I've blocked so much out but horrible memories are recently seeping through the blocks I thought my brain had made.
I was abused by a paedo from age approximately 5-15. Last night I realised that he was the first person to touch me in private places. I don't know why that didn't occur to me before. That just really upset me last night.
We were playing Cards Against Humanity yesterday and I got a card about losing your virginity. The rest of the game sort of went by on autopilot. It shouldn't have been a paedophile raping me. (different paedophile).
Then I realised that there's a connection between paedophile 1 and some things I completely buried due to feeling so much shame and dirtiness. I can't talk about it. I can't speak it. I think I'm going to have to talk about it with my therapist when I finally get allocated one. When that will be I have no idea.
Then there are my university years. Waking up in bed with a stranger after a drunken night. I don't consider that SA and I have no idea if I slept with this person in the sex way but it was definitely connected with having been sexually abused previously as I had no concept of being able to say no. I don't remember how he ended up in my bed or how I got there either. There's other stuff I feel absolutely mortified by like the rape when my drink was spiked and fighting off two men, screaming and a woman coming into the room. The drugs they'd given me must have been wearing off but I'd already been raped.
The rapist who abused me for 10 years knew the rapists who drugged my drink. I can't talk about that much either but suffice it to say there was a ring of them and there will be more victims, as I prefer to say, survivors.
I hate so much that my mother abused me teaching me that sex was dirty so that sex was a punishable offence: so that when I was abused as a child she made it my fault.
She called me every name under the sun. She made me the guilty one.
If I hadn't been sexually abused and had had a mother who was kind and supportive, none of the CSA or SA would have happened. I honestly think the initial paedophile chose me because he knew there was something very wrong with my home life. He also worked with my mother so he probably groomed her too.
I feel sick.
I don't want to feel ashamed.
I talked a little with my partner last night about the SA but I started dissociating really badly so I had to stop and to be honest I want to forget, not talk about it.
But how do I stop the intrusive thoughts? I wish I knew.
I think I was sold by paedophile 1 to some creepy men when I was a teenager. I kept getting approached and I can't talk about it but I think it was a paedophile ring. My childhood friend was having the same happen. We were young and naive and didn't understand what was happening. She was being sexually abused by several men and all of them knew paedophile 1.
When I reported this to the police years later nothing came of it. I was made out to be a liar and her statement was basically ignored.
We were child victims of a paedophile ring and we didn't even know it.
So anyway many years later I am safe but my life has been so negatively impacted in so many ways I feel physically sick thinking about how disgustingly I was treated.
And because I don't feel real it's really hard to feel anything.
Hi Saluki,
I'm so sorry for your experience. Please accept my biggest of e-hugs. :hug:
If I can offer a thought or two; I think the path to recovery, true recovery, is not to wish or will that the past didn't happen? Or to reject the idea of processing the past, now. Of course, you must feel safe enough to do so - I guess that's where therapists can come in.
I only offer this because you seem wanting to share with your partner - but the disassociation / depersonalisation kicks in as a result of chronic stress flooding your system. Then, as you mention, you just want to stop and forget all about it which is very likely your surviving mechanism. As you say; you are safe now, that survival mechanism doesn't need to activate.
I trust your partner is a safe person for you. It will likely do you a world of good to bring them closer to you with this. You'll be surprised how compassionate, understanding, empathetic and caring good people are... This is something I'm learning as I'm really going through the thick of my situation.
Also. I read somewhere here, something along the lines of; "when addressing that inner child, I feel ashamed. I don't like them. Because they didn't stand up for themselves. Didn't say what needed to be said. Didn't say no. Didn't do more to seek help. They just surrendered and let things happen." - this was a little "aha" moment for me in my recovery journey, because at that point I realised this is what I harboured towards my own inner child... I kept trying to address my inner child unknowingly that I (my Self) didn't like or respect them. But then I guess that opens up the opportunity to re-evaluate the circumstance, and find compassion for yourself. I guess, to forgive? Maybe at that point, healing can accelerate?
I may be missing the mark completely - but I didn't want to not reply. Please know I am with you.
Saluki, no words to say except that I had CSA and SA as well in my past. You're not alone. And it really does make our lives so challenging. :hug: :hug: :hug:
Those are terrible things to have had to endure as a child and you are right to place the blame there on your mother and on the abusers. That's also who the shame belongs to. I am truly so sorry.
And I've had but a small fraction of your experiences and I know how awful that small fraction was to deal with when the intrusive memories came up. The hope I can give you is that eventually it gets better. Eventually those memories get appropriately processed if you are able to have appropriate therapy as long as is needed. My feeling is the intrusive stuff is there to help you understand and to get the help you need. It may be possible to let the intrusive stuff know you appreciate what it's doing but to respectfully ask it if it could slow down or wait until you have a little more support to manage the information. They can be really horribly brutal to go through and we'll be here as you do, listening and believing.
Thank you for trusting us to share this. You are incredibly strong to have survived this all. I'm honored to know you here.
I remember when I was trying to work up the courage to tell my husband. I would sit down to talk to him and pass out. Like I was aware, my brain was processing things, but my body was non functional and i couldnt speak or move, and it appeared I was asleep. Another time I prepared to tell him and could not remember what I was trying to tell him or why it mattered. Eventually I got pieces out, very disjointed. But having his support and especially his reminders that it was bad what happened and not my fault and he loves me and believes me...that was very helpful toward healing. So I do hope over time you can let your spouse know more and support you more. And you may need to go safely and slowly.
Thank you Bert and Blue Sky.
Bert, what you say makes so much sense. I hated myself so much for freezing, for not being able to talk (I became selectively mute) for not fighting back. I hated myself for "allowing" so much more abuse to happen for so many years. It's easy for me to say to others "it wasn't your fault" and to offer empathy and logically I know it wasn't my fault and that I'm not stupid or feeble or pathetic but I don't think I really believe it, not properly.
My partner is kind and compassionate and I'm not used to being treated kindly and it's wonderful. I often wonder if they are a figment of my imagination. I sometimes panic if for example we are out and I am waiting outside a shop with my dog, I think my partner doesn't exist. Sounds stupid but it's a very real fear.
I also have a lot of self deprecation, like I did nothing good or productive with my life...I barely stood a chance but hey ho I "should try harder" (ingrained from childhood I guess).
Lots of work to do on me.
I actually feel like I'm overburdening my partner with my CPTSD (my worry, they've never said so) but it's good to have this place to talk to fellow survivors. So thank you.
Thank you so much Armee. I must have been typing at the same time as you!
How do I tell the intrusive stuff to slow down? I'm overwhelmed by it and it's making my life that should be safe and happy now so difficult because it won't let me experience here and now properly...
It's always there. I sometimes hit myself of my head (not too hard any more, not these days) to try to wake myself up because I feel like I'm not real or dreaming...
I used to hit my head against concrete when I was younger.
My rapist violent abusive ex hit me so many times in the head I think I must have brain damage. I wish I hadn't hit my own head so hard...I think I actually fractured my skull once. When he was threatening to "smash" my "face in" I said "Look, you don't have to I can beat myself up perfectly well all by myself." I had multiple egg sized bumps all over my head one time from what he did and I called the police and they wouldn't even look or touch. They let me down so many times. If I hadn't been abused as a child I would never have fallen into his trap. He was evil.
Armee I exactly know that feeling of passing out trying to say the trauma stuff and not remembering what or why it matters.
I often question myself "what's wrong with you? It's nothing! So what: just get over it and stop moaning there's nothing wrong with you".
It's so confusing.
Today I feel like my head is...I can't explain... it's kind of buzzing. It's like it's muffled and buzzing and horrible.
For me that muffled buzzing is dissociation. The sound of my brain shutting down. It's my clearest sign I am dissociating.
As for slowing down the intrusive stuff...acknowledge it, see it. Then ask if now that you've seen it you could maybe just put it on a shelf for a little while to get back to when you are stronger.
All I know is ignoring it makes it turn up the volume. But also you don't want to focus too much on it in a way that becomes overwhelming.
With the head hitting...it might actually be a flashback. Reliving the times you were hit in the head.
This has happened to me, too, where I have urges to smash my head into a wall. I finally realized that it was a flashback to when that happened. Same thing with urges to cut a specific part of my wrist even tho I had no desire to harm myself. That was where things were tied. I was only trying to cut it off not knowing it wasn't there in the present. Once i realized these things and the connection to the trauna they stopped.
There are explanations for these things that you do that don't involve you being bad in any way. :grouphug:
For dissociation what helps me is getting out for a hike or gardening. Walking I seem to be able to continue spacing out but something really physically immersive helps.
We're here. You aren't alone anymore.
Thanks Armee. I hadn't thought of the head hitting being flashbacks. That actually makes sense when I was concrete head hitting, I thought I was trying to make myself wake up with the other (open palm both sides of head or more often rubbing my head really hard all over because it feels like it's going to explode with the pressure... maybe there is no pressure...??))
Good morning Saluki,
I'm pleased that you found something in what I said. I'm even more pleased that your partner is kind and supportive for you.
Indeed, hating our past / past-self is all too easy. I don't feel I have the right to suggest a cure or a way through this as it's one of my struggles also. What I do want to say though, just for validation for you: when the abuse began Saluki, you were delicate, innocent, helpless. Let me tell you that you had absolutely no chance to fight back and your mind was certainly developing. It is not your fault that terrible things happened and I encourage you to recognise that you, as that child perhaps, developed a way to survive and that is incredible...
Granted, you must now do your very best to try to unlearn and rebuild the mind that your inner child was forced to build, but that is absolutely not your fault... As I write this, I feel so compassionate and thankful towards your inner child, as you are here now, intact, with a lovely partner, and actively looking to better yourself.
Perhaps I can inspire you to see this from my angle? And to inspire you to build a small bridge with your past self.
I hope this helps - strangely, this has helped me a little too. :)
Thank you Armee. I thought I had replied. I keep doing that, thinking I've replied. I caught myself several times, just holding my phone staring at the apps menu page innanely ..."staring into space" as my school teachers used to write on my reports. I think I must have been thinking about your post whilst randomly staring at app icons. I have to laugh: it's my best medicine.
Gardening really helps me too. And walks outside. I have fibromyalgia which is a bas£@&* and I haven't done anywhere near as much gardening as I would have liked but just getting out there helps. I feel so lucky to have a reasonable sized garden where I can grow things.
I hadn't realised the head banging thing could be flashbacks. Sh*£. Yeah it's like I'm trying to knock the bad memories out of my head a lot of the time so it probably is. Thank you for that explanation.
It's a balancing act I am yet to master: obsessing over my mother and her vile behaviour has got completely out of control. I read about "compartmentalizing" but haven't a clue how to achieve putting her bulls#-£ into a box. I have vague memories of a therapist trying to help me with that and me being very angry that I couldn't...that was possibly in rehab. I was "the angriest client they'd ever had". Now my anger is a festering malignant monster buried so deep I can't even feel it but I'm very scared of it. I don't know when it could emerge or what it's capable of. It did something horrible once, really horrible and yet I don't have shame about that: I have nothing. I feel shame about things that the abusers should be ashamed of, not me and logically I know I shouldn't have that shame but inside it's still very present.
uh, suddenly my small reply I don't remember writing pops up. My brain isn't making sense today. That's the 3rd time that's happened. I don't know what's happening.
Thank you for your reply Bert, I only just saw it.
I've been thinking a lot about little me. I have so much to process there. So much.
Thank you for your kind words. Thank you all of you. I very very much appreciate your kindness and understanding.
There's too much.
It feels like the thoughts and the memories are clogging up my head so new information can't be remembered or retained or processed.
Random information:
I've been learning a language that's completely different from English. I speak this language with everyone plus the animals here. My dog can understand things like "Are you hungry? Do you want food?" and "Come here". My fellow humans have not joined in my language learning adventure (not with this specific language anyway) which makes me sad for some reason. When I speak in that language I feel much freer. Like a different person. It's like because the bad memories didn't happen in that language it's more comfortable speaking it? I don't know if anyone else has experienced that but it helps. A lot. I'm never going to be fluent unless I spend at least a year in the country they speak it in...so maybe I will some day... that's something to think about at any rate.
Morning Saluki,
Thinking about you today. I'm really hoping you're feeling a teeny little bit better.
To me, that feeling as though the thoughts/memories are clogging up your mind is a sign that there is a really strong protective part of you that isn't allowing you to move forwards. Just like how a startled deer in headlights responds to an oncoming disaster. Albeit, now that you're in the here and now (and I hope you're safe), you're more like a startled deer but with absolutely nothing around.
I can only guess that that part is simply not wanting you to process reality as it is now, because it is stuck in the abusive past? You certainly wouldn't have wanted to back then.
I hope that I'm offering you with a little bit of insight. I'm sending you my wishes.
Thank you Bert! Apparently it's over 120 days since I posted here but it feels like it could have been only a few weeks. Time seems to pass too fast. I just wanted to say thank you. That makes a lot of sense and is reassuring.
That is really interesting about the relief your second language gives you, I hadn't read anything about that before here but I suppose it's like being another you. Are there others you know who speak the language? I'm just wondering if there is, do you feel like you are more you than when you speak your primary language?
I can confirm that I act, think and feel distinctly differently when speaking French. (Though I rarely am conscious of it anymore.) I've witnessed this in my children as well. Their behavior changes significantly upon switching to French. Sometimes it is comical, sometimes it is highly stressing.
Just as a sidenote, I LOVE the fact that my foo cannot speak French. It's not too frequent, but when they come to France I have a great deal more freedom from them simply because they cannot understand or interact when the group situation is in French. I can be much more free of them due entirely to the language barrier.
We talked about this a bit in our Zoom session. This all makes sense to switch to a slightly different part/person/persona. How wonderful to feel freedom in the presence of others who are "out of the loop." I like that thought.
This encourages me to focus on learning American Sign Language.
I used to speak American Sign Language (ASL), but it's been 40 years and I've forgotten 99.9% of it. I do still have a limited ability to speak Spanish. I get a little practice every couple of weeks when the Spanish speaking man comes to mow my lawn or do yard projects with me. He speaks very little English, so I get to practice my Spanish when he's working with me. I'm not very good at either, ASL or Spanish, but I can technically communicate with people who speak Spanish, or "Spanglish" as it's called.
I hadn't really noticed it before, but now that you talk about how freeing it is to speak the second language, I have to agree that I feel that same freedom. In fact, I've noticed that when I get really, really upset, I tend to start signing while I'm thinking. I also start speaking in Spanish, even though I'm not very good at it. I wonder now if that's me, trying to talk to myself from another voice.
Since English is my primary language, I've often wondered why I defer to Spanish and sign when I'm most deeply distressed. I had thought it should be the other way around, that a person defaults to their original language when in duress. But somehow, after reading your posts, I'm wondering if defaulting to a new language is because my brain is trying to find a new voice that isn't connected with the core duress of my childhood. (?)
Somehow, perhaps, it is a way of communicating from a whole different part of my brain. ? My core language, English, has been the language I use to file away memories and emotions and pain. When I speak Spanish or even try to remember how to speak in sign language, I feel a certain freedom to express without going too deep into my pain-brain. It's freeing. It's like communicating from a fresh part of a new brain. I don't easily connect with my 64 years of struggle while speaking from a different part of my brain.
You have sparked a whole new interest in me, to discover how I can use my second or third language skills to further my healing. There just has to be information out there from someone who knows how and why this all works....
I find the situation where I "switch" is often very telling. If I'm with someone else I often count numbers in English. But alone I've no great difficulty staying in French. I've been half aware of all this for awhile. I'm pretty sure my "normal" life in France was due to being able to more easily dissociate from Cptsd. Things were, at least on the surface, "normal" for 22 years. I'm sure that's due in large part to a) new culture, and b) new language. Of course everything eventually collapsed, it was probably just a matter of time.
I wonder now if therapy isn't more difficult doing it all in French. I'm still kinda removed from my Cptsd. But that's not too logical because the major trauma for me was pre-verbal, 0-4 years old.
I encourage everyone to learn a second language. Course it's much easier to say from the other side. It's a huge work. It took me FOREVER to finally really be comfortable with French, five years at least. Others learn much quicker. Also, I was able to speak pretty fast, but comprehension took way longer to get working. Even at the time I knew this was related to my psyche, that I had a "barrier" that was blocking things from getting "in", protecting myself instinctively.
PapaCoco, I've got some experience in pedagogy as I was an English teacher in Paris and a Tefl degree from the American University there. Your Sign Language isn't "forgotten". It's still in there somewhere. It will come back Very fast if you start again.
And I totally believe that finding yourself using it unconsciously is part of that desire and capacity to enhance understanding by "diversifying" expression. For me it makes perfect sense. It's like love poems, there is always another way of expressing this age-old experience. Our brains are constantly seeking this understanding through expression. Deeper and deeper understanding. I really want to believe all this because it seems so parallel to Healing.
-healing Chart ❤️+🩹
Quote from: Kizzie on June 20, 2024, 12:42:01 PMThat is really interesting about the relief your second language gives you, I hadn't read anything about that before here but I suppose it's like being another you. Are there others you know who speak the language? I'm just wondering if there is, do you feel like you are more you than when you speak your primary language?
Hey Kizzy, sorry it's been so long since I checked in! I have people online I can speak it with but no one I live with apart from odd phrases they've learnt. I'm not even sure, it just feels like I can let go of thinking about bad stuff for a while when we're communicating not in English.
Yes it makes me feel like I'm free, not tainted by the abuse that happened in English. Because there are very, very few trigger words for me that aren't English. Some abuse happened in another language and I've lost fluency in it now from avoiding it for so long but that's Hearing it is difficult. But I have to live in an English speaking environment. So going about my daily life talking to myself in my choice of language is important to me. I think it's definitely about trigger words more than anything else when I think about it.
That's a bit of a scrambled response. My brain isn't very together today (which is why I logged in!)
Wow I just saw and read all the different replies from you all! That's wonderful!
Thank you all! I forgot to say thank you to you too, Kizzy.
I'm not going to say what language it is for safety/identification reasons (one day I hope all my fear of being identified by my abusers will be unnecessary but it is what it is) but it has a completely different alphabet system and it's not even written in the same direction. Which gives it another element of freedom I think, but that's possibly irrelevant?
I definitely feel more free in this language.
I'm glad I brought the subject up because I realise it could open a whole new world of healing up if this was thoroughly researched, it could even be a helpful tool for therapists.
I've read a lot of survivors stories of refugees fleeing horrific abuse in other countries, and I always thought they must miss their mother tongue. But for many, becoming fluent in a totally different language must actually be really helpful in the healing process.
Thank you so much for all your feedback.
When I write I translate what I can in my head as I go which is helping and I can understand so much more now than when I first posted about it.
I highly recommend learning a new language for healing.
Oddly enough I find myself reverting to the other language that's not English I was also abused in when I'm angry or scared (I was fluent). This freaks me out.
I'm going to look up language and healing. It's an interesting subject indeed!
I'm just going to chime in and give a little hesitation to the idea that "healing" can come about through learning a second language or avoiding an earlier language as it might be triggering. I wouldn't say this is healing, rather it gives us the distance (or proximity) to vary the intensity of our emotions. This gives us some control that we might not otherwise have regarding flashbacks, triggers and avoiding extreme reactions. But I believe the core trauma will not go away just by using or avoiding another language. Sadly, core trauma still has to be dealt with in the realm completely outside of language functioning in the brain. Just my opinion...
:hug:
Quote from: Bert on October 06, 2023, 08:12:30 AMTo me, that feeling as though the thoughts/memories are clogging up your mind is a sign that there is a really strong protective part of you that isn't allowing you to move forwards. Just like how a startled deer in headlights responds to an oncoming disaster.
:yeahthat:
I also feel that writing about my experiences in English (which is not my mother tongue as you will have noticed) gives me a little bit more distance somehow and it seems it's easier to process this way.
In therapy last week, I even had trouble remembering the right words in my mother tongue and I used some English because I've been using it so much here.
Very interesting.
Hey Chart,
I probably worded it badly: I didn't mean as a "fix all". I'm not a believer in anything being a magical cure. Helping and healing are different things altogether. I do find it helps me, but I'm in a pretty bad way all round. It just helps is all.
I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as healing from trauma in the "it's better now" sense. I hope I'm just being cynical, but false hope of being "able to heal" definitely had a detrimental effect on me.
Every little thing that works towards making life more livable is good though and I definitely find language learning helps distance myself from the pain.
Hey Desert Flower,
That's interesting that you feel that ability to distance yourself too. I hadn't thought to try writing about my trauma in another language. It's great that you find things easier to process in English as your second language.
I forget words in English all the time, hey we have forgetting words from our first language in common. I actually didn't notice English is not your first language. Your English is great.
Saluki, whatever works and helps go with it.
It wasn't apparent to me that neither you nor Desert Flower were not native English speakers by your writing. Honest! :)
Thank you Saluki and Chart for the compliment :disappear:
Hi Saluki, it's really strange but I only just now read the beginning of this thread. (Before, I had only been reading about working on recovery in different languages.) But it turns out I can really relate to what you're writing quite a bit. That's all I can say just now. It's too much to handle.
Hey Chart, English is my first language- I just forget words in it 🤣
Hey Desert Flower,
:hug:
I'm sorry you can relate. I'm kind of glad the subject changed to recovery in different languages!
Quote from: Saluki on September 07, 2024, 06:42:17 PMHey Chart, English is my first language- I just forget words in it 🤣
Cool! I don't feel so bad for being fooled!
:cheer: