None Of This Makes Sense To Me

[invisible survivor]

OK so what if something awful happened to me for 4 years during my childhood. That was a long time ago. And I have managed to live until now with very little symptoms. I mean I have always been crazy so to say but I was able to live day to day and everything was OK. So why now after all these years am I Having trouble now. I don't want to remember anything else. My therapist told me that I can't stop it. That my brain knows its time. Well let me tell you something I don't even trust my brain these days. I have always been very good at work and now I find myself checking out more than usual. I am even having to call my assistant to the store so that I can leave today. I want all this to end now and go back to how it was. No maybe my life wasn't what you would call normal but to me it was safe and this definitely is not. I can't and don't want to do this. I feel very angry right now. But here the catch to that I am not angry at him for what he did to me. My therapist says it is OK to be angry at him and I can see where I should be but right now I am only angry at myself. I should have been able to stop him then. I should. Have something then. I should have told some one then. I should have already let all this go. After all what's in the past is gone now right? I should be able to hold things together now. Maybe this is just the way it is supposed to he for me? After all everyone can't be happy. I am always messing up. I hate this. Sorry if it sounds like I am ranting. But nothing else seems to be working.

 

[Deleted member 541]

This is the way it is with PTSD and childhood trauma. As a child your mind could only handle so much, so it stored things away, hidden from so, until it (sorry to repeat what your therapist said) was time. No, you can't stop it, or control how much it will reveal, but learning some really effective healthy coping skills will help tremendously.

No, the past shouldn't really matter, because it's in the past, but we are dealing with PTSD, and it's a whole different animal, than just the past. There was abuse, and that is something that you now must face, work with it, and through it, in order to heal.

No, you shouldn't have been able to stop him if he was older, and bigger. There are just somethings that we are not in control of, and this sounds like one of them. Let yourself grieve for what you have been through for a bit, and then start working on healing yourself.

 

[invisible survivor]

Grieve? I don't understand what I have to grieve about except that I am loosing it now. I have always lived in fear but untilled now was able to hide it well. I can't take this. And yes I feel like what happened to me was my own fault Ben if I was only nine and he was grown. There has to be away to make this stop.

 

[blackpearl]

I have come over mental abuse and forgiven my abuser(s), if she only could accept it. Her own denial is now that is in the way, but I have done what I can to help my self. Yes, I think we need to grieve the fair treatment and love we never got to experience, so that we will be able to let go of the feeling of loss, emptiness and anger for it. Anger is a way to run away from the hurt, the challenge is to welcome it and work with the feeling of being weak, small and human. That's hard core and does trial your real strength.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Grieve? I don't understand what I have to grieve about except that I am loosing it now. I have always lived in fear but untilled now was able to hide it well. I can't take this. And yes I feel like what happened to me was my own fault Ben if I was only nine and he was grown. There has to be away to make this stop.

You grieve for the child that was abused, you grieve for the child that lost her innocence, you grieve for the childhood that was taken from you, and you grieve for the adult that now must endure this all over again......

Yes, there is a way to make it stop, but it will be difficult, painful, and hard. You need to heal yourself and your trauma, by facing it. Sorry, but there is no other way to do this...

 

[invisible survivor]

No I want. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never hurt like that again and I want. I will find a way to make it stop. Everyone else here might be strong enough to go through it but I am not.

 

[kers]

It is really scary, when the coping skills you have been using for so many years stop helping. You are having difficulties now because you are no longer able to cope with the traumas you endured as a child. At a certain point, our brains just can't fight off dealing with what happened. This is terribly painful, I know. The way to make the pain stop is to go into it, to explore what hurts and understand why. Being in therapy is a HUGE step to that end, so good on you for going.

For example, you describe feeling very angry, but not at your abuser, at yourself. This is very common. Exploring the anger you feel might help you change it. Many people who were abused as children have learned to blame themselves instead of the abusers. Talking about the abuse might help you see it differently, and you might not blame yourself so much. When I was abused, I blamed myself because that felt safer than blaming the adults who should have protected me. If the adults in our life are 'bad,' the world becomes much scarier, so it felt safer to blame myself. Perhaps this was true for you, too, I don't know. But exploring the way you blame yourself might help change your feelings on things.

It doesn't have to be this way for you. You aren't messing up. Your words are so similar to what many of us wrote at the beginning of our healing, too. You can feel better. It takes time, but you can feel safer.