EvenStrongerNow
Diamond Member
So, my therapist and I decided that I needed to come once a week to get more help with processing because the stuff coming up right now is unbearable to process alone.
My session yesterday seemed like a breakthru for me. She helped me figure out why I had certain reactions to certain things out of nowhere and that it's important to sit and analyze that stuff, not to go on a self-search and destroy mission because there is nothing wrong with me. That was a relief because my first nature is to turn against myself when anything goes wrong or if I have any mood swing.
Anyway, somehow, while I was beating up on myself in therapy and telling her all the things I struggle with in the present, she asked me, "whose voice are you listening to? Who used to tell you these things that you are telling yourself?"
I totally dissociated and told her how when I'm out in public, I can see by how children are behaving around their parents that their needs aren't getting met, that they are just an inconvenience to them. How, I just know that their little voices aren't being heard. I hear the things parents tell their children, the abuse. How I just want to shake the parent and scream out to them how it's SO important that they parent their kids properly, how abuse impacts them later in life, etc. I was going on and on about how I just didn't understand why people do this to their kids. Why don't they get it. I started shouting swear words at this parent that I was shaking in my imagination and then I started bawling my eyes out...and after a couple of minutes, I said....
"Joe, it was Joe that said these things to me." I told her the things he said to me. That I was ugly, that I was evil, that I was dirty, bad, awful, horrible, that I would never amount to anything, how he didn't want to see my face day in and day out, and so much more. I started crying violently while saying, "He took everything from me. And now I say these same things to myself. And I'm so tired of doing it. I just don't know how to stop."
My therapist said, "Ok. I want you to pretend he is in this chair next to me. What would you say to him?"
I COULD NOT LOOK AT THE CHAIR! I just sat there, looking between her chair and that chair. She said, "Come on! You want me to defend you? I will. What do you want me to say to him?" I just sat there staring, I totally dissociated. I couldn't come back. Nothing in that moment seemed real. I sat there for 5 minutes, staring. Finally, I said to her, "It's just weird. I'm too scared to be that vulnerable right now."
She told me that's how therapists see what is going on, by bringing the abuser into the present. She said as she was observing me, she saw the most insane look of terror, and horror on my face she had ever seen, that she could see how freightened I was to stand up to him. I looked down and could see that the tissue she gave me was all rolled up into a ball, torn every which way, and there were pieces EVERYWHERE, all over my pants, and all over the couch around me. I felt so embarrassed. I was so sweaty and so afraid. I could feel it and notice it after she brought me back to the present.
It was really intense! I am really afraid to do the exercise. I don't know why....
My session yesterday seemed like a breakthru for me. She helped me figure out why I had certain reactions to certain things out of nowhere and that it's important to sit and analyze that stuff, not to go on a self-search and destroy mission because there is nothing wrong with me. That was a relief because my first nature is to turn against myself when anything goes wrong or if I have any mood swing.
Anyway, somehow, while I was beating up on myself in therapy and telling her all the things I struggle with in the present, she asked me, "whose voice are you listening to? Who used to tell you these things that you are telling yourself?"
I totally dissociated and told her how when I'm out in public, I can see by how children are behaving around their parents that their needs aren't getting met, that they are just an inconvenience to them. How, I just know that their little voices aren't being heard. I hear the things parents tell their children, the abuse. How I just want to shake the parent and scream out to them how it's SO important that they parent their kids properly, how abuse impacts them later in life, etc. I was going on and on about how I just didn't understand why people do this to their kids. Why don't they get it. I started shouting swear words at this parent that I was shaking in my imagination and then I started bawling my eyes out...and after a couple of minutes, I said....
"Joe, it was Joe that said these things to me." I told her the things he said to me. That I was ugly, that I was evil, that I was dirty, bad, awful, horrible, that I would never amount to anything, how he didn't want to see my face day in and day out, and so much more. I started crying violently while saying, "He took everything from me. And now I say these same things to myself. And I'm so tired of doing it. I just don't know how to stop."
My therapist said, "Ok. I want you to pretend he is in this chair next to me. What would you say to him?"
I COULD NOT LOOK AT THE CHAIR! I just sat there, looking between her chair and that chair. She said, "Come on! You want me to defend you? I will. What do you want me to say to him?" I just sat there staring, I totally dissociated. I couldn't come back. Nothing in that moment seemed real. I sat there for 5 minutes, staring. Finally, I said to her, "It's just weird. I'm too scared to be that vulnerable right now."
She told me that's how therapists see what is going on, by bringing the abuser into the present. She said as she was observing me, she saw the most insane look of terror, and horror on my face she had ever seen, that she could see how freightened I was to stand up to him. I looked down and could see that the tissue she gave me was all rolled up into a ball, torn every which way, and there were pieces EVERYWHERE, all over my pants, and all over the couch around me. I felt so embarrassed. I was so sweaty and so afraid. I could feel it and notice it after she brought me back to the present.
It was really intense! I am really afraid to do the exercise. I don't know why....
