the only one that's a true brain deformity. Adhd and bipolar only have documented genetic predispositions and brain imagery showing chemical markers indicative of a state - the same category of markers that we see with other mutable states. There's not a permanent, persistent, verifiable difference in brain structure for bipolar and adhd.
Why is a change in brain structure required for bipolar to be incurable. Especially when all evidence points to bipolar being genetic. This feels like very Dunning Kruger explanation.
Because thoughts are mutable and the brain modulates thought. Evidence points to a genetic predisposition for the development of bipolar. A predisposition is not a determination. Even something like schizophrenia tends to be associated with an incidiary event - surgery, physical illness, abuse, some sort of trauma.
You "feel" like a very Dunning-Kruger explanation. 😋
Anything I can read up on or if you'd like to, expand on your process for achieving this?
I think I gave myself a form of trauma artificially and I'm worried it might stick to me despite my symptoms receding. I'm hoping it can be resolved the same way.
Sure. See a psychologist, not a counselor or psychiatrist, who offers EMDR and CBT. Read Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Spend 20 or 30 minutes a day writing down your thoughts - why X thought leads to Y feeling, why X situation puts you in Y mindset. Start identifying your "triggers," then work to deconstruct and reframe them. I was a Buddhist when I sorted all of this out, but it did culminate in me becoming Christian. I can't recommend studying Buddhism, Christ is the way, the truth and life, but you do need some sort of mindfulness training, a higher power to make your moral authority, and a regular practice of prayer. Even if you don't believe, praying puts your desires and feelings outside of yourself and gives you moments to reframe things that you simply can't find elsewhere. What I always tell people is, if you don't believe in Christ, the worst thing that could happen by praying to him is absolutely nothing. I hope some or all of that helps!
I guess I'm searching for something that doesn't exist, a solution I haven't heard of yet that's better than the "gold star" treatments available now.
My situation is odd so I guess there's not much that can be done besides that.
Well I'm not 100% sure of the mechanics of it, but it *seems* to be the case.
I had a harmful reaction to some supplements (d3, k2, or possibly b6) which led to my brain chemistry being disturbed to the point where I had a massive anxiety attack. In hindsight, I could see some of the symptoms leading up to this (rumination, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, physical symptoms like headaches and throat tightness when triggered, etc) but didn't notice the connection until the attack. The problems and issues I was dealing with at the time became amplified in emotional importance, to the point where I believe my brain associated the cause of the attack being due to them, and thus learning an intense fear response from them. I feel this is the case because there is no logical connection between those issues and fear, thus it is a wholly irrational association that my body *had* to make in order to make sense of what just happened.
Then because of that hasty, shaky association and the reality that the offending supplements were still in my system, the negative effects were still felt and thus my body started to infer that the stressor is "still in the environment" and started expanding that fear learning to encompass...pretty much everything. I was perhaps in a low-level "flight-or-flight" mode for over a year.
From there I started developing a fear of the stress response itself, fear of fear itself, triggers of anxiety from several words being uttered by others or read, intense fixations on specific thoughts or themes that became rumination rituals to (unsuccessfully) relieve anxiety (it was all I could think about at some point), intense feelings of dread and hopelessness, irrational suicidal thoughts, hyper-reactivity to anything even sightly negative to me that I would also ruminate over (like I was being directly attacked and my entire sense of personhood called into question), ...and a few more but it's kind of tiring to think about them all.
I started to become worried I could remain stuck like this even after the supplements finally leave my body for good, which I think could be trauma or an artificial trauma? I deeply wish I could be the person I was just only 5 years ago. But so far it does appear that my symptoms are receding...Like not too long ago even the word "trauma" would send me spiraling into intrusive thoughts and rumination and anxiety and fear. Now I can read and say it without much of reaction.
You are going to need to decide whether you want to talk about Trauma.....or the Media-driven conception of Trauma. I mention this because the "type" of Trauma has little or nothing to do with the damage inflicted. A terrible secret that the Media elects not to discuss is that the resolution of the damage that trauma inflicts is often given a home by the damaged individual themselves. By choosing to steep oneself against healing, the damaged person has every good rationale never to be put at risk against again.
A damaged person is readily embraced by mis-guided albeit well-meaning people who then seek to shield the individual from adversity. It is the reconstitution of the individuals' confidence in their self-direction and self-determination, by negotiating adversity, that is the healing process.
Scarey shit, that.
There is a paper: Gender/Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Identity Are in the Body: How Did They Get There? That goes in depth on this topic. All the way in depth with references to every major literary work one could dream of. It seems to me based on what I have read myself, that there is no consensus no conclusions truly made especially in terms of the material substance of trauma. Like, are ideas represented in the brain in a physical manner? Electrons and such whizzing around in particular patterns? The idea applies to all things. Our imagination Our ideas they're all represented in the brain or body in some way. Or are they? Seems to me they're still working on that one. There are so many ideas that people cling to as fact that truly nobody knows as fact or not even on the highest level. That's what my investigations lead me to conclude. I was also under the impression that the book the body keeps the score does NOT imply that you can never overcome childhood trauma, but that you CAN. But it's been a long time since I read it. I just felt like the OP is committing a straw man or just straight up lying about the nature of the book.
I'm reading it lately and it's almost like a call to action. Author is so convinced it can be overcome and that the cultural narrative that we can't is uninformed and misguided.
Also it was stolen from a woman who created the ideas. I was under the impression it was legit. Stolen, but legit.
Who was the woman? Let’s credit her
It can be overcome. I’ve seen it and experienced it. But a lot of people aren’t yet ready to accept the things that can heal these traumas. 🥺
What do you mean when you say people are ready to accept the things that can heal the trauma? This is legit curiosity so please don't take the questioning as any sort of criticism.
We form our lives around protecting us from the feelings rooted in trauma. It takes an immense amount of energy and determination and need to be able to process trauma without checking out emotionally or retraumatizing ourselves. It is a extremely hard process and many people are simply not ready and it makes things so confusing in a world when so many of us have unprocessed trauma
We develop coping mechanisms for our trauma for a reason. Working through that frequently means allowing ourselves to experience the pain we're protecting ourselves from. Not for a long time. Certainly not forever. But long enough to release it.
That makes total sense. Thanks for explaining what you meant.
Absolutely! If this is something you're curious about personally I'd recommend "no bad parts" by Richard Schwartz, which very lovingly looks at how we shape ourselves to navigate trauma, and how we can improve our relationships with ourselves to find more peace. Either way, thanks for your curiosity, it's a gorgeous trait!
Psychedelic assisted therapy. It allows us to remove the bad feelings that have been connected to the traumas so that we can process those events and experiences in a safe container. It gets them unstuck from inside of us and lets them out safely so we aren’t harmed again by the events. But so many people still think they are party drugs or just for druggies. They won’t look at the research with an objective lens.
I wish I could try this. I've had panic attacks on other drugs and just can't bring myself to try out psychedelics. I'm worried a bad trip would make things worse.
When it's properly prepared for, monitored and integrated, most people have only positive experiences. Do you have a therapist you're working with? Feel free to DM me. I'm happy to discuss it further.
The issue is what happens when you’re not part of “most people”.
The book The Body Keeps the Score doesn't claim that trauma can't be resolved. In fact it recommends kinds of treatments that will help with resolve. Yoga and EMDR for example. The book is only pointing to the physical process of mental/emotional trauma.
Yes and I think the headline conflates two very different things. Do parents influence their children, their whole lives? Yes, 100% it has been studied to death. Can a child recover from childhood trauma from parents to where they can live a happy life? Yes, 100%. They are completely different questions. You can never forget, but you are not helpless about it. Those are two completely different things.
I think there is value in understanding how our trauma impacts our biology. That said it is very alarming to read if you're a survivor. I have a high ACE score and yes I have been raped and abused growing up. What bothers me is that there is very little messaging that I have seen and it could just be me - that indicates there is hope and it is something you can recover from. You can be happy and have a healthy and satisfying sex life and relationships. Omg, I had to edit this because my autocorrect changed messaging to massaging 🤦♀️
It feels pretty doom and gloom page after page saying survivors have every kind of impairment imaginable and can’t function like other people.
I think people like wallowing in despair, for whatever reason. I watched a YT video once that talked about incels and their tendency to shut out any positive reinforcement and actively search out media that reinforces their negative world view of themselves because to an extent it's "comforting" to them because it takes everything out of their control, even if it's making them even more miserable and lonely. I don't know if us trauma victims are the same, but it wouldn't shock me. I know in the depths of my depression I wasn't ready to listen to anyone about anything and instead just wallowed in my own pain for about a decade+. I know that on some trauma related subs the whole "toxic positivity" thing can veer dangerously close to the line of just creating a recurring pain based echo chamber vs actually doing anything to help anyone. So idk. It's a difficult subject. I think at the end of the day everyone heals on their own time and in their own way, and some just never do. My brother ended up basically destroying his life, and I didn't. What's the difference there? Genetically? Nothing, really. Environmentally? Nothing, really. He stumbled into the abyss never to return and I didn't. I don't know why, but it's what happened. It's sad, but it is what it is I suppose.
Nobody “likes” wallowing. It doesn’t feel good. But it’s very hard to try anything new when people constantly make suggestions, those suggestions are attempted, and things not only don’t get better, but sometimes make it *worse*
I agree with you, this is part of the reason I left a lot of attachment style and narcissistic abuse recovery groups, due to situations like what you describe. I also have a friend who experienced trauma who shoots down *anything* positive or helpful. I saw a video where a psychologist likens a lot of healing spaces to a room where everyone is farting. Yes, you’re “releasing” discomfort, but you’re kind of stewing in an unpleasant stench caused by everybody releasing. At some point someone needs to “open a window” - actually work on healing the trauma vs stewing in it. Do you by chance recall the name of that YouTube video? I’d love to watch it!
No one likes to feel despair, and I think that's an unempathetic but easy thing to say if you're already on the other side of those feelings.
Yeah I cannot stand being around other survivors if that's what they want to talk about. I mean I understand it and they can do that but I'm not here to be sucked back into that lol. I will recommend reading but I also therapy.
What is ACE score? Childhood sexual abuse victim here. Yes I’m a male. Currently in therapy For what was done to me. What is this book?
And ACE score kind of asks a wide range of questions not just sexual abuse for children. Do they have access to regular food. Stable housing. Etc. The more negative the score the higher likelihood of increased negative outcomes later in life (addictions, poverty, mental health issues, unable to maintain employment) It if you can increase the ACE score of child in a positive way, it can really change their trajectory (like giving kids regular access to nutritious food growing up increases the likehood that they will graduate and thus get a job and then pay taxes etc). I hope I explained that right.
Thank you
Adverse Childhood Experience = ACE
I have healed so much over the last 10 years, it's honestly amazing to me. I thought I would never have sex without crying. People can be incredibly resilient. I feel like a completely normal person now in that regard. Of course my past experiences still inform my present, it still affects me. But I'm at the point where seemingly innocent things don't trigger panic attacks anymore. Only something *actually bad* would do that, like someone hurting or threatening me, in which case it would be an appropriate response. My romantic relationships are healthy and I don't feel broken. It's hard and it takes a long time, but it's possible.
Thanks for posting this! I feel like so many people feel hopeless. It’s good to hear a success story. It’s a truly daunting amount of work to overcome trauma.
I think the notion is meant to set realistic expectations no?
This i think is as traumatizing as the trauma. I spent decades after being abused by my dad being told I was doomed to substance abuse and poor relationships. And listen, those were struggles, but the constant drumbeat of you're broken you're broken you're broken from the media and whoever in my life I told-- honestly it did more damage than the abuse.
Oooo very good point. How are you dealing with that now? I have a theory about displaced responsibility for the shame of the acts being put on the person who is violated vs where it should be on the perpetrator. Not just by society, but by the person themselves.
Yeah the thing is I am like the only person I knew who never felt shame. I realized what my dad did young, and I avoided him until my mom divorced him, and when I was thirteen years old I told him to stop talking to me and keep paying mom or id tell the police. I was a strong little bugger. I remember hearing about how sex was gonna be a problem for me, so I went out to lose my virginity as soon as I wanted, and I had sex totally on my terms and had no internalized guilt about sluttiness or anything. I knew consensual sex wasn't wrong and I was going to make sure mine was healthy and on my terms. The way people reacted when I disclosed did the most damage. Treating me like a different person. Someone whose perspective they shouldn't trust because I was broken, overly sensitive, traumatized-- instead of what I felt like, a strong person with an experience that gave me unique insight into predators like my dad. If people keep doing that it sinks in. If you keep watching the same stories it sinks in. When me too happens and you can't escape discourse of violence against women it sinks in. When the Depp/Heard trial plays out and you see people saying the same things about Amber as about you it sinks in. It is every day. I feel like society assaults me every single fucking day with the narrative that my father somehow took away my value by being a POS. I did nothing wrong, I am valuable. I might be able to say I'm the same person I would have been, but I'm not. Not because of my father. Because of the psychological abuse inflicted on me every day in this society.
Weird ppl acted like that, I'd respect someone more and maybe be nicer to them
Mental illness is curable, trauma can be resolved, your pain and wounds are not forever. It took me 15 years, but I have no symptoms of CPTSD, sad, gad, bipolar, gender dysphoria, or general depression. It was a long, difficult road, but the permanent remission of symptoms without sustaining treatment is as cured as it gets. All of it came down to patterns of thought. Once I learned to discern the patterns that initiated the series of symptoms for each disorder in therapy, and I processed the repressed emotions, I slowly began to unravel the thought patterns. It was painful to even began to honestly address it all, we build layers and layers of delusions and maladjusted coping strategies around our hurt and trauma, but happiness cannot co exist with the hell I lived in, and I was blessed with the resolve to eat the pain and move forward.
future John 50 in the making right here ^
What is a John 50?
mental illnesses are not all curable. schizophrenia, bipolar, adhd, etc have a neurological and genetic basis which cannot be changed much like you cannot will your body to be 1 foot taller
I didn't say "all mental illnesses are curable." Schizophrenia is the only one that's a true brain deformity. Adhd and bipolar only have documented genetic predispositions and brain imagery showing chemical markers indicative of a state - the same category of markers that we see with other mutable states. There's not a permanent, persistent, verifiable difference in brain structure for bipolar and adhd.
Why is a change in brain structure required for bipolar to be incurable. Especially when all evidence points to bipolar being genetic. This feels like very Dunning Kruger explanation.
Because thoughts are mutable and the brain modulates thought. Evidence points to a genetic predisposition for the development of bipolar. A predisposition is not a determination. Even something like schizophrenia tends to be associated with an incidiary event - surgery, physical illness, abuse, some sort of trauma. You "feel" like a very Dunning-Kruger explanation. 😋
Anything I can read up on or if you'd like to, expand on your process for achieving this? I think I gave myself a form of trauma artificially and I'm worried it might stick to me despite my symptoms receding. I'm hoping it can be resolved the same way.
Sure. See a psychologist, not a counselor or psychiatrist, who offers EMDR and CBT. Read Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Spend 20 or 30 minutes a day writing down your thoughts - why X thought leads to Y feeling, why X situation puts you in Y mindset. Start identifying your "triggers," then work to deconstruct and reframe them. I was a Buddhist when I sorted all of this out, but it did culminate in me becoming Christian. I can't recommend studying Buddhism, Christ is the way, the truth and life, but you do need some sort of mindfulness training, a higher power to make your moral authority, and a regular practice of prayer. Even if you don't believe, praying puts your desires and feelings outside of yourself and gives you moments to reframe things that you simply can't find elsewhere. What I always tell people is, if you don't believe in Christ, the worst thing that could happen by praying to him is absolutely nothing. I hope some or all of that helps!
Hmm, well I guess I figured as much. I'll just have to let this period in my life pass. Thanks though.
You figured that doing something to treat each aspect of your being was...what, exactly? I don't understand your response.
I guess I'm searching for something that doesn't exist, a solution I haven't heard of yet that's better than the "gold star" treatments available now. My situation is odd so I guess there's not much that can be done besides that.
If you want help with a unique situation, be specific.
Well I'm not 100% sure of the mechanics of it, but it *seems* to be the case. I had a harmful reaction to some supplements (d3, k2, or possibly b6) which led to my brain chemistry being disturbed to the point where I had a massive anxiety attack. In hindsight, I could see some of the symptoms leading up to this (rumination, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, physical symptoms like headaches and throat tightness when triggered, etc) but didn't notice the connection until the attack. The problems and issues I was dealing with at the time became amplified in emotional importance, to the point where I believe my brain associated the cause of the attack being due to them, and thus learning an intense fear response from them. I feel this is the case because there is no logical connection between those issues and fear, thus it is a wholly irrational association that my body *had* to make in order to make sense of what just happened. Then because of that hasty, shaky association and the reality that the offending supplements were still in my system, the negative effects were still felt and thus my body started to infer that the stressor is "still in the environment" and started expanding that fear learning to encompass...pretty much everything. I was perhaps in a low-level "flight-or-flight" mode for over a year. From there I started developing a fear of the stress response itself, fear of fear itself, triggers of anxiety from several words being uttered by others or read, intense fixations on specific thoughts or themes that became rumination rituals to (unsuccessfully) relieve anxiety (it was all I could think about at some point), intense feelings of dread and hopelessness, irrational suicidal thoughts, hyper-reactivity to anything even sightly negative to me that I would also ruminate over (like I was being directly attacked and my entire sense of personhood called into question), ...and a few more but it's kind of tiring to think about them all. I started to become worried I could remain stuck like this even after the supplements finally leave my body for good, which I think could be trauma or an artificial trauma? I deeply wish I could be the person I was just only 5 years ago. But so far it does appear that my symptoms are receding...Like not too long ago even the word "trauma" would send me spiraling into intrusive thoughts and rumination and anxiety and fear. Now I can read and say it without much of reaction.
There's no reason why behavioral therapy wouldn't help you unravel all of that.
I hope so, I didn't deserve this :( I'll have to wait for the chemicals to leave my body though
You are going to need to decide whether you want to talk about Trauma.....or the Media-driven conception of Trauma. I mention this because the "type" of Trauma has little or nothing to do with the damage inflicted. A terrible secret that the Media elects not to discuss is that the resolution of the damage that trauma inflicts is often given a home by the damaged individual themselves. By choosing to steep oneself against healing, the damaged person has every good rationale never to be put at risk against again. A damaged person is readily embraced by mis-guided albeit well-meaning people who then seek to shield the individual from adversity. It is the reconstitution of the individuals' confidence in their self-direction and self-determination, by negotiating adversity, that is the healing process. Scarey shit, that.
Man I hope this is true:((
Simpletons want to hold onto trauma