|
I.
NUMBNESS
Description:
 |
This
is a period of emotional numbness.
|
|
Trauma
survivors know something happened but their feelings are shut down and
out of reach.
|
|
They
may try to deny the extent of the impact of the loss in an effort to
make it feel less threatening and more manageable.
|
|
Emotional
numbness or shutdown, if unresolved, can become a part of the
operating organization of the self, impairing a person's ability to be
deeply intimate or to interact with people and situations in a
spontaneous and attuned manner.
|
|
Emotional
numbness can create what appears to be rigidity or dullness in the
personality.
|
|
A
person who is numb or shut down has difficulty being emotionally
spontaneous and present in a relationship.
|
Inner
thoughts and emotions:
|
"It
didn't happen"
|
|
"It's
not that bad"
|
|
"This
isn't my life"
|
|
"It's
all a bad dream"
|
Consequences
of not working through this stage:
|
A
survivor can shut down apart of themselves, becoming emotionally numb
and unavailable for deep feeling on a consistent basis.
|
|
Deep
connection or feelings may occur sporadically, but maintaining a
connection with this deeper part of self or a deep connection with
others can feel threatening.
|
|
Spontaneity
may be undermined, and people who have not worked through this stage
can seem rigid or unable to react easily and appropriately in the here
and now.
|
|
They
may have difficulty identifying what they are feeling and
communicating that to another person they are in relationship with
because their feelings are somewhat of a mystery to them.
|
|
They
need to deny, repress, ignore or skip over their true emotional
response so quickly and automatically that they can't feel this
feeling and identify it.
|
|
Their
reactions may take on either a "staged quality" (i.e.
"What should I be feeling now?") or a wooden quality showing
little affect.
|
|
Emotional
numbness leaves a person "going through the motions: with little
feeling attached.
|
II.
YEARNING AND SEARCHING
Description:
|
This stage is marked by a
yearning for the lost object (person, situation) and searching for it
in other people, places and things.
|
|
"Ghosting" or the
sense of a continuing presence of the lost object may be experienced.
|
|
There is a deep yearning for
what was lost--be it a stage of life, a part of the self or a
person--followed by a searching for a way to replace the lost
experience.
|
|
In this period, trauma
survivors are at risk for rebound relationships and rash attempts to
"replace" what was lost rather than process and integrate
the loss.
|
|
At this stage, it is easy to
trade one relationship for another on the rebound.
|
|
The unresolved yearning can
leave someone literally going through life trying to replace what was
lost in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, or in the case of
abstinence from addiction to drugs or alcohol, replacing the lost
drugs and alcohol with food, sex or compulsive activity.
|
|
When trauma survivors lose
their self-medication of drugs and alcohol, they need to enter an
active program of emotional recovery to resolve their emotional wounds
so that they do not either relapse into drugs and alcohol or trade one
addiction for another.
|
Inner thoughts and emotions:
|
If only I had done something
differently"
|
|
"I would give
anything for it to be the way it was"
|
|
"Where am I?"
|
|
"What's going
on?"
|
|
"Everything feels
different"
|
|
"Where is my
life?"
|
Consequences of not working
through this stage:
|
People who have not
successfully worked through this stage of the grief process are at
risk for spending their lives searching to replace what they feel they
lost, "looking for love in all the wrong places."
|
|
Yearning and searching for
what was lost (while not consciously grieving it) can leave these
people feeling as if they have a hole inside them that cannot be
filled, a thirst that cannot be quenched or a question that cannot be
answered.
|
|
They may find an experience or
a person that temporarily relieves this deep longing, but unless the
original loss is made conscious, grieved and understood, the solution
will be a momentary one. The unfelt wound will reassert itself, making
the current solution feel inadequate and wanting.
|
|
This is different from a human
existential yearning. Yearning from an unresolved grief wound throbs
beneath the membrane of current experience meant to keep pain at bay.
|
|
This is a yearning that needs
to be understood for what it is, connected to what it is really about
and integrated into the self-system.
|
III. DISORGANIZATION,
ANGER AND DESPAIR
Description:
|
In this stage, trauma
survivors are disillusioned. Life did not happen as they had planned.
|
|
They have feelings of anger,
despair and disappointment that come and go and are overwhelming a
times.
|
|
Their lives can feel as though
they no longer belong to them.
|
|
Normal routines are disrupted,
which can make them feel lost and disconnected from the life they are
used to.
|
|
Lack of resolution of this
stage can lead to depression and an inability to move through life in
an organized manner.
|
|
They may become hypervigilant
in an attempt to keep perceived pain at bay, or avoid situations that
arouse or put them in touch with the anger and despair that lie buried
within them, which they may wish to unconsciously deny.
|
|
It is difficult for people
lost in this stage to trust a relationship or to have the faith that
if they allow themselves to be intimate and depend on someone, it will
not ultimately lead only to more loss and disappointment.
|
Inner thoughts and emotions:
|
"Nothing I can do will
make it better"
|
|
"How can I go on the same
way?"
|
|
"I'm afraid of my own
life, of my future"
|
|
"I'll never get over
this"
|
|
"I'm so angry"
|
Consequences of not working
through this stage:
|
When people do not work
through the stages of disruption, anger and despair, they can go
through life feeling they got a "raw deal."
|
|
They may have inappropriate
displays of anger, or they may turn the anger inward on themselves and
become depressed.
|
|
They may develop a negative
attitude toward life.
|
|
They may find that they have
trouble organizing and taking methodical steps on their life path or
sustaining a healthy relationship because their unresolved grief has
left them hanging in an emotionally disorganized
internal state.
|
|
When someone is stuck in
unresolved anger, it can seriously undermine both intimate and
professional relationships.
|
|
The "free floating"
anger will seek periodic relief and may express itself at the expense
of current life circumstances, making the person feel life is
unmanageable and overwhelming.
|
|
That anger will need to be
connected to its origins so that it can be worked through in a real
and meaningful way; then it can be deactivated within the self,
freeing a person from its powerful grip.
|
IV. REORGANIZATION/INTEGRATION
Description:
|
In this stage, trauma
survivors call their loss by its right name. They begin accepting the
reality of their situation and along with it, the emotional pain they
know it inevitably brings.
|
|
They accept feelings of
disruption, sadness, yearning and fear as part of the loss.
|
|
They alternately struggle with
and accept their feelings of disorientation, or their sense of being
cheated or tricked.
|
|
They come to terms with their
powerlessness over the situation and restore their emotional equilibrium.
|
|
They begin to put the loss
into perspective, to reenter their lives and re-engage in their own
activities and plans. They begin to integrate the effects of the loss
into their sense of who they are and what life contains. |
Inner thoughts and emotions:
|
"Life has ups and downs;
it has losses"
|
|
"I'm not immune to life's
problems"
|
|
"Life still has something
to offer me"
|
|
My life feels sort of
different and sort of the same"
|
Consequences of not working
through this stage:
From: Heartwounds, Tian Dayton, 1997, adapted from
John Bowlby
Tre-Angeli
on Grief (Articles
on trauma, grief and loss; email support available) [offsite link]
Back
to Articles
on Healing Through Grief
Contents (Site Map)
Return
to top
|
