I wanted my therapist to care about me or at the very least to be proud of me. I wanted to be amazing at therapy! I wanted to shock her with the swiftness of my healing! So session after session, I insisted I could handle more than my body was ready to process.
I did not understand that my interpersonal trauma experiences had stripped me of boundaries and that my desperate need to please my therapist (and everyone else I cared about) required me to maintain this lack of boundaries.
Early in trauma therapy, voicing and exploring too much too soon left me emotionally dysregulated for several days or longer after each session – sometimes deep in depression and suicidal ideation. My urgency to move fast was not fully in my control due to my lack of boundaries and self-worth. On top of that, the disconnect I had with my body prevented me from any awareness that I was pushing too hard…moving too fast. My therapist often asked for feedback, but I did not know how to read the language of my body like I do now.
Retraumatization by Verbalizing My Trauma Stories
The approach of my first few therapists was cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The focus was on my thinking and behavior and finding ways to modify this to alleviate my symptoms. Believing it was the only path towards healing, I showed up each week with heart pounding, couldn’t catch my breath, and my armpits already drenched in sweat, ready to be brave and push through my internal hell of Complex PTSD.
Forcing my stories out of my mouth caused retraumatization again and again. I thought I was being brave as I pushed for healing, but instead of finding the slightest relief, my symptoms increased and I experienced stronger bouts of depression, panic, anxiety, and hypervigilance.
Ignoring the body’s fear in order to verbalize a trauma narrative in therapy maintains the lack of boundaries that trauma originally stripped away.
Ignoring the Fear in My Body
I am not a talkative person . I have social anxiety…am an introvert…avoid conversations. I’ve always been criticized for my “poor communication skills”. However, in my therapist’s office, session after session, I talked incessantly.
My stories poured out with desperation and urgency…as if pausing to breathe would cause my fragile courage to be swallowed up and it’d all be over. I felt I must push out the words as quickly as I could!
Staying with my words, my thoughts, and the jumbled mess in my mind…avoided the actual fear and other emotions and sensations of my body. My own words made my body feel threatened as though I was still living the experiences I was voicing. Once I found a therapist who could attune to what was held in my body, she saw me react with emotion – my face flushed, tears in my eyes, shortness of breath – and she would gently ask me to pause and notice what was happening.
The fear was too much and my body was in full fight or flight activation (sympathetic nervous system energy). I usually spent about 1 second noticing before returning to my narrative. I could shut down the emotions with incredible skill. This helped me feel in control, avoiding what felt dangerous…by returning to my mind…stuck in my head because my body could not tolerate the emotion.
She didn’t force the connection to my body because she understood that was all I could do.
This remained my pattern for years. My husband and family complain that I never talk enough, yet I’d consistently walk into sessions with a sense of desperation to share my story. I have always felt this need without acting on it.
Throughout life, we hold back our stories due to the shame, but the urge to be seen remains strong.
It May Take Years To Access the Body Sensations Needed to Create Boundaries
Interpersonal trauma makes the body feel unsafe. Even the word “body” can be triggering. In Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, he explains that trauma is the result when an individual’s natural threat response is activated with no ability to stop the threat through fight, flight, or freeze reactions. The nervous system becomes overwhelmed. If no support is available to properly process the trauma, the nervous system may become chronically stuck in a hyperarousal or hypoarousal state. The threat and overwhelm, along with the sensations of the trauma all remain in the body! An immense amount of research has since emerged to confirm his aptly titled book, as our bodies indeed keep the score.
I Needed a Loving Witness
What I did not understand, was that I not only needed to share my story – I needed someone I trusted to WITNESS my story; to embrace all of its shame and ugliness, and love me anyway!
It felt like my forced attempt to put my trauma experience into words for my therapist would create this witnessing opportunity. I needed someone to listen without the judgment I expected. I needed to see a reaction on her face as I told the story – something to tell me she cares and she sees my pain! I did not know it, but this is what I longed for – NOT simply finding language for my experiences as I thought!
I also did not believe my therapist could be that person . Sure, I liked her – but I saw her as a distant professional, paid to listen and guide me. In my mind, there was no possibility she could care about me and be a witness to my pain.
The problem was – by ignoring my body sensations – my fight or flight activation of fast heart rate, increased temperature, the waves of dizziness or nausea – by pushing past all this and forcing the story out anyway – it was physiologically impossible for me to RECEIVE what someone witnessing my story feels like. Yes, all of those reactions were provided by my therapist, but my body, in its state of hyperarousal, could not receive any of it. It was the same when I attempted to confide in my close friend.
Receiving the Experience of Being Seen
My first experience of feeling WITNESSED was more than 2 years into therapy – and it was with my friend, not my therapist. We got coffee together so that I could tell her all about my recent session. It was a horribly difficult one in which new abuse memories had surfaced and my mind was scrambling to put the pieces together. I found myself pushing out all the words once again, unable to make eye contact, my heart racing, and my body shaking as usual.
I wanted her to know my story, but I had attempted this path so many times already only to be left with increased symptoms. I knew I was more likely to be left with more heartache by the time I returned home, yet something in me kept trying because I desperately needed someone to see me.
How ironic that she had been seeing me in my pain for years, just like my therapist. It was me who couldn’t RECEIVE the experience of being seen.
I don’t know how, but for once I slowed down. I stopped talking and noticed my breathing. I noticed my racing heart. I watched my hands shake on my lap, shamefully hidden from my friend. Suddenly I realized my belly ached and I wanted to vomit the muffin I was trying to eat. These were all sensations that happened every time I talked about my trauma – but the awareness was incredibly new. I was shocked at how much was happening in my body. I breathed.
These few moments of noticing my internal experience allowed me to lift my eyes to see her face. She looked pained by my story and her eyes had teared a little. How could this be!? I saw she cared and I felt it. My heart swelled. I will never forget that moment of feeling seen. Loved. WITNESSED! It was what I always wanted. It was far more emotion than I could take in and I had to avert my eyes agian.
Everything changed for me in therapy after that moment. Not quickly, but I began to be mindful of my body sensations. What once felt too vulnerable…and even a waste of time…now felt vital to receiving what was needed to heal.
SLOWLY Creating Boundaries and Safety
I didn’t understand that the healing that needed to happen must happen in my body. The more I stuck with my narratives…stuck with my thoughts…and tried to put words to memories that lacked language…the longer it took to process and heal the trauma stored in my body.
Once I learned to attune to my body’s sensations, I understood that my body was still frightened to be in the room with my therapist. If she tried to hug me, I swiftly turned so that my shoulder moved into her embrace…creating distance. If I did hug back, it was lightning quick, like it was some requirement to check off a list. The unsafety in my body was the same as with everyone else in my life. I liked her and felt desperate to be understood, but I remained fearful and I could not force that to change without accepting it.
My body needed therapy to go slow, even if my mind said otherwise.
Building Trust is Slow
It took years for my body to trust the other human in the room with me. I thought I trusted her from day 1 (…and the next therapist…and the next…). Why else would I spill out decades of secrets without knowing these people? My mind said to trust her because she is a professional. She is the expert!
Unfortunately, because I did not know how to go slow in therapy (like waiting to share until it felt like she earned the secrets I was divulging, or saying no to hugs, etc.), I instead further confirmed to my body that my mind could not be trusted to protect me. This caused my healing to take even longer. I am the one in this body, not her! She can’t possibly realize how shaky and dysregulated I felt on the inside when my face and body portrayed the opposite.
In time, I had to swallow my pride and be honest about how my body and mind reacted during and after each session so that my therapist could be my partner in navigating my inner world.
Therapy aided my healing process in every way – but only once I found the right therapist. Blindly assuming the therapist is a professional and must know what to do dishonors your own gut intuition. Nobody knows you better than you! And it may take a long time for a trauma survivor to get in touch with his or her gut again.
My Body Had to Learn What Boundaries Feel Like
Interpersonal trauma, such as physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, involves a stripping away of one’s boundaries. My body did not know what it felt like to have boundaries, much less to have them respected.
My therapist encouraging a slower pace – caring for me amidst my slowness and messiness – taught me what boundaries feel like, but only once I was honest enough to let her in on what I felt inside.
She continued to ask, “Does it feel OK to keep going?” and I finally found the self-worth to answer “NO!” if my fight or flight activation became too strong and I felt unsafe. I said “NO” to her offer for hugs or any other touch when I was not ready instead of saying “YES” to be respectful or make her like me. I admitted the bouts of depression after a hard session so that she could slow down the pace further. I began to give honest feedback even if it felt like failure or that I’d risk losing her approval.
By pacing trauma therapy slowly and attuning to my inner world, my nervous system re-learned what was once instinctive. In time, I began to ask for hugs and touch. I reached out for her hand when I needed it. I found myself doing the same with my friend or melting into my husband’s embrace. I was overcome with how safe and beautiful this new experience felt.
My body is trusting me now because I am listening and honoring its language.
