Can't Stop Thinking About My Abusers

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have not been able to stop thinking about my abusers, I recently found they are still operating in other states, and I found out there history is even more disturbing than my abuse. I can't seem to let this go. I need accountability but I know I can't get it, even if I could I could not handle the stress from that.

I am trying to not let this consume me so it does not put me in another crisis.

All of my abuse has been at the surface for some time now, especially after talking about this stuff with my therapist.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

Hang in there, @recoveringfromptsd! Does focusing on your breath help? Just taking things one, slow breath at a time?

Sending you a very gentle hug, if you accept them. :hug:

 

[Sighmon]

I can completely understand because I still have my abusers face in my head. I can't control when the face pops up. All I can do is talk with my therapist about it and try to picture something different. It doesn't work all of the time but it does make the face slowly subside enough to do the tasks that need done.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have tried using imagery, and other grounding tools, but it seems to stay with me, I am starting to get untrusting of my surroundings again (hypervigilance). I don't see my therapist again for a little over a week.

 

[Nikki Carter]

I understand how you feel, I used to pardon my ex's behaviour based on an abusive childhood and the foster care system. but then I realized that people go through horrible things all the time, but not all of them become abusive. And anyone, regardless of where they came from is accountable for their actions. It just sucks for us because we have to process trauma with apologies we will never receive. But in that there is power, because we are no longer giving them the key our healing.

I hope your therapy goes well :)

 

[Deleted member 35429]

I felt a lot worse for time with therapy as well. It keeps it all at the surface so your mind goes crazy trying to process it. I also felt a lot worse when I read of the sick shit my perp did to other people and eventually himself. I think it made my trauma feel more real and validated...which was good in the long term but was definitely hard when I first learned of it. It's amazing how eventually this stuff seems less powerful. Time and therapy really do help. "Just keep swimming"

 

[EveHarrington]

:hug:

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

@recoveringfromptsd, can you call or email your T to get a little extra support between sessions? My T calls this "cheerleading," ie, reminding me to use my skills and that its normal to have these feelings (dissociating, hypervigilence, crying, FBs, etc.), that it means I'm doing the work.

So, rather than beating myself up or feeling like something is going wrong, I try to sit with the feelings and say, "You're doing good work, Lola." I also say to myself, "Welcome back, you're safe now," when I catch myself dissociating.

Hang in there, recovery is not easy, but you are doing good work!

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Yes, I could but she would have me come in for a session, and I can't afford it. This stuff is already stretching budgets.

Besides, this stuff I am also getting and have even when I was in the hospital and before waking dreams (dreams that continue when I am awake), these are violent dreams, and seem to represent repressed anger. I think this has become a bigger problem since they put me on naltrexone in the hospital to suppress emotional flashbacks as they come as uncontrollable anger with extreme self harm that I can't control as when they happen I am very disassociated. I worry that one morning I am going to wake up with one of these dreams and find myself bloody and all cut up. When I was in the hospital I got cut up from one of these emotional flashbacks, and it lasted for days, and I ended up pretty cut up even though I was in the hospital, I apparently had used my fingernails. It got to the point I had to sleep at the door where they could see me, and had to wear mittens on my hands. This is the one thing I can''t use grounding to manage.

I hate recovery, I have been at that my whole life, and seems to never end, sometimes I just wish it would all come to a sudden stop. Often I feel the amount of effort I put in yields little or no results compared to what I put in, I know I am probably looking at this negatively, I try nevertheless.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have made a decision, I know that as long as there is no accountability i will be haunted my what happened to me, the only way I can be able to put it away, so it does not hurt me every day is to try to get some accountability, while I know I don't have the strength to deal with any defenses that my be brought, as the stress from such would likely put me back in the TDU. I have to do it anyway to survive.