Back From the Brink: A Family Guide to Overcoming Traumatic Stress, by Don R. Catherall, Ph.D.
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9

 

REPAIRING THE DAMAGE

TO THE SENSE OF SELF

Feeling Whole Again

 

In Chapter 2, we saw that traumatized people inevitably sus­tain damage to their basic sense of self. This damage is re­flected in their inability to function effectively at work and in relationships, and in their difficulty maintaining a sense of harmony and emotional balance. All these areas influence ­and are in turn influenced by‑self‑esteem.

 

When you have good self‑esteem, you not only think well of yourself, you have confidence in your entire environment, including how you fit into it. But when your sense of self has been damaged by traumatization, you lose the feeling of fit­ting in and belonging. You become at odds with your envi­ronment and question your place in it. The damage to your sense of self is aggravated by being around people who don't acknowledge the emotional shock with which you're strug­gling.

 

You need someone with whom you can talk and process the trauma, since many traumas are just too much to reexperience and examine alone. Recovery requires both finding the appropriate relationships and being able to use them. And using relationships in this therapeutic fashion requires trust in yourself as well as the other person. We don't know exactly how processing emotional trauma in a trust relationship rebuilds a damaged sense of self, but we can see the results. You may have no close relationships, or you may be unable to take advantage of those you do have. But there are things you can do to improve your ability to enter into a close relationship.

 

In order for trust to develop, you must have confidence both in yourself and in the other person. The only way your confidence in yourself can grow is for you to build your self-esteem and learn to control your anger and defensiveness. Then you must take the risk of letting someone matter enough to have an influence on you.

 

Self‑esteem is not a static thing—it’s a dynamic process that lives and breathes, ebbs and flows according to how a person's life is going. Whether you realize it or not, you have a great capacity to influence your own self‑esteem; you can either strengthen or damage it. If you listen to your inner voice, you may find that you say things to yourself that interfere with your self‑esteem. You may put yourself down and call yourself names—“Boy, am I stupid"—or you may maintain unrealistic expectations and standards for yourself, such as "I should always be on top of every situation."

 

How can you change these patterns? Learn to replace your negative self‑talk with positive self‑talk—“I handled that pretty well"—and make your standards and goals realistic, based on accurate views of yourself. Recognize your limitations, and work with them instead of fighting them. Don't chide yourself for having limitations; rather, congratulate yourself for knowing how to live with them. Most of all, listen to what you're saying to yourself. Are you being hard on yourself? If so, that's where you want to substitute more encouraging comments.

 

Altering Your Life

 

Changing your self‑talk can go a long way toward im­proving your self‑esteem. But in itself it's not enough. You must also change how you behave. The source of your self­esteem is yourself, so you're the one who can make you feel good about yourself. And you're the judge of what you really need to do in order to accomplish this.

 

So the thing you need to do is to identify and change the things that make you feel bad about yourself. Once you have identified something that you don't like about yourself, ex­amine the conditions where you tend to do it. At what critical point in the events leading up to it do you normally decide to do it? If you feel bad about your tendency to procrastinate, for example, and put off doing the difficult things and do the easy things first, that critical decision point occurs when you are deciding what to do with your time. In order to change, you have to decide to do the difficult things first. Then the whole process is altered. Once you isolate that critical deci­sion point, you can change the bad habit and improve your self‑esteem.

 

Working on a goal is the best way to put your self­-discipline into gear. If you're a workaholic, your goal may be to spend more time pursuing leisure activities. If you're not working enough, your goal may be to take on new projects. If you feel your life is stagnating, your goal may be to develop new interests. If your life is overwhelming, your goal may be to prioritize your time and set limits. But wherever you start, the purpose of setting a goal is to make your life better. It gives you a sense of direction‑something concrete to work on, and something concrete to point to and feel good about.

 

Here are some suggestions for how you can go about altering your life in a positive fashion:

 

·        Step back and take an overview. Is there some­thing you are not doing that you probably should be doing? Or are you doing something that you probably should not be doing?

 

·        What are your bad habits? Are any of those habits truly interfering with your being what you would like to be?

 

·        Where would you prefer to be at this point in your life? Is there a central project (such as starting an exercise program, going to school, or stopping drinking) that would lead in that direction?

 

·        Think about setting some goals. Make a list of all the goals you'd like to accomplish. Consider which of those goals would allow you to over­come your disappointment in yourself. Number those goals according to their priority.

 

·        Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to achieve all your goals at once. Focus on one, maybe two. Pick one that's important‑it doesn't have to be the highest on your list. Rather, it should be one that you feel you have a chance of accomplishing.

 

·        Now break your goal down into steps. Write down every aspect of achieving that goal. Make a realis­tic plan for achieving the goal, including isolating and changing that central decision‑making point.

 

·        Show your plan to your loved ones. Get their sup­port for achieving your goal. And talk to them as you pursue your goal; keep them informed.

 

·        When you've accomplished your goal, give your­self a reward. Don't let it go unnoticed‑take some time to feel good about what you've done.

 

·        Then go back to your list and decide what's next.

 

Some problems with self‑esteem are deep‑seated; solv­ing them requires more than these simple steps can provide. But even with deep‑seated problems, these steps bring some improvement. And the better your self‑esteem becomes, the more you'll be able to pursue the other aspect of repairing your damaged sense of self‑engaging in trust relationships.

 

Defensiveness versus Vulnerability

 

In every important relationship in your life, you have a choice—you can be vulnerable, or you can be defensive. If you're vulnerable, you let the other person (and yourself) know what your feelings are—particularly weak, frightened feelings. But if you're defensive, you hide those vulnerable feelings. You blame the other person whenever there's a con­flict. You get angry instead of hurt. Your focus is on how the other person is behaving, what he or she is doing to you and making you feel. You don't acknowledge your own part in the conflicts or in maintaining the distance between you.

 

If you're defensive, your relationship is perpetually less than satisfying. You always feel that there should be more, that there's something wrong. It doesn't restore you—it drains you. If you're vulnerable, however, you can get hurt, perhaps very badly. If you've been hurt much in the past, you're likely to shy away from being vulnerable now. If you were traumatized and others responded poorly, a second traumatization occurred—to your relationships and to your social sense of yourself. You can heal your relational trauma and redevelop trust in others only by being vulnerable, by taking the risk of getting hurt. If you start out from a defensive position, you don't really know what the other person is capable of because you haven't given him a chance.

 

Helen and Rich had been happily married for seventeen years when Rich discovered that Helen had been having af­fairs off and on for the past twelve years. He was devastated by his discovery, and his world disintegrated. Everything he thought he knew and trusted was thrown into doubt. Helen, for her part, seemed relieved to finally be able to tell him the truth. Over the years, she had built a wall of lies between them, starting with small lies and snowballing into a moun­tain of lies. Indeed, her philandering was probably increased by the lies, because the more lies she placed between herself and her husband, the more distant she felt from him. Now she was relieved to no longer have to work at juggling the many falsehoods.

 

Once the truth came out, her affairs stopped. Helen and Rich entered marital therapy and worked on rebuilding their trust relationship. But the biggest hurdle for Rich was to risk trusting his wife once more. That would have meant exposing himself to the possibility of getting badly hurt again. So he remained defensive to protect himself. He constantly criticized and argued with Helen, finding something wrong in everything she said and did.

 

Both of them thought that he was critical and argumentative because he was still angry over the philandering. But I don't think that was the primary reason. Rich was protecting himself from getting hurt again. He remained defensive by constantly being on the offense and focusing on Helen rather than his own vulnerable feelings.

 

If you want to overcome your defensiveness, it helps to be able to recognize the ways you maintain it. Here are some common ways people avoid becoming vulnerable in a relationship:

 

·        Fault finding. Since everyone is human, you'll seldom be disappointed in your search for the other person's faults. You'll feel justified in maintaining your attitude that no one is the right person to trust.

 

·        Constant conflict. As long as you're fighting, it's impossible to stop being defensive. So if you're afraid to reveal your vulnerable feelings, you can start a fight. That will keep you from having to reveal a vulnerable feeling.

 

·        Grievance collecting. In order to keep conflict alive and avoid resolving anything, you can collect grievances. One sin always reminds you of other sins, so you can maintain ready access to the anger you need to hang in there and stay defensive. No transgression is ever forgiven.

 

·        Withdrawal. If you don't feel up to constant conflict, you can just withdraw‑physically or emotionally‑in order to keep a distance from the other person and thereby protect your more vulnerable feelings.

 

·        Investing in things. If it's difficult to withdraw emotionally and be unfeeling around others, you can disguise your withdrawal by investing yourself in things instead of people. You can expend your energy working or playing to a degree that cuts others out of your life.

 

·        Being superficial. If you must spend time with others but you're afraid to be vulnerable and you don't want conflict, you can always just be terribly superficial. Talk about anything except how you feel and what's going on between the two of you. Sports and the weather are acceptable as elevator conversation, but they tend to run a little dry when that's all you have to say to someone important to you.

 

·        Avoiding the here and now. The most vulnerable feelings are the ones you're actually feeling as you talk about them. It's easier to talk about feelings in the past tense or as if they occurred in some other time and place.

 

And here are some things you can do to make the shift from being defensive to being more vulnerable:

 

·        Make “I” statements. When you and your loved one are talking about the hot topics, don't start each sentence with “you”. Talk about yourself rather than focusing on your partner.

 

·        Express your feelings. Focus inside yourself and determine what you're feeling. Then listen to what you say. Are you really expressing feelings (like sadness, loneliness, longing, and fear), or are you expressing thoughts preceded by the words I feel?

 

·        Don't give in to your angry feelings. You're angry because of something‑find that thing and ex­press it. Has your loved one said or done some­thing that left you feeling unloved, hurt, sad, or cut off from her?

 

·        When you express that feeling, don't blame your loved one because you feel that way. Chances are that your loved one touched on a vulnerable feel­ing that was already there and simply brought it to life. Help her know where your vulnerabilities are so that she can tread more carefully.

 

·        Stay in the "here and now." Don't let your discus­sion range into all the past ways you've been hurt by each other. That will likely be too much and bring back your defensiveness.

 

·        If you feel overwhelmed and need to withdraw, state your need directly. Own it as your need, not as something you have to do because she's so dif­ficult.

 

Rage

 

Rage is another barrier to getting close to others. I don't list it as one of the ways we stay defensive and avoid vulnera­bility because I don't think it is that kind of mechanism. An­ger certainly feeds defensiveness, but rage is more than anger—it is anger out of control. It may frighten the angry person as much as it frightens his target. It feels as if it has a life of its own. Rage generally accompanies a damaged sense of self and is a frequent symptom of traumatization, particu­larly when there's a relational trauma. While not all trauma survivors have attacks of rage, most either do or feel the rage inside and fear losing control of it. In general, men give vent to their rage more than women.

 

There are at least two types of rage that trauma survi­vors experience. One results from the feeling of helplessness produced by the initial trauma. That feeling of helplessness is intolerable, and you'll do anything to change it. When you're enraged, you don't feel helpless. Instead, you sud­denly feel powerful and in control.

 

The second type of rage is an aspect of the relational trauma—it is part of a survivor's reaction when there is a breakdown in his relationship with his social world. In some invisible way, we're all connected to a personal community of people, and when this connection is healthy, we weather life's disruptions. It is communities of people who survive, form cultures, and thrive. The relational trauma occurs when you lose your sense of being connected to the people around you. It can feel as if the group has released their hold of you and left you on your own. Your rage is at the group for not caring enough to hold on to you when you need it.

 

Normally people can feel connected even through con­ventional casual contacts like elevator talk. You can also feel connected through mediums such as reading, watching tele­vision, or listening to music. But if you have been trauma­tized and suffered a break with your social world, you've lost that ability to feel easily connected. Now you need a special trusting connection to help you repair your damaged sense of self. You need a more intense, responsive contact than elevator talk.

 

Controlling Rage Attacks

 

In order to reestablish your sense of being connected, you must control your rage and enter into a trust relation­ship. To understand your rage better it helps to compare it with the tantrums of children. Those tantrums don't just ap­pear out of nowhere—they’re usually a response to some­thing, such as stress, tiredness, or unconnectedness. After a period of dissatisfaction and little episodes of control battles with the adult, the child blows up. Afterward, the child can't be approached for a while; she's sad and wants to be left alone. Eventually, she's ready to resume normal activities. Adults understand that her tantrum is over when she makes an effort to reconnect.

 

Adults go through something similar when they experi­ence a rage attack. The episode usually begins with a period of dissatisfaction or irritation; sometimes you may be feeling very good, only to have some disappointment or frustration plunge you backward. When you blow up, you temporarily sever your feeling of connectedness to your loved one. As a result, her arguments have no effect upon you, which is very perplexing for her because she can't understand how your caring for her could suddenly just cease. After the rage at­tack, you feel sad and find it difficult to reconnect. But the feeling that you do want to reconnect is a sign that your rage is gone.

 

If you live with someone and find yourself getting en­raged with her, despite your wish to control your temper, it can help if both of you understand what's setting you off. It also helps to know the stages of your rage. After a fight, if your loved one tries to reconnect before your rage has run its course, it can easily reactivate the fight.

 

Reconnecting is very difficult for some couples. They cool down from a conflict—and become ready to reconnect—at different rates. The one who's ready to reconnect first often restimulates the fight by trying to reconnect too soon and not respecting the fact that the other isn't ready yet. Then the first one gets angry all over again, and the cycle continues.

 

Mark and Annette were traumatized when Mark devel­oped cancer. The illness virtually exhausted their financial resources, but they managed to recover. Now Mark's illness is in remission, but they live with the constant stress of know­ing it can return. The bout with cancer had a great impact on their relationship. They got much closer for a while, then began having frequent arguments. Mark would become en­raged and often threaten to leave. Annette was terribly hurt by the threats and the other things he would say when he lost his temper.

 

Both of them would get angry during the fights, but An­nette would always cool down more quickly and approach Mark to be friends again. But this would lead to another flareup. Mark would make some reference to the point of contention, and Annette would try to restate what she'd said in a more acceptable and understandable way. He would interpret this as a refusal to let it go, which made him even more defensive, and on it would go.

 

Their fights often centered on Mark's concerns about his health. Annette felt he needed to stop talking so much about it, and she communicated this indirectly by changing the subject, by disagreeing with him about minor aspects of what he was saying, or by minimizing what he was saying. ("Oh, Mark, thousands of people have had that symptom and nothing was wrong.") This made Mark feel she didn't care. But when she learned to say directly that she didn't want to talk about it, things improved—though not before they went through an initial period of increased tension. Mark had to learn to express his feeling that Annette didn't care—instead of just threatening to leave her—and he had to get a handle on his blowups.

 

Mark worked on his tendency to blow up in couples therapy with Annette. He learned that he was approaching her with expectations of understanding and support. When he felt he didn't get that understanding and support, he would feel crushed with helplessness and disappointment. Then he'd swing quickly from expecting understanding from her to expecting the worst from her.

 

Once his trust collapsed, he would protect his vulnerable feelings of disappointment by going on the offensive and getting angry and making threats. In therapy, however, he learned to hold back on the threats and not do the kinds of things that would escalate the argument. Most important, he learned to express his disappointment and feelings of helplessness instead of blowing up. And Annette was able to respond to these feelings with the understanding he wanted.

 

If you have rage attacks, here are some things you can do:

 

1. Start by reminding yourself that you really do want to maintain your connection, even though you may lose track of it in the middle of conflicts. Make a rule that you'll overcome your reluctance to reconnect and try to keep your connection with your loved one, even when you're angry.

 

2. Learn to recognize when you're in that prelimi­nary state of feeling dissatisfied, short‑tempered, or grumpy. Once you recognize it, let your loved one know that you're in a bad mood and need to be left alone.

 

3. Learn to calm yourself during the key period when the situation usually escalates into a blowup. Use breathing exercises, meditation, exercise, or whatever soothing activities you've found.

 

4. Slow down. Look for the sadness, the helpless­ness, the loneliness (the vulnerable feelings) and learn to express those.

 

5. If you do blow up, try to bring more control to the things you do and say while you're enraged. Part of you knows that you will regret these things later. Listen to that part of yourself.

 

6. If you're enraged, say what you're angry about, then leave it alone.

 

7. You may need to get away from your loved one for a period of time in order to calm yourself down. If so, let her know that you are not abandoning her but just need some solitude to calm down.

 

8. Learn to recognize your own oblique feelings of wanting to reconnect. It's fear that prevents you from acting on those feelings. Learn to reach out.

 

Improvement begins with a decrease in the frequency of rage episodes, not with a decrease in their intensity. They may occur less often, but they can be just as intense as ever. So don't let the intensity of an occasional rage attack make you think you're not making progress. They can be stopped, but it takes time. Be patient and work at controlling your rage.

 

The Overall Picture of Recovery

 

Successful recovery is reflected in the reestablishment of your sense of connection and belonging to the social world around you. As I indicated in Chapter 4, a traumatized per­son tends to withdraw from society in levels and return in reverse order, usually starting with intimate relations and moving outward.

 

Recovery from both the initial and relational traumas involves utilizing a trust relationship with another person or persons. It's easier to reexperience and examine the initial trauma when you feel connected to someone who cares and understands. Only in an intimate relationship can your sense of self and of connection be fully restored.

 

You can do things to make it easier for you to engage in a trust relationship. You can work directly on your self‑esteem, which, ironically, contributes to your ability to trust others. You can make efforts to overcome your particular ways of remaining defensive and avoiding vulnerability. And you can work to understand and control your feelings of rage, which may be expressed or hidden under the surface.

 

Several other things can aid the process of recovery while you work things out in your trust relationships. If you have physical symptoms that are getting in the way, deal with them directly rather than just waiting for them to disap­pear as a result of processing the trauma.

 

And there are other things you can do to facilitate your healing process. The next chapter is about a different way of approaching the processing and letting go of the trauma. It's about taking advantage of the power of healing rituals.