Way too much TW CSA/SA

[Saluki]

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.

[Saluki]

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.

[Bert]

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.

[Saluki]

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.

[Kizzie]

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?

[Chart]

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.

[Lakelynn]

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.

[Papa Coco]

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....

[Chart]

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 ❤️+🩹

[Saluki]

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?

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!)

[Saluki]

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!

[Chart]

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...
 

[Desert Flower]

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.

[Desert Flower]

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.

[Saluki]

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.