Then three events took place: first, Suzanne finally finished her painful stories—she had, at least, exhausted the supply. This completion as well as depletion of her memory bank of the horror stories made a significant impact on her depressive symptoms and allowed her to gradually redefine her worth and status as a woman.
Secondly, Suzanne met Brian, a man who was struggling with his own issues, including late stage cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Brian thought Suzanne was an angel from heaven and told her so in poems, cards, and flowers. She felt as if Brian was the first man who had ever truly loved her. All he wanted was to be with her, and she believed him. They shared two months of “true love” together before Brian finally succumbed to cancer.
As difficult as Brian’s death was for Suzanne—she had finally found love but then had lost it almost as quickly—it satisfied a deep need for a man who adored her for the woman she was.
She smiled and cried at the mere mention of Brian. Even with his broken and decaying body, he was somehow able to convey to Suzanne that she was worth all the love in the world. Now that she had finally expressed and released her toxic stories of hurt and shame, she was prepared to receive kindness from a caring human being, a man who loved her. For Suzanne, at least, there was renewed peace and self-respect.
Two months after Brain’s death, a third significant event took place: Suzanne died, a grateful woman with her mission accomplished. I can only hope there is an opportunity to reunite with Brian.
The Goodbye Letter
The expression and release of painful feelings is curative. Once painful feelings are expressed and released, no need exists to hold on to them. One of my personal favorite techniques to help my clients release the pain and anguish associated with trauma is the goodbye letter. The goodbye letter works well in a wide variety of situations because it can be used in association with any type of pain in the past. As discussed in chapter one, Fritz Perls emphasized the importance of finishing “unfinished” business as critical for healing, and this belief led to his development of Gestalt psychology.33 Writing a “goodbye letter” addresses the feeling of “if only I could have told him/her this…” or of “I’m ready to let this pain go and be released so I can move forward.” Saying goodbye formally, in writing, helps people release and let go of whatever it is that needs to be released.
Other famous psychotherapists who have also endorsed the technique of letter writing for closure include Syd Simon, Susan Forward, and Robert Ackerman. Ackerman, an author and lecturer best known for his work with Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA)41, suggested that a four-part letter works best for toxic emotions present since childhood: (1) What happened? (2) How did it feel to be me at the time? (3) How has it affected me since then? (4) What am I doing now to let go? For the sake of clarity, from here on out I’ll discuss the four steps of the goodbye letter and then work through an example for grief-stricken individuals, as well as an example for those who were traumatized themselves.
If you’re grief-stricken, writing a goodbye letter is a powerful method to express and release pain while also providing you, the letter writer, with a unique opportunity to close the chapter on your beloved’s life and to tell your beloved whatever you wanted to get off your chest.
The first step, simply enough, is to detail the events in full. If you are the spouse, for instance, this can be several pages of how the two of you met, that cheesy pickup line, your first date, how she or he rocked your world, spoiled your dog, backed over your flower bed, charmed the socks off you grandmother, helped you raise the children, and cared for you while I was going through cancer treatment, etc. For the death of a child, this can be the never-ending ebb and flow of worry and excitement about their birth, the relief when they were healthy, their first words, steps, and Christmas, their first piano recital, graduating high school, college, etc. Regardless of who passes, this step ends in the shock and horror that occurred when the beloved person actually passed.
Step two falls in line naturally; it begins with how the death of the loved one felt. It’s a beautiful opportunity to recite how their existence profoundly, completely, and permanently altered your life. The tears that fall in the first and second step are the bittersweet tears of joy and sorrow. The joy, of course, is the reliving of many of the happiest times in your life together. The sorrow, needless to say, is that those times are no more—you’ll never hear her staccato laugh, pick up the fallen evidence of his midnight cookie siege, have your emotional rock to support you, or form new memories together. Writing what you remember and hold so dear may morph into a beautiful memoir, besides being therapeutic.
The third step goes into detail about how the beloved’s premature departure from this planet has affected you since then. Much like a boat’s passing, even long after the death of a loved one, the ripples can still be felt and need to be expressed as well: the long nights filled with tears, the difficulties finding joy, the negative feelings (profound sadness, guilt), the longing for just one phone call to heaven.
The fourth and final step of the goodbye letter is communicating what you’re doing now to say goodbye to (and let go of) the pain. Of the four steps, this is the one most often skipped by letter writers. Why? Because saying goodbye is so final. It is never easy to admit and accept that your loved one will not be returning. You can more easily write fifteen pages extolling the joyous half-century relationship yet avoid the expression of the last half page that allows your loved one permission to leave this world behind. Of course, that makes sense, but without the goodbye, there is no acceptance and ultimately no healing. Many a widow makes that same discovery when she finally bravely donates her late husband’s clothing to Goodwill. When the garments are released, she feels an unburdening, a detachment, and the cathartic release of acceptance. It represents the release of the loved one as a physical entity, as well as making peace with the notion that this person will not be back.
Writing the Goodbye Letter After Trauma
The goodbye letter for those of you who have been traumatized is a much different exercise than the one for grief over the loss of a loved one. The first step of “what happened” is not a celebration of a shared life of loving partnership. Instead, you must recall what the perpetrator of the trauma did, in agonizing detail. This part of the letter documents the part of your life that has been buried for years to protect you from the horrors of abuse, incest, rape, and betrayal, as well as “lesser” events such as being shamed or treated indifferently by a parent or being bullied by an older sibling—whatever comprises the content of your pain in the past. The goal for the first step of what happened is simple to understand but difficult to express: the greater the detail, the greater the immersion into the pain, and therefore the greater the opportunity for release and healing.
Second, express how it felt to be you at the time. Again, the greater the depth of feelings that you discuss, the greater the potential for healing. In the Feeling chapter, I emphasized the need to feel your feelings fully. It’s especially important as part of this exercise. All the feelings that have been trapped in your memory must be felt and expressed for release to occur. Horror, fear, hopelessness, vulnerability, panic, impending doom, and thoughts of death or suicide are all common emotions felt by the traumatized and all need to be written and included in this letter. Tears are often an integral part of expressing the pain and horror.
Step three—how this has affected you since then—expresses how your youthful innocence may have been stolen, how your ideas about love and family were permanently stained, or how the world became a dangerous place. In this part of the letter, share how this trauma(s) “robbed me of my naïve smile and replaced it with a look of fear and mistrust and with avoidance of eye contact. Mine is a countenance of shame, my eyes expressionless, dead, no longer conveying a promise of things to come.” These second and third steps of the letter allow you the opportunity to express in writing th
e deepest of human agony and attach words to feelings and sensations that have been virtually indescribable to this point. By expressing and releasing the pain, you can and will achieve healing.
For the trauma survivor, there is nothing more attractive than saying goodbye to the worst thing you’ve ever been through. Consider what it would be like to rise in the morning without the trauma providing the rude awakening; or the pleasure of living an entire day without a close-up of the perpetrator’s evil countenance; or the possibility of shutting your eyes at bedtime knowing you will not experience nocturnal flashbacks and heart-thumping nightmares.
Tamika was a twenty-two-year-old when she made her first therapy appointment. Her story was right out of a movie: Middle-aged man abducts nineteen-year-old girl at gunpoint and holds her hostage for three days in his dark apartment. Tamika was repeatedly raped, threatened, and mocked until she found an opportunity to escape. Two years later, she realized that instead of getting better, she was more under the control of her seventy-two-hour “private hell” than she had been one month after the abduction. “After all this time, why am I not improving?”
By now, you can predict my response to Tamika. “Time doesn’t heal; you must remember, feel, express, and release your story. I’m going to need you to share every last detail of your experience until we can finally finish the nightmare…”
Tamika spoke in generalities, and I responded, “Please share all of the details with me.” It sounds sadistic, I know, but to repeat myself, if she talked around the abduction, skimmed over the rapes, and recited the facts of her Hollywood escape without tearfully expressing the emotions…you guessed it, she’d never ever heal.
This was a challenge for Tamika because it required her to articulate extremely delicate and fragile emotions. Tamika cried and at one point sobbed uncontrollably when she was asked whether she had thought she’d ever make it out alive. Her recitation of these difficult details lasted for approximately three minutes, but these minutes seemed like forever to Tamika. She was expressing and releasing the greatest terror she had experienced in her entire life. But having expressed the fear so intensely, she didn’t have to revisit it in her dreams or hold onto it during the empty spaces in her days.
My questions were open-ended and encouraged her to share everything pertinent to her experience. “Is there more?” “What was the worst part of that aspect (story)?” “How did you feel when you heard him say that?” “Where did you draw your strength from during that moment?”
And when she cried, I reminded her, “Let it all out. It’s finally over. It’s okay. Pour it all out. You made it, you survived. Now you will get your life back.”
I asked Tamika to write a goodbye letter to her perpetrator in order to eliminate his power over her, his presence in her life, and his dark shadow over her future. The goal, as always, was closure—to put this terrible experience away for good and replace the dread, the fear, and the shame with confidence, a sense of pride, and a resolve to make a difference. Tamika responded with the following letter:
“I forgive you. Not for what you did, but for who and what you are. No longer will I carry with me all of those memories and ravaged emotions; they serve me no purpose and only show that you are still in control. No longer will I awake to the sight of your face and cry in fear, cringing at the mere thought of what happened. All of the energy I’ve given to you over the past twenty-two months—I now take it back for myself. You have been the focus of my life for almost two years, and that is too much time. You have taken the one thing from me that I held sacred and treasured most. I will not give you any more than that. My hopes of revenge have long since faded, along with the anger. I refuse to feel defeated, for I have not given up. I simply refuse to expend any unnecessary energy on something that will only cause me pain. I don’t have time for it. My life must continue. I must pick up where I was before you came into the picture—as the happy, ambitious, hardworking, girl I once was. My goals are once again in view, no longer clouded over with visions of pain. You have taken a great deal from me, but if I force myself to look closely, I can also see what I have gained; most importantly, the ability to overcome. There is no longer a question in my mind of, “Will he control me forever?” The answer is no—I have won.
So goodbye. You will receive no more from me. You are no longer with me. The rest of my journey will be traveled alone, with the company and presence only of those I love. This is the last of it—my final farewell.”
Guided Imagery
This is the very best and most effective technique for emotional trauma, but it’s likely that your therapist doesn’t use it and may not even have heard of it. Why? It’s neglected in most mainstream psychology programs, as is Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Theory. It’s time to rediscover this wonderful technique.
What is guided imagery? Like hypnosis, it is merely relaxed concentration and focus on an imaginary story. It’s also a way to gain closure on the trauma you suffered by watching it (as if it were a film in a theater) one more time and finishing it.
Guided imagery can be used for many purposes, including:
•Saying goodbye to people who have died and making peace with their passing.
•Releasing losses that have lingered for decades and accepting them.
•Bidding farewell to (and confronting) a deceased perpetrator of a trauma.
Much like hypnosis, guided imagery can be used to see parts of an unfinished memory up close and then release those most treacherous memories. With guided imagery, a fresh opportunity exists to say goodbye, hear ‘I’m sorry’ or apologize, and have someone else accept your apology, and reconnect, etc.
Not surprisingly, this type of imagery is often used by sports psychologists to help their athletes improve, from ice skating routines to a golfer’s putting. To see something with your mind’s eye and your body relaxed helps convince you that the movie in your head is or can be real. Moreover, it feels entirely real, allowing your nervous system to respond as if it were.
One of the more fascinating research studies involving guided imagery had nothing at all to do with healing or trauma, but rather focused on 6th grade students shooting basketball free throws. Children were assessed on their free throw shooting and then assigned into one of three groups. One group did nothing for six weeks; the second group shot basketball free throws daily for six weeks; and the third group imagined shooting basketball free throws using guided imagery daily for six weeks. The three groups were then retested. Predictably, the first group did not improve during their six-week stint of no basketball. Group number 2 improved their percentage of baskets by 23 percent due to their daily practice—no big surprise. But the guided imagery group, who hadn’t touched a basketball for six weeks except in their minds, improved by 22 percent! Can you really improve a skill merely by practicing that skill only in the privacy of your head?42 Indeed.
And that’s the beauty of guided imagery. Seeing something in your imagination only tricks the nervous system into believing that the event was real, or at least felt that way. As a clinician who has experienced the power of this technique to help deal with pain in the past, I want you to become familiar with what it is and how to use it.
How to Conduct a Guided Imagery
Here’s a startling but valid statement about guided imagery: it often produces more healing and closure in one session than what a traumatized individual has managed on her own over decades.
How do I conduct guided imagery? The term “guided” implies that someone (hopefully an experienced therapist, not your hairdresser) is available to facilitate the experience. Your job is to follow along with the suggestions, creating in your mind a video as immersive as real experience. Here is what you would experience if you came to me for guided imagery treatment.
To begin, I try to get you to relax. The goal is to have your entire body relaxed from head to toe. First, you use progressive muscle relaxation to dis
solve tension anywhere in your body. Tighten each muscle group, hold it for five seconds, then release. Once flexed, each muscle group returns to a lower state of resting tension. After that, move on to deep breathing. You inhale to a count of three, hold your breath for a few seconds, then exhale to a count of five. Changing the ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide in the blood stimulates an additional relaxation response.
Next, get in a comfortable position and close your eyes. You may be seated or reclined. Bring your attention to your breathing, but this time, breathe naturally. If I observe behavioral evidence of tension, such as fidgeting, frowning, or signs of discomfort, I may ask you to climb down a flight of stairs with each step representing a deeper state of relaxation. Sometimes I ask you to imagine being injected with a powerful tranquilizer and to visualize the tranquilizer as a blue substance that can be seen moving through your body. As it travels, the blue color replaces a hot neon pink color that represents stress, tension, pain, trauma, or anything else requiring release. Once the blue color permeates your entire body, I ask you if any part of your body is still tense. If so, the tranquilizer then travels to that area.
Once you’re completely relaxed, I ask you to imagine a door. Inside is a movie theater where you may watch some tragic scene unfold on the big screen. You open the door and are seated. I suggest that a remote control appears, allowing you to play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and stop the experience. You are in complete control of the movie.
Next, I ask you to watch the entire movie from beginning to end. When the movie is over, I invite you at your current age to enter the movie and provide comfort and solace to the younger version of yourself who is suffering in that same scenario. The older version may ask a rapist or molester to leave, for example, or provide comfort to the younger version of yourself. After an ugly scene or trauma, I may have the projectionist offer a DVD of the movie for you to take out back and destroy, symbolizing that the event is over.
Keep Pain in the Past Page 8
