PTSD

After the women’s retreat I decided to do some therapy with Phyllis because I could trust her. It was in a therapy session with Phyllis that I had a very odd experience.  I just checked my journal for 1976 and couldn’t find a reference to this particular session.  I remember that I was down on the floor, sitting on the carpet with my eyes closed.  I think she might have regressed me a little.  Then she moved a cushion across the carpet toward me, saying “This is your mother.” My body scrambled to get away from “mother” before I had time to think about it.  I remember being surprised, and thinking that I didn’t have any respect for my mother, but I wasn’t AFRAID of her was I?  It wasn’t until I got to Somatic Experiencing that I understood that that was evidence that I had been traumatized.  Like the Veteran who hears a car backfire in the street: his body dives behind a couch for cover before his brain can tell him it’s just a car.