Is it normal to seek out ways to recreate parts of the traumatic experience to live them again?
11 Answers
Last Updated: 02/11/2019 at 9:58pm
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Anna Pavia, psicologa psicoterapeuta psychotherapist psychologist counselor
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I feel my work as my personal mission and I love it. My work with clients is nonjudgmental, supportive. I am a very good listener. I use several approaches. Amo il mio lavoro.
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It's certainly normal for you to want to go over the experience again so you can analyze and get your head wrapped around it. It allows you to grieve over it be reliving it and let some of it go. It's what therapy is all about! It's important that you don't live in the experience however. Find a good listener or real life counselor to help guide you through the memory.
Recreating traumatic expererience in my opinion will not only creeate more trauma but it would get in the process of healing. Reapeating certain parts of the traumatic experience would keep the subconcious in a endless loop of suffering.
Unfortunately, a lot of trauma survivors feel this way. It's no fun, but sometimes people feel they're regaining control when they initiate the experience themselves. That can feel powerful, even if it hurts to relive it. Sometimes people reenact parts of their trauma to try to make sense of what happened to them. There are lots of reasons survivors do this. You're not alone.
Anonymous
April 23rd, 2015 7:12am
Yes, it is normal. Victims of trauma usually tend to recreate the experience in different ways. One common way of doing that is narration of what has happened to them again and again. Therefore it has been suggested that narrative therapy might be helpful in healing trauma. Meaning that, to write about the traumatic experience might have positive influences on the conditions of those who suffer trauma.
Anonymous
January 24th, 2015 5:26pm
As what is 'normal' is hard to define it's difficult to give an fair answer to this. However from my own expeirences, those of people around me and from listening on this site I would say that for those who have experienced traumatic experiences of varying severity it is certainly not unique.
although it isn't a necessarily healthy behaviour, one way flashbacks show themselves in PTSD sufferers is through attempting to reinact parts of the trauma , often as a way of your mind trying to regain control of what happened. If this is not causing harm or distress to you or anyone else then it can be part of healing but if it is harmful in any way then I would recommend seeking professional help to overcome it :)
No that is not normal, it only means that you have not let go or fully cured from the traumatic experience that you faced. Seek help to deal with the traumatic experience and to move on.
Anonymous
December 28th, 2015 7:31am
Yes and no, but you can find a therapist to help guide you through the memory
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2016 10:52am
For some people , it is normal for many think that if they feel the pain and trauma it will keep them thinking that they are alive. Others think it is not normal to seek the trauma again seeing as they want to happy and carefree again
For many people, reliving parts of a traumatic experience can help them understand it and move past it.
Not everyone likes that approach - many prefer to never experience anything like that again. But for some, re-doing parts or even the whole experience can be soothing; it feels like removing the sharp edges. Re-living it can make it feel more "normal" and less traumatic, or it can bring insights into why it hurt so much the first time.
There are many, many ways to cope with trauma; wanting to re-live part of it is one of those.
Anonymous
February 11th, 2019 9:58pm
yes. the brain naturally tries to protect us from being hurt again by reminding us of our past experiences. but sometimes it's harmful rather than something that helps us. when we have a traumatic experience we can unknowingly relive it over and over again by playing through the scenario. once we realize what we're doing we can have more control over it by telling ourselves it wasn't our fault and that the person that did it wasn't mature enough or had problems of their own that caused them to do it. once we understand and truly forgive the wrongs that were done to us we can move on and they don't come up with hurtful feelings attached to them anymore.
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