Lost Time And Trauma Annihilation

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Do you know the feeling of breaking the usual passage of time? When it runs, and it suddenly begins to be sorely missed, or vice versa, it flows too slowly. Let me tell you what this can be connected with, using the example of the story of Timothy. Maybe this will help you understand what is happening to you.

We have been working with Timofey for several months. Recently, he came to the session unlike himself - either dazed or lost. He said that in recent days he feels like something very special is happening over time. It's like he's living in a fantasy movie.

- We saw each other a week ago, right? - asked Timofey, - but it seems to me that we have not met for a very long time.

He explained that this happens all the time. For example, he is at work all day (he is an expert in a large organization), there every now and then in the corridor he meets one person, and it seems to him that they have not met for two days, although he intellectually understands that they saw each other an hour ago.

Timofey began to give other examples, and each time he reported a new case of “unreal behavior of time,” he stopped. And I waited. This time I planned to discuss the story that I heard from him in the last session - about how he was in the hospital in early childhood, and what he went through then. After further evidence of the strange behavior of time, I began to get impatient. And what to do with these states of his, what does this refer to, what is there to discuss?

Finally, I recalled the situation in the hospital that I was going to talk about. It turned out that he had managed to talk to his mother over the past week and ask her about this episode. Mom said that she and her father did not want to put him in the hospital, but a friend persuaded him, and they were terribly worried. They went there, but could only look at Timothy through the window and worry about him.

Timofey recounted the conversation with his mother, and then switched back to his “unreal feelings”. Then I began to understand that I needed to listen to this. Apparently, there is something important in these descriptions that I need to hear.

I remembered another incident from Timofey's childhood, to which we returned many times. At the age of five, at a construction site, he fell into a hole covered with a thin layer of ice, and for a while, as it were, "ceased to exist." This is called annihilation trauma. He did not remember himself for some time of his life, he was completely disconnected from the sensations of his body. I only remembered the moment when he grabbed the edges of the pit with his hands, and his friend, a boy of the same age, helped him to get out.

Three months ago, we “played out” a story about sinking into a hole using shock trauma technique. In the process, bodily sensations returned to Timothy. He remembered how slippery the ground was in the hole under his feet … How he saw the light high above him in the darkness … How he climbed up … and how, finally, with the help of a friend, he got out.

Then I asked him to act out several scenes in the "as if" mode. From the role of being a little boy, he turned to his grandmother with a demand to support him instead of scolding. Then he complained to dad, said how scared he was and how afraid he was to scream. I imagined that dad does not scold him, but first hugs him, and then explains how important it is to recognize dangerous places. In the final, "five-year-old Timofey" even complained to the Minister of Construction. The minister said that according to safety rules, any pit must be fenced off, and he will make sure that this particular pit is fenced off. Timofey "went to the construction site", one of the foremen took tools and boards and set up a solid fence. I played the master, "set up the fence." Timofey watched and accepted the work. We put on such a great play with him to help him cope with the consequences of the trauma. I tried to give him back the ability and right to ask for help in an unbearable situation.

It became clear to me what Timofey was talking about when he described his "time paradoxes". Perhaps, during each day, there were many situations when he found himself in a "pit": he was rejected, not taken into account, did not listen, did not react. And he is used to "disconnecting" for a while. His psyche, in a sense, "deleted" part of the time from life. Apparently, now the time began to return to him when he was usually in a state of annihilation, when he “seemed not to exist” - and there really was much more time in his life. That is why he feels such an incredibly strange, fantastic state.

When I told him about this hypothesis, he thought about it and said: "Yes, it looks like the truth."

He regained his wasted time. It was an exciting discovery. I experienced a sense of joy.