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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by trouble on March 17, 2002, at 23:54:23
Dear Friends,
I'm going to move slow, but I am going to move. It's moving already, things are moving inside me and I have tools and skills to keep this from turning into an avalanche. I have a clock, I can set it for one hour and when the hour's up I can stop typing.
Things have changed, I've cried two days in a row now and I never cry. They're not spoiled brat tears, they're old. Listen, and please take this seriously. If you're like me you may feel an obligation to finish reading a post even when you don't want to. That's who I'm talking to. It's ok, believe me, I'm used to it, people get up and walk out of the room when I stop being dishonest, I'd walk out too if I could.
I was traumatized when I was a kid. Alot. Day after day. I don't know if you've ever been around someone who's been traumatized, even years later, even as an adult, but it's upsetting. Words are jumbled up and don't make sense, they look terrified, their body shakes, their head shakes, no, no, no, it's not like what you see in a psych ward, it's more raw and threatening, it is lucid and cogent and undeniably happened.
Give me ten minutes and I'll give you 50 reasons to keep your mouth shut. Consider this:
People coming out of a car crash look all fucked up and broken they're crying and trembling and they look scared.
People who have been truamatized by an atrocity look different from that, there is something in their eyes that no one wants to look at. Merely looking at trauma resulting from atrocity can be traumatic for the witness. If you have any kind of human heart you will be repulsed.Atrocity changes a person. They're not what they were before the thing happened. Day one you wake up fine, then you experience a trauma and now you will never be the person you were when you woke up. Never ever again. Day two's trauma changes the personality renovations that resulted from the original trauma. Day three's trauma changes the changes that changed on day two. Now where are you?
When people who have been traumatized find the courage to process their grief, they do it w/ a sledgehammer. You have to bust up whatever ancient grotesqueries have replaced the person you were before. You have to really want to get back to yourself to be willing to do this. Everything stands in your way. Some people never get a chance to do it, you may meet these people on Court TV. We will be heard.
My personality is presposterous, and b/c I know that to be true I give it absolute free reign. Ranting and raving over proper punctuation is a distraction. It's a distraction, a minor little inconsequential nothing that fucked up people build their lives around.
Everything stands for something else. The obsession w/language points to all the things I cannot say. The hatred of authority is, shall we say, overdetermined. Nothing is what it seems, but someone out there has cracked the code.
I think my psychiatrist would have a conniption if he knew what I've been doing w/ PSB. He's gone behind my back before and called my psychologist to tell him to slow down with me. This is the one who greets me every month by handing me my boxing gloves. Nothing is what it seems.
The one time my mom talked to me about my infancy she described this quiet, alert and contented Buddah baby who'd lay in the bassinette and smile benovolenty at passers by. The photos I've seen of myself back then lend support to my mom's description. I never asked another thing about my infancy for fear I'd get a completely different story, and I wanted to hold onto that image of the tranquil baby. Tranquil: Devoid of violence or force. (Websters)
trouble
Posted by Zo on March 18, 2002, at 0:31:57
In reply to If not now, when?, posted by trouble on March 17, 2002, at 23:54:23
Posted by mgrueni on March 18, 2002, at 2:37:14
In reply to If not now, when?, posted by trouble on March 17, 2002, at 23:54:23
Hi trouble,
<The obsession w/language points to all the things I cannot say.>
Oh, then I´ll better ask you to be leniently with my usage of the english language. I am no native english-speaker.
<I was traumatized when I was a kid. Alot. Day after day.>
Have you heard of "EMDR"?
It´s meant to be a very effective therapy to treat people who suffer with posttraumatic stress disorder.http://www.emdrportal.com/clients.htm#What%20is%20EMDR?
Regards,
Micha
Posted by trouble on March 18, 2002, at 3:49:33
In reply to Re: If not now, when?, posted by mgrueni on March 18, 2002, at 2:37:14
Hi Micha,
thank you for the post. My psychologist and I did a couple EMDR sessions but I kept it pretty superficial, wouldn't go past the easy memories. BTW this is the area my psychiatrist told us to go slow. So we're just waiting til the time feels right.thanks, trouble
Posted by Gracie2 on March 18, 2002, at 20:03:45
In reply to Re: If not now, when?, posted by trouble on March 18, 2002, at 3:49:33
I've read many self-help books in my life, few of which really helped. But I can recommend one that helped me immensely. It's an older book, an absolute classic: How To Stop Worrying & Start Living by Dale Carnegie.
One of the most helpful lessons in the book is to learn how to live for today, to shut out the past and the future and concentrate on the present day.
This lesson probably saved my marriage, as my husband and I both were into "keeping score"...who hurt who last, who hurt who the most.
This was terribly destructive...I had to learn to let go of the past, and stop being so bitter about old wounds. "Every day is a new life to a wise man."
-Gracie
This is the end of the thread.
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