Childhood When Does The Pain End?

[EmmaOwl]

I have a lot more good days than bad... but it took a long time to get here... you are not alone in wondering if things are going to settle down.

Oh my goodness, ladee, if I ever reach that point, it would be a dream... Same with nightmares. If only I had fewer nightmares...
That's exactly what I want; to suffer less than I do now, and find things that I can enjoy in my life.

That seems like such a small, self-centered goal, but to me, to simply improve my quality of life, that is what I work towards and aim for. I have to remember that is good enough - because I believe I can do this. Can I get back to complete self-support? Probably not. But can I get to a point when I enjoy, oh, old things that I used to enjoy, like cooking for myself again? Sure, I hope so, I hope I can get back to some things like that - or other activities so I don't feel like a useless lump!! :unsure:

*Step off Soapbox*
Thank you @UniversalBeing, and forgive me for taking your thread in a slightly different direction. But when I read your OP, I had the opportunity to think about my life, and remind myself that yes, these things can change even when it seems impossibly out of reach.
hugs to you, if you accept!

 

[EmmaOwl]

EMDR for two years? I thought it was supposed to be a short term thing. I can't imagine 2 years of it :...

Especially when it includes *homework* shudder. I had enough trouble with that the first time around!
;)

 

[EmmaOwl]

Haha. As a devoted atheist for more than half of my life someone who tried to convince others th...

This is when I get mixed feelings about religion... It can be a force of good in one's life, but also a punishment and bad experiences "in the name of religion" is what i think of it as.
YOU are not like that... I think that most people are not like that. But I'm so sorry your mother caused that pain in your life. There's no excuse for that.
:hug:

 

[Deleted member 28942]

@Overcomer77 I don't like the codependency movement and labeling. I had a horrible experience with a therapist who told me I am codependent the first session and kept telling me that I am not a victim anymore. How long did you spend in EMDR therapy?

@Allie D. I like EMDR because there is no homework in it. Thanks for the hugs.
I am having a great day today. I got my students feedback and they wrote that I am perfect and the best. So happy.

 

[Twilight]

@Overcomer77 I don't like the codependency movement and labeling. I had a hor...

EMDR only several months. Codependency group was mentioned just to have peer support, friendships, etc, not necessarily to be labelled a "victim" or whatever. I don't even necessarily know all their core philosophies, I just thought the peer support might be helpful. I myself feel i have characteristics of codependency related to child abuse, but don't attend a group. I just threw that out as a suggestion bc for many years, I wished I "qualified" for a 12 step group, just to get support, but I didnt fit any catagory that i knew of. I knew I wasnt an addict or adult child of alcoholic, so felt i didnt qualify for those. I think i would qualify for alanon, though, if i wanted...

 

[Deleted member 28942]

@Overcome77 why did you stop EMDR? Did you feel you are done with it?

 

[Kintsugi]

I got my students feedback and they wrote that I am perfect and the best. So happy.

If you're allowed to, pin that shit on a wall somewhere! The director at the writing center where I tutored let me keep my session book, even though that's normally not allowed, and it has sooo many pick-me-ups in the feedback sections from my students. When I read my thesis, on incest abuse, my director introduced me... by reading that feedback (student names omitted). It was exactly, exactly what I needed to get the strength to share my story with a room of my peers.

I know that's all tangential to your thread, here. I hope you don't mind the tangent. I just think that stuff helps so much.

 

[The Albatross]

@UniversalBeing said, "Anyone here with childhood trauma how long did it take you to process the pain and hurt? How long till you started moving from surviving to thriving?"

Wrestled a good while til I ran up on a more generally beneficial idea than "processing the pain and hurt". I had several professional suggest that it wasn't necessary to slog through or sit through years of treatment to get the results I wanted/needed provided I could accept that what the pain and hurt was "now" that I was experiencing was maladaptions and psychological defenses.

Hope it's not too long to quote, but Judith Herman describes and states it really well for what my counselors and shrink were trying to convey. Progress was made much more quickly when I nixed the idea of dealing with the traumas less on a one for one (except the major, big "T" ones) and I allowed myself to leave off the hurt stuff as much as I could to work on the defense mechanisims I've had and to do the work to bring myself up into some semblance of personhood by reparenting in areas where I was stunted (or deformed as Herman calls it risking putting up the quote below) and *poof* I was able to fast track therapy, save a lot of time and money and focus more on what the real problem was... which was how to live life and get the skill sets I needed to form better/safer/more trustworthy relationships and improve my life and personal responsibility rather than the perpetual wounded bird.

“...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.” ~ Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

 

[Twilight]

@Overcome77 why did you stop EMDR? Did you feel you are done with it?

I am doing ok for now and have more pressing things to take care of...

 

[The Albatross]

• Bumped into this vid... tossing it out there as well, Why you feel what you feel | Alan Watkins | TEDxOxford

 

[Freedomfighter]

Hi,

I've been in therapy for about 2 years most of the time EMDR. Things have gotten better but...

Well, I like EMDR too and will often go online to do self EMDR. As long as it helps, why not?

I understand the terrible pain of childhood abuse, am trapped in it myself.

Just yesterday and today I got flashbacks from a long time ago in my childhood. They deal with me having my stomach pumped out, and at this point I have no clue where these recollections are coming from.

Totally freaked out by that.

 

[Deleted member 28942]

@The Albatross I don't agree with that. For me, the pain is real and physical. It is in the body. As someone who had been very successful both professionally and socially for me the problem is in working on the original trauma and process it. Maybe we come from different places.