Complex PTSD - From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma by Pete Walker

Author:Pete Walker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Mental Health, Psychology, Complex PTSD (CPTSD), Self-Help
ISBN: 9781492871842
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2013-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Grieving Resolves Flashback [Step # 9]

Returning to the above vignette, I wondered out loud to my client, “Do you think you might be in a flashback?” Because of the numerous times we had previously identified her emotional upsets as flashbacks, she immediately recognized this and let go into deep sobbing. She dropped into profound grieving.

Her crying combined tears of relief with tears of grief. Her tears of relief came from being able to take in my empathy. Her tears of grief were the feelings of her abject childhood pain being released. Her tears of relief also came from once again remembering the source of this previously confusing and overwhelming pain.

My client continued to cry and released more of the pain of her original trauma. Further tears were about being stuck so often in flashbacks. As her tears subsided, she recalled a time as a small child when she literally received a single lump of coal in her Christmas stocking. Mean mom had “scrooged” her as punishment for being ten minutes late to dinner. Her tears then morphed into healthy anger about this abuse, and she felt herself returning to an empowered sense of self. Grieving brought her back into the present and broke the amnesia of the flashback.

She then remembered to invoke her instinct of self-protection. We had gradually been rebuilding it with role-plays and assertiveness training. She angrily vented about her parents’ destruction of her right to defend herself against abuse and unfairness. She started cheekily chanting “That’s not fair!” as if to show her parents they could no longer attack her for saying it.

She then moved further into reiterating her right to have boundaries. She mocked mom and dad as poor excuses for parents. And then she turned her anger onto the critic with a resounding refrain of saying “no”. “No, you cannot judge me. No, you cannot pick me apart anymore. No you cannot waste my time with all your stupid worries!”

Finally, I reminded her to reinvoke her sense of safety by recognizing that she now inhabited an adult body. She was now free of parental control. She had many resources to draw on: intelligence, strength, resilience, and a growing sense of community. She lived in a safe home. She had the support of her therapist and two friends who were her allies and who readily saw her essential worth.

I also observed that she was making ongoing progress in managing her flashbacks which were occurring less often and less intensely.

After about forty minutes, she was released from the flashback. I have witnessed this restorative power of grieving on innumerable occasions. The intricacies of therapeutic grieving will be explored in chapter 11.

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