Trouble Accepting Trauma

[zombie squirrel]

Lately I've been feeling really confused about my trauma. It happened when I was ten years old. At that age, I didn't understand what had happened to me. It didn't make any sense, so I convinced myself that it must have been a bad dream or something. Later, when I realized what had happened, I refused to believe that it could be true. Logically I knew what the memory was, but I couldn't bring myself to accept that it could have been real.

I finally began to consider that it might have actually happened when I started having flashbacks and generally freaking out when I was messing around with my boyfriend. I guess I couldn't find any other reason why I would freak out like that. These days when I have vivid memories, nightmares, or panic attacks, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is real. However, when I'm not in such dire situations, I still find myself wondering if maybe I've been making a huge deal over a dream. It makes me not ever want to tell anyone about it, because if it's not real that makes me a liar and a horrible person.

It's so weird to me, because most of my memories of this person are of nice things, like him teaching me how to play baseball, sledding with other neighbor kids, etc. Then there's this awful memory of him raping me. It doesn't make any sense! I can't decide if it was really just a dream or if I just can't accept that someone I knew and looked up to my whole life would hurt me like that. I've gone to therapy for it and I've had some really awful flashbacks and nightmares, but I still, to this day can't fully believe that it actually happened.

Does anyone else have any feelings like this, or have any advice about how to sort it out?

 

[Tosh]

Sometimes I feel confused too. The flashbacks/memories/dissociation mixes me up. Obviously if we are like this...then something happened to us. I think when our mind is ready to handle certain memories, it releases them to us. It's like a little piece of myself, that was somehow "forgotten." Maybe the memory would have been too much for me to handle earlier in my life. It could have been the choices I made, I kept myself in abusive situations because that is all I ever knew. It's also what protected me from having to deal with my past traumas. Now that I'm safe, and working in therapy, more memories have been revealed. Some of mine have came in reoccuring nightmares, flashbacks, emotions. Most of the time there is something that triggers it. My triggers are random, it could be anything.

How do I sort through the mess? I honestly don't know. I try not to dwell on it too much. Do my best to stay present minded. It's hard when it feels like it consumes you, but I do my best. When you are ready more answers will be revealed. I tell my T about most of my flashbacks. I also keep record of some of them in my trauma diary on here too. It helps, but one thing that helped me is. I was able to verify that my father had also sexually abused others. These were other family members who had been abused...this was kept secret from me. I broke down when some of my family came to visit last summer. Without saying it what happened exactly, only that I was in therapy to deal with something that happened when I was a child, She knew. She knew cause she was abused too. She said the words for me and was in therapy herself. There are at least three other people he abused. All the people I know about are in my family...who knows how many others. If he abused you, then he probably abused others as well. I can't imagine how hard it would be to do some background research on this guy. Opening up to others is what verified my abuse, it's how I know what I see in my flashbacks are real.

I don't know if this helps you, but I experience the same things...and it's all real and verified. I hope you can find some answers, you are not alone in this. ((zombie squirrel))

 

[Phoenix_Rising]

It sounds to me like a type of dissociation you are experiencing, as a protective mechanism.

My impression from what you said, is that at 10 years old, you had all these memories and experiences that were positive with this person--so they were someone you had a relationship with, and trusted. They did things with you that were enjoyable and made you happy to be with them. There is a term for this, it is called grooming, and it is a very deliberate way to gain a child's trust and confidence, because children are naturally open and trusting to those who are nice to them, and that they know, to people they trust and think are their friend, whom they believe is a safe adult. That is the innocence of being a child. And doing what this person did, was taking advantage of that, manipulating you in a manner that was well above your ability to understand and comprehend at that time.

You could not see this person both as someone you trusted and enjoyed spending time with, AND as someone who brutally betrayed and raped you. Even adults struggle with this type of scenario, for a child, it is totally overwhelming. The only choice is to dissociate the act from the person, because they simply cannot be both those things at the same time. So you had to split that part of you, those memories, off. So you could survive and so you could cope with something you could simply not cope with the reality of at that age.

And yes I do that as well, and have difficulties with dissociation and accepting some of the traumas in my life.

But, having said that, I will also say that 10 year olds do not "dream" they are raped. Why would any child do that? They simply wouldn't. Nor do they have the capacity or experience to come up with something like that on their own. A normal, non-traumatized child, would not think about being raped, and certainly not by a person they cared about and trusted in their life.

It is not in a child's nature to seek out that kind of pain.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

You were brain washed into trusting this man. Just like phoenix said. There is a name for this, it's called Child Grooming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_grooming

So please don't think its just you, for that is somehow your fault. Or minimizing it. Trauma is still trauma and to me child abuse and sexual trauma is some of the worst out there, because the child is not even grown, so will always look at the world different from then on. And more then likely will not get the help that is needed.

I was also groomed as a child, and never even knew about it, or that it even had a name until last year. When a police officer told me that I had been groomed. I never realized. I had been raped later in life as well, so when the officer told me that this grooming was also wrong and put a name to it, I was shocked. And still completely brain washed!

There is something I learned in the hospital. Acceptance. Which you talk about but... I don't know how you will get there, everyone has there own path. But acceptance is what really helps ( and helped me) on the road to recovery.

Take care of yourself.

 

[zombie squirrel]

Thanks for all the responses!

There is a term for this, it is called grooming, and it is a very deliberate way to gain a child's trust and confidence, because children are naturally open and trusting to those who are nice to them, and that they know, to people they trust and think are their friend, whom they believe is a safe adult.

I had never heard of this before reading your post, so thank you so much for sharing this information. That does kind of make sense and it probably applies to my situation, although I still have a hard time believing it (sigh). You're right, I really trusted this person and had a seemingly positive relationship with him for years and years, so I'm sure that is a big part of why I can't accept it.

I was shocked. And still completely brain washed!

I had to laugh when I read this, because that's almost exactly the response I had when I read your and Phoenix's posts about grooming :confused:.

I don't know if this helps you, but I experience the same things

It definitely helps to know that I'm not the only one who has trouble with this, because I've never really talked to anyone about it. I think a big reason why I didn't go to therapy for a long time was because I thought that if I said anything about it (how I wasn't entirely sure whether it was real or a dream) they would accuse me of making the whole thing up for attention or something.

I still feel guilty about it, like I'm wasting my therapist's time on something my mind made up when there are people with actual problems that need to see her. Logically though, I know I probably didn't make it up at all. Reading about your experiences with this made me feel a little better about it.

 

[Hashi]

I think a big reason why I didn't go to therapy for a long time was because I thought that if I said anything about it (how I wasn't entirely sure whether it was real or a dream) they would accuse me of making the whole thing up for attention or something.

I still feel guilty about it, like I'm wasting my therapist's time on something my mind made up when there are people with actual problems that need to see her..

This is exactly how I've felt. I just wanted to share that for me it hasn't been the case that one day I struggled to believe it and then the next day I accepted it was true and that was that. I've gone backwards and forwards as I've talked in therapy about what happened.

Sometimes it feels completely true, sometimes completely untrue. Even recently in therapy, after disclosing something and feeling all the pain of it, I suddenly felt like I'd made everything up and I was a terrible person for taking my therapist's time and compassion for this big lie. At other times I have degrees of belief in it. Often I think well, OK, A and B happened but not X and Y. Or it wasn't that bad.

All this can drive me crazy but I've come to realise it's my mind protecting me. If I suddenly saw everything clearly, realised how bad it was and knew 100% that it was true, I wouldn't be able to face it. I have to get there bit by bit. Although I've gone in and out of belief, overall it becomes more real all the time. The doubts don't mean it didn't really happen, they mean I can't quite handle the fact that it really happened.

 

[VDWngr1355]

I am the same way. It is hard to accept it and I am still not really even there yet- at least not fully.

 

[maddog]

For me, it's notso much a case of doubting whether or not certain events actually happened... I have, for the most part, clear memories of most of my traumas, and their existence in fact is fairly clear cut and beyond dispute.

But often, particularly in view of my current state of functioning and the fact it is terribly, terribly low, I find myself questioning how I could have lived through and coped with all of that and come out alive on the other side. Honestly, I find myself wondering what my T must think, for example, and how or if he can reconcile how this pathetic broken down emotionally shattered shadow of a human being could have been so resilient back then in the face of all that happened. And then sometimes, inevitably, I can find myself invalidating my own experiences, questioning if they can have been as bad as I remember them to be, questioning if I am believed or considered to be lying or exaggerating, arguing against the credibility of my own story when considered in my current reality...

I know it's all symptomatic of shame and a belief that somehow I deserved what happened to me and do not deserve the validation of anyone now. I know it's all a hopelessly self-defeating spiral of negativity that can catch me and sweep me up and send me off to a bad place very quickly, and I suppose that in time, it will ease, or at least I hope so.

In the meantime, I have to try to trust in my memory, trust in what i know to be true of PTSD and the toll it can take in later life, and trust in the fact that resilience can take many forms, not all of which are as overt and "courageous" as we'd like to think that they are.

Maddog