Hi aVoid

I’m glad that you have maintained the healthy relationships with your family and have created boundaries with the less healthy relationships.

It’s good to hear that you are pursuing therapy. I used to believe that therapists didn’t care, but the reality is that they could do any job for money. They choose to commit their lives to helping others. They care. I can understand wanting a therapist that understands. I’d like to share with you the benefits of a therapist that doesn’t understand.

I had a therapist with very few experiences of trauma in her life. She had a huge amount of empathy for the suffering of others. She was very clear that the experiences of trauma were unhealthy and able to clearly articulate why and encourage me to set boundaries.

I totally understand the habit of ruminating at night. At the end of the day we all have a natural tendency to reflect. But with trauma, it’s a very painful and difficult habit to change. Have you been ruminating at night since childhood? Was there a reason you did this?

For me, as a child I believed falsely that my actions during the day were the reason why I was abused. I thought if I could plan to do things perfectly I would succeed in preventing the abuse.

With PTSD the mechanism causing intrusive memories is avoidance. Not wanting to feel the pain, which is a human and understandable reaction. Being willing to face the discomfort of your trauma and process the feelings in time will help you let these memories stay where they belong, in the past. A good trauma therapist will help you with this.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏