[With Gods Help!]

Thought this might be interesting for off my rocker....could explain trauma echo and why her h resorted to self harm xxxxxxxxx

http://www.internet-of-the-mind.com/self-harm.html

[With Gods Help!]

This one is really informative too ..read the whole article though xxxxxxxxxx

[With Gods Help!]

Don't know what happened i did paste it lol il try again .......hopefully see below:

http://www.internet-of-the-mind.com/addictive_personality.html

[Trustandlove]

I'm finding this topic interesting; I've come to realise that this really can have a huge effect on us.  This is one article that I read; it's not in-depth, but it certainly ticks the boxes....

http://helpguide.org/mental/emotional_psychological_trauma.htm

I'm pulling out a few relevant bits to post here:

An event will most likely lead to emotional or psychological trauma if:

It happened unexpectedly.
You were unprepared for it.
You felt powerless to prevent it.
It happened repeatedly.
Someone was intentionally cruel.
It happened in childhood.
Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by single-blow, one-time events, such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster, or a violent attack. Trauma can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood or struggling with cancer.

and

A number of risk factors make people susceptible to emotional and psychological trauma. People are more likely to be traumatized by a stressful experience if they’re already under a heavy stress load or have recently suffered a series of losses.

People are also more likely to be traumatized by a new situation if they’ve been traumatized before – especially if the earlier trauma occurred in childhood.

For me, this might explain why my H's MLC is causing me what seems like more distress than "average", if there is such a thing -- I was already under a lot of stress, and it's me, not him, that had the stressful childhood. 

For me also, the way things have been repeated over and over again in my sitch is clearly contributing; highlighting the importance of detaching....   but it's intentional cruelty that's the worst.  Masked by a smile, which makes it doubly worse. 

For others, it might explain more about how their spouses are behaving. 

[Thundarr]

We are limited to 3 main ways of dealing with trauma echoes.  We can harm ourselves, we can harm others or we can deal with them in a healthy way.  Developing a coping strategy to deal with them in a healthy way is a big part of Trauma-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which I adhere to.  The triggers may always be there, but we can lessen the impact of them substantially.  One theory of MLC is that our spouses lacked the necessary coping skills to deal with their own trauma echoes, which may have been extremely strong if they were formed in childhood.  Whether or not they are dealing with them by hurting themselves or others is a philosophical question as most would say they are not intentionally hurting others or themselves.

[Trustandlove]

Thundarr, any more info you could post about trauma-based CBT would be appreciated; this is something I need to deal with right now. 

I haven't gone the self-harm route, and I haven't thrown things at others (although this explains my S's rages), but still would like to work on this more. 

In my H's case he more closely fits the "addictive personality" that is described here

http://www.internet-of-the-mind.com/addictive_personality.html

(thanks, WGH); it's hard to know if he is being deliberately cruel to me, though. 

[With Gods Help!]

Hi T&L not sure if this will helps its a recent too from 2012 ...........xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.goodtherapy.org/trauma-focused-cognitive-behavioral-therapy.html

[Anjae]

Assuming that our MCLers lacked the necessary coping skills to deal with trauma echoes is something I manage to do. But I think they hurt us intentionally. They know exactly what upsets the LBS the most; they know our buttons and how to push them. They do it on purpose to engage us in order for them to feed themselves out of the emotional drama. As for hurting themselves, that I think in most MCLers is not intentional. At first they don’t realise they are hurting themselves as well.

[Trustandlove]

They know exactly what upsets the LBS the most 

I'm inclined to agree with you there; I think my H's latest letter (mid-January) was designed to do just that.  It was still all about him, but really twisted the knife. 

As to why he does it, I'm not sure -- to feed themselves out of the emotional drama makes sense in a lot of cases; in one of RCR's articles she says that they do it to drive home the point to the LBS -- the "why won't she get it" thing. 

I guess it also lets them put responsibility elsewhere rather than on themselves?

But that gets off the topic.

Thanks for that article, WGH; that focuses on children, but of course the principles are the same.  I wonder how it differs in cases of lower-level repeated emotional trauma, rather than outright abuse?

[Anjae]

Trust, I really think they do it deliberately to hurt us. Do they know why they are doing it? Probably not. All they know, I think, is such and such will hurt us the most. That is an that, for some reason, their minds keep.

Part I think it is to feed the emotional drama. They are always trying to engage us and if we don’t, they get frustrated. When they do they may escalate their antics/actions or they may get to a point where they give up. Well, but maybe we get it and just don’t let them know we get it…or we get it and just don’t care...

Putting responsabillity elsewhere rather than on themselves is a thing they do. That helps them dealing with the stuff they make and justifying OW/OM or justify to OW/OM why they left us, etc.

I’m not a psychologist, but i guess how it may differ in cases of lower-level repeated emotional trauma from outright abuse is that on the first the person may not be aware that they suffered any trauma while on the second the abuse was obvious and very visible. So, maybe the way of processing things is different. Also, if you are not aware that you suffered trauma it may be harder to realise you are dealing with the effects of a traumatic experience?...