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Thank you all for your responses. It helps me feel more real, seen and heard 

I'm at a grieving stage in my recovery and had a good cry today, it felt really good, or as good as getting out grief can be. Getting all that bad stuff from the past out. It helped get rid of some pain too, both emotional and physical. I don't need to look at myself with suppressed hatred like my family does.

Marta1234, my brother was also one of my major abusive figures growing up. As they say, "it's just the way older brothers are," but what he did cut deeper than I ever thought even when I thought I was "over" it all. I don't think brothers should be excused anymore for how they treat siblings.

My brother was also more popular than I in school. I found a newspaper in these things that was supposed to show my athletic accomplishments, but they mixed up my name with his, probably because I was totally invisible. His name was there instead of mine. That was rather triggering ...

Thank you for the hugs martha1234 and Hope, right back at you 

I got hit hard with some rough emotions today, they surprised me. While searching for important legal documents in my storage, I found some childhood things brought to me years ago from my mother. I found a bunch of the papers, cards, and drawings that she's kept over the years from when I was a little kid.

*Trigger warning - just because I got triggered, I don't know if this will be rough, themes of self-loathing*

So much of what she kept over the years felt like nothing but evidence of how much she loved me and how she was good to me. I found notes from my dad too, which was even stranger, as he was far more abusive (PA/SA, but my M cornered the EA/Neglect aspect pretty good). They were sweet, proud of me, and supportive in all they wrote. I did find letters/diary entries, though, that revealed some of my struggles at the time (ages 4 to about 11) about not being able to make friends, being unable to trust people, being bullied (at home, school, and church), getting extremely quiet (freezing) when something was wrong and not being able to emote, and my strained and sometimes abusive relationships with some of my siblings, so at least there's that.

I think I was triggered by how easily erasable my memories are with no physical evidence, and how much I didn't like myself. I found myself subconsciously looking for evidence of what I've recovered the last year or so with CPTSD, but found very little - someone would find this and think I had an amazing childhood probably with unconditionally loving parents. I didn't think much of it, consciously. Then all of a sudden, I felt just very, very, very sick and ill, nauseous. I doubled over at one point. Maybe I really was just a difficult handful of a kid, innately, and my parents (M especially) did their best, and I was just genuinely odd, unlikable, unlovable, that's why I struggled so much. They just didn't know what to do with me. The kid I was, was such a strange, pinched, lonely, dysfunctional, and self-loathing child that seemed to alienate everyone, and all that self-loathing came right back up for me. I looked at that kid that I was and I hated her, which is really not good for inner child work.

I've come a long way to be the adult I am, from that child that hated herself without really knowing it. But I see it so clearly now. And it was mostly emotional abuse and neglect, the opinions of family and everyone else, that pounded so hard on me, that's what CPTSD recovery has shown me. But it's so hard that it can be so easily hidden, the EA and neglect. It was so retriggering that my body reacted while my mind was just confused. I guess that could be evidence that it really happened, too. Emotional abuse is the worst.

Here's my question...my form of dissociation:
Hundreds of times a day (not exaggerating) I can be in the middle of a conversation, or driving, or watching tv...etc. and my consciousness will "split" . If we're having a conversation, I break eye contact, and when I "come back" if I notice that your facial expression hasn't changed, my mind will bridge the gap, and fill in what I believe happened...I'm almost always able to keep the conversation going (I own a tourist store in La Conner) it sucks watching TV, because on the episode recap, it never seems to be what I remember...it's not "just daydreaming"...also, I've recently learned how to dissociate in cases of extreme dysregulation, to not "lose it" with the person that inadvertently triggered me, so, as I feel the dysregulation coming on, I "split" and keep a calm self carrying on the conversation, while my other self slows my breathing down to, hopefully, 6 breaths per minute and concentrate on slowing/stopping the "hamster wheel" in my gut...
The dissociation isn't negatively impacting my life, in so much as I've been able to adapt to it, but we were wondering if you had any insight...when I "split" my therapist says my vision goes up and to the right...which is supposed to be a sign of hyper focus...
Anybody else experience this in this way

Barney, this sounds very familiar to me! I think I dissociate more than I realize, I might have been doing it my whole life. I would love to hear more, I have very little awareness of it. It's hard to tell if I'm inattentive or dissociative, or have APD (Audio Processing Disorder), it just sometimes feel like there's too much coming at me and I have to split to make sense of it. Looking up and to my right....I do that. I tend to break contact and "look away" to absorb what's being said and formulate my thoughts.

And yes, if people trigger me in a more confrontational way, it is kind of like I'm distancing from myself and even scrambling to think/feel straight.

I almost wish I could hear more from your therapist, that's just very interesting.

deepbreaths, me too, definitely! Humor was my best way of buffering the real blow of talking about trauma, both to myself and others, as if to make it more relatable and palatable.

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't realized how this puts an extra layer on things to work through, and I think you're totally right - it seems like an especially important thing to learn how to disarm with a therapist or a very close and trusted confidante.

Hi, a hug to you both, 

I am sorry I didn't respond earlier to you, dreamriver. I did read what you wrote and I planned to respond later. I am glad you enjoyed my Joni Mitchell reference  She is an amazing woman.

I am hearing you both about denial. It is definitely frightening to confront it. I like what dreamriver said - "slowly unwrapping it". I think that is a good way to approach  SaB

No worries SaB like other threads I leave a message and it tends to leave my mind. 

Dear SAB,
I read what you wrote and I can't help but relate (especially right now) to the denial of abuse. These days I'm being even more open with my past and trauma, but at the same time the denial is starting to pop up more often, and more intense with each time. I feel like I'm being an attention seeker with these stories that I tell to my close ones. It feels like I'm making everything up. I'm starting to sense that the denial is there to protect me from memories and traumatic emotions, and as I've been delving more into my past, it seems it's been more apparent. It scares me a lot, the intensity of denial.

Marta1234, I super relate to this. Denial is intense. I feel like I'm slowly, slowly unwrapping it.

A hug if you need one 

I relate, too. Big hug to you! I've experienced similar. Those steps to independence are the best you'll ever take in your life!!!!

Hi Allie Matt  I have had panic attacks that really just don't fit the textbook symptoms like you described. I had them on and off through my life and since they just didn't seem like other people's, I didn't do anything about them and didn't know what they were.

My anxiety has been very suppressed throughout my life, so the way it comes out is not smooth. It feels like an unbearable mixture of tension and depression that culminates into something very physical, anger, pacing that I can't stop, and some hyperventilating. Sometimes I feel like I might die. I may have a very tight chest. But not much sweating and never thought it was a heart attack.

*Trigger Warning* - I will sometimes think about self harm or suicide during these moments but it passes.

I'm not sure if what you're having is a panic attack but it does sound like anxiety sensory overwhelm! Do you feel like you want to shut down and hide? Or lie still when that switch goes off in your brain? Extreme exhaustion after? That's kind of an alarm for me that my flight/fight/freeze is going off and that's definitely anxiety!

Hi All - sorry I haven't responded to this thread in so long. I want to thank each of you for your input and responses findingpeace, BJeanGrey, Blues_Cruise, and Three Roses.

I'm still "translating" my need to go no contact into a language my body and emotions understand from my rational mind. It's tough, but strong revelations do bubble up, especially when I look back at old messages with FOO. It can be very overwhelming. A lot to process. A lot of grief and loneliness to fight through.

findingpeace, I did try to message you months ago, but it does look like messaging is disabled through this board in some weird way.

Thanks again everyone and hugs back to you 

I'm struggling to accept the cptsd stuff. I want to fight it. I want to get over it, suck it up, or just move the **** on. Every time I feel an ounce of relief I just grab onto it and completely ignore any symptoms that pop up until I can't anymore. I'm working on that but it is so hard as you know. Acceptance feels like giving up. Because I do not want this to be my life.

Windflower I relate to this so much. As soon as I feel relief from a flashback, I hang onto the normalcy so hard and begin piling up the denial and distancing myself from the triggers and symptoms, because I so badly don't want to feel them again, and keep having a "normal" life, and then before I know it....

"I want to fight it..." I don't fight it anymore. Can't say it's helped but at least I'm less exhausted.

I turn to supplements before meds too. When it's really bad nothing makes it better. I have literally wasted xanax on flashbacks. Because it goes far beyond just CNS anxiety, I really do feel. The only way is through....

I hope what I wrote helps, and even if it doesn't, it feels like some sort of "company." I too just can't talk to anyone about this stuff. If I do, I feel more drainets than relieved by my own self. It is very lonely. Thank heavens for this forum...

First of all Marian82 - a if you need one. If not, please disregard. I'm so sorry you feel this way. It sounds so isolating.

There are so many love languages...being "loving" in either actions or words can take on many forms. It can be a hug. A small gift. Cooking for someone. Being kind. And even telling someone a harsh truth to challenge them to be better people, even if you're afraid it comes off as "mean." It can even be a playful punch to the shoulder and a tease, IME. Love can be conveyed in each of these things.

No matter how it's shown, I think as long as it's received as honest and for someone's ultimate well-being in the end, it is perceived as loving. I struggle with seeming "loving." I think I come off as cold to protect myself, but I'm working on this.

Someone who knows precisely who you are and accepts you will know this is how you express love, even if they sense your shame and fear too. They'll see through that. It will be good enough for them. They will know it is genuine.  For people like us though, these people are rare....I struggle with this, but try to keep my inner critic from exiling my inner child and vulnerable parts from being able to both show and receive love and make sure those people might stick around....

dreamriver, what you wrote about your family's narrative I really recognised too. I too feel like I've been making up a story, attention seeking and or creating excuses and that there's nothing wrong. I suspect the 'dirty' aspect that I have comes from catholic guilt and there being a large measure of sexual shaming and abuse going on in my upbringing. It sounds strange, but I almost wish I were only wrong, and not dirty. It's an unpleasant sensation to describe and it can affect lots of aspects of life.

SharpAndBlunt, it doesn't sound strange at all.  Others in my family have expressed feeling the same way around other people because of abuse (SA). I have always felt it was unfair and unfair the way they were regarded by others to make that feeling stick and feel like it was truth.

I feel I lucked out. There is lots of sexual shaming in the cult upbringing I experienced but it seemed to miraculously roll off my back. I think if it was openly known and accepted I was abused though, I may have become a target of that treatment and thus that feeling. Instead it was more so ingrained in me that I was ugly, strange looking, weird, ungainly, and clunky.

I'm sorry you have those feelings. I do hope you feel better about your self image someday....I've never met anyone who I thought was dirty or filthy, ever (let alone for sexual abuse, of which I'm closely acquainted with a good handful of survivors), especially if they show kindness and empathy, like you do. (Cruel people I could see myself thinking as "filthy" but that's never happened).

I want to put something here that I read today, just by chance, by way of putting something on a tender note. I was reading an interview with Joni Mitchell and she said something along the lines of pulling the weeds out from your soul has to be done or they will overgrow. I feel like it's a difficult and lonely task, and I dearly wish I had someone by my side to help me. I know I have everyone here and I am thankful for that.

I LOVE Joni Mitchell. Her music, life, wisdom, and perspective have all been immensely healing for me, and I love reading her interviews. I highly recommend "Joni Mitchell In Her Own Words" by Malka Marom, what an amazing peek into her soul. I especially admire her as someone who has processed her own traumatic childhood completely by herself, only with help of her art and other means, with no one to help her but herself....pure loner women are some of my biggest idols and inspirations that keep me going.

And I'm sorry you feel alone processing your thoughts and healing but yes there is this forum, it has helped me at my loneliest. A hug if you'd like one 

I relate a lot to the denial you describe. It's been conditioned and brainwashed into me via my family's narrative that some people in my family were abused, others were not (and that I definitely wasn't, even that I came out "perfectly okay.")

I still often think to myself a lot that I wasn't abused even though accepting I was became a huge corner turned for me in my healing. I need to work on that, still haven't fully accepted it.

But like you the thought of officially putting it out there as fact does make me feel very exposed. That I'm making up some story to give a solid reason for why I have mental health struggles, like I'm just creating an excuse when I'm not actually coping with anything real, I'm just "wrong" and there's no cause.

I feel more like I'm just "wrong" not so much dirty.

Hi Bounty, maybe I can chime in.

*Trigger Warning*

I haven't been on this forum much lately but maybe thought you could get some feedback from someone who isn't triggered by this type of content as much as others...not so much but I do have issues, experienced SA as a child but on the plus side it's heavily repressed because most happened in infancy, and I thankfully was able to carve out a close and healthy sex life with others before the repressed memories really hit me like a load of bricks and explained a lot of things. (EA and neglect did a MUCH bigger number on me by far than SA/PA and seems to be at the deepest foundation of my trauma)

Anyways, I've had similar issues to what you describe. Like you things got really the most difficult right around when I was first going to therapy and uncovering/unraveling some serious stuff. My body would lock up and it's like I couldn't relax and be open, even the idea of sex disgusted me for a while. But it got way better as I've processed things.

My partner thought it was his fault but I kinda just told him for my own benefit and explained that it wasn't him, he still felt bad though. I hated telling him but there was no other option. But he got over it. There is a lot of trust between us though.

I think in this situation, it's your body, it takes two to have sex, and if the aftermath is pretty awful for you right now then you have every right to tell him that you're struggling with new positions because of trauma. You don't want him to feel like he is to blame, and the easiest way to do that is to tell him he isn't to blame. If he feels guilty for that or doesn't believe you anyway, that is kind of his problem and you were very clear what the cause is, that it's really not him. That's his struggle. And if he's your serious partner in sex and in life, he can move past it.

You don't have to absorb his guilt because you both can't have sex a certain way. And anyways, if it's just certain positions and pushing beyond your usual limits that is triggering, then you can still be intimate with normal positions, right? And if not, your partner can always take care of himself intimately.

What you describe is familiar, but in my case, it wasn't flashbacks to my sexual abuser but actually to the emotional abuse. While getting intimate I had impressions that I couldn't possibly be sexual or sexy because I'm really deep down just as disgusting and awful and ugly and unwanted as I was shown and taught as a child. I struggle with this off and on, I need to work hard to make myself feel sexy in my own eyes before I feel it's even possible for someone else to see me that way.

But it did get better, this was a little under a year ago around the time when my therapy and relationships were at a fever pitch. Did the new positions your partner try to do with you, were you 100% comfortable with them? Were you doing them to please your partner in the moment? Were they only his idea? That can be an exciting part of getting intimate, is doing what your partner wants and being a little subservient (with safety words and full on trust and understanding of course), but I do think if there is any part of you that is reluctant to try new things it could definitely put you back in that mindset of being coerced sexually again, especially now.

I have full faith that it will improve for you though, just like it did with me 🙂 If you had an easier time getting intimate in the past before counseling then I do think you can get back to that place again. and I hope it's an easy thing for your partner to understand and go along with while you are struggling in the meantime...it might not be but how else is he going to learn about what's really going on with you, and how else are you going to heal? Good luck. 🙂

Hi JRose - belonging, yes! My upbringing was hard, but it always seemed me and younger sib would have each other's backs, no matter what. We "belonged" together, it felt that way for a long time. I think we helped each other survive. Losing that, and in a turn-heel way, ruptured the main sense of family, belonging, and friendship that I had. Worse, having it almost turned into a weapon against you instead of the warm support and love you always thought you would get. The confusion and devastation is indescribable.

Every so often after this heartbreak I find myself reeling with precisely what you describe. I'm missing the nurturing I didn't get ... Which was salved by my younger sib for a time, but not forever. And no doubt for her own very good reasons that I do try to understand, outside of the pain that I don't understand, and which she has chosen to inflict on me owing to her own confusion and trauma, no doubt. Despite how hard the separation is, I fully see and acknowledge a truth she's shown me that she can't be what she was for me anymore (and I for her) and they she just can't do that anymore (though she went about it in a toxic way). I've learned to fully release her.

The "bonding gap" you describe, wow, yes, it hits me hard and I crave for the validating parent outside of myself I never got. I feel terrified that such a person is nowhere in sight and I may not ever find that validation again, and it can throw me into depression and loneliness... trying to seek it in new friends but then coming up dry and knowing I always will.

Then I joined this forum and I found out about Internal Family Systems therapy, and while I don't have a therapist helping me with this, it was so resonant with my personal spiritual practice (shamanism) that I explored it. I've also gotten in touch with very interesting, very unseen parts of myself! It's helped me turn corners at deep, dark times, and realize that I'm never really alone, and that running away from what I feel is just an extension of shaming and abandoning myself. I'm learning better how to sit with myself, and talk with the abandonment and loneliness and fear, and I feel a small child in me feeling deeply warmed and protected. And *seen* most importantly not all. (Funnily enough there's a "teenage" part of me that is very strong and brave, and emerged during a pivotal stage of my survival in adolescence, it's been amazing to get in touch with him/her again and channel them in my current struggles.)

Thank you for sharing that you do that, JRose. It's one of the handful of self-care tactics that has been immensely helpful, I'm glad it's helped you too. I'm not good at it yet but practicing. Asking the shaming, critical parts of myself to step aside and let me tend to the child that just wants her loneliness and abandoned state to be validated, has helped me on the hard road of accepting my sibling for where she is at and getting those needs myself instead. It should have always been that way, but we grew up in an enmeshed family and it can't be helped, even though we now have very separate journeys ahead of us for the time being. It at least brings me reward and strength they I can find validation from wonderful people (like you!) in this forum and offer that validation in turn.