Trauma Part Two

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Breakthrough

Something that all abuse victims experience is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when you hold conflicting beliefs, such as, “This person is kind and generous and we have a good friendship,” and “this person mistreats me.” Abusers use a tactic called intermittent reinforcement, a type of operant conditioning. Through operant conditioning, a subject learns to associate punishment or reward with a particular behavior. A rat presses a lever and it gets a food pellet reward. Intermittent reinforcement is inconsistent. Sometimes the rat gets a pellet for pressing the lever, and sometimes it doesn’t. There is no more powerful means of altering a subject’s thoughts and behavior. When tested, intermittent reinforcement has been found consistently to be significantly more powerful than continuous reinforcement. It inspires obsessive, self-destructive behavior in favor of seeking the reward. The rat will forego other healthy behaviors, such as grooming or socializing, in favor of pressing the lever until it becomes physically ill.

There are a lot of reasons people stay in abusive relationships, but cognitive dissonance and intermittent reinforcement are significant contributing factors. Abuse victims begin to obsessively seek the kind and generous abuser, as if there are two of them. There are not two of them. If you’re dealing with a toxic person, i.e. a narcissist or a psychopath, they do not feel empathy for you, they will not admit fault, and they have no interest in improving their behavior for you. The kind, generous abuser is the mask they wear to use intermittent reinforcement, which is part of the cycle of abuse. They know you wouldn’t stick around if they were abusive all the time. Some toxic people are acutely aware of how effective intermittent reinforcement is and they use this to their advantage.

My breakthrough came when I dispelled the cognitive dissonance. He was always manipulative, controlling, angry, and cruel. He wore a mask, but he couldn’t wear it forever. Even his “kindnesses” were to gain something: power, control, admiration, praise. Survivors of abuse find themselves missing their abuser, even while knowing the way they were treated made them miserable. I stopped missing the person who almost destroyed me. There was a pall over our “happier” times, and he frequently ruined times that should have been happy. His capacity to ruin moments to the point of turning them traumatic made the calmer times seem heavenly by comparison. They were not. It was a terrible, miserable relationship from the moment I moved in with him.

Therapy

I had to call a lot of therapists before I found one who wasn’t booked up or had a waiting list. I was able to see her to be assessed the same week I was diagnosed with PTSD, which was very fortunate. Our first appointment was an assessment, where she asked me about my symptoms, conditions, diagnoses, and history. My focus right now is recovering from the psychological abuse I endured, but I experienced a significant trauma prior to entering into the toxic relationship, which I believe made me more vulnerable to the tricks of an abuser.

My new therapist, I’ll call her “Saya,” has a lot of experience helping people with trauma. She listened to me, validated me, and answered my questions. She recognizes complex PTSD as a distinct diagnosis with unique challenges. I could tell she’s kind and wants to help, but she is also professional.

My last therapist said things that gave me pause, so I’m glad she left the country so I didn’t have to fire her. She was dismissive when I suggested that I had repressed trauma. (I do.) She was dismissive when I suggested my abuser is a narcissist. (I’m pretty certain he is now, and it doesn’t really matter—how he hurt me is very real.) When I talked about my traumas, she said, “Trauma is an overused word.” She also said there were times when she was so angry at her husband and that she would have left him on train tracks. I don’t feel she’s well-qualified to give relationship advice.

It’s very important to find the right therapist. Therapists are people—they make mistakes, and not all of them are going to be good at their jobs. They have different strengths and assets, and use different approaches, so it was important to me to hire the right person. I’m grateful Saya seems to be the right fit for me.

EMDR

Saya gave me homework. I’m learning about eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which is a treatment that was developed to help people who have memories that are “stuck.” EMDR is used to treat a number of conditions, but it’s particularly helpful for those who have experienced trauma and get stuck reliving that trauma. Trauma can hijack the nervous system, causing a person to feel stuck in a state of anxiety, fear, and depression. Triggers that make a person relive the trauma feel like it’s happening all over again. In 1987, Dr. Francine Shapiro inadvertently discovered that particular eye movements, such as during REM sleep, can help ease these disturbing thoughts and symptoms. Eye movements can be used therapeutically while the patient is awake. It is not understood why this works, it is just known that it helps traumatic memories and triggers feel less traumatic.

There are eight phases to EMDR, and Saya and I have covered phase one, the biopsychosocial examination. As part of phase one, she also wants me to complete a worksheet documenting my five most positive memories, beginning at the earliest and working up to the most current. Phase two, at our next appointment, will be the preparation phase, where we discuss my coping mechanisms and get into the actual EMDR. I’ve been in a state of hypervigilant anxiety, holding every muscle in my body tight, for the past six years. Some people report feeling better after the first treatment, and I hope that’s the case for me.