Healing or Holding On?

[Dark.art.girl]

Hello, all.

It's been five years since I joined this community and I can certainly say maturity is a blessing. Wow.

I'm holding myself accountable now in an effort to finally work through what I've been avoiding for 2+ years. I mentioned it briefly on here before in January, but now it's come back to rear its ugly head at me once again. So, even if I feel like I should forget about writing my feelings or pretend nothing ever happened, I'm going to write here until I come to one or many resolutions.

I was forced to reopen and unravel my entire life including the last few years of adulthood due to some unexpected circumstances that would be hard to explain. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in a relationship--I thought for sure my boyfriend would leave me, but he held strong and handled it with grace. However, it affected me deeply in ways I did NOT see coming at all.

When I was 12, a criminal case was opened against three perpetrators. All I remember was everything I had being seized as evidence, being interviewed by detectives, and receiving a teddy bear after I got done with questioning. I realize now how much of it I blocked from my memory--but I remember my mother once telling me they were convicted or caught or something at least. A small part of me held onto that hope for the last nine years. Well, it seems that may have not been the case. I've read the police report but after it got transferred to the DA's hands, the trail stops. Meaning it's likely no justice was served. Now, I have so many feelings about so many things I can't even locate them all. Intimacy with my boyfriend has been frequently unsuccessful--I have to keep abandoning the act altogether--because of my discomfort and fear. It's so sad to me that again, the one person who wants nothing but my safety and happiness, is being pushed away.

So, in order to try working through it, for the first time, in detail, I've discussed the extensive history of my sexual abuse to my partner. Who, THIS TIME, I am completely sure I can trust. But the worst part of all of this is I don't understand the triggers now. I don't understand anything about this. The wound feels fresh like it just happened yesterday. I've been sad, reclusive, pessimistic, really angry, and I couldn't tell you what else. But it's a lot. It almost also feels like I'm in some kind of mourning? I feel like I'm getting attacked at every angle. Everything is reminding me of something to do with my hometown which brings me right back to the same group of thoughts and memories or different one I thought I'd forgotten reappears. It's like I'm constantly making connections to that time period now. Has anyone ever experienced that? A song, a familiar looking person, the way the air feels around you, a smell, and it's just brings you back to the same spot? Constantly? Kind of like a loop.

I saw a girl at work that looked like someone I went to middle school with and somehow it eventually brought me to tears. What the??

I also feel guilty for not being happy when I can't tell my dad about why I might be in a sour mood. I just get snappy and want to be left alone. Or just generally. I feel normal, but not normal at all. Functioning, but not functioning. Depressed, but managing. It's so odd. Motivation is hanging on by a thread--everything I do is done with will-power and the determination to stay on top of my health.

My biggest concern is also whether I'm holding on to these feelings and not moving on the way I should be. Am I holding on or am I just healing? We'll see, I guess.

Anyway, if there are any readers, I wish you all a happy Halloween if you celebrate at all. Until tomorrow, friends.

[sanmagic7]

hi, dark.art.girl.

i believe you are healing for the most part, altho some of it may feel like you're just holding on.  i totally relate to the idea of triggers being everywhere at any time - i've thought of it as tho the present is now tainted in so many ways and on so many levels by the past that i can't get around them.  they're there, they grab me, the feelings come again.  no, you're not alone in this.

it sounds like you've gotten to a deeper part of all this perhaps? i'm very sorry you're going thru it at all, altho i'm very glad for you that your partner is there by your side, not letting go.  do you have a therapist?  i think this may be something to speak to them about, work on resolving these issues so the triggers fade.  it's rough, tho, when no matter what you do, where you go, something reaches out and sends you spiraling.

i do hope you find justice and closure.  best to you with this.  sending a gentle hug, if that's ok.

[Francis5]

Hi Dark.art.girl
Just wanted to say I think you're incredibly courageous and likely on the path of healing.

This is a pretty powerful statement that sums up the struggle and how to maybe keep one step ahead

Motivation is hanging on by a thread--everything I do is done with will-power and the determination to stay on top of my health.

It took me years to share my pain with my wife - congratulations on being able to do that with your partner. Hiding things is something I am working through and writing about right now. The more you can share with the right people/person, I strongly believe the better

The loop you speak of really resonates. It seems some days (or months/years) every action, conversation instantly traces back to my trauma, to that fear, shame, like a gut punch. It does ease some times as I can say the past little while it hasn't been so noticeable. I wish for you that easing and for lots of peaceful moments today.

[Dark.art.girl]

San,
Thank you for your kind words, I will absolutely accept hugs! Unfortunately, I'm not in the financial position to have a therapist nor do I feel like I have the mental capacity to start over with a new one lol But I wanted to tell you, I believe you're correct when you say I've gotten to the deeper part of this. It's bringing out a lot of the early childhood things I never explored/dealt with that must have needed some attention and never really got it. But it's leaving me with a lot of questions, too.

it sounds like you've gotten to a deeper part of all this perhaps? i'm very sorry you're going thru it at all, altho i'm very glad for you that your partner is there by your side, not letting go.  do you have a therapist?  i think this may be something to speak to them about, work on resolving these issues so the triggers fade.  it's rough, tho, when no matter what you do, where you go, something reaches out and sends you spiraling.

i do hope you find justice and closure.  best to you with this.  sending a gentle hug, if that's ok.

And Francis, thank you and congratulations to you as well. It was extremely terrifying to talk about. I discussed things I never shared with anyone in my entire life. There's a few things you brought up that I'd like to touch on here in this journal: shame and hiding things.

Hiding things is something I am working though and writing about right now. The more you can share with the right people/person, I strongly believe the better

The loop you speak of really resonates. It seems some days (or months/years) every action, conversation instantly traces back to my trauma, to that fear, shame, like a gut punch. It does ease some times as I can say the past little while it hasn't been so noticeable. I wish for you that easing and for lots of peaceful moments today.

Besides the abuse, I now remember hiding nearly everything in my personal life from adults around me. Numerous times I genuinely could not verbalize feelings to parents--literally couldn't even open my mouth to speak. I'm glad you talked about this, because in my current relationship, I wondered why it was so hard for me to share basic feelings or why I felt the need to hide things that didn't need to be hidden. There's a constant feeling of shame or embarrassment that it carries.

I'm currently putting together pieces of information that I feel is most likely to validate the early childhood abuse. Such as atypical behaviors I exhibited that went completely neglected by adult figures, i.e. my mother (my father was working a lot). It's painful, but it's allowing me to verify the experiences that are more foggy in my memory. My mother demonstrated a lot of predatory behaviors herself that I now recognize as inappropriate and I question her involvement further and further every day--except I'm sure there's a point where it becomes unhealthy to continue speculating rather than just accepting. She facilitated some very serious instances later in my life. But in early childhood, she did things that made me uncomfortable with my body around both her and my father--he wanted nothing to do with her antics; in fact, he was very embarrassed and shy around sexual topics with me. I felt uncomfortable with physical contact with either of them for a long time. Even now I feel weird hugging my dad. It's so sad and so wrong.

There was an interview of a woman who talked about how her mother took the position of a "vicarious" predator, one who abused her through the actions of others. My mother, in her own way and by her own motivations, was that kind of predator. I find it difficult to tackle one piece of this at a time--the acceptance of it, how to approach this topic with others, my attachment to her and so-on. My brain is a scrambled egg.

[Papa Coco]

Dark.Art.Girl,

Wow. I'm feeling your post in every fiber of my being. This got strongest when you said "...It's like I'm constantly making connections to that time period now. Has anyone ever experienced that? A song, a familiar looking person, the way the air feels around you, a smell, and it's just brings you back to the same spot? Constantly? Kind of like a loop."

Yes, YES! I've experienced it. Big time. When I first started remembering my CSA, I was in my late twenties, and as we come into the time of year when my abuse happened, I started losing my ability to know what year it was. It still happens to me on a smaller scale now. When I'm in an EF about what happened in 1967, I start to be unsure of what is memory and what is current. One day, I was alone in my bedroom and I heard my wife talking to our kids in the kitchen. I suddenly wasn't sure if that was my wife in 1989, or it was my mother in 1967 talking. The past and the present seemed to be occupying the exact same space in my head for a few moments.

it still happens now. Sometimes, as you say, it's a song or a physical reminder that brings the past back to life, other times it's the pain today that feels exactly like the pain of the past.

In a novel I'm reading right now, the author starts one of his chapters with the quote: "Walking through peaceful grounds, years after the battle, the soldier can still hear the cannons."  Bingo! That's me, and it sounds like it's where you're at right now. You can still hear the cannons.

I am mortified when I read how you've just discovered justice was never served. That is triggering for me too. (Don't fret: I like feeling triggers that prove I am resonating with a fellow soul). there never was any justice in my case. My abuse in the 1960s was never reported, and the abusers are all dead now. BUT I felt some joy when you said yours had all been convicted, and then I felt your pain when you said you just found out they weren't.

I am of the belief that the one thing that did the most damage to anyone with trauma disorders is the sense of being alone with the trauma. Having the abusers convicted didn't erase what they did, but conviction does give some sense that someone cared enough to punish them and take them off the streets. To find out that never happened feels like being hit in the head with a shovel. It just makes us feel like nobody really cared what was done to us, and that's where trauma gets its traction. It's been said that a child isn't traumatized by abuse. The child is traumatized by dealing with abuse alone.

But here on OOTS, we're not alone. When we open up to each other we find the friendship and support that we've been craving.

I hope the loving responses you're getting from the other OOTS members here helps soften the trauma.

I've learned to not panic when the past is brought back into the present and I get confused as to what year it is. It plays itself out and eventually goes back to its corner of my brain. I think it's okay to feel it. Love the younger version of yourself. Be the adult who cares for her. Imagine her in your arms, hugging you. Maybe sobbing on your shoulder and be the person who loves her back and promises that everything will turn out okay.

Younger you wants to be loved and you want to love her. I'm finding that to be the place where healing starts. The one thing all of us want is to be loved and accepted. That's true for our IFS parts too. The magic is in the love we give to each other and to ourselves.

I'll be thinking about you all day today.

PC.

[sanmagic7]

hey, D.A.G, i get it about the therapist thing - i don't have one right now for the same reasons. so, we do what we can with what we have.  thanks for sharing, for not hiding - as i've come to believe, we've taken on the shame for others, that they're the ones who deserve to feel ashamed.  whatever happened to us, it is not on us.  we didn't do it, it was done to us, no matter the circumstances.  their fault, their shame, guilt, all of it.  i think it's ok to let them have what's rightfully theirs, so we don't have to carry it around anymore.

not that it's easy to do that.  no, it's not.  it takes practice, mistakes, learning, more practice.  just know you're not alone in this.  we're all practicing together.  i'm smiling now at that notion - it's nice to feel the extra energy.  i hope you get to feel it as well.  sending love and a gentle hug for all you're going thru, even w/ scrambled egg brain.