This article is also published on Surviving My Past
Repulsion and Trauma
First posted 2/24/2016-Revised October 2018
Decompensation: Psychology, a loss of ability to keep up normal psychological defenses, sometimes resulting in depression, anxiety, or delusions. Dictionary.com
A favorite literary description of a psychiatric decompensation is in the 1933 short story, Miss Lonely Hearts by Nathanael West.
Miss Lonelyhearts is an advice columnist who slowly loses his mind from the suffering he reads. This passage is toward the close of the story:
“After a long night and morning, towards noon, Miss Lonelyhearts welcomed the arrival of fever. It promised heat and mentally unmotivated violence. The promise was soon fulfilled; the rock became a furnace.
He fastened his eyes on the Christ that hung on the wall opposite his bed.
As he stared at it, it became a bright fly, spinning with quick grace on a background of blood velvet sprinkled with tiny nerve stars.
Everything else in the room was dead–chairs, table, pencils, clothes, books. He thought of this black world of things as a fish. And he was right, for it suddenly rose to the bright bait on the wall. It rose with a splash of music and he saw its shining silver belly.
Christ is life and light.
“Christ! Christ!” This shout echoed through the innermost cells of his body.
He moved his head to a cooler spot on the pillow and the vein in his forehead became less swollen. He felt clean and fresh. His heart was a rose and in his skull another rose bloomed.
The room was full of grace. A sweet, clean grace, not washed clean, but clean as the inner sides of the inner petals of a newly forced rosebud.
Delight was also in the room. It was like a gentle wind, and his nerves rippled under it like small blue flowers in a pasture.
He was conscious of two rhythms that were slowly becoming one. When they became one, his identification with God was complete. His heart was the one heart, the heart of God. And his brain was likewise God’s.
God said, “Will you accept it, now?
And he replied, “I accept, I accept.”
He immediately began to plan a new life and his future conduct as Miss Lonelyhearts.
He submitted drafts of his column to God and God approved them. God approved his every thought.”
My episodes are less dramatic, but no less frightening.
It’s frightening to lose the ability to sleep and concentrate.
It’s frightening to lose the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
It’s frightening to wake-up tired and hopeless, thinking that it never gets better.
Decompensation is not necessarily a bad thing if it is part of the therapeutic process.
“…anxiety and panic symptoms are almost invariably “feeling flashbacks” triggered by a relatively benign event in the here-and-now, such as being alone in a room at twilight.” The Work of Stabilization In Trauma Treatment
The basic skills a trauma patient needs are these:
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Grounding and centering techniques
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Coping strategies for dealing with suicidal and self-abusive impulses
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Contracting for safety with themselves and others
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Learn to anticipate stressful or triggering events
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Learn to calm the body and mind
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Learn to distinguish past from present reality and how to stay “in the present”
If trauma symptoms include dissociative alters, the alters must know about and communicate with each other.
This is not easy, and recent attempts to communicate broke through memory barriers and lead to this most recent period of decomposition and regression.
Regression is an unconscious defensive process by which the patient reverts to a previous level of functioning, usually to a certain infantile or juvenile stage.”
One of the best portrayals of regressive decomposition is in the film Repulsion by Roman Polanski.
Catherine Deneuve portrays Carol, a sexually conflicted young Belgian woman.
Carol lives in London with her older sister. .
The film suggests that either Carol’s father or some other man sexually abused her as a child.
I first saw Repulsion when I was in my 20’s.
Watching it again this week during an episode of decompesation was a revelation.
Polanski shows us Carol’s anguish and her rapid decline with brilliant accuracy; when her Sister leaves for a week-long holiday we enter the territory of Carol’s mind.
“…the most common effect of sexual abuse is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Symptoms can extend far into adulthood and can include withdrawn behavior, reenactment of the traumatic event, avoidance of circumstances that remind one of the event, and physiological hyper-reactivity.” Psychology Today
We see these symptoms when Carol’s boyfriend tries to kiss her. She reacts with disgust, runs into her apartment in a panic and obsessively brushes her teeth.
Among the trauma symptoms depicted in Repulsion is loss of time
which begins almost as soon as Carol is alone.
We see her increased sense of disconnection from her environment.
Later, as her paranoia and hyper-vigilance escalates Carol re-lives her assault.
By the end of the week Carol is lost to herself and the film closes with a snapshot of Carol as a child, gazing angrily at her Father.
Kim Morgan of the Huffington Post calls Repulsion one of the most frightening studies of madness ever filmed.
My emotions were everywhere this week.
My decompensation was not as dramatic as Carol’s; it certainly doesn’t
have the narrative edge.
It involved lost time and laying in bed watching Repulsion followed by
non-stop episodes MST3K.
Thank God for that show and for the part of me that comes out to watch it.
The most difficult thing about surviving is surviving.
If you have a counselor or psychotherapist let that person know what is happening if you think you entering a crisis.
You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Remind yourself that memories are just memories; it is more normal to remember a trauma than forget it.
When you have a panic attack stop and pace your breathing.
If you start to relive the past remind yourself of the present.
When you can’t sleep don’t lie in bed thinking or worrying; get up
and enjoy something soothing or pleasant.
If you have difficulty concentrating, give yourself time to focus on what
you need to do.
People with PTSD and CPTSD also have depressive episodes.
If the acuity lasts for more than a few days seek help.
If you think you are a danger to yourself or others call 911 or go to an emergency room.
Rob Goldstein 2016 revised October 2018
Video clips and still shots are from the film Repulsion and used here for educational purposes.
Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional. I write about my personal experience. What works for me may not work for you. If you think you are having a psychiatric episode please see a professional.
Reblogged this on Survivors Blog Here.
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I wish that everyone from my past and present could read this that you have written and truly understand. I feel very invalidated most of the time. Minimized. The comprehensive way you have written this is brilliant. It makes me feel understood by someone in this world of people that blame, shame, and make me feel like I don’t matter.
Thanks for publishing this.
I’ve been awake far too long. Almost morning and I see no sleep in sight which always adds to my symptoms. I have a feeling most who read your blog and truly know abuse and dissociation and the affects will understand in ways that others never will.
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It’s not good not to sleep, said the man who is up and alert at 1:17 AM. 🙂
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An important post…some will recognise a lot of what is discussed ..I did.
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It was a terrible week…and Repulsion is clinical in the way it presents Carols break with reality. It’s amazing film and an interesting choice of subject for Roman Polanski.
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You’re a star! Love this
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Thank you. It’s good to go back to a post. I re-edited this, I think it’s a stronger piece. I’m glad you liked it.
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Glad you’re back safe and sound. Those movie clips are terrifying. I’ve been decompensating myself, the past few days. A lot going on, some good, some not-so, but somehow everything added up to what would have been remedied by a good screaming session, but I’m in a place where there are people, not good, so I sang a lot and took a few extra benzos which didn’t help much, so I’ve been watching weird cartoons and cuddling with my dog. Guess we all gotta survive as best we can. Take good care!
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The benzos are only good when I feel like I need to just sleep. The worst is laying awake at night with death scenes in my head. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is my version of the weird cartoons…I strongly recommend ‘Outlaw of Gore’ as an escape into the ridiculous:
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Nothing like some truly dorky humor to pass the time while the demon parade is tromping rudely through one’s brain….my attention span is vanishingly short these days, so I have to stick with Merrie Melodies and Looney Toons
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There is really no topping Bugs Bunny in drag.
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I wrote a poem based on this film si I can relate. It’s far more than Deneauves glorious beauty, it’s the fall from sanity. Few who haven’t experienced this cannot understand. I may no longer see myself as French but it does echo back into my past. This is an excellent summation of themes.
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Deneauves performance in Repulsion is so nuanced and on target that it’s eerie.
She’s truly one of the great actresses of the 20th century.
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I’d have to agree, her heartbreaking beauty comes from that ability in equal measure
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I’ve never seen her give a bad performance. She is as devastating in The Hunger as she is in Tristana. Her transformation in Tristana from an innocent child to a vindictive murderous middle-aged woman is simply extraordinary.
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Tristana is good, i even like her in The Hunger!
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The hunger is interesting because it is cheese and somehow ‘not’ cheese.
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Exactly!!! Well said! I like a bit if cheese if it’s that fine! 😉
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Right!
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Hi Robert and the featheredsleep looks like I’ve an education to get I haven’t come across these. Nice to have you home for now
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Thank you Brother Andrew.
I’m so glad to be back among my friends…:)
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Glad to have you back
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Thank you Brother Andrew…I’m glad to be back.
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I think my sanity is slowly slipping away. I can almost feel it.
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That’s a terrible feeling (he said as his own sanity falls out and rolls under the armoire) Do you have someone you can call?
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No. Do you? Most people laugh at you or make fun of you or roll their eyes at you.
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I’ve gotten the worst attitude from the ‘counselors’ at Kaiser who see me and my DID as a threat to the ‘evidence based’ (Behaviorism) that they insist is the ‘best’ (cheapest) way to treat all mental health problems.
We live in a culture that renders people in psychic and emotional pain homeless if it becomes disabling.
The stigma of mental illness is all around us…which means that all of us get eye rolling and disbelief..
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