Complex trauma and feeling limited by talk therapy

[Eagle Ray]

Hi, this is my first time posting. I have complex trauma from early life experiences onwards, including emotional and physical abuse. My parents also had complex trauma from their childhoods. For 17 years now I have sought help from talk therapy. The first therapist I saw ended up transgressing boundaries unprofessionally with me and essentially massively re-traumatised me leading to major dissociation and panic attacks. I talked to my GP who agreed the behaviour was wrong and gave me a referral to someone else. This started out ok. However, one particular incident that was another inappropriate (but less serious) boundary transgression triggered me and the situation became untenable and I felt I had to leave for my own well-being. This therapist also talked at me without being present with me, if that makes sense?

In more recent years I was back at uni. I saw one of the uni psychologists who was actually very helpful. She had training in somatic experiencing which I’d been learning about at the time, though she didn’t practice it at the uni, but at least could draw on the principles of it with me. This somatic approach was way more helpful for me than top-down approaches like CBT. However, I was limited to 6 sessions per year at the uni and when my enrolment changed I could no longer use the service. This psychologist advised it would be good for me to have ongoing therapy support, especially as I’d just been through significant grief and loss followed by a traumatic incident of abuse that had led to acute PTSD symptoms, compounding the complex PTSD I already had.

Since then I’ve tried several therapists but I don’t feel the talk therapy has gotten anywhere, and in some cases has caused further harm. The one person who really helped me did two approaches with me, something called TRE (Trauma Releasing Exercises) and BWRT (Brain Working Recursive Therapy). At the time my body was essentially still lying on the side of the road during the abusive attack, reliving it 24/7. This approaches lifted me right out of that. This therapist was extremely compassionate and emotionally present, which made all the difference.

So this largely resolved a single-incident PTSD event, but not the more complex trauma I still struggle with. Have others with complex PTSD failed to be helped much by talk therapy? What things have worked? I’ve given a huge amount of time, energy and money to talk therapy, but feel it’s been very limited help-wise and even harmful.

[Karen0901]

My story is similar. I have complex trauma from childhood and more acute trauma from more recent events.

I have never found talking therapy helpful to cure my PTSD. It does help with not feeling isolated within my mind. It also helps that there is someone I can talk to when it gets hard to bear.

I'm still working on my issues. I find medication has helped me. I also find that you need to find a mental health worker who you get along with. They won't help you, if you feel uncomfortable during the session.

I also find it helps to push myself. By this I mean, don't avoid life. However, if I push too hard it makes it worse so you need to be gentle on yourself.

[Sophie_M]

Dear Eagle Ray,

Welcome to our forums. We are pleased that you found the strength and courage to post here about your confusions around your trauma and Therapies. As you are already starting to experience, we are a helpful and supportive community.

We understand that you have experienced several different types of therapy, some which have helped you, and unfortunately, some which have harmed you.

We know that people have many different ways of looking at things and dealing with things which go on in their lives. Just as there are many different types of people, there are many different therapeutic approaches. We understand that each therapeutic approach benefits some people, and each approach doesn't work for other people. Unfortunately, this means we need to keep searching until we find an approach that actually helps us.

We also understand that the most important part of any therapy is the trust and connection between the Therapist and the client. So, if we feel uncomfortable with a Therapist,we will most likely not benefit from the therapy.

we look forward to learning what our community members say about their experiences as they start connecting here.

If you feel the need to talk with someone, feel free to call the BeyondBlue Support Service on 1300 22 4636, or Lifeline on 13 1114. Both of these services run 24 hours per day, and both are free.

Warm regards,

Sophie M.
 

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you Karen. Yes, I think being gentle on myself is something I was not good at in the past but I’m slowly learning to do that (but still a way to go). I think if we experience early trauma and haven’t been treated with gentleness it’s not intuitive and we have to gradually learn how to do it. But, yes, we need to challenge ourselves going forward too. I certainly get a lot of fear and recent events in my life pushed me deeper into that.

Finding a mental health worker I can truly trust and feel safe with has been really hard for me. I need to keep remembering the people in my life I can trust to know it is possible to trust. Thank you for sharing your experience and all the best on your journey.

[Karen0901]

Yes, I also found it hard to be gentle on myself. I felt I needed to be better. To be 'normal'. I pushed myself to the point of not sleeping for great lengths of time. This made my mental health very bad. I now don't expect to be the same as everyone else. I just try to be the best that I can be.

I also struggle with trust. Often I just accept that I don't trust them and try to develop a relationship anyway. Not sure if this is healthy but it works for me. I just try and take what I need from the sessions to help me. I don't need to be friends, I just need to like their personality so I'm comfortable. Honestly, I struggle to trust even those closest to me, so it's something I try to ignore and not let it impact my actions.

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you Sophie. What prompted me to reach out here was my last visit to a counsellor. I’ve moved to a regional town after seven years of extreme stress during which I was a carer for close family members who died. I lost two friends to suicide in this time as well. I was also diagnosed with a progressive autoimmune disease.

I sought help from a counselling service and it took a while to see someone which is understandable given the Covid situation. When I finally got to see her the first session went really well. She was gentle and caring which was really important for me to feel safe. I had another appointment scheduled in 2 weeks and was able to successfully implement several suggestions she made and was feeling very positive.

However, after the second session I felt troubled and not good at all. I felt like I’d said or done something wrong. Towards the end of the session she disclosed she had a trauma history herself and a health condition that sounded it may be similar to my own. I’d been hoping to do ongoing sessions to get some stable ongoing support, but as I started saying this she interrupted me mid-sentence and said it would be good for me to take a break and not reschedule another appointment. I left feeling kind of disoriented and lost and not really feeling welcome to return.

As I’ve had prior talk therapy situations go awry it leaves with me feeling a sense of dread about trying to continue in this situation. My intuition is telling me not to. It felt like I’d triggered discomfort in her from the material I was talking about.

I’m thinking of now finding someone online I can work with who does somatic-based work as this seems much more successful at actually shifting trauma for me. I think part of the issue with complex trauma is it often stems from pre-verbal very early life experiences. I know much of my trauma is pre-verbal in nature and my body can default into a state where there are no words, just sensations and fear. Sometimes you can’t reach and heal this just by talking.

The guy I did somatic work with before picked up things such as how I kept moving my left hand to the side of my head while speaking. I disclosed to him that the first attack I remember as a child came from the left and the more recent abusive attack as well. I realised I’m protecting myself all the time from attack. He understood and said he has a protective reflex that comes from the right. It really helped to have that somatic understanding and empathy.

[Eagle Ray]

Thanks, yes, I think I’ve been struggling to be ‘normal’ my whole life too. It’s good to reframe that and accept ourselves for where we are at.

Yes, trust is so challenging. I want to trust, but get thrown off balance easily, like I’m waiting and expecting for the trust to be broken. I trust animals and nature. I did do a session of horse therapy last year that I found helpful. Animals feel safer to me than people, but I know there are good people out there and keep trying to come back to remembering that.

[yggdrasil]

Hi Eagle Ray,

Thank you so much for sharing on here. I agree finding a good counsellor can be very challenging. Many are completely inexperienced with the pointier end of mental health. Eventually I did find someone (who also bulk billed with a mental health care plan) and this helped a lot.

I think it can also be helpful to look at the psychology literature on your own. I did this after being recommended "Schema Therapy", which my psych wasn't expert in, but I was very interested in. I found a bunch of stuff on Schema Therapy online and talked through it with my psych, and did a bunch of the "worksheets" I found online.

While talking therapy was helpful for me, I strongly believe that equally important were maintaining very good exercise and diet habits. I try to do heavy exercise everyday, and I found significantly reducing caffeine and processed sugar in my diet greatly helped my mood. I think non-intellectual therapeutic things like exercise, yoga, gardening etc etc arw just as important as the intellectual things like talking therapies.

Exploring spiritual and artistic stuff also helped I think.

Thank you again for posting on here, and please tell us more if you feel comfortable. All the best,

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you so much yggdrasil.

What you say really resonates with me. I find I have to do all of those things - exercise, healthy diet, creative/artistic stuff, spiritual exploration etc to keep on track. In terms of spiritual stuff, I feel my church is nature where I feel the most connected.

I was very active as a child and wanted to be a marathon runner when I grew up! But at 13 I developed severe pain and fatigue. I know looking back that chronic stress and early trauma were the instigator of this, and may have contributed to the autoimmune condition I now have too.

But I do everything I can to stay active. Yesterday I did a 9km walk and today a 16km walk! I’ve been processing very difficult grief and trauma. I feel like Forrest Gump when he feels like he’s had one loss after another, and he just starts to run and run and run.

I changed my diet about 3 weeks ago. It was actually reasonably healthy before, but it’s now super low sugar with absolutely no processed foods. I’m not even having starchy foods. My health has improved hugely. I’d been experiencing terrible cognitive symptoms and extreme fatigue. I’m doing so much better now.

I’m glad you found a therapy approach that’s worked well for you. The second last therapist I went to tried schema therapy with me. It didn’t work so well, but that may have had more to do with how it was delivered than the therapy itself.

I think the quality of the therapeutic relationship is even more important than the modality. I’m still trying to find the right person to work with, but I called the BB support line tonight and spoke to someone very helpful. I feel more settled, hopeful and less like giving up on therapy. There has to be a right person to work with, even if I find someone who does Skype, as I live in a small town now with fewer options.

I’m strongly drawn to somatic-based work and have done heaps of reading in this area. I’ve learned quite a bit about Peter Levine’s approach to trauma which strongly resonates with me. I’m trying to gradually release trauma that’s stored in my body from my earliest memories. For me I have to always work through the body and not just from the head. I’ve found cognitive approaches alone just don’t work for me, especially as executive function goes offline when trauma is triggered. Meditation helps me too and I had a session of Bowen therapy a few weeks ago that was really helpful at calming my body down and releasing stuff.

Thanks again for your support. I appreciate it.

[yggdrasil]

I totally love that part of Forest Gump where he just starts running! I find it very relatable and inspiring. For the same reason I love the movie "Rocky" and the re-telling "Creed". And that's great you've done some big walks!

Also the first time Schema Therapy was presented to me I also thought it was silly. And I totally agree that the relationship with the counsellor is as important or more important than the modality... apparently there's some good evidence for this as well.

I hope you get through this period of difficult grief. Thinking of you, and all the best,