episode 219
“Too much trauma for therapy?”
On episode 219 of "Ask Kati Anything," Kati Morton, a licensed therapist, delves deeply into trauma therapy. This week's discussion covers how to begin trauma work, whether there is ever too much trauma for therapy to handle, and the challenges we face in changing our mindsets. Kati also shares methods for showing our bodies compassion, explores the possibility of erasing memories, and provides advice on coping with changes in eating disorders. Tune in for valuable insights and practical advice on navigating trauma and mental health.
This is a transcript of Ask Kati Anything podcast episode your mental health podcast #219 Please note that the transcript is computer generated, and may have errors.
Ask Kati Anything episode #219
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Ask Kati Anything. I'm your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, Kati Morton. I'm so glad that you're here. In today's episode, I am going to talk a lot about trauma therapy. I'm going to dive into how to start our trauma work. If there's ever a thing as too much trauma for therapy and why, it can be so hard for us to change our own minds, then I'm going to explain why we can, or the ways that we can show our body some compassion, whether or not we can actually erase memories, and what we can do when our eating disorder shape shifts.
Without further ado, let's get into this first question. Hey, Kati, can you please talk about opening up to your therapist when you have a nervous laugh, dark humor, and even darker trauma? I've only just started diving into my trauma and therapy, and I don't know how to properly articulate how everything is affecting me. I just laugh and make jokes because I can't let myself cry in front of people. I actually still wait for my fiancé to go to sleep before I cry, unless I get too overwhelmed. And it happens automatically. And I know that's not going to help me move past anything. Please help. Thank you. Now there's an add on to this, but let's just jump right in. What you're experiencing is incredibly normal. I don't think we talk enough about the fact that defense mechanisms are everywhere. In therapy. They come up all the time. It's like a minefield in essentially your ways of coping or your defense mechanisms are dark humor and nervous laughter. That's so incredibly common. I cannot tell you the amount of members of our community, as well as patients I've had in the past where when they're talking about something tough, they laugh because they don't know what else to do with it. And often if they don't laugh, they feel like they'll cry. And it's not uncommon. And it's also not uncommon to not want to cry in front of people. And so I guess my main words of advice or my tips for you is instead of trying to push through this and feel like you have to have all the answers, you have to figure out how to stop doing this. Let your therapist know this is coming up and you're aware. I don't know if you feel like you could say that, but a good thing to let your therapist know would be to say something like, hey, I'm sure you've realized this or noticed this, but when I'm talking about something really difficult, I tend to laugh. And I don't like that I do it, but it's just the way that I do it. Or I don't like crying in front of people. Let your therapist know about these things. We don't have to. Meaning we as the patient. We don't have to have the answers. We don't have to know how to stop doing something we don't like. We just have to show up and be as honest as we can in the moment about what's coming up for us or what's going on inside of us. That's the information your therapist is looking for. So they can take it and then ask better questions. Maybe, I don't know, offer you some grounding techniques. Have you journal a little bit about like what is it about crying that is so makes you so distressed or feel so vulnerable? Or what is it that comes up for you when you do cry in front of people? Like you said, sometimes it'll happen automatically in front of your fiancé. What do you tell yourself about those experiences? Right. Your therapist is going to have a lot of questions about this process and struggles that you're going through, and that is our path forward. I know for a lot of us we can think, but my goal is to process the trauma or my goal is to feel less anxious. Of course, those are long term goals, but along the way, along the path to those long term goals, we have a lot of short term goals, and a short term goal could be get better at talking about things without making jokes. Feel more comfortable crying in front of someone else, right? Those are things along our path to the ultimate goal that we can still set and we can still work towards. And so I really want to encourage you to let your therapist know this is happening, happening. And I just want you to know that it is incredibly common. These are defense mechanisms. They're there to protect us in a lot of ways. Our brain and nervous system thinks that by doing this, by making the jokes, by laughing by it, all of that, that it's helping keep us safe. That is preventing us from sorry, we have naps in our house and it just got me in the face. you know, we have a way of protecting ourselves from feeling really vulnerable and putting up these defense mechanisms, like making jokes and laughing helps us feel a little bit more removed, a little safer, almost like then people in our lives will think we're okay and they'll stop asking questions. Or, you know, I don't want to be a downer. Or maybe we were told growing up that by crying or showing emotion that we were it was somehow wrong, right? It could have been like, we get in trouble for it. We could have been told to cry, baby, we're too sensitive. Why are we always doing things like that? We could have been shamed and blamed for it. And so now when it's actually healthy and we should be doing it, it's going to feel hard and bad, right? So I just want to say all that to let you know it's incredibly common and you will move through it. Just take some time. Just let your therapist know this is coming up for you. And there was an add on some as an add on about trauma. How can I let go of my traumatic experiences? Despite trauma focused work in therapy, I still find it hard to let go of my past, because therapy is the first time I've ever really talked about my trauma and got validation for how bad I felt at the time. I also still experienced the feelings of that time when the trauma happened. When I think about my trauma now, when it comes to letting go of our traumatic experiences, talk therapy, like I've said before, only works for about 40% of us, so that leaves more than half, about 60% of us with traumatic symptoms or PTSD like symptoms. Right. And so even though you've done some trauma focused work in therapy, if you feel like you can't let go of your traumatic experiences and when you say let go, I'm not sure what you mean, but I want to tell you what the goal of trauma work is is to give our brains and body another opportunity to process what happened and not feel so emotionally charged about it, meaning that we're not so easily triggered, we're not so easily sent in to fight flight or dissociating. We don't have the body memories anymore. and if we do have any of these symptoms, they're very few and far in between. It's almost like when we're super stressed out, something might happen, but for the most part, it doesn't affect our day to day life. Right? It's like the way I would almost describe moving through any kind of transition or difficult experience or grief, even for me, it's really, really bad. And then as I keep talking about it kind of lessens. But there's still times when I have a tough day or I still miss somebody right? And that's kind of how we should look at our trauma experiences. It's not that you have to let go of them. We have to kind of feel our way through it and get it to a place where it's not as dysregulated because we feel like, yeah, I've already talked about that. Yeah, it happened right. It doesn't feel so more overwhelming. And so, because you've done some trauma focused work on my hypothesis is that we need a different type of therapy. This could be somatic experiencing, could be eMDR, could be parts work, could just be a different therapist. I know personally sometimes I'll have a great therapist. Like I love my therapist Janna for many years, but then I started to feel like I need a little more tough love. And so I switched. And then when I moved here, I wanted someone who did something I don't know anything about because I can sometimes get in my own way. So I found someone who did eMDR right. So there's all sorts of different things that we can do. And so I'd encourage you to look into different types of therapy and hope that that will bring you closer to this place where you don't feel like it's still happening, because the fact that you still feel like you're experiencing it when you talk about it tells me that it's it hasn't gotten. Now I want to say better, but it hasn't gotten fully better. We haven't let go of it in the way that you're wanting right. There was another add on. It says, how do you know if trauma work in therapy is going too fast? Could, for example, feeling overwhelmed and emotionally dysregulated at home for most of the time be a sign? It could be. I would say that we know trauma therapy is going too fast when we feel so dysregulated during and after sessions, and it's really, really hard for us to come out of it. We often have to wait until like the full next day before we feel better, or if we feel like we can't stay present, we dissociate every time. Then that means the trauma therapy isn't actually working because we're not present right? If we feel retraumatized meaning if we feel like it's happening to us again, those are all bad signs. Those are all signs that it's going too fast. And so if you think that because you said you feel overwhelmed and emotionally dysregulated at home for most of the time, did this happen before therapy? If not, I'd let them know this is happening because that could be an indication of it. Like you said, could this be a sign? Yes it could. but talk to your therapist about it. Let them know you're having these experiences as a therapist. We might we can read people really well, but we can often miss things. We might not realize that you're so dysregulated or not realize that you're feeling so overwhelmed when you're at home, like after session. And so that's helpful for us to know so we can slow things down, possibly work on building up some of our coping skills or resources right. So that we have we're better able to manage when times get tough. So yes, that could be a sign. Those are some of the ways that we know therapies, working to fast and hopefully that helps. And if just to summarize some ways to know if therapy is moving too fast, as we feel constantly dysregulated in and out of session, we dissociate. It's hard for us to stay present. We can be pushed into panic attacks, and we just overall feel like it's happening to us again, like a retraumatize traumatization. Those are all signs. Therapy's going too fast and we should let our therapist know this is happening.
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Okay, let's another question. Number two. This question says too much trauma for therapy. Question mark. Hi Kati, I've sought out two trauma based therapists who have both told me that they aren't equipped to handle my level of trauma. So bizarre. For reference, I had sexual abuse from ages 8 to 16 ish at plus a pregnancy and subsequent loss as a young teen and dissociation during that time. Of course, no DPD or depersonalization D realization did, which is dissociative identity disorder used to be called multiple personality disorder. So none of that. So what do you do when it seems like you've got too much for professionals to handle? On one hand, I know that can't be true. It's not true. And on the other hand, it reinforces the idea that you're too damaged to be better. I'd love to hear your insight. Thank you for your for the awareness that you bring to mental health. Of course. Okay, this frankly pisses me off for a therapist to say they're not equipped to handle your level of trauma. I mean, I get I get what they're saying, which really means I would argue that maybe they're not trauma. They're not specialists because to say that. Okay, so much to unpack. First of all, I get really, really pissed off with the fact that a lot of therapists will put on their website or online that they can deal with all sorts of issues, like, I think it's a red flag. If you have a therapist that lists like 20 things that they quote unquote specialize in, it's not possible. We frankly don't have enough hours in the day to do enough research or in-person work with people who have specific issues. It's just not possible. Sure, we can have a few, and a lot of people will say anxiety and depression. Those are incredibly common. And those often come along with things like eating disorder, self-injury, addiction, all sorts of stuff. Right. So there are some things that I believe most therapists can treat and are adequate at doing. But trauma is one like I would not call myself a trauma specialist. I would call myself a trauma informed therapist. I'm very acutely aware, but I'm not a specialist. I know that there trauma based therapist. I'm wondering what they mean by that, to be honest, because to say that they can't handle your level of trauma, I would argue your level of trauma is unfortunately, incredibly common. I don't even think I would refer you out. I may want adjunctive treatment from, like my friend Doctor Alex Altman who does eMDR, somatic experiencing, something like that, potentially. but yeah, that I don't understand. I honestly think that they maybe just aren't taking any more trauma patients or aren't actually trauma based in the way that they say, I don't know what they would expect to get when it comes to patients who are seeking trauma care. Like, again, I'm not this isn't a good thing. But unfortunately, sexual abuse is incredibly common in situations like that are common. I've seen patients myself with very similar backgrounds. That doesn't seem like too much to me, so those are my thoughts overall on it. And I'm wondering how how educated they actually are on trauma and if they are specialized or not, or what they mean by that, because I don't know what they expected to see when they say they're going to see trauma patients like a car crash, I don't know. I'm not downplaying car crashes. I'm just saying that, like, this is what I saw in my office most of the time. I'm so sorry that you've received those messages. I encourage you if you have any gumption left in you, reach out for somebody else. Find somebody different. It's not. It's it's no indication of you or how you're doing. It's an indication of their own lacking. Right? The fact that they aren't able to treat trauma like they said they could. They clearly aren't, you know, aren't equipped. And that's not on you. That's on them. That'd be like me saying I can treat autism and I can't, you know. And so I see someone who comes in with autism spectrum disorder. Then I'm like, oh, this is too high of a level for me that because any level we do have a level for me, right? I don't specialize in that. yeah. I'm so sorry. I wish I had more to say to it. I just want you to know that this is no fault of yours. You're not too broken for help. You, unfortunately, found two clinicians who don't know how to actually help trauma patients. And they should not put that on their sites or say that they're trauma based because they're clearly not. And the comment on that says, I can relate to believing that I'm too damaged to get better, had to change therapists due to other circumstances, on the one hand, and due to the need for more intensive care on the other. But neither inpatient or outpatient therapy helped me to overcome my struggles. It helped me to understand my symptoms of complex PTSD due to sexual abuse in childhood, and I can better deal with some of them, for example, self-harm urges or dissociation. But I'm not able to get a grip on my eating disorder. Nothing seems to work out for good. How do you keep up your hopes and the motivation to battle your mental health disorder? When every therapeutic approach seems to fail? I first of all, I'm so sorry that you've done all this work and you're still feeling like shit. I get, I feel, I'm sorry. I just hate that. I feel like my colleagues have let you down. But I do want to tell you that the fact that you can already deal better with some of those symptoms is those are huge steps. Let's not discredit that or pretend like that's not a huge deal and that you haven't done a ton of work, so give yourself some kudos. but when it comes to our eating disorder, I feel like there's always one coping skill we have the hardest time getting rid of. Could be eating disorder, could be self-harm, could be overspending, could be gambling, could be addiction. Stuff like alcohol, drugs, blah blah, could be any number of those things. But there's always one that we kind of prefer and this might be yours. And so my encouragement for you would be to seek out specifically eating disorder treatment. A lot of times doing the trauma work is is a piece of it. But if we don't have actually eating disorder support from a therapist, a dietitian, it's still going to hang around because even, you know, because obviously it's not like all of your PTSD symptoms are gone. You have better ways to manage them. So they still come up. So then the reason that our eating disorder exists is still there. So that makes sense. It's like it exists because of the trauma. We still have symptoms of the trauma. Therefore it still exists. And so we need someone to help us specifically with our eating disorder. Because eating disorders and trauma go hand-in-hand. I think that's why I would consider myself, you know, like trauma informed. and also pick up the book eating in the light of the moon. It's a beautiful book. I cannot recommend it enough. and you can find at my Amazon shop, you can go to Amazon.com, forward slash shop, forward slash Kati Morton, and you can find it in there. It's a dark blue cover. Okay, hang in there. I know it's hard to stay motivated, but you've done a lot of work. Sometimes it helps to be reminded of how far you've come. We can look ahead and be like, I'm not where I want to be, but you've come so far, you've done so much. So maybe take a minute this week to just jot down all of the things that have improved and all of the work you've done to get there.
Okay, let's move on. Question number three. This question is. Hi Kati, I hope you're doing well. I am I hope you're doing well. So my question is why is it so hard for me to change my mind? I feel once I agree to do something for or with someone, I don't feel like I can change my mind. I feel like sometimes this is due to not wanting to disappoint others. So people pleasing maybe for example, going shopping with a friend, agreeing to pick up an extra shift at work, etc. etc. but other times I don't really know why. I can't tell people that I want to change my mind. For example, due to past experiences with sexual harassment in school. I don't like being touched in particular ways. I was 27 when I had my first intimate encounter with a guy that I was dating, and I was up for it, and I prepared myself by telling myself this was safe, I'm okay, etc. knowing that sometimes being touched in particular ways can make me uncomfortable. I was fine at first, but found he was being just a little too heavy handed and rough and was experience and I was experiencing pain. So I asked him to calm down a bit and he did. But I suddenly started to feel like I wasn't into it. I wasn't enjoying myself. I wanted to stop, but I didn't feel able to say, I've changed my mind. Everything was consensual. But I was so disappointed in myself for not verbalizing that I did want to stop. Okay, so this isn't really about trying to change the way that our mind works. It's about us telling someone that we don't want to do something anymore that we thought we did, but we don't. I believe this comes from possibly I mean, I assume it's people pleasing at the very least, but there is a potential for it to be more of our fan response, which should come out of the of trauma. Because you did mention in here that, you know, due to, you know, sexual harassment, in school that you don't like to be touched in particular ways. And so that's definitely traumatic. And so that could be our fan response, which if you don't know, our stress response, otherwise known as fight or flight, happens when our body feels threatened physically or emotionally. Right. And we talk about fight flight all the time. But there's also freeze aka dissociation and form and fall is when we extremely people please, as in hopes that if we please this person enough, they won't hurt us again. And so I have a feeling there's maybe some of these things swirling around for you that the the concern for disappointing someone else for saying yes and then no. We worry what that's going to do, what they're going to feel. And that like I said, could come from trauma. I also find my patients who don't have very good boundaries in their family growing up also struggle with this. And what I mean by that is when we grow up in a family without boundaries, we often feel like other people's emotions are our emotions, or there's some responsibility that we have for how other people feel. We call that measurement, and that means there's just no boundaries between us. What's yours is mine, what's mine is yours, and so we can get caught up in it. And that means that if we think we're going to let someone down, we feel responsible already for how they feel. So then we don't want to let them down, right? Why would I want to take on that more responsibility for that? Why would I want to hurt them? And so then we can essentially light ourselves on fire to keep somebody else warm. And that's kind of what's happening here, is we're not saying no even the way we want to. And so my encouragement for you is to first start noticing. And you kind of already have the ways in which this comes up for you. And I want you to be curious, not judgmental about how you would feel. So as you even write out these examples like, okay, picking up an extra shift at work, let's say that we did say we'd pick it up, and then the next day we're like, you know what? I'm overworked, overworked, I'm burnt out. And we call in and we're like, you know what I said? I pick up that shift. I can't, I'm too burnt out. I'm overwhelmed. I need I need a day off. That's my only day off. What comes up for us? Because we can play imaginary all the time. It helps us kind of prepare. What would we feel? What would we think? What do we are worried they're going to think? And then once we kind of have done that a couple of times, I say 2 or 3 times 2 or 3 different scenarios. I want you to consider if we think this comes from the bullying, the sexual harassment in school, or if we think it comes from like our family dynamics and measurement, where do we think it comes from? And let your therapist know, because a lot of the work to get out of this is going to be, first of all, us recognizing the triggers, you know, and what causes us to put other people first, then the next thing can be challenging ourselves to change our behavior, to say no, to say, I said I could, but I can't. and then here's the growth piece is can we sit with that discomfort of, oh, I might have I might have upset them. They might be disappointed. Oh, maybe that swirls. Maybe we start thinking like, I think maybe I'm a bad person. No, no, no, we argue back. No, no. Can we sit with that discomfort and can we let it pass. Because that's where the real growth happens. That's the difficulty in therapy. It's always the ability to sit with something without running away. And running away means going back to that behavior that we don't want to do, like, oh no, no, no, no, no, I lied. I'll do it, I'll do it too. Don't worry. We waffle back and forth as we try to figure out how to say no. Right. Can we sit with it? And that might mean we need some resources. We need some other coping skills. We need ways to argue back. All of that is going to be important. but that's going to kind of be that process in get feeling more able to say no or to change our mind when we do, you know, when we need to. I hope that makes sense.
Okay. Let's move on to question number four. So my question is how can I show my body compassion? I was approved to go to PHP at center for Discovery in Southern California. I've worked with them a lot. Great great centers. Well, I'm grateful beyond belief that medi or Medi-Cal Medicare is covered is covering it. I have so many mixed emotions. I said before that I was born with spina bifida. From day one, my body has not fully functioned, but I'm at the point where I'm probably on no less than 15 medications, mostly for my GI tract. Yeah, I was wondering about that and meds for my back after just having my eighth spine surgery in March. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'm terrified of what curveballs my body will throw at me while I'm in this program. Someone will be calling me tomorrow with the hours in the days that I'll be attending. I've already felt so. I felt such anger in my living situation and what my body has put me through to this point. Like how do I relax and a separate myself from triggers at home? And b listen to what my body needs? I'm kind of currently stressed out or stressed out basket case right now. I'm sure I have more I could ask you, but this whole radical acceptance of my body and my living situation in life has me so stressed out. Thank you for all you do. I share your channel and website with people all the time. That's wonderful. Thank you. okay, first of all. You've been through a lot. You have to allow yourself time to acknowledge that. I find that often, especially when we have, like, medical complications or we've been dealing with the mental illness for really long time. We don't ever just acknowledge. Yeah, it's been a lot. I've been overwhelmed. This is medically traumatic. I've had eight spine surgeries, I feel overwhelmed, I feel traumatized, I feel like my body is out of my control and right. That's all. A piece of your eating disorder, I would presume. And I have to tell you that it's okay when you're talking to the center for discovery to ask all your questions about things that you struggle with, say, just so you're aware, as I'm sure they are, but it's okay for you to advocate for yourself. I have spinal bifida. That means this, that, and the other. For me, that also means I'm on a lot of medications. What happens if I have a flare up or an issue when I'm in treatment? Ask them. We can be prepared. It's okay. And I really believe that getting you into a PFP, into, if anybody does know, PHP stands for Partial Hospitalization Program. That means we usually go for the day and go home in the evening, and we can go from anywhere from 3 to 6 days a week, just depending the benefits of a PHP program. As we get more emotional and therapeutic support throughout our days, not to mention more support around food, all of which is going to be incredibly helpful for you. But it is okay to ask them questions about what's going to happen. You know, with your body what happens if you have a flare? What did they do? You should feel prepared. You should feel taken care of. So ask all those questions. I can just tell you from my own experience working at centers such as center for discovery, that they are prepared for things like that and they will make sure there was. We always had a nurse on staff at the treatment centers I worked up. There's always, you know, tons of therapists around for the therapeutic component, but there is medical care available readily. We had a doctor come in twice a week, I think. I know that's not always going to be you might need an emergency, but that we can do that to. So ask them. and when it comes to the recovery from your eating disorder, I have a feeling a lot of it is tied up in your spinal bifida, in the chronic illness that you're struggling with. And I just I want to say, if you don't hear this from anybody else, at least want you to hear it, that it's okay to talk about that and to talk about the relationship with that. Because for so many of my patients, this feeling like we don't have control over our own body or like we don't have the ability to decide certain things because our body's just doing what it's doing. it can lead us to trying to reach for something to help us feel more sense of agency, more sense of control over ourselves, and that's when we develop an eating disorder or self-injury or both. I've had patients struggle with a lot of those things. So speak up about that. let's dig into that. I think that that is where your healing is going to come from. And I also, again, like I said in the other question, I can't encourage you enough to pick up the book eating in the light of the moon. It's beautiful. I love it so much.
Okay, let's move on to question number five. Question number five says, hi Kati, thanks for all that you do. Of course I'm back with my question that will hopefully be chosen this time. Always know that you can ask your questions as many times as you need. I try to get through as many of them as I can. There's nothing wrong with asking it. Week after week. I also know that if I heart a question, that means it will be answered. And I am two weeks ahead right now. Okay, so it is as follows. What are the chances that I could completely erase some traumatic episodes from my memory? I do eMDR and it seems like we are searching for something with my therapist, but at times I just feel like there isn't anything there and I don't have any specific memories of those traumatic events. I do remember facts of consistent, symptomatic or systematic physical and emotional abuse, but not too many specific episodes that we could process in our sessions. My therapist also suspects sexual abuse based on some of my symptoms and or reactions, but I really have no memory of that. Could it really be the case that I suppress sexual trauma so much that I don't remember even a little thing about it, considering that the sexual abuse had been supposedly done by another family member, could my mind deny it out of protection? Yes it could. Or could it just be her misinterpretation of the symptoms? I believe I cannot accuse my family members of something I don't remember they had done. I do remember lots of physical and emotional abuse, and I accept this as part of my experience. But no matter how I try to dig deeper into memories, I rarely can remember more specific, detailed cases. I guess because the abuse is, on the daily basis, possible and furthermore, find any evidence or clues of sexual abuse. I'd really appreciate your insight on this issue and the way it's approached in my therapy. Thanks a million. There's another comment on this. I'm going to read it because they're closely aligned, so I can relate as mine is very similar. I suspect I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse in early childhood, and I don't have a specific memory of it. But after doing in her childhood group my therapist, I realized I've had many signs. But the only red flag memory I have is of being scared of a guy at church approaching me playfully at me, bursting into tears. I had a visceral reaction to this memory with tremors and tears. Soon after, I started having night terrors and panic attacks. But I also wonder if those signs could be explained from just being sensitive and having religious, emotionally neglectful caretakers. We'll talk about this. As an older child, I know I was sexually abused, but I cannot recall hardly any details of the incidents, only memories of the confusing trauma bond that resulted. I feel like the more I try to remember, the less I remember and believe in myself. Anyway, I feel like I see this trend where I forget the worst of the trauma completely and only recall the sense that it happened with a few memories to suggest it. I feel like I need validation of what happened because I keep getting stuck on needing to know and doubting. Thank you so much. Okay, first of all, it's really important to know that lack of memory or like spotty memory at best when it comes to trauma is incredibly common. And here's why. Because when we are overwhelmed and we are in such a state of threat and we cannot fight or flight, we can't run and we can't fight that, right? Which is often the case when we're younger, because where are we going to run to? And we're often smaller and weaker than the perpetrator? Okay, we go into a free state or a foreign state, but most often freeze and freeze causes us to dissociate. It's incredibly common for it to cause us to dissociate. But what happens when we dissociate? We often have what is called a dissociative fugue, which is when we don't remember chunks of things. It's because our brain has pulled the ripcord on reality. We're kind of removed from self and environment, and we're like, we can't really form memory, which is why dissociation will impede trauma work itself. Because if we're dissociated, we can't recall and we can't process because we're not present and in the same on the same hand, like the second side of the same coin is that if we're dissociated when an event happens, we may not actually form a memory of it. It just depends. Depends on our brain and body depends on it. How dissociated we are, how present are we. And that's why we can have these little like flashes. Like one of my patients said it was like flipping through a photo book, like a jump to different scenes of things and maybe even different years. And she was like, I don't really have any cohesive memories, like any stories that I could tell you now, some of it we could recall through working together, like we were able to dig in and remember other bits that we thought were lost. But for a lot of it, it cannot be recalled. We don't actually have the memory. So it's not that you can erase a memory from a traumatic memory from your brain. It's like that memory never existed. And I know that's really hard to hear. I talked about it with my good friend, Doctor Alex Altman, who's a trauma specialist, and she explained it just as I explained it to you, that when we're dissociated, we often can't form memory, that long term memory is gone. And so that's why it's not there. It doesn't mean that something didn't happen. It doesn't mean that we don't deserve trauma help and support and work on a recovery that doesn't mean any of that. It just means that our brain wasn't able to form long term memory. So as we try to dig into it in therapy, we're kind of left with nothing, or maybe just little blips or little blurs or the body memories. And so what I encourage you to do with eMDR specifically, this first part of the question is to go with how you feel about something. Can you. And this might not be possible, but just throwing it out there can you experience it in your body? Even though we don't have a memory in our mind about it, when you bring up the things that you're bring up in your therapist, you talk about what you're talking about, what comes up for you, if, you know, could even be like, if we watch a Law and Order SVU. Oh, does it trigger us in some way? For this particular case, I'm just throwing out an example. and we can we bring that up in therapy because we can go with those feelings. Like at least my own experience in eMDR, she would have me recall memories. But also, once we had that core memory that we were working on, a lot of it was, can you tell me what your where your brain took you this time? What did you feel? What did you think? Then she'd say, go with that experience and then we'd move on and we keep doing the buzzers. Right. So it doesn't mean that you have to have this memory necessarily. We can go with how it feels and go with that body memory or the emotions that come up with it. And that's where we get, you know, the processing them. That's how we heal. Now, obviously, we don't want to accuse family members of things we don't remember. No one said, you have to, but it sounds like it's very possible that you were sexually abused by you know, that that did happen. Now, your therapist isn't going to be able to tell you who, but our reactions to specific situations and people can tell us something about it. And I think for a lot of us, we you know, we don't it's like we we aren't sure because of the lapses in memory and family can be really tricky, like you said. Could I have pushed it down because, you know, I didn't want to. I didn't want to bring it up because it was family. Like, could I deny it out of protection for my family? I think it's a language you use, and the answer is yes, because when we're a kid, all we have is our family, for better or for worse, right? We don't have anywhere else we know where we could live. We don't have anywhere else we can go there. That's the norm that we know. And so it's very common for us to pretend that it didn't happen, push it down, move through it, even though what happened was incredibly abusive and damaging. so I encourage you, instead of worrying about, you know, calling someone out on it or accusing anyone, let's go with that experience. Let's process what's coming up for you in your body, what what emotional or physical response you having, and let's work on that. Because, you know, there clearly are signs and symptoms that something happened. We don't have a memory of it. And that doesn't mean that a it didn't happen or be that we aren't worthy of getting care for because you are worthy of feeling better. You're worthy of getting this care. So let's work with what we've got. And I'm sorry. I hate that memories are often not formed when we have trauma. I think it's one of the most painful pieces of this work. Okay, let's move on to our final question.
Question number six. This question says, hi, Kati, how do I stop over eating sweets? Interesting question. I was anorexic for a couple of years and have physically recovered. Notice it was physically recovered, not mentally, but now it seems that my eating disorder has gone. Gone in the opposite direction. That's incredibly common. I have meals, although sometimes minimal ones, and I find that I eat overeat foods that I'm ashamed of, usually sweets or junk food when I'm alone or at night. I have a bad habit of counting calories still, but I'm constantly overeating and not accounting for them on my calorie tracker. I feel ashamed and then just hope to do better the next day. I suspect that counting and wanting to lose weight is still a major trigger for my overeating of sweets. It is 100%, but I'm so terrified to let go. I'm so ashamed of my body. I feel disgusting and I compare myself to others bodies constantly. Although I have regained weight, I'm still so mentally disordered and I need help. What is the root of this and or how can I get to it? What can I do to stop feeling so miserable in the cycle? I'm so sorry that you're going through this. It's incredibly common. Unfortunately for our eating disorders to shift shapes, to go from bulimia to binge eating disorder to anorexia and all sorts of orders and back and forth and whatever, because the eating disorder is not about the food. Right? I said it before, it's not about the fucking food. It's about what the the control, quote unquote, control over our bodies gives us. It can help us numb out. It can help us distract in some way from what's going on or what we're really feeling. It can give us something to focus on or feel in control of. When other things in our life feel out of control, right? There can be a lot of reasons behind our eating disorder behavior, and so we have to figure out what that reason is for you. What is it that you think caused your eating disorder? Have we gotten into that yet? Because that is it. The very like that's a huge pillar of eating disorder treatment is us figuring out why it exists in the first place. What does it give us? It's a coping skills. So what's it helping us cope with? And therein lies your work. Now in the meantime, when it comes to your main question like how do I stop overeating sweets? It's not really about the sweets, and I'm not even going to give you any advice on that because you guys know I don't like diets and I don't believe in good or bad foods. I believe in intuitive eating and when it comes to eating disorder recovery, we can't just gain weight and feel like that or lose weight and that's we're cured. It's more about what's going up in our mind, what's happening in our heads, what are we feeling emotionally? Why do you overeat and why is it at night? My hypothesis would be that at night we have less distractions in other ways, like we can be distracted by work or school or friends or family, but then at night it's just us with our thoughts and fuck if we want to feel those or think those, right? So we want to numb out. We binge, but then we get in this shame spiral. And so we need to get you some eating disorder treatment. That means a therapist who understands eating disorders. It's okay to ask them, you know, did they ever work in a treatment center? It says you specialize in eating disorders. How many eating disorder patients have you seen in the last year? Those are all fair questions to ask. What trainings did you do to specialize in this? It's fair to ask, I would have I mean, you know, I've worked in three different treatment centers. I've, you know, I did a ton of see, use, continue education. I've worked with. I don't even know how many patients write it. That should be an easy question for them to answer. So ask them about it. Tell them you know you're looking for someone for specific to eating disorders and know that sorry, this is really driving me crazy. and that's how we're going to start the work. I also obviously love that book eating in the light of the moon. You can pick that up, but I would encourage you as well to find a dietitian who works with eating disorder patients, and you might want to wait until you find a therapist who specializes in eating disorders, because we'll know which ones are good or bad. Because I have a ton of dietitians in L.A that I used to work with, and so many that I specifically did not because they were too triggering for my eating disorder patients. Did they say they worked with the eating disorder patients? You betcha. Did they know how to do it? Absolutely not. And so we just want to check in. but that's really my advice. Your eating disorder is still raging. It's not really about the sweets. It's about the numbing out. And so we have to find some support and help to work through that. The eating a lot of the mood is a great place to start, but we're going to need some therapy to help us better understand its purpose and come up with other coping skills to replace it. Okay. And if you want to try, you can use the impulse log. I offer in my book traumatize. Also you can go to self-injury. Is it self-injury dot org forward slash self-injury dot org or.com self-injury dot com. And then go to resources and go to impulse log. It's a it's a great it's a great thing to do when you, you're struggling with an impulse to act out in an unhealthy behavior. You're trying to stop. It helps try to get us tapped into what we're really experiencing and why we're trying to numb out. So that's just another tool for now. But I really believe we need to get you into some actual eating disorder treatment. Okay. Thank you all so much for listening and watching. Thank you for sharing this podcast. Thank you for sharing any of my videos. It really, really does help. I also have a ton of workshops available over on my website at Kati morton.com, and if you have other questions that you want answered, I answer them on my Patreon page. Go to Patreon.com forward slash Kati Morton also on my YouTube memberships, I do live streams and answer as many questions as I can four times a month. Okay, have a wonderful rest of your week. Do your homework and I'll see you next time. Good. Hurray! I don't know if you'll hear.
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Here are the loose “chapters” in this episode.
0:38: 💔 Struggling to articulate trauma effects, using humor as a coping mechanism, delaying tears.
3:41: ⚠️ Defense mechanisms like making jokes and laughing can hinder therapy progress due to past conditioning or fear of vulnerability.
7:31: ⚠️ Recognizing signs of trauma therapy moving too fast and not being fully effective.
11:06: ⚠️ Challenges in handling trauma patients due to commonality and therapist limitations.
14:55: 📚 Importance of seeking specific eating disorder treatment in trauma recovery.
18:30: ⚠️ Struggling with boundaries and fear of disappointing others due to past experiences or upbringing.
22:17: 💪 Struggling with health challenges and trauma, seeking guidance on managing stress and triggers.
26:50: ⚖️ Exploring erasing traumatic memories through EMDR therapy and challenges in therapy progress.
29:47: 💭 Dissociation impedes trauma work by causing memory gaps and hindering processing, leading to a disconnected state.
33:31: ⚠️ Importance of acknowledging and processing childhood trauma for healing and self-worth.
37:32: 💡 Importance of seeking specialized therapy for eating disorders and questions to ask therapists.
Recap for https://youtu.be/peVD-qARaRU by Tammy AI
