Does the pain subside? Therapy progress

[Anna24]

I have been working with a therapist for a little over a year. He has special training related to PD families.

This has been one of the most difficult years of my adult life, with lots of change, and very little social support. The worst part has been the extreme pain in confronting the reality of my parents' behavior. I have always known my Mom had complex trauma/BPD, but I have relied on my dad for closeness and support. Recognizing his failure to protect me is horrible, truly sickening. I can see he is in so much pain himself and feels guilty, but I cannot fix the reality - he spent years enabling.

Therapy has been important, but very painful. I can feel that I am getting stronger, and gaining perspective, but the cost has been truly conscious grief and suffering.

Has anyone else been through a therapy process that was helpful? What were the steps to recovery? I should know this, I have read extensively on this topic. I know therapy is not supposed to be a cake walk, but I can't seem to breathe when I face the reality of their impact on my life. My anger has no outlet.

Hopeful stories are welcome, too

[SerenityCat]

 

Therapy was helpful for me. Occasionally I'd have a therapist that was not helpful, I then successfully would work with someone else.

Much of therapy was painful for me yet also liberating.

My own steps towards ongoing recovery have included sometimes taking breaks from therapy. Sometimes I needed time to digest what I was learning and also focus on other things.

Does your therapist have ideas on your current experience, have you told them how you are feeling?

I found that I really really had to get regular exercise. Even taking a daily walk can help. Exercise can help reduce anxiety.

You write that your anger has no outlet - could exercise be a possible outlet?

In regards to grieving - I did a little casual ceremony by myself on a beach, as if it was a funeral and a letting go of the past. Throwing rocks into water and then walking away, maybe singing a comforting song, this helped me.

Humor helps me too.

[all4peace]

Anna24, this is a good question.

I've been in consistent therapy for nearly 3 years now. I still have one more "topic" of trauma to work out in intensive therapy, and then I'm very much hoping that the worst will all be behind me. I truly wish I had journaled so that I'd have an accurate timeline, but per my memory the first 1-2 years were really rough. So much trauma processing, physical pain and exhaustion, lots of anxiety. At this point, I feel strong, able to face whatever needs to be faced. Even though I know it will be painful, I feel very prepared for it, with tools, support and resources for coping.

Depending on the trauma and person, I believe it is fairly typical to take years of therapy to fully process it. I used to worry about the length of the process, but then I realized that when I stuffed down decades of pain, then it's reasonable that it might take a few years to finally work through it. I don't think we can do it all at once, rapidly, as it would just be too painful.

You say your anger has no outlet. I think finding an outlet for that anger is crucial. It's an energy that is trapped and wreaks havoc. Can your T work with you to find ways to release all that anger?

My best to you.

[Twinkletoes88]

Hey Anna24,

I am so sorry that you are feeling in such pain at the moment. I write to hopefully give you some hope!!

I have been in psycho dynamic therapy for 5 years in November.  2 of those years I've been going twice a week (which sounds a lot but has actually helped SO much).  I would say that for one of those years in particular (the year I felt the way you do where the denial had dissapeered and the harsh reality was right there in front of me) I felt like the pain was too much, like I cried ALL the time and that I was literally going to die from heart-break or something similar.  I had times where I couldn't even go to work, I was signed off on two occasions for 2 weeks from "depression", given anxiety meds and all sorts but what was happening was I was working the stuck grief out of my system and I didn't need medication, I just needed a lot of therapy and some time.

The anger might be feeling scary to you, or painful but is actually a great sign of progress. You can't be angry if you are still in the denial or bargaining phase for example. I could never feel my anger and my T  used to really try to encourage it to ease some of the weight of the heavy sadness. Sooo my point being, find a way to get that anger out in healthy ways. Could you try exercising? I would recommend running with a loud playlist on or perhaps a class like Body Attack or Body Combat? If exercise is not your thing then my T used to say to go for a walk to the top of a big hill and let yourself scream and scream... or to rip up old newspapers into little pieces and let your rage out that way.  You could also try taking old china to the dump and chucking it in the recycling bins - that is quite fun too    On a serious note, there is lots of ways that may help you, Google it!

I am still in therapy but I can honestly tell you that the worst is over. I no longer cry every day, I no longer wake up wondering what mood i will be in and I no longer have to stay home from work.  On the whole I feel happy and proud of what I have managed to overcome and honestly when you get the other side of all that heartache and grief and anger and everything else, its SUCH an amazing feeling.  Its pride and its strength and its just so, so freeing knowing that the heavy weight your parents and your upbringing had on you, has gone.  Suddenly you feel like an authentic adult and not a hurt child desperate for her parents' love or feeling "less than" etc.  I know the feelings are different for all of us, but that is my experience.

I really, really urge you to continue with therapy and keep pushing through and I promise this stage will not last forever. I won't lie though, it is SOOOO hard but the work is 10000000% worth it.

They say the stages of recovery are denial, anger, grief, bargaining and acceptance and that you visit each of the stages numerous times in no particular order. I would say that is true. Right now I feel I am in the acceptance stage but its taken me 5 years to get there LOL.  For what it is worth though, I am slow and it took me a few years just to be able to feel steady in my relationship with my therapist and to trust her and be myself with her and all that stuff - it may be very different for you.

It can feel a really lonely time when you are in therapy so do reach out on here and to those you trust in your life and don't try to go it alone.  I write in a diary and I write a therapy blog too which both helped so much. I also tried to take soothing baths, exercise, walk in the woods with the trees, drink hot tea, wrap myself up on the sofa in a blanket sometimes and close the curtains etc etc... oh and eat chocolate.  Basically look after yourself like you would look after a small child.  Give yourself the love that you desperately needed and never got.

Take care and I really do wish you well. x

[Anna24]

You write that your anger has no outlet - could exercise be a possible outlet?

In regards to grieving - I did a little casual ceremony by myself on a beach, as if it was a funeral and a letting go of the past. Throwing rocks into water and then walking away, maybe singing a comforting song, this helped me.

Humor helps me too.

Thank you for the support and suggestions. Exercise helps, I just need to drag myself to the gym through some low moods. It does help though. Humor too!

[Anna24]

Hey Anna24,

I am so sorry that you are feeling in such pain at the moment. I write to hopefully give you some hope!!

I have been in psycho dynamic therapy for 5 years in November.  2 of those years I've been going twice a week (which sounds a lot but has actually helped SO much).  I would say that for one of those years in particular (the year I felt the way you do where the denial had dissapeered and the harsh reality was right there in front of me) I felt like the pain was too much, like I cried ALL the time and that I was literally going to die from heart-break or something similar.  I had times where I couldn't even go to work, I was signed off on two occasions for 2 weeks from "depression", given anxiety meds and all sorts but what was happening was I was working the stuck grief out of my system and I didn't need medication, I just needed a lot of therapy and some time.

The anger might be feeling scary to you, or painful but is actually a great sign of progress. You can't be angry if you are still in the denial or bargaining phase for example.

Take care and I really do wish you well. x

Thank you! I have been in the intense sadness/lonliness phase for many months. My anxiety has been at a peak. I am glad to know there is relief on the other side, and greater emotional freedom. Who did you talk with? My friends all have lives, and it feels like such a traumatic story to tell. Maybe I could just say it's a difficult time, and ask for them to hold a good thought for me.

[Hellsbells]

Hugs Anna xx I've just started therapy, and I can understand what you are saying. I used to put my mother on a pedestal as she was an angel in comparison to her awful shit of a husband. I feel so angry towards her now, now I see what she allowed to happen. (And occasionally she joined in, to a degree) therapy has meant that I am no longer in denial about her role in things, emotionally it was less painful when I still was though.  What kind of relationship do you have currently with your father? I don't think I can continue to have one with my mother, I don't want to be around her anymore. I feel let down by her and it's painful, the love has gone.

[artfox]

Hang in there, Anna. Therapy is tough stuff, but it works. You're doing the hard part. With clarity comes anger, and often grief as well.

If your experience was like mine growing up, anger was a forbidden emotion for you. So it's scary as hell feeling it and acknowledging it. I simmered in mine for months, and did the guilt-shame-anger dance right along with it.

But after a while, the anger abated and it was like it had burned off the façade I'd built over my past. I could see how obviously messed up my childhood had been, and I was able to stop feeling guilty about being resentful about that. And things started to turn around at that point.

For me, dark humor helped me get through that angry time. I'd joke about burning down a store if they didn't have my favorite ice cream, or about naming the big knife in the kitchen Stabby. It helped me put those forbidden feelings into a form that I could talk about without feeling too vulnerable.

[sandpiper]

Yes. But like you I have had many days when it felt like there wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel.
I listened to an interview with an author who I can't credit because I've forgotten her name, but she said in true Australian style, 'sometimes if you can't see a light at the end of the tunnel, you've just got to get down there and light the ****** thing yourself.'
That's pretty much how it works.
I view it like this - I've recovered from C-PTSD to the point where I no longer show signs of mental illness/injury on the psychological stress scales, but it's a bit like living with diabetes. It's OK so long as I manage it and do all the self-care required for that.
I'd recommend that you google the 'rat park' studies which show that people do better if they are in a good environment - and you start working towards making small changes to shift your trajectory. Over time, as you start making small changes, they become big changes, and you've gotten yourself over that hill.
One thing that I found helpful was to journal each day, but time management is important, and quite often we lack structure because we've grown up in a situation where we just have to get up every day and respond to what is going on. It makes it hard to plan.
There is a great book by Sarah Edelman called 'Change your Thinking'. It's an Australian book and my T put me onto it, as it has a lot of valuable skills that are useful for going through the healing process.
It's not just the grief of realising we've been parented by some very damaged and destructive people, it's a big healing curve to recover and learn to live the most satisfying life that we can.
These boards are awesome.
But yes, that feeling of 'will this never end?' Is normal for us. It's about learning to sit and breathe through that and be kind to yourself.
I found the Pete Walker psychotherapy website and his information about how to deal with flashback management was brilliant, I printed it up and stuck it on the fridge.
Hope that helps.
What helped me was my encounters with the elders at these forums who had done the work to heal, it made me realise it was possible.
It's possible, and you are stronger and braver than you know.

[GettingOOTF]

I have been in therapy for around 5 years. I started when I was married to an abusive man. It was his idea as I had “issues” and “needed help”.

About a year after my divorce I stopped. Then I went back to deal with some FOO issues.

As others have said, depending on the level of trauma and how far it goes back it can take years.

I am thankful everyday for my therapist. She is the best thing my ex ever did for me.

Your question isn’t a simple one to answer. Does the pain go away? Yes and no. For me it’s been more that I have a better understanding of the situations I was in and why I behaved the way I did and accepted what I did. It makes it easier to process.

It’s like the proverbial onion though. Once one layer is peeled back there’s something deeper.

It’s very very difficult work. It takes time and a great deal of understanding from you and your therapist. You need to be able to look at very painful things as well as accept your role in them. This is extraordinarily painful and I have felt a lot of anger and resistance to this work at various stages. Right now is a particularly painful period as we are dealing with my childhood abuse and accepting my parents abused me vs I was “bad”. I am beginning to see how my childhood really drove almost every single choice I made as an adult and I was basically primed to end up in the marriage I did. This has made me really really angry. And that’s difficult to deal with as there is no one to get angry at. This level of anger is new to me so I’m trying to just feel it and not let it consume me.

That said I have seen enormous benefits. I am much more confident, I put myself out there, I’m not as afraid.  I used to be scared of every single thing and I had a lot of learned helplessness and “victim” thinking. Most days I feel capable and strong.  I like what is we in the mirror and I feel some pride in myself. I have richer more nurturing friendships now. All of this has helped me get a big promotion at work, increase my income, work on making my home the way I want.

It’s like therapy is fixing my broken foundation and everything built on top of that is stronger and better.

I would advise anyone to stick with it and not to shy away from the pain.

Edited to add: also not to judge ourselves too harshly for what we are feeling. I wasn’t allowed to have feelings as a child, especially negative emotions, so I have very few skills to handle them. I’m working on building those skills.

My biggest obstacle is my tendency to think that I should know these things, I should be better or further ahead. I have to remind myself that I was never taught these skills but I’m learning them now. Lots of people never do. My life is so much better than it was, the work is worth it.

[all4peace]

I'd like to make one more point--that pain avoidance is probably not our goal. I myself developed a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms that I was using unconsciously to avoid pain. When we've grown up with PD parents, we've grown up with nearly unbearable levels of pain, and with nobody teaching us how to see, feel or manage our emotions. We can then enter adulthood in full-on pain avoidance mode.

I found 2 quotes very helpful in my healing journey:

From Scott Peck. This one helps me simply accept that life is challenging. Some people have financial or medical struggles I've never had. Some are born into war-torn nations. Others have crippling birth defects. I was born into a PD family. Life is simply difficult, and it helps me feel less panicky to understand that it is difficult for everyone, just in different ways. I'm part of a great big community of people for which life is difficult (and beautiful, amazing, joyful):

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."

From Theodore Roosevelt. This one helps me take a deep breath and keep at it, no matter how hard it is:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

[treesgrowslowly]

I love the quote from Roosevelt posted by all4peace.

As for anger, I look back and the anger was because I didn't know how to grieve. For years I waited for someone in my social circle to help me with the grief. To support me in my grieving process.

I never found a non-counsellor to fulfill this need. Once I accessed good counseling I still had to do the grief work. But the anger got less intense and less scary during that phase.

From what you wrote Anna24 it sounds like you are doing the right things and yes it is hard and I too found the lonely feelings to be very hard.

Some days just finding a tv show that made me laugh was all I had available that would help. I wish I had found social supports to call and say "hey im having a tough day can we go to a movie"? But I didnt find that and its ok, it was harder than it coulda been with more support like that but I kept at it anyways. I would ask so many people to meet me for yoga and no one could.

Like you say, people are busy and have their lives to deal with too. If you have somepne who is able to go for a movie or walk and keeps things relaxing (they don't start disclosing all their stresses in you or insist on 'toxic positivity') then I hear that is helpful. If you get together with someone for some relaxation, and they dump on you, that was tough and I've spent the last 3 years recovering from that part of my life.

I woulda loved someone I could go to an exercise class with and just tune into an exercise class for an hour in a gym with a friend who also is there to for the endorphins. If you don't have that- don't feel bad. A lot of us go through our therapy years without the supportive friends we wish we had. We do our recovery anyways.

Felt so small and insignificant at the time, to watch tv when I needed a laugh.

Looking back, those teeny tiny steps of self care are what made it possible for me to build up to where I am at now, where it has become normal to do grounding and self care each day. 😃. Self care things that feel like 'too small to matter now' are things I became proud of when I look back at my progress through this.

Anger was tough. Anger (that the self care didn't cure the anger) was a tough time. Patience was not my strong suit and still isn't! Being patient while your brain and mind and body process the therapy- that's so hard! You can do it. 😃