I want to share
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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I want to share
what my daughter's therapist said to me today. Because I can't be the only one who needed to hear it.
"When you have experienced trauma and ugliness and pain, the necessary emotional processing of that trauma, ugliness, and pain is not going to look neat and tidy."
What she meant was: Intellectuals want to use talk therapy to talk their way through, we think that if we can understand and put words on it, it will go away. She said not so fast. That it's a drawn-out and ugly process, and if we understand that, we won't feel like failures when we have to pull over on the highway and cry until the highway patrol comes and asks us if there's something wrong with our car, because we will understand that IT WILL BE MESSY.
Processing what we've been through will be messy. Sort of like when you do a real deep cleaning of your home: It has to get worse before it can get better.
And that's OK.
Not being able to handle it all on a rational/intellectual level? Is normal.
That lifted my spirits today. So I wanted to share.
"When you have experienced trauma and ugliness and pain, the necessary emotional processing of that trauma, ugliness, and pain is not going to look neat and tidy."
What she meant was: Intellectuals want to use talk therapy to talk their way through, we think that if we can understand and put words on it, it will go away. She said not so fast. That it's a drawn-out and ugly process, and if we understand that, we won't feel like failures when we have to pull over on the highway and cry until the highway patrol comes and asks us if there's something wrong with our car, because we will understand that IT WILL BE MESSY.
Processing what we've been through will be messy. Sort of like when you do a real deep cleaning of your home: It has to get worse before it can get better.
And that's OK.
Not being able to handle it all on a rational/intellectual level? Is normal.
That lifted my spirits today. So I wanted to share.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 391
Lillamy,
It's amazing how a little perspective, a simple change of a lens, can make such a huge difference.
I am someone who, as a professional, packages information into concise, clear and sometimes technical little bundles. The reaction from those to whom I present this information is often, "That's it!" or "Exactly" and then it is done and we move on. So, putting words to something actually does make the task go away in my work life.
I, for one, have applied that system to what my boys (especially my oldest) and I have been going through. No wonder it often feels like we are getting no where.
Thanks for sharing this. It certainly lifted my spirits too.
Hugs,
MamaKit
It's amazing how a little perspective, a simple change of a lens, can make such a huge difference.
I am someone who, as a professional, packages information into concise, clear and sometimes technical little bundles. The reaction from those to whom I present this information is often, "That's it!" or "Exactly" and then it is done and we move on. So, putting words to something actually does make the task go away in my work life.
I, for one, have applied that system to what my boys (especially my oldest) and I have been going through. No wonder it often feels like we are getting no where.
Thanks for sharing this. It certainly lifted my spirits too.
Hugs,
MamaKit
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: right here, right now
Posts: 6,516
I am someone who, as a professional, packages information into concise, clear and sometimes technical little bundles. The reaction from those to whom I present this information is often, "That's it!" or "Exactly" and then it is done and we move on. So, putting words to something actually does make the task go away in my work life.
Not so with those pesky emotions.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Midwest, USA
Posts: 2,899
"When you have experienced trauma and ugliness and pain, the necessary emotional processing of that trauma, ugliness, and pain is not going to look neat and tidy."
What she meant was: Intellectuals want to use talk therapy to talk their way through, we think that if we can understand and put words on it, it will go away. She said not so fast. That it's a drawn-out and ugly process, and if we understand that, we won't feel like failures when we have to pull over on the highway and cry until the highway patrol comes and asks us if there's something wrong with our car, because we will understand that IT WILL BE MESSY.
What she meant was: Intellectuals want to use talk therapy to talk their way through, we think that if we can understand and put words on it, it will go away. She said not so fast. That it's a drawn-out and ugly process, and if we understand that, we won't feel like failures when we have to pull over on the highway and cry until the highway patrol comes and asks us if there's something wrong with our car, because we will understand that IT WILL BE MESSY.
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