Trauma Archives • East Dallas Therapy

I’m Sorry for Being Sorry

Do you ever find yourself over-apologizing?

In his book on complex PTSD, Pete Walker tells the story of a time he accidentally ran into a chair and found himself apologizing to it. That moment opened his eyes to a deeper issue: constantly apologizing even when unnecessary.

If this sounds like your experience, you may find yourself apologizing for many things that are totally outside your control. Family and friends may call you out on it just to hear the response once more: “I’m sorry!”

While there can be many different causes to this issue, chronic over-apologizing can also be a sign of a trauma response. For those who have been through relational trauma in particular, the underlying message of “sorry” is often

“I’m sorry for being here. I’m such a problem. I’m sorry for being me.”

It can initially develop as a survival skill when you’re stuck in a toxic relationship. The apologies involve blaming yourself to appease the other person and prevent their rage, punishment, or neglectful behaviors. Sometimes this survival skill works, or at least lessens the damage. However, it often becomes overgeneralized. Due to the constant fear of getting in trouble, you find yourself apologizing everywhere you go, no matter who you’re with. And after blaming yourself for everything so many times, shame sets in.

When you’ve been over-apologizing for so long, how do you break the habit? The first thing to do is notice yourself apologizing. Whenever you catch yourself saying sorry, take a moment to ask yourself some questions:

What am I apologizing for?
Would I expect someone else to apologize for the same thing?
What do I want my apology to accomplish?
How do I feel right now?
What do I sense I need most in this moment?

These questions can help you figure out if you’re apologizing for healthy reasons (such as for missing a deadline or losing your temper with a friend) or if it’s because you’re triggered. And once you know you’re triggered, you can begin taking steps to help calm your nervous system and re-regulate.

The shame messages underlying chronic over-apologizing can be tough to combat. For more strategies, read Pete Walker’s book: “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.” You can also schedule a session with a counselor at eastdallastherapy.com.

Depression, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

It Wasn’t That Bad

Some days you might look at your symptoms and triggers and think to yourself, “I’ve been through so much it’s overwhelming!”

Trauma feels like the perfect word to describe it. But then the next day or even the next hour rolls around, and you find yourself thinking the total opposite: “I’m making a big deal out of nothing.” After all, you can easily point to someone else who’s had it worse.

You feel like a ping pong ball, going back and forth about what happened to you. At this point, you may assume that if you can’t settle on whether your experience was that bad, it must not be. Wouldn’t someone with real trauma feel certain about what happened to them?

Actually, no.

It’s very common for people who have experienced trauma – whether mild, moderate, or severe – to question whether anything significant really happened to them. Even those who have endured years of violence and abuse find themselves discounting their experiences.

In some ways, this is highly adaptive. Sometimes people develop a part of themselves that pretends nothing occurred so they can go on with normal life for a time. It’s too hard to feel grief, shame, or fear while you’re trying to work or study in school. Denying the trauma helps.

However, usually the person has another part of themselves that still feels all those difficult emotions, and even if that part is hidden away for a time, it never really goes away. The result can feel like an inner battle. One part of you functions well in day-to-day life by ignoring the trauma, and the other part feels crushed by the trauma and invalidated by your refusal to acknowledge it.

Whenever you’re feeling divided like that, take a moment to notice which side seems to be winning out and which side is getting stifled.

Try not to judge either one. Remind yourself that both parts have helped you in the past and it’s normal to have doubts. What feelings might you be avoiding? Are there other ways you can get through the day without invalidating the hurt you still feel? Lean into your support network while you focus on bridging the gap between the two sides.

If you want to read more about how reconcile different parts of yourself in the aftermath of trauma, check out Janina Fisher’s book: “Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation.”

Depression, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

When shutting down kept you safe

Movies make emotional expression look easy. If a character feels something, they always clearly show it, whether by crying, balling their hands into fists, frowning, laughing, or smiling.

Now imagine taking all that away. You’re left with a character who displays a neutral facial expression, an even tone of voice, and zero body language. How do they communicate what they’re feeling? They may say, “I’m having a bad day,” but without any other cues, we’re left with a lot of questions. Exactly how bad was their day? Was it slightly irritating or absolutely devasting?

For many who have experienced relational trauma, this kind of thing happens all the time. They may say the words, “I’m sad” or “I’m not okay,” but their tone of voice and body language give no indication of how serious the situation is. In relationships, this can cause a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. They may feel like they’re communicating clearly, but the other person doesn’t know how to read the cues – because there aren’t any.

There’s a good reason for this. Relational trauma teaches people that emotional expression isn’t safe. They quickly learn how to fly under the radar to keep out of danger. Shutting down facial expressions, tone, and body language becomes a survival skill that, when practiced repeatedly over time, can become automatic. In a toxic relationship, hiding emotions is a great survival skill to have! The problem is, when the person tries to engage in healthy relationships later on, their body is still shut down. It’s hard to get emotions to show again.

Counseling can help bring emotional expression back online. But what do you do in the meantime when you’re trying to communicate how you feel to loved ones?

If you struggle with emotional expression, here are some tips you can try out:

Use an emotion chart to find words that express how you feel more precisely
Come up with a code (ex: green, yellow, red; or a number from 1-10) to tell the person how intensely you’re experiencing that emotion.
Give the person some ideas on how to best help you at each level of intensity (ex: green means you need a hug, red means you need time and space to recover).
Ask the other person for feedback on how they’re interpreting what you’re communicating and why.
Be kind to yourself. It’s frustrating when you want to express but struggle to do so. Remind yourself that your body has been trying to keep you safe and it just takes time for it to learn new patterns of relating.

Try using this emotion wheel: https://hilarioushumanitarian.com/products/wheel-of-emotions-sticker?variant=42917560484065&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjbyYBhCdARIsAArC6LJWARJk0aUxmUVIITuVVtxyuZ3KtxPHo06pzLnO-QXMvGg5zxAn534aAoI6EALw_wcB

Anxiety, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

Know Your Triggers

If you keep catching yourself overreacting to normal situations, feeling guilty for being “too sensitive,” and finding yourself inexplicably overwhelmed at the strangest moments, you might be triggered.

Triggers can be anything that remind you of past trauma to the point where you react like you’re in danger. The reminder might not be conscious, but your body registers the cue from the environment as a threat.

The problem is, when you don’t know you’re triggered, it’s super easy to judge yourself as being “crazy” or “too emotional.” And that kind of self-condemnation can stir up feelings of shame, which can trigger you too!

Knowing your triggers is the first step to healing. Consider some of the following types:

Neutral triggers: These triggers aren’t safety issues, just normal aspects of everyday life. For example, let’s say you survived a terrible fire in the past. Now you’re out camping when you smell campfire smoke. Suddenly your heart starts racing, it’s hard to breathe, and fear consumes you. Logically you know there’s no real threat from the contained campfire, but your body is reacting the same way it did to the fire in the past. In this instance, it can help to remind yourself that you’re safe in the present moment.
Dangerous triggers: It’s important to be able to differentiate harmless triggers from truly threatening ones. For example, an abusive and controlling friend might remind you of a past relationship that was also toxic. Sometimes being triggered is a sign you’re in danger and need to reach out for help.
Upsetting but not dangerous triggers: Imagine you and your partner are stressed, a conversation gets heated, and your partner gets so upset they ask to take a break from the argument. Without warning, you’re flooded with intense feelings of worthlessness. Part of you knows your partner just needs time to cool off, but the other part is convinced they hate you and are going to leave you. In this scenario, feeling upset makes sense to some degree. Most people feel frustrated during an argument or dislike having to wait to resolve a problem. But the emotional intensity signals a deeper issue.

When you’re triggered and don’t know it, you might accidentally assume the trigger is to blame for how you feel. For instance, in the previous example, the feelings of worthlessness aren’t caused by your partner, they’re caused by past trauma. Past emotions from traumatic events can break through into the present even if the trauma occurred years ago.

When this happens, it helps to validate both your emotions that fit the situation (such as irritation with your partner), and your emotions from the past (such as fear of abandonment from a neglectful caregiver). Remind yourself that how you feel about the past is okay, it just may not apply very well to your current situation.

For more information on triggers, read “Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma” workbook by Janina Fisher.

Anxiety, Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

What Do Healthy Relationships Look Like?

A previous post explored the dysfunctional relationship roles described by Dr. Stephen Karpman’s “Drama Triangle” – the perpetrator, victim, and rescuer. People can get stuck in these roles especially when they don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like.

Thankfully, there’s a way out of the dysfunction. The “Empowerment Triangle” explains how to jump off the Drama Triangle and into healthier ways of connecting with others:

1. The Challenger:

Is no longer a perpetrator
Becomes assertive rather than aggressive
Stands up for their own needs and the needs of others
Takes responsibility for their own actions and consequences

2. The Creator:

No longer overgeneralizes victimization
Recognizes when they do have control
Begins making their own choices
Pursues dreams and goals to create the life they want to live

3. The Coach:

No longer rescues by enabling
Recognizes their own needs and practices self-care
Supports others by empowering them and teaching them skills
Encourages others by reminding them of their own strengths

Unlike the Drama Triangle roles, everyone on the Empowerment Triangle has learned how to take responsibility for their own emotions and problems. This leads to a healthy way of relating that involves mutual respect, support, and deeper connection.

Jumping from the Drama Triangle to the Empowerment Triangle can be tricky at first while you’re still learning how to differentiate the two. The more you practice, the easier it gets. However, just because you successfully jump off the Drama Triangle doesn’t mean everyone else on the triangle is automatically going to follow suit.

Sometimes they’ll notice the changes you make, and they’ll want to change too. But you may also run into people who have no intention of leaving their dysfunctional role. When that happens, they may even intensify their efforts to get you back onto the Drama Triangle, because otherwise it becomes unbalanced.

Which of the Empowerment Triangle roles do you identify with the most? And who in your life have you noticed consistently practicing one of the healthy roles? You can use the Drama Triangle and Empowerment Triangle to figure out who fits best into your support network.

For more information on the Drama Triangle as well as healthy roles, read this article by Lynne Namka: https://lynnenamka.com/anger-management/anger-management-articles/drama-triangle/

Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Parenting, Relationships, Trauma

Are You in a Drama Triangle?

After growing up in a highly dysfunctional household, you may find yourself repeatedly engaging in the same relationship patterns later in life without knowing how you got there.

Dr. Stephen Karpman devised a simple way to understand how these kinds of relationships typically work. He calls it the “Drama Triangle.”

The Drama Triangle consists of 3 roles that each relate dysfunctionally to each other:

1. The Perpetrator:

Believes they have all the power and control
Bullies and blames to get what they want
is aggressive/passive-aggressive
Scapegoats the Victim and ropes the Rescuer into covering for them

2. The Victim:

Believes they have no control
Gives up on making their own choices
Feels worthless and helpless
Feels powerless against the Perpetrator and dependent on the Rescuer

3. The Rescuer:

Focuses only on others’ needs
Ignores their own needs
Tries to control how others feel
enables the Victim and makes excuses for the Perpetrator

Different family members will usually gravitate toward one or two of the roles, but over time the roles can start to flip around too. For example, the rescuer in the family may get so burnt out trying to help the family victim, that they start to feel victimized themselves, and begin to view the victim as a perpetrator.

Or the victim may begin to see the rescuer as a perpetrator if the rescuer gets too drained, leaving the victim feeling abandoned. Sometimes the perpetrator may also play the victim role to try to get someone else to rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.

What do all three roles have in common? Everyone on the triangle neglects to take responsibility for their own emotions. The perpetrator blames others, the victim waits to be rescued, and the rescuer focuses on saving others from their emotions instead of acknowledging their own.

Unless someone else is around to consistently model healthy relationship roles, kids born into highly dysfunctional families can grow up to assume all relationships follow this same unhealthy pattern. Then when they encounter similar relationships as an adult, they easily fall back into old familiar roles. It feels normal. When you don’t know what healthy roles look like, it’s also possible to accidentally assume someone is being a perpetrator, victim, or rescuer when they’re actually relating in a healthy way.

In a future post, I’ll talk about what healthy relationship patterns look like in comparison to the Drama Triangle. Stay tuned!

You can check out this quiz if you’re curious to see which role you fall into most: https://cdn.website-editor.net/848c74c539684751972b4649bf55aae7/files/uploaded/Drama%2520triangle%2520quiz.pdf

Anxiety, Depression, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

For Us Givers at Heart

Some filtering questions for those of you who are Givers at heart (and maybe sometimes over-functioning) 🙂

Many of us (we therapists know we’re In this category too!) find ourselves giving beyond our means and in ways that are unsustainable. People sometimes take more than they give back. And there is always a need that arises among the people we care about. We can find ourselves running around trying to meet these needs and we can get so tired and drained! We sometimes don’t stop to think if it’s something we want to do or something we can do.

If you relate to this, here are a few questions to ask yourself that might help you filter through these situations. Sometimes you can give sacrificially to others and sometimes you may need to practice saying no to others and saying yes to yourself and your needs.

Sidenote: We believe the end goal in our relationships is to be generous to others in a sustainable way. We aren’t advocating for you to be self focused, but to tend to your needs so that you have more to give to those around you.

So ask yourself these questions:

Is the person asking for your help? Sometimes when we hear about something difficult we want to fix it. But sometimes people don’t need anything from you than just to listen.
Do you have it to give? Do you have the food in the pantry to be able to make someone a meal? Do you have the time to sit and listen to someone without being late something else? Do you have the patience and energy to give to this person without losing patience for those that you know you must give it to (aka your kids or spouse)
Can you give joyfully? Without resentment or bitterness.
Can you give without expecting something in return?

This feels like a sucker punch even as a write this, but when I’ve tried to follow my instincts with how much I can realistically give I end up feeling more rested and centered. Try this out and see how your emotional (and financial and mental) reserves seem to change.

Anxiety, Depression, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma

What if I Spiral?

“I know I’m supposed to let myself feel what I feel…but whenever I try, I get depressed for days.”

It’s true that processing your emotions means allowing yourself to feel them. But here’s the thing: when you’ve been stuffing down your feelings for so long, there can be so many intense emotions trapped on the inside that feeling them all at once leads to overwhelm.

And that can make you feel stuck. Stuffing your emotions means invalidating them, and that doesn’t feel good, but then feeling your emotions means inviting a flood of them so strong you either spiral downward or shut down entirely. That doesn’t feel good either. Where does the relief come in?

If feeling your emotions tends to do this to you, that may be a sign to take things slower. You don’t have to feel everything at once. Take it step by step. Give yourself space to feel just a little piece at a time, and as soon as you’ve had a moment to feel a little bit, take a step back. Give yourself permission to take a break, recharge, and do something you enjoy. You can go back to feeling your emotions later when you’re feeling rejuvenated and ready again.

Here are some tips for how you can feel your emotions safely:

Write down what each step of your downward spiral looks like. Know the signs that you’re getting too overwhelmed and need a break.
Create a plan for how to recharge after feeling your emotions. What’s something that truly helps your body feel better? Do you need to take a walk? Listen to some upbeat music? Watch a favorite movie?
Set a timer for as long as you want – a minute, 5 minutes, 15, whatever feels safest and most doable for you. While the timer is running, notice your emotions and how they feel in your body. Allow them to be there without judging them. When the time is up, take a break.
Visualize putting your emotions away somewhere safe. You can imagine storing them in a vase, a treasure box, or some other container that marks them as precious and important.
Remind yourself that you can revisit them later.

You’ll notice that with repetition, the time you can spend feeling your emotions gets longer. The more you practice, the easier it gets!

Anxiety, Couples Counseling, Depression, Marriage Counseling, Relationships, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

Restoring Trust

If the integrity of your relationship has been violated due to a harmful choice or behavior by either party, there are steps that you can take to restore trust and intimacy within the relationship.

There is no one size fits all approach for handling a trust violation in a relationship, however, there are ways to begin the process of repairing the relationship.

Here are 4 actionable steps that you can take to begin the process of healing:

Step 1:
Take 100% accountability.

Accountability is twofold. Accountability includes (1) acknowledgement of your wrongdoings and (2) not offering excuses to suggest that you couldn’t help doing what you did.

Developing empathy in a relationship is crucial. The most effective way to do so is to imagine yourself in your partner’s shoes. Ask yourself, how did my actions affect my partner’s life? Did my behavior cause damage to their sense of self-worth?

Taking accountability for your mistakes and acknowledging the impact helps you to avoid invalidating your partner’s emotions.

Step 2:
Offering an apology and asking your partner what can be done to rectify the situation and repair the damage.

Create an amends plan or contract to demonstrate your commitment to the relationship. An amends plan is a guide for navigating a breach of trust or betrayal; it generally includes an outline for what changes will be made on a personal and relational level. It will include actions and activities that indirectly restore your partner’s faith and trust in you.

For example, “Allow access to social media passwords, computer, phone, etc.” “Increase quality time with my partner and enjoy a date night every Friday.”

Your amends plan will need to be tailored to your relationship’s specific needs. Including your partner in the creation of the plan helps to show your devotion to your partner’s needs.

Step 3:
Making a promise to not betray your partner in the future and to follow-through with the actions you have promised.

Relationship check-ins at various intervals can help keep you on track and provide you with more of an understanding of what relationship needs are not being met and what promises have not been kept.

Step 4:
Communicating with your partner if you feel you are unable to follow through with promises made.

Increasing communication and vulnerability with your partner promotes emotional connection and intimacy. In order to repair and reconnect, you have to give your partner something to connect to. Secrecy, blame, anger, disengagement, and control do not provide connection points for repairing trust and faith in a relationship.

In seeking to mend a fractured relationship, the willingness to work on the relationship and reconstruct the trust that was broken is crucial.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma

Avoidance

After a traumatic experience, it may feel like triggers are everywhere. Sights, sounds, smells, places, or even thoughts that remind you of what happened can suddenly send you spiraling. If you get too heavily triggered, you may even flashback and feel as if the traumatic event is happening all over again.

No wonder avoiding triggers can become a habit. Nobody wants to be retraumatized. At least to some degree, avoidance can be necessary and helpful at times, but what happens when it becomes your main strategy for coping with triggers?

When we avoid things that cause us anxiety, we’re essentially teaching our brains that we can’t handle whatever it is we’re avoiding. Your brain learns the following:

Triggers = Anxiety
Avoidance = Instant Relief

Instead of draining triggers of their power to cause panic, avoidance heightens the association between triggers and danger, which increases anxiety and makes you want to avoid even more. And the more you avoid, the more limited your life becomes.

So how do you keep avoidance from taking over your life without getting overwhelmed and retraumatized by all the triggers? It takes a balance. By working with a therapist, you can begin learning new tools for managing triggers, that way avoidance is no longer the only means of relief.

For more information, contact summer@eastdallastherapy.com.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

I’m Stressed About What Others Think

Sometimes unhealthy relationships give you weird skills. For instance, you may realize you pick up on the tiniest changes in facial expressions. Others don’t even notice, but you’re already registering someone else’s body language and slight variations in tone. You can guess what others are thinking and feeling before they even say a word.

That’s called mindreading, and many people do it. In fact, sometimes people expect you to do it. That’s how you acquired the skill in the first place. Maybe you grew up in a family where direct communication was discouraged. If you didn’t guess what people wanted before they said something, you got in trouble or were accused of not loving them enough to figure it out.

Or maybe you’ve been in a toxic relationship that required a lot of mindreading. You may have gotten used to constantly scanning conversations for warning signs of the next meltdown or blowup. In any case, mindreading helped you avoid danger. You learned to read the cues so you could either step in to prevent something bad from happening or run away from it.

As useful as it is, though, mindreading comes with its own problems. For one thing, accurately guessing what others think 100% of the time is impossible! Spending so much energy on reading between the lines can be exhausting. Plus, the more you try to guess what other people think, the more likely you are to eventually misunderstand them.

While mindreading may have been a useful tool to have in a toxic relationship, it may no longer work as well in other relationships. This is because abusive relationships teach you to expect the negative. For example, if a friend doesn’t reply to your text, you automatically assume the negative – they don’t like you anymore – rather than assuming the positive – they’re just busy and will get back to you later.

When you feel tempted to mindread, it can be helpful to remind yourself:

· Mindreading helped me survive…

· …but it’s an impossible task that puts too much pressure on me.

· It’s not my responsibility to guess what others want/think/feel.

· If others want something, they can clearly communicate their needs to me.

· Instead of stressing and guessing, I can ask others what they think.

Mindreading can happen so automatically you don’t notice when you’re doing it. If you’d like some help figuring out how to let go of stressing over what others think, set up an appointment at eastdallastherapy.com or contact summer@eastdallastherapy.com.

Anxiety, Self-doubt, Trauma

Why didn’t I fight back?

You may have heard about the body’s danger responses: fight and flight. But there’s another secret weapon the body uses to defend itself: the freeze response.

The freeze response can make you feel paralyzed and numb. Instead of fighting or running away from a threat, you’re simply stuck, unmoving. You may panic on the inside and feel trapped in your head, or you may blank out, go limp, or feel like you’re floating away from yourself. In any case, the freeze response can also leave you riddled with self-blame, asking yourself, “Why didn’t I move? Why did I just let that happen to me?”

But the freeze response isn’t a conscious choice. It’s a totally automatic response to danger, just like fight or flight. When your body detects an immediate threat, it makes a split-second judgment on how to respond to best protect you.

For example, think about if you accidentally rest your hand on a hot stovetop. You don’t get a chance to stop and think about all your options while your hand burns. No, your body immediately jumps into action before you can blink! You may shout or pull your hand away before you realize what’s happening. The part of your brain that deals with planning and decision making doesn’t get a chance to figure out what to do in the situation – and that’s exactly what keeps your hand from getting burned even worse. Automatic responses are crucial to survival.

The freeze response is the same way. It’s your body’s way of managing a threat it has judged as inescapable. Freezing can come in handy when you’re faced with a wild animal (holding still so maybe it ignores you) or an opponent much larger than you are (where fighting might just get you more hurt). In a hopeless situation, it can even protect you from feeling physical pain. Kids are especially likely to experience a freeze response when faced with a threat because they don’t have as much strength or as many options open to them as adults do.

But even as an adult faced with a situation where you can clearly get away or win a fight, your body might freeze instead. Again, it’s an automatic response your body chooses for you, not a conscious decision on your part. If your body is used to freezing to survive danger, it’s more likely to resort to that same familiar response.

Others may have different automatic responses than you do to similar situations. It can be hard to resist the urge to compare, but one response isn’t better than any other. Fight, flight, and freeze are all necessary physical responses to threat.

If you want to learn more about what to do when you freeze, you can contact summer@eastdallastherapy.com or go to eastdallastherapy.com to set up an appointment.