Thread by @VividVoid_

After I healed the cognitive damage from PTSD last year, I still had a lot of bitterness and obsessive anger, every day, for months on end.

I was recently able to heal that emotional damage with an imagination technique I call The Ideal Apology.

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Here's what I did: I imagined the person who hurt me - in this case, an abusive ex-girlfriend - sitting across from me, in the greatest detail I could stably muster.

Then, I imagined her apologizing - expressing sincere remorse - for every fucked up thing she did and said.

I imagined that I told her everything. I told her all of the pain I had gone through, all of the damage she had done, the wreckage she left in my life.

I imagined her hearing it, holding space for it, accepting it, and - crucially -
taking responsibility for her part.

I practiced that for a half an hour for a few days straight. Soon, every time the old bitterness and anger arose in me, a vision of her also arose, and said, "You're right, I did that to you, I'm so sorry."

This may sound a little crazy, but

I started being able to forgive her. And soon, I was able to apologize to her, for my part - and she was able to offer me forgiveness.

I still get a little grief or tension sometimes, but it's transient - an old unneeded habit. My relationship to her memory is healed. I'm free.

I want to reiterate that I did months of exposure therapy to heal the cognitive damage done by that relationship. I don't expect that this technique would be a panacea for trauma on its own.

But if you are struggling with resistant emotions, maybe it's worth giving a shot.

I haven't done any IFS work, despite borrowing terminology from it, so take the name with a grain of salt.

If you decide to try this technique for yourself, please let me know how it worked for you. I suspect some meditation experience is necessary, but perhaps not much.

Thanks to @the_wilderless for his excellent work on depth psych and imaginal work. I got the idea for this technique from reading his threads. If you don't follow him, I highly recommend it.

If you want to read more about exposure therapy for healing traumatic cognitive damage, here is my thread on that, from last year:

https://twitter.com/VividVoid_/status/1428040190128316421?t=u9ypjP561yZZfoB_1Tl0eA&s=19