Sufferer Recovering from incest

[paranoidforest]

Hello. I'm new here, I don't know if I'll stay long. I'm alone right now and feeling helpless. 18 of my 20 years of life have been lived with at least one form of abuse taking place. Nine people have sexually abused me in my life, one of them being my own father. The thoughts about abuse have always pervaded my mind since I was a small child. It feels useless to list the nuances and symptoms I've exhibited from a young age, but I knew what sex was by age three and have chronically masturbated ever since. I've spent years idolizing my father, and at some points, I even thought I romantically loved him. When he got custody of me, I was 6 or 7, I hated him. There's evidence that he may have molested me when I was younger and I don't remember it, I don't think I want to. I can't stop thinking about what he's done to me. I see it happen in almost vivid detail. I can feel him and I feel like I'm going insane. I don't want this. I don't know why I'm writing this. I want help, therapy isn't helping. I want someone to listen to me but I can hardly get out my thoughts. I regret writing this at all. I just want to be okay. I don't want to think about him. I don't want to masturbate to him. I don't know what's wrong with me. Help/.

 

[EveHarrington]

Welcome to the forum. :hug:

It can be hard to find the right kind of therapy which aides us in moving forward with our healing.

Can you describe what type of therapy you are doing? It's possible (likely) that there's something out there that will help you more.

:hug:

 

[paranoidforest]

Welcome to the forum. :hug:

It can be hard to find the right kind of therapy which aides is in m...

I'm currently undergoing more cognitive-related therapy, I think? There's been a lot of talk of trying various methods, and ths far she's really only focused on providing me coping methods for calming down, all of which aren't helping. She insists we work on taht first because she doesn't want me to panic when I start to process things. SHe mentioned wanting to try exposure therapy as well, I feel like she's mentioned to me the technical term for this kind of therapy, but I've forgotten. I think the gist of the end goal is to try to rewire my train of thought but thus far nothing is working. Maybe it's too early to tell, maybe this isn't what I need yet. I don't know. In the very least its more confrontational in comparison to the armchair therapists I've had in the past. None of which I felt really comfortable with talking about my trauma with.

 

[Friday]

There's been a lot of talk of trying various methods, and ths far she's really only focused on providing me coping methods for calming down, all of which aren't helping.

That's very much the smart play. Until you do find methods that work to stabilize you attempting further trauma therapy is a wicked bad idea. // The first step in trauma therapy is learning the tools and coping mechanisms to be able to deal with both life now, and how much harder things will be once you start processing trauma.

Welcome :)

 

[EveHarrington]

Cognitive therapy, rewiring thoughts------can take awhile to work. It's very much worth the effort though, at least in my experience.

Is she teaching you grounding and soothing skills as well? Those can be very important to healing.

 

[paranoidforest]

Cognitive therapy, rewiring thoughts------can take awhile to work. It's very much worth the effor...

She's taught me the 4/7 breathing technique, but that usually only helps in lower anxiety situations. But today we tried a method that involves counting 5 things you see, 4 things you feel, 3 things you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 that you taste. It worked shockingly well with calming me down when I was seriously distressed.

 

[AnotherUser]

I had a course of cognitive therapy in my late twenties which was very productive, and now am following sensory psychorimotor therapy. The cognitive therapy helped me understand a huge event that I hid from myself, and it really changed my life for the better. The current therapy is trying to address the more general behavioural issues around trauma.

But they both depend on getting the patient out of a catastrophic mental state so that the therapist can start work with the client on dealing with the material, and doing the work that will make things better.

But when you're in that zone, looking for immediate relief, it can be frustrating to go through that process of 'calming down' with the therapist. It can also feel like the therapist is trying to discount your feelings in the way so many other people might have done.

But it's the complete reverse of that. Your T is digging through the debris to get to the survivor. It's a good road to be on, and I wish you so much luck with it.