- Date posted
- 3y
Childhood trauma
Is it necessary to go back and heal childhood trauma issues in order to fully heal from anxiety and depression? My therapist (not thru nocd) always wants to go back and address this stuff and idk
Is it necessary to go back and heal childhood trauma issues in order to fully heal from anxiety and depression? My therapist (not thru nocd) always wants to go back and address this stuff and idk
Yes, absolutely necessary. You take on each mental illness as needed. I did trauma therapy for my PTSD, then did ERP for my OCD. The other 2 mental illnesses I have, I worked on those with my therapist but they EXTREMELY decreased in symptoms because I handled the 2 main mental illnesses that were causing the most issues for me. I’ve been recovered for 3 years now. It took 6 years in intense therapy.
Omg so recovery is possible ?? Like fully recover ?? That’s what I want so bad but sometimes I’m scared I can’t and my Brain is just ruined. I haven’t tried meds yet but thinking about it . I definitely have trauma to work thru. Ugh. So you feel like therapy really helped you ?
@NrseKris Of course it’s possible. Recovery doesn’t mean cured though; I still have all my mental illnesses and my brain is physically different than those without mental illnesses. I still have issues but they don’t affect my life because I know what to do whenever an issue pops up.
@Nica If there’s one tip you could give me on recovery what would it be
@NrseKris Start practing mindfulness and reading all you can about it now. It takes a while to rewire your brian, but it’s worth it.
@Nica Thank you 💕if there’s any specific books about mindfulness that you recommend please share
@NrseKris There aren’t specific books, just teachings on mindfulness. The best person to go to is Thich Nhat Hanh.
I did EMDR for trauma then later ERP for my ocd
I’ve heard of EMDR, how’d it go for you
I know that they say on here that past trauma isn’t really discussed for ocd treatment. But I’m my opinion having at least an idea of why your certain anxieties exist make me feel like I’m not so crazy, and I can give myself more compassion when I’m having a hard time. That’s my experience. Trauma has a huge effect on who we are and in some cases it really drives a lot of anxiety and depression. So I wouldn’t discount that therapy. I don’t think it helps to dwell on it continuously though.
Yea I agree it kinda helps me feel less crazy to know there’s probably a good reason behind my anxiety. I just wana heal and don’t know the best route but I guess I could always work on things separate like the intrusive thoughts and also do past trauma therapy
@NrseKris I think thats totally fine, I suppose it might be problematic if you start constantly look back instead of forward and healing. This is a journey and I hope you find your way through
What does a therapy session with an OCD specialist look like for y’all? This is something I’ve always wondered because I’ve only had one OCD therapist through NOCD. Our sessions always looked like sit there and “reduce anxiety” meaning don’t think for a few minutes and take a few deep breaths and rate your anxiety level every couple of minutes. AND that was it. Is it supposed to look like that? Because I haven’t seen anyone on this app talk about this or how their therapy sessions go. I’m considering restarting therapy but I want to know how therapy goes for you guys before I go back to the same specialist. Any input would be appreciated :)
I feel like after years of living in survival mode from various back to back traumas, I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s always in some sort of overstimulated cycle of overthinking, rumination, self checking, and seeking reassurance. I know there will be more peace after treatment. But just hating like I’m stuck in always feeling like I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop when so many shit things have happened to me early in life. How am I suppose to be excited about what’s next?
When I was 5, I met my best friend in kindergarten. Ever since, she had not really been allowing me to hang out with other kids because she wanted me all for herself, which I thought was cute at the time, but then she also began completely leaving me for another friend whom she'd become obsessed eith, and when she got bored of them, she'd then come back to me. Many times she's insult me, but if I ever dared say she's even doing something wrong she'd get mad. I always had to do what she wanted, and every time I said no and wanted to do something she'd barge into my bedroom (because this was mostly in my house when we used to play), slam the door, and throw things at me when I came in to talk. Once, I found a horseshoe (I can't remember if I was with her or if I told her about it?) but anyways I was the one who found it, and she demanded I give it to her. I told her no because I loved it and wanted it and I found it, and she told me that if I didn't give it to her she would h**ng me with it. I didn't even know what that meant but I knew it meant something terrifying. I also began developing OCD around 8 and she and basically everyone made fun of me because I had a lot of physical compulsions and they reanacted my compulsions, and for that I always felt stupid and weird. I began to hide my compulsions, only doing them when no one was watching or when I was alone. I normalised it all by the time I turned 13, but my relationship had gotten so bad with her that I was actually absolutely terrified of going to her house to hang out, and for her birthday, she invited me out with another friend she hung out with. They ONLY spoke about things they were interested in like books and that's fine, but they knew that I wasn't interested in that stuff at all and asked me "Why don't you talk?" Like always, I felt left out because the only time my ex bsf spoke to me was when she embarrassed me in front of the other friend. Anyways I couldn't take it anymore that summer and stopped talking to her because I just couldn't do it anymore. Thoughout those years (and now still) I've been using Maladaptive Daydreaming SEVERELY every day to cope. I remember it reached the point where I would be actually talking to them in my head, like using my tongue to talk as if I was speaking physically but not opening my mouth or letting out any noise so nobody thinks I'm weird if that makes any sense, and I'd just be listening to music ALL day and pace for hours and hell, my OCD began targeting my MD, which was LITERALLY the thing my brain was using in order to protect my brain from loneliness AND OCD which os crazy lol, but I feel so stupid because I feel like with the MD i should've just sucked it up and changed fandoms instead of letting my OCD keep targeting the characters of the fandom I was Daydreaming to, even though I would spend days feeling physically hot, head and thoughts spinning, overanalyzing the game I daydreamed to over and over again to make sure that the character I roleplayed as was loved by the other characters that brought me comfort. I was so obsessed with the characters and the Daydreaming that it probably became the only thing that made me feel genuinely understood and loved and they were in my very own head! Does what happened even count as trauma lol? It feels kinda stupid cus it was just a childhood friend being a kid like yea sure she was toxic, but I never hated her. My parents loathe her because of this, but I feel like I'm just over exaggerating everything and don't want to be saying that this girl has traumatised me because I don't want to be blaming someone for something severe.
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