"Too much trauma for therapy?" ep.219

My therapist was challenged by my trauma and she went to classes to learn how to help me best. She has even learned EMDR because of me. I appreciate her so much!

For someone diagnosed with DID, sadly being rejected by therapists and clinics because “it’s too much for me/us to handle” is getting upsettingly common by now. Even clinics that claim to be specialised in trauma therapy, as soon as they hear DID they close the doors on us. It’s really shattering how often seeking help ends up being simply a vain endeavour.

It is so easy to find a therapist who takes a course in EMDR and calls themselves trauma-informed. It is sooooo hard to find a therapist that actually has some understanding of how a traumatized person is going to show up in therapy (differently than other patients) and what they will need--even just what they will need to feel safe enough to ever show up again! It is also sooo easy to be re-traumatized by even a single visit with a therapist who has no clue.

This is soooo me with my new trauma therapist! Growing up, I was mocked for crying. I’m a Gen X’er and our entire generation is the “F*ck IT, F*ck YOU, F*ck THAT paradigm 😂

I have too much trauma for therapy for many reasons. And I cannot find a trauma therapist to save the world. There's no help for a lot of people.

I tried to get therapy for ptsd and essentially got denied because it was work related and instead they decided to engage in a massive medical gaslighting campaign! Because they think misdiagnoses gets them off the hook! And those are facts

In the uk. So with our limited NHS resources. I’ve been, in the past, incredibly fortunate to have been accepted for EMDR therapy. Not just one cycle. Over the course of 6 years, I was privileged to be allocated funding for 3 cycles. As unforeseen traumatic events triggered a significant fragmentation. It is without doubt the most harrowing, heartbreaking, terrifying, painful, challenging life altering experience I’ve ever had in my adult life. It is the only therapy that has ever worked effectively for me. I now volunteer my time online passing on work I did myself after each cycle to continue that great work and to encourage Brain to begin to heal and process as it should. Sending love and encouragement to all. ❤

I was raped repeatedly by a close family member from 11 to about 14/15. I remember some of the before and after but none of the during. Evidently, that was when I left, zoned out, disasociated. I have been in weekly therapy for a year and half. Prior to therapy, how I coped numbing my pains and emotions, was by suppressing them. I learned to do that very early in childhood. I had an incredibly difficult and abusive childhood in a blended family where my sibling all had their own toxic behaviors. I fawned, people pleased to keep the peace, was doing that right up until shortly into therapy a year and a half ago. Not diagnosed but maybe anorexic? I ate just enough to survive, maintaining my weight between 115-118. It wasn't until therapy that I started to pay attention to my body, I came to realized my eating patterns. I only ate when I felt okay, safe, when my nervous system was calmed. I was constantly in fight, flight, freeze mode and hypervigilant The first 5 months of weekly therapy (talk) became really intense as I was trauma dumping, it was causing me to become dysregulated. When I started noticing that, I told my therapist that I was trauma dumping, she quickly interupted me (she rarely ever did that), saying, no, you have a lot of traumas. I told her I was having dysregulated episodes at home. I was about to have a nerous breakdown before I started therapy but I managed to hold that off another 5 months. After that, I had to see a regular doctor to get a refferal to get in to see a psychiatrist. At that time, I weighed in at 111. I held back my tears. Now, still in therapy, doing some EMDR and parts work. I am nearly 4 months nicotine free, my weight at an all time high of 149, I feel great. I have received many compliments from others about my appearance this past month. I need to start doing crunches though, lol. I am almost 58 years old and I do bungee exercises. I can relate to so much of what you talked about in this episode kati, thank you!

I met with a psychiatrist today for the first time, after telling him my story and what is going on he told me that he could not ethically treat me. Trauma is a core of what is going on, but it is manifesting in a complex way and possibly serious comorbidities with a recent heart attack. He told me I need an integrated behavioral health team evaluation and gave me the phone numbers for three of the university hospitals in the area. He was a research fellow with the NIH and clinical fellow at McLean Hospital and UCSF. I feel like I was told I am too broken and am concerned these programs either are not taking new patients or my insurance will not approve any of these programs and I will not be able to get help. I don't know if I should be scared or impressed with this feat.

Thanks to all of you who asked these questions. I'm sorry for what you out there have been/are going through

Thanks for answering my question (#6), Kati! I am going to read Eating in the Light of the Moon and look into switching to an eating disorder specialized therapist soon. I can’t thank you enough for your input and encouragement!

Around 33:20 Kati talks about how the hard realities of our circumstances can lead us to pretend that traumatic events didn't happen, especially when we're kids & don't have the means to get away from the trauma I think it's also important to realize that in addition to pretending a traumatic event didn't happen, sometimes we can also acknowledge that it happened but pretend that it's normal—or maybe in certain cases we're not even pretending, because our experiences have taught us that it actually is normal & we just don't really know any better, or we don't have the capacity to understand & process that it wasn't normal In my experience I've found that it can be useful to reexamine memories, & perhaps explore them within the safety of the work we do with our therapists, because sometimes the kind of processing & healing that needs to happen will require having the perspective of another person—someone else who can point it out to us when something is a potential source of trauma that we've overlooked, simply because it never even occurred to us that the event or experience in question is unusual in the first place

Ya, CPTSD, MDD ( not so much now ) and MAD ( much less now!). Also an ACE score of 9 with a disorganized fearful avoidant attachment style. NOT a badge of honor....I have just found that most therapists are afraid of having me as their client. They say it all the time. I wish I had a million dollars to afford the ' best' therapist out there.

I have found EMDR incredibly helpful for this. You reprocess it until the emotions are finally at a “0”. It becomes like watching a movie, you see what’s happening, but it doesn’t trigger emotions as though it’s actually happening.

I had a therapist in my early 20's tell me she was unable to help me as I needed more help than she was equipped to deal with. I felt beyond helpless, like "I must be REALLY fucked up". Years later, I learned that she worked for the state and with cops (I was on my dad's insurance, who was an investigator, which is why she was one of the only therapists covered) who required therapy after traumatic occurrences like shootings, but that's not what she said. Looking back at it, it makes sense, but she could have explained it in a way that didn't make me feel like I was beyond help. I was eventually diagnosed with BPD, as well as other things, but I got into the right type of therapy and improved. Still improving. I'm entering my third year of college with a 3.72 GPA, majoring in psychology with a minor in sociology, with plans to go on to get my masters in counseling.

In the uk. So with our limited NHS resources. I’ve been, in the past, incredibly fortunate to have been accepted for EMDR therapy. Not just one cycle. Over the course of 6 years, I was allocated funding for 3 cycles. As unforeseen traumatic events triggered a significant fragmentation. It is without doubt the most harrowing, heartbreaking, terrifying, painful, challenging life altering experience I’ve ever had in my adult life. It is the only therapy that has ever worked effectively for me. I now volunteer my time online passing on work I did myself after each cycle to continue that great work and to encourage Brain to begin to heal and process as it should. Sending love and encouragement to all. ❤

About modalities not working: Ive been in therapy for 6 years. Everything modality she tried except Havening was too much because my system was so sensitive. I started somatic experiencing therapy. That was incredibly slow, but it's helping. I also just started primitive reflexes therapy which is helpful for calming down that infant fear reflex that wires your body for fight, flight, freeze. I also found out I'm on the spectrum which is also why I'm so sensitive. Some trauma just needs extra time to slowly introduce regulation to a body that lives in protection. ❤ If you can't handle a certain therapy that's telling you your system is very sensitive.

Sadly 'too much trauma for therapy' is exactly what I heard repeatedly while trying to get help through public healthcare in the UK. Instead of directing me to someone qualified straight away, I was placed on waiting list after waiting list, only to be given a single appointment, usually with a newly-qualified therapist, with someone who would tell me they were only qualified to treat anxiety and depression, or only depression, or only simple PTSD and not complex, and then they'd refer me on to another waiting list. It took over two years to come to 'enough' of a crisis to get the local crisis team involved, who managed to get me help from someone who didn't immediately turn me away, and even then they had to refer me out to get the kind of help I really needed... and then the crisis team dumped me over the christmas holidays because you're only allowed to be in crisis for so long. --- At this point I think I have almost as much trauma as a result of trying to get help as I do from the original abuse. (Edited to add line breaks, because I realised it was a wall of text!)

I've had therapists I've approached for help, tell me that I've had my ed too long for them to help, even though they've all said they were specialised ed therapists... After 18 yrs I've almost given up hope, thou I would dearly love, one day, to not be anxious over every mouthful I eat, to not feel so weak all the time and to enjoy both food and exercise out of their relationship w calorie intake - hopefully in the future this can happen; I don't want to be 40 or 50 and still be like this 😩

I have a trauma of near dying through suicide, I was so near to suicide that I was just going to commit it in my mind and then didn't but was really traumatized and then the indian actor commiting suicide news came and I thought he didn't have something (in terms of religion I think I had) and I thought that's why he ended up doing it because there was no reason or option left for him to not do it or end his pain. Because there was no hope of a place (home) where it will be not present anymore. And I also see somewhere writing that she too was affected by it and talking to a therapist about it, but I didn't have anyone to talk about it. And when I was taking free therapy from an organization the theraist given to a trauma patient was trainees and they too were changing, I had been transfered after one session to somebody else, she did try to treat my splitting mind at that time by making me create a safe place in my mind for my child self but she too abruptly end it and one time I told somebody I was getting suicidal or upset about what she said and replied upsettly to her and I think it hurted her ego so she transfered me to someone else and that person was just doing talking and talking like a friend or a chatter not doing something called therapy. I hear the lecture from someone many times when we process stories tears come firsts then words. And I think that had happened to me.