Traumatized and Confused

Reader’s Question

Hi there and thank you for taking the time to answer my question if you are able.

I have experienced trauma as a child and have some serious wounds that continue to plague me. I battle anxiety daily and struggle to lead a ‘normal’ life as best as I can. I’ve tried so many therapies I’m at a loss as to what to do next. I’ve talked till the cows have come home, and that hasn’t helped. I’ve spoken to my inner child and asked her to tell me why she is mad at me, and that hasn’t helped. I’ve done some challenging negative beliefs and that has given SOME benefit but then I get so that every feeling I have, I question and tell myself that if I just stopped ‘thinking’ badly, I’ll stop feeling badly. I get so confused, I don’t know whether I am coming or going.

I don’t want to ignore my feelings because I feel dead when I do. But, I don’t want to be run by them either as I often fear. What type of therapy would work best? I just simply want to be able to manage them on my own and feel better.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Let’s break down your situation to identify what can be helpful. First of all, battling daily anxiety tells me you have an anxiety disorder on top of your traumatic background. An anxiety disorder fuels the fire of any existing PTSD, emotional struggle, or social problems we may be having. Anxiety is gasoline to any fire we have going on in our head or lifestyle. For this reason, my first recommendation is to put out the fire and lower anxiety with a consultation with a psychiatrist. We have several long-acting antianxiety medications that will reduce the neurochemical agitation that maintains your anxiety level.

Second, all of your therapy experience now has you thinking too much. You are overanalyzing a lot — which only increases anxiety. This hyperanalysis creates a lot of confusion as the original issue is immediately lost when you start challenging your thoughts/beliefs, talking to your inner child, etc. I suspect this is where your confusion comes from. It’s like being fluent in six languages — you need to learn to think in only one language. I would recommend a cognitive-oriented therapist and if that approach is comfortable — only think and feel in that format/language.

Third, there is help for the trauma issues. I’d recommend reading my article on Emotional Memory on this website. When we have a history of trauma, we are often emotionally overwhelmed and confused by the emotional/feeling component of our memories. There are ways to handle that on a daily basis.

Lastly, it’s not a matter of ignoring your feelings. It’s a matter of deciding what feelings are in the real here-and-now and what feelings are related to past events (emotional memory). When we look at both as valid for today — confusion follows. Emotional and trauma memories are strong emotional events, but they are a record of where we’ve been — not where we are today. Learning to separate how we feel today from feelings of yesterday will greatly improve your emotional functioning and stability.