Post Trauma Group/Therapy Session Fatigue

It’s 3:45am and I’m still awake.   Since I haven’t slept , it feels like the same day.  It doesn’t feel like ‘yesterday’ yet.   Sleep is what separates the days.

After trauma group and then my session with Sean today,  I mean yesterday,  I felt very drained.   I sat down with a cup of tea and fell asleep for an hour.   And yet now,  sleep eludes me.  I’m not sure why the sessions are so draining but consensus is that’s normal.

We’re heading into fall now and before long it will be dark by 5pm.  I find the loss of daylight,  coupled with the colder weather, to be a challenging time of year.   The darkness of the season brings on a darkness of mood.   It was mentioned during trauma group that time of year may affect mood because it may also coincide with the time of year that a trauma was experienced.   It got me to thinking about which of my traumatic experiences might parallel this time of year.    The fall season has seen multiple distressing events over the years.    Our cottage caught on fire one Thanksgiving when I was a child.  We were in the house when the fire started and witnessed it jump from stove to cupboards,  to ceiling,  and watched in horror as it flew across the ceiling towards us sitting colouring at the dining room table,  and ignited the curtains just behind us.   I remember my mother screaming in panic for us to RUN ….. get out of the house.   “Go to the road and flag down a car for help”.    There was no telephone at the cottage so we needed to get someone to stop and ask them to go to the nearest public telephone and call the fire department.   Fortunately the fire department arrived before the entire structure of the building burned down,  but the interior was gutted.  We lost almost everything.   It was horrifying and to this day I am terrified of fire.    The fall season has also featured other harrowing events over the years.  I broke my knee and had surgery one September.   I had my car accident in the  month of October.    It was during the fall season that my beloved goat Lucy was killed by a coyote and I found him lurking over her freshly ravaged body.   That was a horrific event seared into my memory.   My sister died in December.   And my Dads last  (permanent)  admission to hospital was in the month of September.  He never came home again.   All of this got me to thinking about losses and grief and how with having so many animals,  there isn’t a month of the year that hasn’t experienced some kind of trauma over the years, although the aforementioned fall/winter traumas were more severe.  It also got me to wondering if SAD  (Seasonal Affective Disorder) might also be connected to trauma having occurred in concert with the time of year.

 

Cognitive Conceptualization

Wow … that’s a mouthful!    It’s also quite an in depth process.    It begins with core beliefs and the assumptions/rules we make in response to those core beliefs.  Then looks at the coping strategies we develop in response to those beliefs and rules.  From there it’s becoming aware of the automatic thoughts that we have and trying to be aware not only that we have auto thoughts, but also being aware of their meaning.  And then of course,  how all that affects our behaviour.

Using myself as the model,  it goes a little something like this  …….

Relevant Life History  (for now I’ll only deal with the one branch of my trauma > the other is too personal)    My parents were emotionally unavailable and had no close friends.   My mother was very critical of everyone,  and especially critical of me.    My mother was psychologically abusive,  doling out constant criticism and comparing me to other children,  pointing out what I was lacking.   When I was hurt emotionally I was not supported or nurtured.   Emotions were dismissed.   “Wipe that look off your face or I’ll wipe it off”.   “Stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”.   “You’re too sensitive”.  “You always over react”.  “You need to grow a thicker skin”.   “Why can’t you be like [so ‘n so]”.    “No one wants to hear what you have to say”.   And God forbid you answered a question with,  ‘I thought’.   That would be met with,  “you didn’t think.  You never think.  That’s your problem, you never think”   Anger wasn’t allowed > only adults could display anger.   With my mother it was expressed with her sharp tongue and deliberate words chosen to inflict as much hurt as possible.   With my father it was to shut everything down.   Everyone stop talking and that’s the end of it.  No discussion.   No resolution.   Just, “ I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!!!”.   We were not allowed to speak our minds or defend ourselves.   There was a feeling of being threatened even  though we were never physically hit.   But the fear was there nevertheless.  It was implied that if we were to stand up,  speak back,  confront adults,  something awful would happen.  I lived in abject fear of getting in trouble.

That life history led me to the development of my Core Beliefs.   I’m not good enough.  Something is wrong with me.   I’m not lovable.   I’m powerless/helpless.   I’m somehow inadequate/inferior/defective.   I can’t cope.  I’m emotionally vulnerable.  I don’t measure up to others expectations.  I have nothing to offer.    I’m boring.  I’m unattractive  (a lot of emphasis was put on being pretty).  My very existence brings shame on my family.  I’m unwanted.   Unlikeable.  Unloved.  Unloveable.

Those beliefs lead to Assumptions and Rules such as:  If I avoid asserting myself I’ll be safe from rejection and criticism.   If I show my true feelings they’ll be stomped on so I need to hide my feelings in order to be safe.   If I pretend to be okay I’ll blend in and avoid confrontation,  criticism, and rejection.   If I’m invisible I’ll be okay but if I’m seen I could get hurt …. being seen could put me in the line of fire.   In order to be safe I have to go along to get along …. don’t rock the boat.   The world is not safe. 

And that leads to the Coping Strategies that we develop.  For myself I tend to be cautious around people.   Never sure who can be trusted and always looking for signs of betrayal.  I avoid confrontation at all costs.  I try to be neutral rather than have an opinion.    My guard is always up.   I’m a people pleaser.   I try not to draw too much attention to myself,  and I often hide my true feelings.   I try not to get too close to people in order to avoid being hurt.   

So how does all this play out in a specific situation.  Again from my own experience…… Therapy especially in the early days when this journey began.   The situation would be Sean would ask me what I was feeling.    My automatic thought would be that I can’t divulge what I’m feeling because it’s stupid and he’ll probably think I’m a pathetic loser.  The meaning of that automatic thought was  ‘he’ll be critical’.   The emotion triggered is anxiety.   And the behaviour is to shutdown ….. clam up,  hide those feelings.

Another situation was my horse/dog show pitch to a potential co-producer.   My automatic thought was  ‘he’ll probably think my idea is stupid’.   The meaning of that auto thought was  ‘I’ll be rejected’.   The emotion triggered was fear and anxiety.  And the behaviour was that I sat on that proposal for several months.

I did eventually send that proposal and got a positive response but now I’m in a new situation.   I left the ball in the other persons court as far as setting up a meeting to discuss the show.    A few weeks have gone by with no further contact, and now I feel that I need to instigate the follow up in order to keep things moving.   So the new situation is that I need to contact this person to suggest a meeting.  My automatic thought is,  ‘he’s changed his mind > he’s no longer interested in the project > he’ll think I’m being pushy’.   The meaning of that thought is,  ‘ I’ll be rejected’.   The emotion is anxiety/fear.   And the behaviour is that I haven’t been able to bring myself to follow up yet.

Another current  situation is  >  Situation =  dog school hired a new instructor to the team.   Automatic thought  =  people will probably like her better than me.  Meaning = I’m not good enough.  I’ll be rejected.   Emotion = anxiety; insecurity;  fear.  Behaviour =  in this case I acted more positively  (because of this work) and let the emotion motivate me to promote my classes more actively.

What this shows us is that how we respond to certain situations/triggers is a direct reflection of the core beliefs we have about ourselves.   Most of the time we are not even aware that we have these beliefs, nor are we aware that we have these ‘rules’ and ‘automatic thoughts’ that drive our behaviour.