Dr. Janina Fisher's "Healing the Fracture Selves..."

I have a preliminary diagnosis based on screening interview and submitted written history of c-PTSD. Please advise if there is a better sub for this.

CSA as a toddler -- no memory of it, but fairly radical observed behaviour change -- much quieter, and extreme modesty. This was followed by emotional neglect until I left home. Dad was always a bit remote. After heart surgery when I was 14 he came home with only a fraction of his mind. Mom had diabetes, depression, and menopause. She had 4 states: Mom, hibernating bear (high blood sugar) angry bear (low blood suger+hormones), and black rock of depression where she would drink coffee and smoke.

Read Janina Fisher's book "Healing the Fractured Selves of Trauma Survivors" Read the first 3 pages of the intro, then skim read the cases studies.
I found that her description of the self-hatred, emotional numbness, internal warfare, self sabotage spoke to me. "This gal gets it. She's reading my mind."

She also has a workbook, "Transforming the living legacy of trauma

Fisher's model is fairly standard structured dissassociation. Under severe stress, we partition off a fragment of our personality, often a limbic brain fragment to handle the problem. The pre frontal cortex is largely shutdown, so there is reduce to no narrative memory of the event.

Therapy consists of reconnecting to these shards, and bringing them into awareness with love and compassion. Dual awareness is big in keeping from blending or being hijacked by the shard's memories.

I do not have flashbacks in the common use of the term. Sometimes a mood, unexplained, or a scent that is clearly impossible, or a vignette that makes no sense to me at all. (What does it mean to be in a metal shop, and hear someone shout, "Pink! Don't look!" Who is Pink? Why shouldn't they look?") None are frightening. Just odd.
I have had a couple of nightmares -- one got me started on this quest -- that kept me awake for hours after.

I've been applying my limited understanding and have some success with shards that formed in my teenage years. These I'd already at least partially integrated with. This has given me much better understanding of who I am, and I like myself a lot better. (Although I like some of my shards better than I do myself...)

Part of the results of the early trauma, seems to be a bunch of pre-verbal shards. I have had very little success in communicating with them, unlike the case studies in Dr. Fisher's books.

The only method I've found that works is to propose responses, and then feel for a resonance. I worry that I'm just manipulating puppets on a stage when I do this. So far no coherent picture emerges.

One of my biggest symptoms is blunted affect. I occasionally can feel anger, but it's a cold anger. Burning rage isn't there. I can feel sad, but not sorrow or grief. I can like people, but not love them. I figured I wasn't wired right, until I discovered the CSA and it's implications.

So some part of me decided that to survive, I needed to turn the emotional volume control down. How to I contact that part, welcome it into my life again, and persuade it that it's ok to release the dampers?

I expect that turning it back up is going to be hard. but every thing I've found about "emotional numbness" says that I need to address the cause first.

So far my only reliable access with these younger parts has been to put myself in a dual awareness state, and try to reach out with a curious compassionate attitude. This does result in a modest adreraline rush, stronger heart beat (but not signficantly faster) and a large collection of odd muscle twitches, jerks, an spasms reminding me of the Christmas I ate a quarter pound of chocolate covered coffee beans in a single sitting.

I'll try this for an hour. Once I stop trying, it takes another half hour to "un-twitch" enough to get to sleep. Needless to say, this is not a satisfactory way of communicating.

I really wish my brain came with an owner's manual.

I start with a Fisher trained therapist in March, but I want to get started. Any tips?

Welcome, late in day here (Australia) I will read it all tomorrow and come back to you.

Again welcome

sgbotsford wrote:
I have had a couple of nightmares -- one got me started on this quest -- that kept me awake for hours after.



One of my biggest symptoms is blunted affect. I occasionally can feel anger, but it's a cold anger. Burning rage isn't there. I can feel sad, but not sorrow or grief. I can like people, but not love [b]them[/b]. I figured I wasn't wired right, until I discovered the CSA and it's implications.

So some part of me decided that to survive, I needed to turn the emotional volume control down.

I have not read it but then again I am kind of ok with where I am. Also very much into not poking the " bear". If it is not a major problem right now leave it alone.

Have had multiple discussions with people here on the is tuff. The " have I ever really loved anyone ?" even though I am married 40 years and have two grown kids. I am way too comfortable whenever she is gone. I miss her but appear to operate perfectly without her. Oh well.

I am different and have too many memories. Regrettably all the bad ones are on the surface and I try not to visit them too often although I have every day triggers that always take me to parts of them. Regrettably several are my strongest memories, and I watch them like yesterdays movie again and again.

The lousy empathy though, yep that one I know. Have empathy for a spiders in our house but not seeing someone run over by a car.