Posted by peacefeline on November 19, 2004, at 20:53:51
In reply to Re: Suicide » nisha1, posted by corafree on October 22, 2004, at 18:45:12
The numbness does seem to be very protective. But unfortunately sometimes it continues long after it's in our best interests, and it messes us up in our relationships, among other things. I had numbness set in last month, following several closely-spaced events that were very upsetting and hard to deal with, including the loss of my mom. Every week or two there was some new crisis going on, and after about 2 months of that I suddenly woke up numb. That very day I took my dog to the vet and learned he has a tumor on his heart and will only live a short time, with prednisone. I didn't even feel anything about that, other than knowing it would hurt a lot "later."
Anyway--my h has had PTSD from combat, the whole time I've known him & I knew from close-up what that numbness does to people (he's had his for 38 years.) After about a week of being numb, I started to worry it wasn't going to go away on its own. So I sat in a quiet place and ASKED for it to go away, starting at 3 p.m. or something like that. It did start going away, a little bit ahead of schedule, in fact. By that night I felt pretty rough...asking the numbness to go away felt like a self-inflicted wound at that point. But I know that feelings of grief and loss have to be felt in order for us to get better. Over time they've subsided some (actually, we're still in the crisis-of-the-week club, so I guess some of the old losses have to take a back seat to make room for some new ones right now.)
About the EMDR--just at the beginning of this whole chain of events I had begun some EMDR treatments for a rape that happened when I was 17 and buried for over 20 years. I only had 2 treatments because right after that I lost my mom and it just wasn't a good time to continue the EMDR right then. But the point I want to make is that even 2 treatments did a lot of good! I was very, very impressed. It seems like voodoo, but it really did help me. After the dust finally settles, I plan to do some more and be able to live free of that particular trauma.
I've read about cases of really awful trauma that were helped by EMDR. Sometimes it can take a year or longer, but in many cases just 4 or 5 treatments can do what a couple years of talk therapy could not.
Good luck in your healing.
Susan
poster:peacefeline
thread:386561
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/grief/20040811/msgs/418084.html