This post was originally voice to text recorded by Unpretending last Tuesday. Then we had internal conflicts about whether to post it as a podcast or in its written form. Because we are all about making things safe for everyone in our System, we decided to publish this post as written and ask you, our readers if you’d like to hear our Aussie voice? If you do then we can post a podcast here on Unpretending’s Substack including the transcript. So leave a comment letting us know.
Kindly, Georgina
Today is therapy day, I haven't had therapy in a month because of the Christmas summer holiday break, and most places shut down over that period of time, and they sort of go back this week. Today is Tuesday, therapy for me starts late this afternoon so I've got all day to think about it or not think about it.
For some reason I'm always anxious about therapy and I have no idea why. My therapist is a good therapist, I'm lucky to have them. They are truma informed and I've been seeing this therapist since 2018...I think. But inside me I get quite tense and anxious, there's insiders who really freak out about therapy. Each time. It doesn't matter what I tell my selves, some of them are all freaking out until at the end of therapy and then it's like, “oh that's wasn't so bad.” But then what seems to happen is we get a day or two of Therapy Hangover, especially if we do lots of work in therapy, like focusing on acknowledging other insiders, or the feeling of where they are in the body. I used to be in an online support group for dissociation, and the people there would chat together and that’s what we called it (that feeling after therapy), Therapy Hangover. I wonder if anybody knows what I mean? Because really it’s a thing.
My therapist uses a modality called Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and they “interweave cognitive, somatic and interpersonal modalities” It can be a powerful tool, we can do a five minute exercise and it does something in the System that feels like it moves things around or settles big memory time feelings so much so that it can give me a massive headache and make me so tired for a couple of days.
The last time we went to therapy, I can remember, and we did something about acknowledging and appreciating, like thanking the person on the inside for holding those emotions until we has a System are ready to work through those emotions or that memory or whatever. And it was incredible, there was an instantaneous recognition on the inside, and acceptance.
It kind of felt like... well this is how I can describe it. It kinda feels like rolling clouds. It’s really hard to explain, but if you see clouds when they're in timelapse photography, and there's a storm rolling in or rolling out or something. It’s like that in a place inside me, I can see and sense that rolling cloud, it’s inside the very deep centre of my core. It’s not like an ominous rolling, it feels like it's, it's a settling feeling and then it just sort of disappears and then my System inside feels peace and calm. Grounded. It’s really really good. I just need to remember to do that exercise whenever my insides are feeling, what I call “glitchy” that yuck feeling in some area within my abdomen, or other areas of this body. It is definitely hard to remember in the moment of a trauma response.
It’s so hard to describe what goes on inside my mind and body with dissociation and I'd really like to know how people who are not multiple feel things on the inside, even though I know that everybody experiences things differently with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) or OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder) - By the way I think these are hideous names.
Let’s say the person without a dissociative disorder or even without trauma, has a tense glitching feeling on the inside and that they're anxious about something, and then they the person acknowledges to themselves their anxiety and say to them self, “Thank you body that you're feeling this anxiety, I acknowledge you.” I wonder what it feels like for them? I wonder if they have to do it over and over again whenever it happens and does it finally goes away? Does it ever change that person and not come back?
For me unfortunately it’s like, although the feeling in me changed there and then, it doesn’t ever seem to stay or change the core trauma response. I still get triggered in the same circumstances that caused the Glitch, and regardless of what I try doing in those certain these times when I get triggered, I still end up with the trauma response. I’m so sick of trauma. I want to heal this body. I want to work together with these people inside so that I don’t have to Flight or Fight or Freeze when I’m scared of what could be classed as “almost nothing” to the non traumatised population.
I've lost my train of thought. I was talking about therapy day. Okay, I try to be gentle on myself on therapy days, I am not too busy, well I try not to be overly busy. I try not to do too much. And I try to do lots of self-care things, activities such as some art of some sort, I’ll draw or write or spend time outside or gardening. The reason I don’t do much on therapy days is because if I'm worn out when I get to therapy or am overly stressed or something, it might not be ‘me’ going and I really like to be the one to go. I sometimes “lose time” and I like to remember what goes on in therapy. But even when I get to be the person who arrives at therapy, sometimes I don't get to stick around.
I remember not so long ago, my therapists office is up some stairs and it would be ‘me’ headed into therapy. I would start up those stairs but then the next thing I’d remember I'd be in the car afterwards, or it’ll be halfway through therapy and whoever in me who was at therapy would go back inside and I’d “front” and I’d be confused and “out of whack,” then I’d try to orient myself as fast as possible so the therapist didn’t realise. I use to be embarrassed and ashamed to “switch” in therapy where the therapist can notice, that’s changing a bit now and that’s another story. These days I am more focused and I can stay “present” and get up those stairs, I can stay “me”, I can go into the room. It can be hard once I’m in the room because it’s like every single person in me needs to, kind of like, pop out a little bit and check out where we are, and I can feel very discombobulated then.
If I'm grounded and relaxed and have done lots of self-care I can keep myself focused and calm. I’ve learnt to talk to the insiders and try to hear what others want to say or talk about. Today in therapy, it will depend on the fact that we haven't been there for a month, there could be a lot of people wanting to say a lot. So I'm hoping today I can sit down and write out, “What do you guys want to talk about with the therapist?” I don't want to waste an entire session on just talking about the last month. I really want to work on stuff. I'm sick of talking, talk therapy, I can talk until the cows come home. I don't want to do talk therapy.
I was going to maybe turn this Blog post into a Podcast and see if I could upload the voice over with the transcript. But I don't know if anybody would think it's boring or something like that. My voice to text isn't accurate, I think because of my accent and it doesn't add punctuation so I have to go back and put punctuation in and then sometimes others inside change my words so they fit into their grammar style. Maybe I'll ask them not to change words, maybe change spelling but not words or sentences.
However even as I write this Someone Else says in my head, “this blog is for putting Us out in the world with Our truth so don’t worry about what others think of you”.
Well I’d like to know if people who read my Blog would like to hear my voice or just see the words or maybe both. Me, Unpretending am still a bit of a people pleaser. I do want that to change that though, it’s what I’m working on. And anyway, Blogs are suppose to be written to an audience so it’s important for the audience to like what they read.
So on that note, leave a comment and let us know if you’d like this blog, our Substack, in a podcast form or just written form or both.
I appreciate friends and others are reading or looking or listening to my ramblings.
I thank you for taking the time to come by.
Unpretending---
Photo by Dasha Musohranova
Photo by Dimitri S: https://www.pexels.com/photo/monochrome-photograph-of-a-staircase-14918799/
We appreciate whatever you feel like putting out in the world. We read our writing on our Substack, but also feel that it's important to get your voice out into the world in whatever form works for you all. We like hearing your voice and reading your words. Different ones of me probably do different things. Keep up the good work in whatever format is best for yous.