TRAUMA PART 8..ROBIN...ITS NOT OK TO BE ME...

Robin is on the Autism spectrum as AUDHD, both high functioning Autistic and ADHD. He (pronoun given with permission) is a very bright talented software engineer in his mid 20's.  One of his gifts is musical talent.  He is an introvert who pushes himself too hard and neglects his need for solitude. He works a full time job and is in numerous bands.  Robin is an example of someone who is more susceptible to trauma as a result of his Autism.  We Autistics tend to be highly sensitive.  Many of us are fluid in our gender and our sexuality.  Robin's main difficulty is he uses masking as a coping mechanism to his own detriment. Most people on the Autism spectrum get traumatized by bullying, parental disproval, or shaming as a result of social awkwardness, gender fluidity, and or a general feeling of not fitting in with the neurotypical world.  The comorbities of Autism can be many such as, depression, anxiety, psychosis, overwhelm, eating disorders and other addictions.

Robin's childhood is not the worse I have seen but it certainly wasn't easy.  His mother is a christian nationalist and very manipulative.  She often "attacked from the victim" position and targeted Robin, one of her two children.  Since he was very young she was cruel to him, blaming him for all of her problems. Robins parents were divorced when he was 9 and she turned to alcohol which would make her even more histrionic and chaotic.  Her two children took on the responsibility of trying to keep her on an even keel.  This is how Robin became codependent.  

Robin's father is an intelligent, kind man who was also codependent to his wife while they were married.  He was the model for Robin's codependency while remaining very loving to his children.  As Robin entered his teen years he coped by becoming rebellious, angry and destructive.  He had been diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds which did not work for him at all which is typical of AUDHD.  He came out as trans to both parents in his teens and while his father accepted him his mother was furious and shaming of him.  He had a series of unhealthy painful relationships as a teen and took in all that hurt and confusion. He began to spend more and more time with his father as they had had a two week on two week off custody arrangement and eventually stayed with dad full time.   

With all of the abuse that Robin received from his mother, he still to this day remains loyal to her because ''she is his mother".  She has never visited him in the state he now lives in but he feels guilty for not wanting to visit her in her state.  He is torn between loving her and hating her.  This is difficult for us on the spectrum to process because those emotions don't fit nicely in a logical pattern.  Robin adores his father but really dislikes his stepmother.  He is ambivalent towards his mother but calls his macho step father a jerk and an idiot. 

Today Robin is dealing with a number if issues.  He has addiction to cigarettes, drugs, and to a lesser degree with food.  He has had suicidal ideation but never attempted.  He is a love addict who continues to be hurt in intimate relationships.  He hates his job but feels tied to his very generous salary.  He loves his music but is exhausted by all the road trips and practices.  He feels abandoned by his friends because they are all typical 20 somethings and he is smarter, kinder, and more emotional and sensitive than his guy friends.  We have been focusing on self care, limiting masking, self compassion and setting boundaries with others.  He is working on his tendency to avoid conflict with others as a form of masking.  (If you are curios about Autism I have a number of entries that deal with the subject as I am on the spectrum myself)

Robin is a very beautiful person inside and out.  He is dedicated to his work which consists of me both teaching him about self compassion while using myself as an example and modeling a compassionate mother role with him.  He is now taking the time for solitude so he can refuel.  We have begun to talk about him being his own inner parent and he is making progress while dealing with all the emotions that he has lifelong been attempting to mask or turn into rebelliousness.  He is a pleasure to work with and I have high hopes for him as he is beginning his work at such a young age.     

TRAUMA PART 6 JANE..."IT WASN'T THAT BAD”

Jane is a middle aged, fit, attractive woman, and a successful professional. She called me after deciding she was going to formally divorce her very abusive husband of 25 years who was also an addict and a charmer.  She was beginning to understand the level of trauma she had received from him and was wondering why she  stayed for so long with him.  When I hear statements like that I suspect that this was not the first ongoing trauma she had experienced.  I asked about her childhood and I was literally appalled.  

She lived in a very small home with a primarily single mom who allowed her two children, a boy and girl, to be in the home alone while she was obsessively dating a man who was abusive to the children.  The mother was highly manipulative and could never see her culpability in anything she had done.  She continues that behavior to a great degree to this day.  I would classify her as a narcissist who was so manipulative that both her children were severely damaged.  The brother of Jane was overtly abusive when they were alone while the mother was  busy dating.  The brother would beat her frequently  to the point where she felt very unsafe in her own home.  The brother later became mentally ill with schizoaffective bipolar disorder as well as a severe addiction to prescription medications and food.  He is very obese and has been abandoned by his ex-wife and both of his children, except for his mother and her subsequent enabling husband.  The mother and her husband are both packrats and have very delusional personalities as they both see themselves as wonderful individuals while they have no conscience and are in denial as to the truth of Jane and her brother. They are enmeshed and enable each other's delusions.   

Jane has scars to prove the beatings she received from her brother.  She went to a private school as a small child that was far from her home.  Her parents stopped taking her to school at 10 and she had to take a public bus to school in the huge metropolis where she lived.  She felt so unsafe especially when she went into adolescence that she would purposefully drool, cross her eyes and  hang her head down so as not to attract any of the creepy men traveling on this city bus.  As Jane shared this with me I was gobsmacked and could feel my chest tighten and the tears begin to fill my eyes.  I saw that Jane was so perfectly groomed by her abuse that when she experienced extreme abuse later in life she tolerated it because it was familiar to the abuse and neglect she received in childhood.  When I pointed this out to her, her response was, "it wasn't that bad".  That became her mantra until she realized the truth of how profound her abuse was.  

I think Jane was able to con herself into thinking this because she went to an expensive private school and was able to get so well educated and become a very successful professional in a relatively small city.  Along with her success was a tendency to faint when doing public speaking for her job to the point where she was provided with a stool to sit on so she wouldn't fall to the floor.  I was amazed to hear how she would  swat away my deep concern for her health and the possible connection to her abuse which gave rise to this heart problem causing her to faint when public speaking.   

In Jane's marriage she would endure what I would call torture in the form of demeaning her, locking her in closets, keeping her from leaving the house when he was drunk or wasted on drugs.  Once again she was living in an environment that was totally unsafe and unpredictable. Her husband would later be so remorseful and seem deeply ashamed by his behavior when he sobered up.  He was also successful with his own business and would seek out therapy and spout off to her all he had learned.  What he learned only enabled him to be more subtle and undermining of his abuse with Jane.  She excused his behavior by  rationalizing that he was a sick addict who just couldn't seem to have any desire to get sober. Jane even went to the extreme of buying her own house while continuing to stay in the marriage.  

Every trip they would go on she would forget that it would likely end in trauma and each traumatic event would only get worse. Eleven years before she divorced him, and one of the worst events where he was drunk and very abusive, she ran out of their hotel room and ran away to some other tourists to seek help and safety.  As she looked at the shock on my face while listening to this she would say, "but it wasn't really that bad".

We worked on her denial of her horrific family life to the point where she was more able to break the bonds of codependency to her mother and brother, (she had totally detached from her creepy father for the last 20 years before he died). Jane could always explain away her own denial of the abuse by having compassion after all they were her only family and her husband was a sick addict.  She had learned to totally neglect her own well being while devoting herself to her profession and to some wonderful women friends who were very safe and supportive of her without overly confronting her about her acquiescence  to her family and husband.  

Once fully divorced Jane relished her new single lifestyle and our work consisted of developing gratitude for the peace she had accomplished in her home and with her friends...but she began hating her work. We worked on changing her emphasis in her very successful profession to modifying her work to something she actually enjoyed that involved allowing herself to take more time off for enjoyment and to focus on aspects of her work that were funner for her and saying no to clients who she knew would trigger her other mantra, "try harder".  She learned to say no.  

When Jane began some very unsuccessful dating opportunities after a few years of single hood  she would berate herself with what is wrong with me when it didn't work out.  I encouraged her to ask rather  what didn't work for her with this or that particular man.  Jane is just beginning to have an awareness of self compassion to augment her dedicated work to heal her codependency.  Our sessions are filled with tears and a lot of laughter at some of the irony that she finds herself in.  I also have consistently shared examples of my own pitfalls in my relationships and my  work with my own inner child and developing self compassion while teaching it.

I have so much love and respect for Jane that I have faith in her ultimate healing in the forming of a healthy relationship to her trauma as she moves forward in her life either as a single woman or as someone who finds a partner who is safe, self aware and compassionate. 

Much love and be well,

Michele Happe MA mhappenow.happe@gmail.com  775 230-1507

Search for my Metabolic Mind Page and  my Psychology Today page

Comments are welcomed 

 

PART 5 TRAUMA..RUBY...THE STRONG ONE

Ruby is an attractive very intelligent engaging woman in her late fifties.  I worked with Ruby briefly in the early 2000's.   At that time she was sober and working a 12 step program.  Within the last year she came back to me for further work.  She was working on what she called her issues with debauchery.  Her issues were now food addiction gambling, drinking and smoking cigarettes.  Her relapse was profound and causing her much distress.  She was able to give up alcohol and food addiction for a clean keto diet but her issues of gambling remained.  We discovered that part of the issue was an issue with her husband who was also debaucherous  with her. In other words he was her "lower companion".  Another stressor in the marriage was her husband was the exact opposite of her politically and he was a very devout catholic and she was more a metaphysical Christian.  

As we were dealing with her addictive issues and marriage issues, I asked about childhood trauma.  She indicated that she had dealt with that years back with another therapist.  She told me the story though.  Her father was clearly a malignant narcissist, alcoholic and sadist.  He would come into her room when she was just a little girl and would force her to drink alcohol until she would pass out.  She did not know if he sexually molested her and she was in a black out.  (I assumed that is exactly what happened as he had that reputation in the family and her older sister clearly remembered being sexually molested by him). He also tortured his children.  While napping he would approach Ruby with a stand up vacuum cleaner and suck her hair into the roller causing her considerate fear and pain.  This man later died by suicide to her great relief.  

I was curious to uncover the current patterns that dictated by this early abuse.  Ruby was groomed to tolerate a lot of abuse especially from intimate partners.  She had been married a few times and all of those marriages were terminated due to abuse or infidelity.  Her current husband is kind but very avoidant of conflict which renders him the weaker partner.  Ruby wears the pants in this relationship which is the inversion of the previous pattern of overt abuse.  Her current husband is passive aggressive rather than overt, the opposite side of the same coin.  If Ruby slips and gambles and smokes he  slips too. if Ruby abstained from both addictions so does he.  She easily takes on the mantle of aggressor and the partner who demands compliance in most areas of the marriage, except for his political views and religious convictions. 

As our work together progressed and a good bond was created, Ruby indicated that she was willing to look again at her trauma issues.  I was very gentle with her and showed her kindness and empathy as she shared how her past trauma mimicked much of the subsequent trauma.  We talked a lot about how she was groomed by her original trauma.  I suggested that she create her own room which was to be her sanctuary and she did.  We were just about ready to delve into inner child work at this writing.  As she read the previous parts of this trauma blog she indicated that she was learning more about self compassion and was willing to implement the work involved in achieving that.  

I feel honored to be Ruby's guide through some of the worst trauma I have ever heard.  My own motherly instincts guide me in helping her adopt a supportive loving inner mother for her wounded inner child.  She is now abstinent from alcohol, gambling, food addiction and smoking!  We continue our work together with loving kindness for each other.  

Much love and be well,

Michele Happe MA mhappenow.happe@gmail.com  775 230-1507

Search for my Metabolic Mind Page and  my Psychology Today page

Comments are welcomed 

 

TRAUMA PART 2.....THE SUSCEPTIBLE

Trauma yields different reactions based on who receives it.  I had a client years ago who was nightly molested by her step father who suffered greatly with food issues, anxiety, and depression.  She was activated and disregulated perpetually.  She walked through life like a deer in the headlights.  Her step sister on the other hand was approached by the step father and she fought him and told him to "get the fuck out of her room"!.  She had no trauma reaction. He never approached her again.   She was a tough cookie and her sister was introverted and very sensitive.

So now a little about me.  I am a trauma survivor.  It started with my dad who was sexually inappropriate with me since I was 3.  His behavior was mostly covert.  I remember being in fear and loathing around him and literally clung to my mother.  When I was old enough to spend the night at a friends, I would always end up needing to call my mom because of extreme stomach upset.  In college I started having panic attacks and anxiety all the time.  I was a chubby kid and began lots of crazy dieting starting with diet pills....with my dad.  He always said we were cut from the same cloth.  I didn't realize how profound that statement was until my 60's when I realized I was on the autism spectrum.  At that time I realized he was too.  He was a brilliant materials engineer and accomplished trumpet player with many hobbies and special interests.  As I was saying before, when college started I became anorexic and self harming.  I lived with suicidal ideation which haunted me and terrified my boyfriend at the time who would hold my passenger door closed while driving when I threatened to jump out of our VW Bus. 

Through all of this trauma reaction I was a great student and found solace by going to school, learning and studying.  It was the greatest distraction.  While I was a student there I became a geology tutor where I got my thirst for teaching.  The lab was the place where I felt most comfortable. I was a very good geek!! I had my Masters in Psychology at 23 and got a gig student teaching at my own community college in my home town.   I taught at that community college for a few years and when the bottom dropped out in education in the 70's I started my own business in advertising, representing commercial artists.  I had realized I preferred self employment even though I know that job wasn't for me.  After being a drug and alcohol counselor intern I got hired as a director of an eating disorder unit at a mental hospital.  I loved the job of supervising counselors and doing educational outreach but I hated working in that environment.  I felt the place was a "snake pit". My anxiety blossomed and I walked off that job, applied for disability and got on Prozac which I called "club med".  That was when I started a private practice in the early 90's and where I continue to work with clients as a life style and recovery coach until the present.  Oh and by the way I got sober, dealt with my eating disorders, codependency and got into therapy.  No one ever diagnosed my Level 1 autism until I diagnosed myself in my 60's. 

My own case history reveals how trauma affects the susceptible.  My autism was my susceptibility and my gift.  Level 1 Autism is a remarkable tribe.  We are often introverted, highly sensitive, easily hurt and disregulated, highly intelligent and talented in many areas where we have special interests. Mine are currently digital painting and learning everything I can about metabolism and therapeutic ketosis.  My work is my social life.  This is true for many of us on the spectrum.  But not everyone with deep sensitivities are on the spectrum.  Some of us are just born with the tendency for fear and anxiety, and are more likely to be damaged by trauma.  Men and women might react differently, but both can fall victimized by trauma.  

The reason I suspect trauma damage is when I see the symptoms outlined in part 1.  Those symptoms are usually an attempt to deal with trauma damage.  In the language of autism, they are stimming attempts to help regulate the system whether it is throwing up a meal, cutting, or becoming a powerful politician who is dominated by the need for success, power and retribution.  The reactions to trauma are varied and complex, but treatment is generally the same.  I believe that we need to develop a compassionate relationship with our own trauma and learn helpful and healthy ways to re regulate ourselves when we are triggered into disregulation. 

In part 3 I will share more about treatment and share some case histories with you, so stay tuned.

Until then, be well

Michele

mhappenow.happe@gmail.com  775 230-1507 

TRAUMA..Its effects and its manifestations part 1

Trauma doesn't go away, it morphs.  It can morph in both positive and negative ways.  Trauma affects different people in totally different ways.  Highly sensitive people are usually more profoundly affected than others but I will get into that later.  My way of helping people deal with trauma is to work on developing a relationship with it which can at first be very threatening and traumatic yielding tears or sometimes anger.  

A very common reaction to dealing with trauma without help and guidance is to attempt to bury it, hide it, lie about it, and overall try to forget about it.  What we know about these techniques is "what we resist persists". This is how trauma morphs into negative outcomes.  I'll list some of the ways these negative outcomes emerge.  Keep in mind that all of these outcomes are vain attempts to regulate oneself, but unfortunately only serve to disregualate in the end.  In other words, what originally "solves" the problem eventually becomes the problem.

Substance Abuse alcohol and drugs

Eating Disorders, anorexia, compulsive eating and purging of food.

Codependency, abandoning self in favor of others to our detriment.

Depression leading to isolation and a numbing effect

Anxiety causing further avoidance of triggers leading to isolation   

Narcissism seeing oneself as a victim and seeking retribution.

Sociopathy similar to Narcissim where retribution morphs into criminality by

    becoming an sexual abuser or rapist

    becoming a violent abuser

    becoming a murderer

    Borderline Personality Disorder where lack of a self base creates disregulated manipulating

        behavior which creates a come here go away dynamic.  

When I meet with a client we make a list of all the issues they are dealing with and want help with.  If I see any of the above I work with providing a safe and supportive environment where trust and therautic bonding can take place. Once I see that there is good rapport and respect I ask about trauma.  I think most of us experience trauma in our history.  Being trained in Drug and Alcohol Addiction and Eating Disorders very few clients are without any trauma.  When I account a client with anti social issues I help them define them which angers or irritates them causing them to quit working with me.  This is my intention because 1) I don't like to be conned and 2) counseling or coaching these types is generally not helpful to healing with is rare and usually only gives them better methods to con and hurt others who they generally see as objects and are only capable of transactional relationships. 

To be continued in. Part 2...The Susceptible

Be well

Michele

mhappenow.happe@gmail.com  775 230-1507