a new memory (maybe)

[sidptitala]

I'm making such detailed plans to die. It scares me because I know exactly how to get myself killed in a way that will have meaning. Its better than let him kill me. Which he will do if I tell the truth to the therapist.

Trying to get help is so traumatising too. I'm a second class patient who isn't allowed speak. If he was a cousin I could say whatever i had to.

Don't want to but I know ill have to ask the therapist to keep that secret for me. She'll say no but if i don't ask ill never know could I have survived if only I had asked for someone to keep it to themselves. It makes me feel so worthless. That no one will let me have dignity or confidentiality or safety.

I so far haven't said anything about this to her because I'm trying to get something and anything from seeing her. And talking about not being allowed to talk makes me want to die.

But its all I think about in my own time. All I think about is being unequal and worth less and I feel hopeless and I plan to die and I write long suicide letters and I beat myself and leave bruises

And I think I'm going to die i if I don't talk about it.

But not allowed to talk about it.

He's too valuable
I am worth so much less

 

[Sideways]

I'm making such detailed plans to die.

This is very normal. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help with how distressing it can be.

There are 2 things that can be very helpful:
- talking through your suicidality with your T (really talking it through, and picking it to pieces, can very often help turn it back into what it is, a dysfunctional coping strategy, and make it much more manageable)
- making a safety plan (one that is personalised, and includes things you will actually do) which you can share with your T.

Don't want to but I know ill have to ask the therapist to keep that secret for me.

I’ve been trying to keep up, but I’m still a bit confused. This person doesn’t have access to children (as in, doesn’t work with kids, or have kids in their home) - do I have that right?

If that’s the case, it’s typically not the case that mandatory reporting is required, because mandatory reporting is to protect kids right now, when there are kids right now in danger.

Maybe that’s wrong in your jurisdiction.

If you talk it through with your T, and there’s no kids in present danger, even if she does report it there’s a good chance nothing would come of that report. Im most places, there’s too many cases with kids presently at risk to investigate cases where there are no kids in danger.

Potentially I have all that wrong…

Here’s what I do know. Despite a very strong trauma bond (Stockholm Syndrome), I had a go at getting ahead of this fear by going to the police myself. I reported the historic CSA.

Yes, it was terrifying, and humiliating in ways that I can’t really even describe. But it also freed me in important ways. I treated myself like I needed to be treated - like I was sexually abused as a child and that’s not okay. That was a really important part of my recovery, and helping with the helplessness, immobility and being trapped in the past that was keeping me suicidal.

Take what’s helpful, ignore anything that isn’t.

 

[sidptitala]

Hello @Sideways, thank you for your input.

I know this whole thing is really confusing, so here is the issue in a nutshell:

When I was getting diagnosed with PTSD (which was initially about war) and the dr asked more questions about my earlier life, they said:

We don't have treatment for PTSD but because you were abused as a child can send you to a different service to see a counsellor.

When I met with that service they said:

To use this service you need to declare you were abused and what type of abuse, so that we can report it to CPS.

At the time this was the law. They said 'you don't have to talk to CPS if you don't want to', nothing will happen if you don't want to talk.

I thought similarly to you Sideways about how I was empowering myself by getting help for what happened to me etc.

2 weeks after this declaration I get frantic calls from my mom. The police came to the house looking for me.

Once I could find the officer who called to the house she quoted the abuse declaration I gave and asked for more information. I asked if she was planning to ask me this in front of my family and she said yes (which means my dad would hear the police say I declared someone sexually abused me). I said I don't want to say anything more and asked where the police got this information from. They said CPS. I tried to contact CPS by phone but the line kept ringing out.

My mom found (thankfully) vague hospital paperwork among my things. So she was grilling me for information about what I need to be seeing doctors for. I somehow managed to throw her off by telling her about other medical issues I have that she doesn't know about (because I didn't want to tell her).

Eventually I found an email address for CPS and asked for information about how they handle cases from adults with no child at risk and where the adult doesn't want to start an investigation. They emailed me back a document about how all allegations are investigated and 'stress tested' and how the accused person has rights including the right to know they were accused, by who and of what.

At this point I became totally scared. I realised that if I had said it was my dad, then CPS would use its power to find out who he is and inform him they received information about it. I started posing here a lot more around then, tried to just try other things and forget this thing with mandatory reporting happened. This was 1 year and 1/2 ago.

Then I got to the top of the waiting list for the agency that sent the abuse declaration to CPS. Initially they told me that the law had changed and now I can mention who he is to me without reporting. The initial counsellor asked me a lot of direct questions about my family, what exactly happened and who he is. These questions plus the counsellor asking them (who is a man) blocking the door as a joke made me terrified.

I was able to change to a female counsellor. And it turns out that I actually can´t say this is my dad unless I want my dad to get a letter about it. The policy has changed back to the original one (even though it's not the law anymore). The counsellor thought it had already been reported that he was my dad - so she´s doing me a favour and pretending not to know. But has just warned me I have to be very, very careful to obscure who he is.

He's still a huge presence and problem in my life (not because I want him to be- it's other family members). If he was informed I had spoken I would be in serious danger.

it also freed me in important ways. I treated myself like I needed to be treated - like I was sexually abused as a child and that’s not okay. That was a really important part of my recovery, and helping with the helplessness, immobility and being trapped in the past that was keeping me suicidal.

Can I ask you a question- what did that freedom feel like?

Do you feel like making the decision to report, yourself, was a factor in this? Or were you trying to make the decision yourself so you didn't feel forced by whatever ended up happening?

Did the person you reported find out- were you able to stay safe from them? Did they retaliate against you?

 

[Sideways]

Wow! That blows my mind!

Getting good trauma therapy in some places of the world can be a real challenge, and good therapy is better than no therapy. Long term, though, I think it's potentially going to be important that you can work through your trauma with someone you can be frank with.

It's incredibly disempowering to force a victim of abuse into the position where they may be confronted by their abuser if there are no other children at risk. If it were me? I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from reaching out to the management of the organisation that you're getting therapy from to talk to them about the impact of the way their policy is being implemented. But...that's me. A lot of people wouldn't go that route for a whole host of very valid reasons.

what did that freedom feel like?

Good and bad.

On the good side, it's done. It was helpful in that I did experience being treated like what was done to me was wrong, and I was confronted with just how wrong. For a person like me, who struggles to see my abuse as a 'bad thing', that was helpful.

It's also been helpful with me in terms of living with myself. My abuser did still have routine access to children through his work and volunteer commitments. I had a good idea that my report wouldn't go anywhere, but on the vague chance that someone else reports him at some point before he dies, I wanted my complaint to be on the record to back them up.

On the down side, it was also a humiliating and incredibly stressful experience, which I lost control of once it started. And although, in the wake of the massive Royal Commission Australia recently had, it was handled incredibly well by police, I don't kid myself that that's the experience of victims of CSA elsewhere.

This all comes with a massive disclaimer: I was also abused (quite separately) by a family member. I doubt that I will ever report that. I feel like I should, but there would be too much kickback in my daily life (because...family!).

But before leaping to conclusions there - I changed therapy teams not long after I disclosed that I'd been abused by a family member. I am with a therapy team that don't have any personal connections with this family member, whereas my previous treatment did. That alone would not have been sustainable for me. It made me feel like I couldn't talk about it openly, for no other reason than they may cross paths with him. And that self-censoring would have significantly impacted the work I need to do in therapy.

Do you feel like making the decision to report, yourself, was a factor in this?

I reported for me. 100%. Good luck to the person who ever tries to convince me that I have to report something like this. Because no, you don't.

The priority of a victim of CSA is their own well-being and recovery. Everything is secondary to that (except if you have kids...which I don't). If reporting your abuser will be helpful to your recovery? Then do it. If not? Don't do it.

Did the person you reported find out- were you able to stay safe from them? Did they retaliate against you?

Yes. Lots of people did.

I assume that there were people in his life that found out (I certainly hope so) like his wife, because he was interviewed by police at a police station, and the sheer logistics of that mean that someone is probably going to know.

But there were also a number of people from my (old) life contacted, which I hadn't anticipated. People who knew me and him at the time.

Surprisingly, very little came of that. I had a couple of people reach out to me directly via email. Police reported to me that everyone they contacted was helpful (except my abuser!), and they all ended up being very discrete about it. Again, that may be partly because of the huge amount of public education about historical CSA offences that was present at the time, but mostly I think that I just got lucky. The people in my life at the time were good people and I have no doubt that they remain so.

There's a lot to consider, for sure. Like I said, do what's right for you. And what's right for you right now may be not reporting, but that may not always be the case. I don't regret it for a second - if I had my time over, I'd do it again, despite how stressful and, at times, retraumatising, it was. I was at a point in my recovery where I needed to do it, so I did.

 

[sidptitala]

Thank you @Sideways for posting this, I'm finding it really helpful for trying to think about this from other angles (other than 'everyone is out to get me' haha)

It's incredibly disempowering to force a victim of abuse into the position where they may be confronted by their abuser if there are no other children at risk.

Yes, I think what bothers me most about all of this is that it puts me at significant risk, does not benefit anyone, and was also forced on me. It has also meant that I have very unequal conditions of speaking compared to another patient with a dead abuser or one who is less identifiable. And in that way can reinforce the lessons of the abuse itself ' I own you and you can't grow out of it' 'You can't afford to speak badly about me'.

I think I'm becoming very clear that I will only ever report him out of my own choice. And right now I need to fight for the right to not report him.

It's making me think back on the experience I have of handling other dangerous secrets.

I used to be a union organiser. And where I did that those are always top secret for most of the organising process. You spend close to a year meeting secretly, talking openly about tactics with other members, speaking about hopes and struggles, slowly initiating people and swearing them to secrecy - planning how the company might retaliate and planning how we will support each other when it does. The secrecy is really important if you ever want to be a strong union - because otherwise you will be instantly crushed. You need to be able to weather retaliation and show power and unity.

I started doing that work when I was running away from my dad's last attack, broke and not allowed work legally, homeless, going to court as a witness for my friend's domestic abuse case, trying to withstand pressure to apologise to my dad from my family, and also trying to get over my fear of doing anything gay.

It helped so much with all of those things. Tactics. Strategies. How to build and wield power.

The union organising gave me a template I used to avoid the vulnerability of having to come out to people (having already lost my family the same year for boiling water to shower, I didn't think I could afford any more rejection from anywhere) :

1. Open a chapter secretly in your life.
2. Obscure that chapter everywhere else.

And it pretty much worked because it meant by the time I had to defend that to anyone - the identity was much stronger. I wasn't alone about it, I wasn't unsure of it- it connected me to others instead of dividing me from them.

With both the union and that, the strength came from having an in-group of other people who were also affected by the thing - so that defending yourself becomes defending everyone you know. Which for me, is much easier than claiming I personally have value.

I think what's so frustrating for me about this restriction on talking is that I've been trying to apply the same template to this issue. Open a chapter where it can be discussed but not published. And not mention that chapter anywhere else. And the system just doesn't allow for that.

If it were me? I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from reaching out to the management of the organisation that you're getting therapy from to talk to them about the impact of the way their policy is being implemented. But...that's me. A lot of people wouldn't go that route for a whole host of very valid reasons.

I have definitely thought about this. I'm scared that being concerned how identifying it is could be identifying though- as with every other relationship than a parent you potentially have more than 1 of them. However I do think it's a serious inequality and I can't be the only person it's affecting (which is where I would get the strength to fight it).

I might do it also because right now I'm telling myself a story that all of this is punishment for speaking about what happened to me - and that the system either hasn't thought about it or doesn't care.

It was helpful in that I did experience being treated like what was done to me was wrong,

This is something I've yet to experience. I don't feel like it's even possible. Asking people to think you matter is something I'm so reluctant to do.

It's also been helpful with me in terms of living with myself. My abuser did still have routine access to children through his work and volunteer commitments. I had a good idea that my report wouldn't go anywhere, but on the vague chance that someone else reports him at some point before he dies, I wanted my complaint to be on the record to back them up.

I very much understand this. I reported a creepy colleague for (minor) harassment against me because I was concerned that he had unsupervised contact with teenage girls in a refugee camp. We were temporarily working in a war zone, he was a powerful figure in the church in his home country and ran food banks, coached children's sports etc. The way he was with me felt so, so so so practiced, almost like a formula. But he must have had a clean background check to work where we were.

I reported him because I could not live with myself if I let him harm those girls in the refugee camp, but also because I have never been so sure of anything in my life that he has done that before- to people too powerless to complain. And I wanted to leave a mark on his record in case anyone ever wanted to complain about something more serious- so it would help their case.

It was also like this:

On the down side, it was also a humiliating and incredibly stressful experience, which I lost control of once it started.

And that has really put me off being forced into reporting as the price of speaking to a counsellor. I know how stressful the process was when I had real child protection concerns, had a complete recollection of all events, had good support from other workers, and initiated the process voluntarily.

by a family member. I doubt that I will ever report that. I feel like I should, but there would be too much kickback in my daily life (because...family!).

Good luck to the person who ever tries to convince me that I have to report something like this. Because no, you don't.

The priority of a victim of CSA is their own well-being and recovery. Everything is secondary to that (except if you have kids...which I don't). If reporting your abuser will be helpful to your recovery? Then do it. If not? Don't do it.

I was at a point in my recovery where I needed to do it, so I did.

Yeah :( I think I'm really struggling with this piece. So far nothing about this has been about me or what might be good for me (like a lot of us probably I haven't had much of that in my life). I'm really struggling to feel like I have any value at all.

It made me feel like I couldn't talk about it openly, for no other reason than they may cross paths with him. And that self-censoring would have significantly impacted the work I need to do in therapy.

Long term, though, I think it's potentially going to be important that you can work through your trauma with someone you can be frank with.

I think you might be right about this because there is a part of me that interprets this whole thing as 'I'm not worth listening to or caring about'

 

[sidptitala]

I'm avoiding everyone. And they're getting so angry now - I need to get over this.

Girlfriend, mom sister, housemates, friends. Human interaction feels like too much.

And yet I'm so lonely without it. I feel so desperate to be valued, loved and understood.

 

[sidptitala]

I think I need so badly to talk about myself - my own thoughts and feelings, but also what happened to me and how it affected me. But to only tell people who will care.

In theory this is a therapist (and mine is a great candidate for this - if I only I was allowed to speak more freely). Because we have the 'I have to hide who he is' issue, and also my time might be up soon (but I don't know exactly when it is) I am really scared. I'm really scared of not getting what I need from going there. I'm scared ill tell her and then get too attached and not be ready to leave.

Part of me thinks what I need is to find a good, experienced therapist that I have chosen rather than been assigned to, and go to for as long as I need. Ideally an older woman because that has worked the best for me so far.

But I don't think I can afford it. And I've spent money I didn't have on therapy before and had to drop out because of finances - it was a deep crisis of hunger and not having rent and I blamed myself for using money on the wrong thing. I made a gamble that seeing a therapist fortnightly was affordable and would help me find work fast. I was too much in crisis for that therapist and it opened up more and then having to stop suddenly was a disaster.

I need to save every penny. Because I'm getting evicted for sure in the next few months.

Need to ask my housemate exactly when. She thought things have changed between us and it upset her. This is last weekend when I was beating my arms. Because she didn't see me she thought I was ignoring her. I wasn't. The fact she is selling the house does affect our friendship to be honest - it makes me so so so so so so scared of the future because I don't ever want to be homeless again.

The last 2 years I had a safe and indefinite roof over my head for the first time ever and that totally changed who I am as a person. Any healing I've done from ptsd is due to it. This house kept me alive. I'm so scared of losing it and losing all progress. I'm scared being 33 will feel like 23, the year I lost everything. And the year that never stops haunting me.

 

[sidptitala]

Last night it hit me like a ton of bricks that when I feel spaced out - I feel exactly the way I felt in the worst moments I remember from abuse.

What it feels like -like there's a balloon inside of me. Moving my arms and legs feels like moving in water. I feel so weak and floppy. Like my body is outside of me and the world is between me and it. My cheeks feel an ocean away from my jaw. The boundary between the world and me is so porous and everything about both of us is unreal.

I wonder if this means that if I deal with what happened to me exactly then, I will stop spacing out like that? If it means when I feel that way that I am having flashbacks to abuse.

This is blowing my mind a bit because that feeling has been one of the main impediments to a good quality of life for me. The main reason I struggled to work for so long.

 

[sidptitala]

Something has me by the throat this weekend. I'm trying to outrun it and scared I can't.

Something about Easter. It was the only story I had to make sense of dying and coming back to life. I remember learning it. About all that pain, being nailed to a cross and unable to move. Asking god to forgive someone, who does not know that what they are doing is wrong.

It was in temporary classrooms- so I was in 3rd grade I think.

I think that's after I remember being dragged from the window. That was summer, and maybe the summer before I made my communion? So between 1st and 2nd grade.

I think the time I remember not being able to walk was the year my after my communion in the summer? So between 2nd and 3rd grade.

This weekend I've been reliving so much that feeling- of being in the gap between life and death. Feeling powerless to affect it either way.

It feels awful. So spaced out, like the whole world has been shoved into me. Like I've scattered into a million pieces and they are all out of my reach.

 

[sidptitala]

I found myself eating the thing I always ate for comfort as a child. I thought it would help, and midway through I remembered. It made me really sad.

It was the thing I ate for breakfast as a kid during the school week (which is when I felt safe, because my dad was at work and I could go to school). I think I ate it for comfort on the weekends, when my mom was at work and we were hungry and cold.

I feel viscerally that hunger and cold. Fear and trying to distract him.

And then suddenly in that space between life and death.

 

[sidptitala]

Therapist today.

I'm wresting with a lot of things. I didn't tell her most of them but we talked about ways of coming out of that spaced out feeling. Which was helpful. Maybe saying that was the problem I'm having and why would have been too overwhelming.

She said cold helps and exercise helps. That's true - both things have helped me this weekend. Talked about sleeping in the bath (three cold walls). I said how it helps me to feel the borders of my body. Because often it seems like he is under my skin.

She asked me if I thought I was safer at war or in a room with my dad. I hesitated for a long time and said I knew there was a right answer. She said there's isn't really one, she just wants to know how I think. I said ok, then war was safer. Because I wasn't targeted - I was a protected civilian, respected on some level by everyone. And with my dad it's different.

She told me at another point something to consider is whether his (sexual) abuse was about showing power over me specifically or if it was about he was interested in children and I was a child.

It's always felt to me like the first thing. Writing this now, all of his abuse has been so personalised. As it was happening he would talk about how I was selfish, I was ungrateful, he pitied the man I marry. These things are when I was older though. I don't remember being told anything at all during earlier abuse. He never had to threaten me, because I knew without saying that he could take me out.

In emdr I did remember instances of him that seemed more driven by lust (and I was very young at the time). If we have to categorise people then he's in both categories I suppose.

She said she was asking about the safety thing to try to emphasise that the first goal of recovering is to feel safe.

A few weeks ago I asked her if people tell other people to help with their safety. She said people more do that for validation than safety. I asked because that's what has driven those urges to tell people I've had here and there. The hope that if I tell people I might be safer from him than I am now. (I don't think I said this to her, though)

I've had the renewed urge to tell people I'm close to in the last few days. I think for these reasons:

• I want my mom to tell me she will jump in and protect me if he ever tries that again- then I'll feel safer
• I want my sister to do the same
• I want both of them to never leave me alone with him and not talk about him to me
• I want to give my mom, sister and girlfriend more information about why I'm being distant (this has gone unexplained)
• Both my mom and sister are asking for my address and I don't want to give it to them unless they can guarantee not to let him find out about it- I want them to guarantee me this
• I want to not feel like I have to do everything on my own and no one supports me
• I want to feel self expression instead of restriction and burden (I'm so tired and managing this is using all the energy I need for life)
• I want to be able to heal and not stagnate- I'm stagnating at the point of 'I'm not safe because no one will support me'

 

[sidptitala]

I read something in a book about trust that said the risk of not asking for help because you don't know how to, is in the future needing a much greater level of help. Because you are homeless, addicted, have serious health issues etc. Just after I read that I said it to a client of mine who was having a lot of shame about needing help. He also seemed to think it was true.

What kind of help do I need from my girlfriend?

• I think I need to be able to talk about abuse with her. Not in detail, but just being able to talk about the fact that it's affecting me and how. I think I really need her to care about the fact that happened to me.
• I need her to back me up with my family, to talk about whether she would also step in if he does it again
• I also need her to work on equalising our relationship- she expects me to say yes to whatever she wants and that's bad for me. I need to be allowed say 'I'm too tired to help' or 'I can't hear about your stressful day in this much detail right now' without a meltdown.