Posted by bob on March 10, 2000, at 20:30:26
In reply to Re: Kind of curious, posted by Mark H. on March 10, 2000, at 18:56:55
> Here's one perspective: medication can put a floor under you, without which therapy may be useless.
That is a nice way of putting it, Mark. The way my therapist describes meds is that they give you a window on feeling different. That certainly was, is, the case for me ... I just didn't know there were so many windows to look out of!
I have to disagree with you, Janice, about the childhood trauma issue. I mean, for all of us, our disorders are some combination of nature and nurture (or lack thereof). The problem with childhood traumas is not just triggering some latent trait or something like that, it's the whole cosmology of behaviors that develop around that trauma and its aftershocks. Because of that, the younger you are when the trauma occurs, the more difficult it can be to untangle the web of maladaptive behaviors and beliefs you've created between then and starting therapy. I certainly showed signs of some anxiety disorder prior to the age of eight (I was one of those "painfully shy" kids who would ALWAYS hide behind his parents). Losing a brother and a grandfather in a boating accident may have set off a depressive episode. But it was the continous ripples and waves that event sent through my family, even to this day thirty years later, that not only put me where I am but keep making the behavioral aspects of my depression a "moving target".
The one thing I do agree with is the pointlessness over reliving that trauma again and again. It does help me to revisit it on certain occasions -- those specifically being when I've made some kind of breakthrough in understanding what's "wrong" with me. It helps to go back to the source and, with that new insight, trace the effects and pull out the patterns it set off ... much like untangling some knot of threads by unweaving them one at a time. The progress I make isn't linear -- I'm constantly spiraling through the same events from a different perspective.
Perhaps the most important lesson about childhood traumas, or any trauma for that matter, is that your very presence right here right now means that you survived it.
Without THAT specific understanding, reliving it can be deadly.
my two cents,
bob
poster:bob
thread:26607
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000302/msgs/26689.html