Transcript
My experience with Cognitive Processing Therapy was
I would meet with my counselor, and we set it up
for a 12-week period.
At the first week, I was told to write out my initial
traumatic event, the experience, recount it like writing a
novel, in extreme detail, the more details, the better.
And I couldn't, he didn't want me to type it up,
he wanted me to actually write it by hand.
And when we met the next week with that actual
traumatic event written down, he had me read it out loud
and then gave me a bunch of challenging questions,
worksheets, which I would then fill out as necessary
during the course of the week.
So if I would experience a panic attack, I'd write that down,
what emotions I felt, why I thought I felt those emotions,
what could have been a better reaction to those emotions,
and what could have been a better result
as a result of my response to that stimulus,
to try and make me realize
and see how I'm reacting to certain things
and what's triggering other panic attacks or flashbacks
and how I can actually take control of the response,
or at least understand why I'm having those responses.
And then we would meet every Friday and go over those
and see where I stood and see what was going on.
Make no mistake, it was a very, very exhausting process,
mentally and emotionally, because some of these things
were re-living old traumatic events.
I would be reading that initial traumatic event
multiple times, something I did not find pleasant,
something I don't think anyone would find pleasant,
especially depending on their trauma.
Everyone responds differently to their traumatic event.
Some people, it's hell, and that's why we're here, that's why
we're trying to get better, that's why we want to get better.
Because we know it sucks
being in this environment, this mental state.
So, it's difficult in that regard, but looking back
after 12 weeks, walking through hell again in a suit
doused in gasoline, it was worth it because I realized
why I feel the way I do, but also how to approach some of
these things so that I can calm myself down as necessary
as well as identify things that could trigger it and possibly
avoid those things or find ways to work with them
if they're an everyday aspect of my life.