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Comment by touisteur | Hacker News Reader

For some trauma-laden people, meditation can be quite a (bad) trip. I used to have horrible trauma flashbacks during meditation sessions. I would be getting into a calmer state, able to let go of anxiety, stress, daily minute thoughts, and after some quiet time, I'd be in a terrible state, with horrible memories surfacing. I definitely recommend not doing it alone if your childhood was painful.

Same for yoga and long poses. One of the things I really hated with covid is the 'let's do zoom yoga' WTF ? Can't tell how many times in yoga sessions I needed 'help' because I was no more there but in a (very) bad place.

I'm not sure it happens to other people. Therapy helps, but I wish I'd been warned before starting on the meditation journey.

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For sure. I'm training to be a MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) teacher and one of the things that is being stressed to us is the importance of providing loads of guidance / filtering when getting people to get involved - if there is significant trauma (and a whole bunch of other things including substance abuse, major relationship issues, etc), we are taught to encourage people to seek other forms of help rather than meditative approaches. Going deeper isn't always the right thing - people are very diverse in their needs, and teachers need to be really careful about being clear about this.

I think it's one of the things that is really off-putting to me about the current "trend" in mindfulness - the whole realm is completely un-mediated. Here in the UK literally anyone can set themselves up as a meditation teacher - there is only one body with anything approaching an "official" label and even that isn't required for anyone to practice. So there are always sadly gonna be people who are out there recommending and practicing really terrible stuff without being sensitive to individual needs.

Also: hope you are ok.

Thanks for the concern. In a way it helped a lot for therapy, we were stuck for some time on not-the-right-target and I was contemplating going it alone...

It set me on a path to unpack all these things. I can still remember the horrible state of mind I was in, unable to get back out a memory unlocking loop, no one to help me snap back to the moment, like a involuntary purge, trauma-vomiting. Tens of minutes. Ugh. Never felt that before and I didn't think that was possible. I even thought there was something very wrong with me.

But now I understand these were my first panic attacks ever and I'd never had them before because of very efficient systematic diversion, and an acquired ability to clench my jaws and put that 'energy' into work or studies or 'being a better X' (husband, friend, father, son, colleague, manager, ally, plumber, ...).

Therapy is hard.

Yes.

"Drawing on a decade of research and clinical experience, psychotherapist and educator David Treleaven shows that mindfulness meditation ― practiced without an awareness of trauma ― can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. Instructed to pay close, sustained attention to their inner world, survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization."

Thanks for this confirmation and reference.

I'm not sure if you were doing guided meditation at the time, but that has really helped me.

I do know what you mean about having trauma flashbacks, and you can get stuck in this loop. Meditation has thought me to not attach, recognize the thought, and start over. I use Waking Up with Sam Harris and I think that has really helped me from not attaching to the thoughts when they come up, and he will usually come back and refocus me.

I had problems with applying Jon Kabbat Zin, with guided meditation, and yoga (they call it 'yin' yoga here, where you stay for extended periods of time in poses, which is amazing for relaxation and stress-release and to get into a meditative state and that's where I went wrong :-)

I found I just need someone looking over every minute or so, whether I am in a bad way, and just talk to me, or just touch me (one teacher does a 'pose correction') to snap me back. It's even OK to have small trauma surfacing up, if it stops fast... It's hard to explain and it sure sounds sect-like but approaching that stuff in small doses is actually OK. Just not alone.

I talked about it to a friend long-time teacher in Qi-Cong (sorry for the bad spelling) that told me he always kept a look on his students for that kind of overwhelming reaction. So maybe it's not just me and meditation or yoga...

EDIT: thanks for the recommendation, will try.

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