Love Her, Hate What She Did - A Period Of Childhood Sexual Abuse

[Mayday]

I know with that I can be very black and white in my thinking, so when my therapist started helping me challenge and test that thinking, and make little steps, getting used to small changes it helped because I could start doing things but in a way that felt safe, that I could manage. I also think you're very brave to be working through all this

 

[Abstract]

I just wanted to add that I think it is normal to feel both love and hate. That it's OK to feel both. It's also important to be able to hold the good and bad in our minds simultaneously and be able to process the full implications of the bad. The reality of that bad. It's all about fully acknowledging who that person really is.

That you now accept there is no responsibility that falls on you is astonishing for someone so recently facing this. Normally it is extremely hard. Just as it is usually extremely hard truly being able to hold both the good and bad in our minds and see the real person. From what you say here you seem to have done some things that normally take a very long time for most people to do.

 

[Bedbug]

That you now accept there is no responsibility that falls on you is astonishing for someone so recently facing this. Normally it is extremely hard. Just as it is usually extremely hard truly being able to hold both the good and bad in our minds and see the real person. From what you say here you seem to have done some things that normally take a very long time for most people to do.

I can say this, but I'm not sure I truly feel it. I'm hoping that if I say it enough times it will sink in.

Hope again. I keep holding onto that.

 

[Bedbug]

I personally believe that for me when these things hapened, that the little girl inside me who it happened to, I effectively locked away and blamed and was not in any way able to face the reality of the things which happened. Now they are all surfacing a massive part of my journey has been allowing that little girl inside me to finally have a voice, but I am also very aware, that in many ways this part is still very much the little girl who I was then, and in many ways know the vulnerabilities of that

and know for my own healing, not having to hide away this broken part any more is such a massive part of my journey. I am still in a very hard place with it, and find it very hard to connect with the memories and emotions,

I feel very much like there is a little girl inside me too, frozen in time at the point the abuse ended. When I think of her now, I see her from a perspective outside of my body, like a photograph or a video recording. I feel her emotions, but they are not mine. She feels guilt, shame, betrayal, anger, disgust...

I know she is me, but I don't accept her into my sense of self. As a result, I don't feel whole. I know that a big part of my healing will involve accepting her and her feelings as mine. I think I need to take a step backwards from my current position of knowing that she was not to blame, to allow her to voice her feelings. I need to feel them as mine. I need to reintegrate this little girl into myself and teach her that she is not to blame. She needs to know that too. At the moment, I am two people.

Perhaps this is partly why I am so forgiving of my aunt now. She didn't hurt "me", she hurt "little girl" and "little girl" isn't entirely real. In that sense, the abuse isn't entirely real.

I don't want it to be real.

I have to overcome this way of thinking.

 

[HelenB]

What you have said is so powerful and I believe so key. I really do believe that this little girl is also you, and it is not surprising that when the feelings and emotions of guilt, shame, betrayal and anger were so great that you were not able to deal with them and that your response would have been to shut then out and not connect with them, but I do not believe this ever takes them away and do believe that true healing does mean incorporating all these parts of ourself so that we can become whole.

For me I know this has been very hard and still is, and I am very aware that I still have a massive fear of the emotions, which can so easily drive me back into that self destruct and hating myself place so much, but really am trying more and more to step back and learn to have compassion on that little girl, who I kmow is me, and know that as I have become stronger and able to feed that safety and security more and more into myself, that I have been able to connect more and more with the reality of what happened and the emotions, and believe that ultimately that is the only way to find freedom, healing and wholeness so that I can really learn one day to finally be me and hopefully learn to accept and hopefully even be able to love all of myself too, instead of still being so angry with myself and self destructive.

I am so glad that you are able to come back from the position you are in of knowing that what happened was not your fault, and even though this is so hard to feel in all those places, do believe that it will come more and more as you do allow yourself to be free to feel as you do, and as you learn more and more to feed that to all the places which do still feel so broken and ashamed that it really was not your fault and that they do deserve to feel and finally voice all these powerful emotions, which have had to be kept hidden for so long.

God bless
Helen

 

[Bedbug]

In one of my earliest posts on this forum @Lost Pup said to me:

The way I see it is that you have just learned you have a child to care for, and an extremely emotionally disturbed one. True this child lives inside you, but the responsibility is no less. You need to both soothe her and protect the world from her outbursts. When she comes out in a grown woman's body, the world will be infinitely less forgiving of her than it might if she were still in a child's body.

I have been thinking about this a lot. @HelenB do you think that little girl who was frozen in time all those years ago can be unfrozen and taught new things? My initial experiences of her finding her voice again have been temper tantrums. If I can talk to her, can I guide her to grow into my adult self or do I need to accept her as she is and find a way to soothe her? What has your experience been?

 

[HelenB]

Yes I do believe she can be unfrozen and taught new things. I am very aware for me that often there is still a lot of fear in those places, which makes it very hard to trust, but the more I have been able to feed in the safety, and more I have been able to begin to release and express some of those emotions and feelings, which is what she has been so trapped by, the more freedom I have been able to find and more that part of me has been able to grow, and I do believe that once all of the emotions which there was no way I was able to express at the time can be expressed and released, that this will bring freedom, and believe that with you that as you work through all those feelings, which at first may well come out as temper tantrems, it will bring a real release, and will bring freedom.

For me I am still on the journey, but do know that the more I have been able to do this, the further I have come. I am very fortunate that I have a very safe Christian ministry place, where I am having ministry, where they understand totaly about the inner child, and in the safety of this place have had times when I have been able to just feel totally like a little girl and at one weekend on a creativity course was able to just cry and cry and cry and in that place just felt so much that I wanted a mummy and felt so much the grief of everything which had never been able to be, but within that, even though it was so hard, being in that safety and being able to feed the safety in and really allow myself to express those things, which were so much deep inside me, really helped me so much to be able to find so much more release inside me, and brought me a long way on my journey.

For myself I also know I began my journey of looking into all the feelings of an inner child, well before I was having the Ministry at Ellel, when my counsellor at the time reccomended a book to me called "rescuing the inner child" by someone called Penny Parks. At that time I began to work through the emotions and started one of the exercises which was suggested in there of writing letters between the different parts, and know for myself that I found this very helpful in my journey and though I cannot find where my copy is now to look into it again and see how relevant it may be to you to look into, would suggest that you may want to look up the reviews of it and consider whether the book may also be helpful to you.

I really hope what I have written can help you in some way and do really believe that that little girl inside you does deserve so much to be able to finally begin her journey of being able to release and express all those emotions of guilt, shame, betrayal, anger, disgust..., so that you really can find release and that in that little girl place you can learn to believe that that guilt and shame do not belong on you at all and that the anger and disgust really can be placed in the place where they really belong, which is not on you but on your aunt, because everything which happened really was not your fault as a little girl, and you really do deserve the freedom to be able to express all of these emotions so that you can work through and find the freedom and release which you so deserve.

God Bless
Helen

 

[HelenB]

I just reread one of your other posts where you said that you do not want it to be real and know for me this is so hard too. So much I just want it to be a story in my head, and really connecting with all the emotions and feelings of it is still so hard, as I just do not want to accept it and do not even know how else to deal with those feelings of pain and grief and everything else which comes with it, but I do believe that even though that is the only way I knew how to deal with it at the time, that it does not really work, and that the little girl who is so broken and hurting inside me now does need me to be able to listen to her and talk to her and say I do believe her and am going to listen, and though that is still so hard, really is something which I am trying more and more to do, and as I do connect to it more, do know it brings more freedom and that I do have to continually feed in that I am safe now and am not going to keep shutting it out any more, because that little girl does deserve to find the freedom and release so much, and now I know it is only me which is still punishing her and shutting her out, and that is not what she deserves.
Helen

 

[Bedbug]

@HelenB, my little girl won't stop talking, screaming, crying. I can't help but feel angry at her and that leads onto not believing what she says. I know she deserves better. I know I do too. In a calm moment I will try writing to her. And see if I can let her write back.

Thank you for sharing so much with me.

 

[HelenB]

Knowing she deserves better is the first step, and it is a process. It was first about six years ago when I read the book and at that time I worked with it for a bit but as the emotions became harder and I could not deal with it I stopped counselling and tried to shut her and it out completely. I was anorexic and very much in self hatred and not knowing how to face it at all. No matter how much I tried to shut it out it never went away though and I came to realise that the reason I wanted I shut it out so much was because I was so afraid. I was afraid to feel and I reality in many ways still am, but as I have come further and found more and more safety I have been able to feed that in more and more and have been able to process and express a lot more of the emotions of things which happened to me.

I do still get very angry with myself, and a couple of years ago was in a very bad place and so angry with that little girl for having a voice and with myself for having allowed it, that I did end up in hospital having taken a serious OD, something which I had always thought my children would prevent me doing, but even after that I knew that it was not ok and that I could not do that to that little girl and really spoke into myself too and explained that I was just so terrified too and that I was sorry and that I did want to allow her to have a voice, and though it has been so hard, I know I have come a long way in it.

This Christmas I was able to see my family without going completely into hating myself for feeling anything, and though it was hard feeling so many of the emotions, know that really trying to keep myself out of that self destruct was the only way to keep me safe, and the only I will ever really find freedom.

I am still doing EMDR and having the ministry at Ellel, and at times it does all get too much and I just find so much that I cannot deal with I and that I cannot allow it to be more than a story in my head and just a stupid little girl who is so bad and horrible anyway, but when I can come back to the fact that it is just a little girl - that I was just a little girl, though that hurts so much, it really does help that little girl, because there is just so much pain and hurt, and that can never be released when I am still so angry with myself for feeling it.

I am so glad that you are considering writing some letters and really hope you are able to find the safety to be able to do that, and really do think it will help you to be able to work through some of these things and help that little girl express those screams and cries, which so much need to be expressed after everything which has happened to her, so that she no longer has to feel like trying to take her own life or shutting herself away forever are the only options, but realises that there can be freedom and that she does deserve so much more.

God bless
Helen