Most of the way through The Body Keeps Score I started thinking that maybe I had never finished the book before because it is upsetting. But I remember the last chapter so I think that I have finished it before. But there are sections that I almost completely forgot because they hurt so much.
The most interesting therapy for people like me is neurofeedback and I have no idea how to get access to it.
One section of the book talked about Internal Family System (IFS) therapy. In very rough terms I’ll describe it as recognizing people as being like a fully integrated multiple personality system. You know, how shrinks have described me in the past. The goal of this type of therapy is to encourage people to see themselves as a grouping of “parts”. Good parts and bad parts. There are Manager parts that keep you as functional as you are going to be. There are the Exiled parts that you squash and don’t manage in healthy ways. The parts of you that were traumatized and you don’t want to feel weak ever again so you deny that you were that part, ever. Then there are the Firefighters. The Firefighter parts show up when your Manager parts can’t handle situation and you need to Deal With A Problem. Think of a firefighter completely destroying a house in order to put out a fire.
Think about how I like to blow up the boat I’m standing on when I don’t know how to handle a problem.
Like that.
I feel like a lot of the purpose of my marriage is for Noah and I to figure out how to be healthy people while standing next to each other. How do I deal with problems without needing to blow up the boat? How does he manage to have emotions within the marriage? These are things we are working on.
Yoga, meditation, art, and gardening continue to be the activities that are recommended for helping me deal with my shit.
Not socializing.
Bouncing off of other people is complicated.
Everything is complicated.
But being with my children continues to be, in my opinion, the single best thing I do for myself. My children ground me. My children attach me to the present. My children make me want to grow and change in healthy ways.
I’m really grateful for my children.
Regarding your latest two posts:
I feel like I have been trying to explain to people for *years* that 1)sleep deprivation is torture and 2)dissociation is a spectrum. I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t discuss #2 much anymore with people who don’t dissociate. Too painful, especially with mental health people I get people like your (former?) psychiatrist who want to dismiss 100% of my health record and get me to try a new brain pill and/or talk about trauma all day. Feel like I need to clarify that last part: it’s fine if I am having active symptoms and *I* choose to lead a discussion about my history, but it feels awful if the professional is asking too many prurient (is that the right word?) details and constantly dragging me back. I live under a constant fear that a new doctor will want to take away my meds that WORK.
Something that I noticed in the book recently, is that he talked about how Therapist don’t actually have to know the story of their clients in order to help them. When therapists insist on knowing all of the details it is often more about their own voyeurism then about anything that will actually help the patient.
I’ve started refusing to give more then a high level overview, because I refuse to pay for months of me giving them details that they don’t need – I’ll share what they do, when they do, promise. Similar to why I hand them written documentation of who’s who and timeline – not willing to pay that much (money and time/effort/spoons) to repeat myself over and over in ways that are re-traumatizing and not helpful.
I’m pleased that my last two shrinks have been willing to read my book.