Wired by Experience

I got permission from my client to share an important revelation in her therapy. I will change all identifying information to protect her confidentiality, but the message was an important one to share. This is a client with a history of sexual abuse as a child. She has been working very hard to understand herself because she carries so much shame. She has many roles in her life, mother, wife, friend, daughter. She talked about what sounds like a very normal mother thought or feeling, she made a comment that she fears she is not a good caregiver at all because she feels a desire to run away when she feels forced or trapped in her caregiving. She talked about how she recently helped a friend and when she chooses to help someone she does not feel trapped or forced, but she often will feel forced or trapped in parenting. She said she is a bad mother and a bad person. (Shame) She said that she feels a very intense desire for flight. This becomes a different story when she talks about it using a lens of trauma. She originally narrated (bad mother, same based thinking). I asked her when she has felt forced and trapped before when she was young. What happened in my mind was when someone has a disproportionate reaction to a trigger, I think trauma trigger because it is the survival instinct that is being triggered (fight, flight, freeze or fawn). It is the forced and trapped feeling. Trauma triggers can be feelings which lead to triggering the amygdala and set into action the survival instinct. This lead to a revelation that shifted her thinking from “I’m a bad mom” to I am a mom who is parenting with a history of trauma and it was the feeling of trapped and force that leads me to want to run. Not her kids, not her parenting. This provided immense relief to her and then a clear path forward. We were able to talk about cognitively reframing to remind herself that she can always take a break and it was her choice to have children. This is to address the feeling of being trapped and forced. Today we dive into trauma, the somatic reactions, reframing and recovering.