moving on

All of that real life stuff sounds amazing. I think I'll look into that book, because we're at a point where maybe some of us can start to believe that they do matter for life in the real world even if it seems to them (and others) that they only hold us back or make things awkward.

I really hope the clinic T can offer video sessions. (We need to think of a new way to refer to him now, lol.) Can you afford to see him if he's in private practice? It always sounded like such a good fit. I'm sure there's some way to keep the connection going. It's clear that he really cares and wants what's best for you.

Have you told your current T how you feel about her caution and hesitation? You've expressed it so clearly here--can you give her examples of what you would prefer?

Although I wonder if you are overall more trusting of a male therapist and more willing to be guided with a firm hand, and the line between firm and coercive (as it's perceived by certain parts) might be much trickier to gauge with a female. It may be that your current T picks up on mixed signals you may be giving and that's why she hesitates rather than pushing ahead.

So much progress on the book! Congratulations.

And so good to hear from you.

the Gang

he invited us to keep in contact. Those invitations are always crucial. Without one, it isn't well accepted to write. The social code now is that he can respond when I do the first step with writing.
Still waiting for a response...
I have talked to our local T many times. Trying to tell her what works and what doesn't. It is better since she decided that we are allowed to write between sessions. We both know very well that this isn't an ideal fit... she is trying. She has become a lot better at giving A. lots of respect and she does offer me kind gestures.
In my volunteer job I am learning a lot about questions and how to ask them to get good answers. One thing she would do is ask if I wanted anything to make the situation better. She should ask me about what would make it better and then see if there is a way to make that happen. I never want anything if she asks me the other way round. The systemic T who is our mediator for the volunteer job kind of helps me to see where the systemic tools of my clinic T make more sense than the CBT questions she uses...
I think that next session we will probably tell her all about the things we will miss with the clinic T and what made that cooperation so special and if she is good she won't take it as shaming and instead listen well to figure out how to approach us in the future. what he did obviously worked better than what she does. we still get the walking on eggshells moments with her... I already put some of that into an email.

It is beyond me why she is so hesistant. I guess that she might think our relationship is worse than it is. it is a solid working relationship. we have good enough connection. its just not super close attachment. We do trust her to guide through things. She is literally a textbook T who never steps even an inch away from the textbook version of a technique. Every sentence she speaks in processing could be used as a case example. We know she is safe in this regard and won't lead us to weird places. She just doesn't hold on to the hand when we reach out and then we get confused and drop it and then its all awkward. We are not good at giving consent for every step of the way. It is costing us too much energy. We miss the firm hand that just grabs ours the moment we express consent and then off we go.

the book gives insight into teams in big companies or other special teams that do hard tasks or invent new stuff. Its got a lot of stories of teams that show that holding back knowledge or perspective can make things fail. And how Big people have to listen to Little people because the little ones also contribute important stuff that maybe nobody else can contribute. you need to transfer the stories of companies to interntal work but we found it very inspiring and it was one of our bigger turning points for inner work... and now we work in a heterogenic team like that for our volunteer work and it is totally fascinating....
its been a long long time since we had a December where we did this well.

still no response. It makes sense because it is still officially vacation time til monday.
but by now the kids are beside themselves with confusion, panic, grief and devastation.
it is starting to get really really difficult. we cried all day yesterday. in the way of silent screams with lots of tear, like being torn apart inside.
I hate attachment. what good does it bring.

Oh, that sounds awful. Can you reach out again so at least you're doing something active and the littles can see that you're taking action on their behalf, even if that doesn't speed up getting a response? Also, sometimes emails get lost, or sink down the list and get overlooked.

I had forgotten about that book--just looked on Amazon and we can get the audiobook for free, so we put it in our library.

It sounds like a good idea to tell the T exactly what you need and how it would help to phrase things. The things you put in your post--have you told them to her straight out? You express yourself so clearly in writing--it's hard to imagine that she wouldn't want to adjust in the ways you're asking for. Also, it could be that she thinks the relationship isn't as good as it is, so telling her that might result in improvements in her approach.

We hope the clinic T gets back to you soon.

I agree with The Gang.

Also, tons of moral support. It's really a rough patch you're in. I see your pain. Hope you'll get an answer soon.

We don't dare write while the younger ones are so unstable. Not getting an immediate response would just make it so much worse. I tend to slip into this neutral state where I don't feel a thing, myself or inside, and we function pretty well. So this is at least not costing us stability.

We talked to the T and basically she can't use any tools outside her base CBT+trauma tools because that is what the insurance covers. Even though she is skilled in non-verbal techniques that might be helpful she can't give it a try. She is not skilled in systemic therapy, which seems to be the kind that is helping us to get beyond our terrible walls that cut us off from contact. She can't just use any of that. And she cannot become a totally different person with a different style. She can make behavioral adjustments within her personality but she can't become someone else.
Maybe she doesn't have to. We experience this pattern a lot. Finding a way to resolve it would actually help us more than having someone who can work despite of it. probably needs both at some point... but that relational pattern is one of the big things in our life that keeps us disconnected from people, so it makes sense not to just work around it all the time. I wish we had a better plan on how to approach it though. It causes us a lot of pain.

We finally managed to write a short message and got a response. Several indeed. He did his best to make up for the late response.
There won't be a way to have online sessions. Going in person would drive up the costs but it isn't impossible.
Still struggling with Littles who are devastated. Our regular T listened but it was only about 30% attunement there. I hope the SE T will help us to be able to contain the feeling while being together. So far we always have to move away from each other and rely on dissociative barriers to make it bearable. Which means we can't really keep each other company or comfort each other over the loss of the clinic.
I am a bit scared that this will trigger another depressive episode. We aren't keeping up with self-care anymore. especially with eating and drinking enough. And we just sleep for 12h.

CN religion
For some time I thought I would move on from the whole christianity thing that has been so important for us for more than half our life. But now it seems like I am only leaving the old church behind. I was reminded of the roots of how we used to live our faith back when we were a teen/young adult. So i am back to focusing on contemplation instead of getting involved with a church and it is helping a lot. This is the core of our spiritual life and how we found help, long before we got so busy with church life and distractions. It is less moving on than returning to the roots. It makes me feel so relieved. The price would have been too high. And now we are back to the things that actually help without hurting us. There are people who insist that you can't be a christian without a church. church history says otherwise. the history of christian mysticism is one of being without a church or in deep conflict with the church... thin line between being made a saint and being burned as a witch back then... Going to risk to be considered a witch. There is just so much happening and I couldn't do it without contemplation.

still in a whirlwind of life and progress. it is so much in such a short time. we are still doing really really well. unfolding and stretching our wings.
we also decided to see our clinic T in private practice. Its a 5 day set-up. travel, process, hike and recover, process, travel. It was a super hard decision. Doing this costs a lot and it also meant we decided not to pursue processing with our regular T. Which still feels weird and a bit confusing. but we are heading into intersting times with big events and we are on a deadline with some of our triggers. To manage the truly big stuff we need to get the triggers out of the way. so we do everything that is needed. it is a bit ridiculous how many huge steps we are taking in such a short time. but very welcome.

That sounds like a big commitment, but worth it. That T has consistently been helpful and able to handle being emotionally available, caring, and connected, but without any blurring of boundaries.

I don't know what it means to "get triggers out of the way." Does that mean they stop being triggers? How does one even do that? I feel so ignorant. I guess I've never gotten to the trauma processing stage, at least not for overt and discrete triggers.

For example, we have a trigger about being lost in a crowded place if we're there with our husband, like a movie theater or airport. Most often it happens when we need to split up to go to the bathroom. I think we must have been lost for a period of time as a young child at a fair or something. When we come out of the bathroom, something happens where we panic about not being able to find him, and that panic makes it difficult to spot where he is. So the seconds where we don't see him are very distressing. He's been helping by telling me exactly where he'll be when I come out, but yesterday he wasn't where he said he would be, and that not only triggered the brief distress, but set off a whole protector response of being annoyed with him. As I'm writing this out, I'm wondering if this is the wrong approach, since it avoids the trigger, but doesn't do anything to get it "out of the way." Obviously it would be nice to not have that panicky sense of being lost that's coming from some of the littles. But I don't know the first thing about how to address it. (Sorry--you can just ignore all of this if you don't want to deal with it. I guess one way to deal with it is to address those feelings as emotional flashbacks that come up each time, and have an older part available to comfort the littles and help them find him.)

Anyway, glad to hear from you and that things are moving in such a positive direction!

we are currently editing the afterword of the book project (we are almost done!!) and it covers exactly that topic. sometimes triggers need to be addressed during stabilization because they are in the way of more stability but its a bit of a grey zone into phase 2.
basically you have 4 options. puzzling, re-orienting, discriminating and processing.

Puzzling is when you put together pieces of the memory that gets triggered and you understand how it started, how it went and how it ended and you understand that this was a thing in the past. It needs true Realization and not just head knowledge for this to help with triggers. Everyone has to feel deep down that it is over and isn't repeating itself anymore. this is most useful for conditioned responses.

re-orientation needs the least amount of knowledge about the trauma situation. You just know your trigger and prepare for the triggering situation. You focus on noticing all the safe things within the situation with all the triggered parts. big focus on 'this is today' and 'this is safe, can you be aware that nothing bad is happening right now'. It needs very solid abilities in grounding the triggered parts and actually noticing the real life situation today. It takes a long time for this to stick and override the trigger.

discrimination is a technique for trigger exposure that we explained in detail over here https://www.dis-sos.com/discrimination/ . you need more knowledge about the past situation and prepare by separating past from present. Then you expose yourself to the trigger while keeping in mind everything that tells you that this situation is different from the past one. it helps the brain to check the situation first to see if its safe or not when you encounter the trigger the next time. An exposure like that is only possible in specific cases and is really fast. can be done in 30min with a simple set-up.

processing uses different techniques to change something about the trauma memory itself. It highly depends on the technique you use.
IFS would suggest your parenting approach of taking care of the Littles until they feel safe with the situation.
IRRT is a rescripting technique where you look at the old story and then make changes to it and retell it with a different ending. Often by rescuing the kids from their bad situation in some way.
EMDR would process the feelings about the old situation and allow them to develop and mature into something that fits your adult perspective.
SE works with impulses that were held back during the trauma. by freely following the impulse today the old sense of being stuck goes away. The trauma response for survival isn't needed anymore.
Processing sessions are usually short and effective too. about 45min for processing and some time to prepare and to finish well. But they can feel really hard and they need the greatest ability to stay grounded when facing trauma. It's a deep dive. they often process more than just a trigger. This is helpful for more complex situations. so this is truly phase 2 work and not a grey zone anymore.

the results you can expect from processing...
you will still notice the trigger more than you would notice a neutral object or situation. You are still aware that this is a situation that used to trouble you. But now the brain has the ability to double check what is going on and to decide that it is not dangerous. We used to get very triggered by headlights from cars. First time we ended up outside after processing it, we saw the lights and instead of having an immediate reaction we looked up and saw the sky. And seeing a sky and then the street and everything around us showed us that we are not in the trauma situation which happened in a closed room. So we kind of held our breath for a second and then released it. No danger. we still notice headlights. We don't have a flashback or stress response when we see them. the natural orientation response comes first and there is a new evaluation if this is a problem or not.
for us it makes the difference of being able to stand in a certain position and just feel uncomfortable or to crumble while we are on stage. Getting it 'out of the way' restores some freedom.