Cancer and Trauma

[Mtngrl]

Thank you, friends.

Note that what I'm talking about is different from the "positive thinking" that most of us get force-fed by the culture and often by well-meaning friends and family. I'm advocating that now is a really good time to heal from trauma. A lot of healing can come from gratitude, physical activity, love and friendship, and all those wonderful things that make life rich and full. But, for some of us, there is more and harder work to do.

In other posts I've mentioned guided imagery recordings. I have one I got for trauma not long after I was diagnosed. I listened to it a few times, but it brought up such intense (and mostly nameless) feelings that I haven't done it in almost 4 years. Maybe I wondered if I'd have time to excavate and remodel all that rubble and muck from my past.

Well, I'm still here, and doing fairly well except I feel "stuck." I'm supposed to be working on a PhD, but I didn't make a whole lot of progress this academic year. I started seeing a therapist, and she is helping me figure out what I feel and what I want and need. For most of my life, the answers to those questions have either been unclear or inauthentic (based on the demands, desires, and expectations of others, some of whom were quite toxic). Last week I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and a book by Alice Miller called The Body Never Lies.

Miller was a Swiss psychoanalyst who rejected Freud (and psychoanalysis) because he knew very well that mental illness was caused by abuse and trauma. His first book said that clearly, and was based on actually talking to mental patients and believing their stories. Because child sexual abuse and physical abuse were rampant in those days (perhaps even in his own family), he backed off from that and started saying his patients were fantasizing about sex with their parents. I had read at least three of her earlier books decades ago, and this one confirms the observation that child maltreatment leads to ill health and early death.

The trauma visualization involves "taking a trip" into one's own broken heart. You're supposed to take a comforter/companion with you (in your imagination.) I did the guided imagery for trauma again two days ago. I don't remember "who" or "what" I used for a companion four years ago. (It might have been one of my dear, faithful, loyal dogs from the past. Sarah, you're so right about dogs!) But this time I had a more powerful imagined ally. It was still really intense, but it was healing. I plan to keep doing it (and keep seeing my therapist).

Here's to thriving!

Amy