Sexual Assault Does It Ever Stop Being Part Of Who You Are?

[anonymous]

Abuse.

Does it ever stop being a part of you?

Are you ever able to reach a point where it's not so much part of your identity you are able to live without feeling its presence everyday?

Can you move on without taking it with you?

Feeling pretty defeated by this right now. It feels like however much work I do in therapy I'm never going to feel free of the weight of this.

 

[HypnoticallyChaotic]

I've often wondered that same thing. What's on your mind? Rant it.

 

[seedling]

Am currently feeling that I am doing better at protecting myself from letting the abuse in to my present life. I've figured out more of what the abuse was and am getting the toxicity out of my life now.
Was just wondering today how much I will always need to have my guard up to protect myself. And wondering how to let the "real" me out in to the world now without being hurt again.

Good question.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

Worried about that actually and hope one day to be completely rid of it. Wishful thinking? :unsure:

 

[Ronin]

It is a part of me.
But in what form, and how it'll shape me? That's on me.

Ditto what I do with it & involving other people.

I feel pretty empowered about all the broken ties & all the parts of me abuse couldn't change for good. It's like, they got me some pretty bad wind to begin with, but the jump went fine and the landing didn't crush me yet, so I'm good from there.

 

[Friday]

Abuse.
Does it ever stop being a part of you?

I certainly hope not! I learned a helluva lot of hard & valuable lessons there... Right along with all the drek. Separating out the wheat from the chaff? A pain on the ass. Breaking old patterns, relearning things, dealing with trauma-scheisse... If I lost the good along with the bad? I'd go spare. Please, gawd, since I have to deal with all the bad, let me keep the good!

Can you move on without taking it with you?

I've come close. It wasn't a good thing. And very much informs my first statement. I can compartmentalize very well. My first time through this, that was what I did in large part: locked everything away. Shrug. It works until it doesn't, and then everything blows up. Coming at this again, that was my original intent: lock it all away again. But it didn't work so hot this time... It took longer. And in the taking longer? I learned something: how much I lost the first time. How much of my own strength, my own joy, my own self I locked away the first time. I'm not willing to lose that, again. I want all of me, this time. And so far? It's working. As @Cashew said; the choice of how I shape that? What form things take? That's on me. And it is hugely powerful.

Don't get me wrong. I'd rather never have had PTSD to begin with. But since I do have it? Since I have to deal with the bad, I damn well better get what good there is in it, too.

 

[illusionist]

I still live with it every day but mostly the good parts.....I appreciate much more in life because of it, that part I wouldn't swap.

I'm floored at the moment with the bad parts but reminding myself continuously that I have far more better days than I have bad days, overall..it's just a matter of waiting for this to lift.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I think it will always be there. Like others have said, it's what you do with it on your journey with PTSD that makes the difference. I am at the point in the journey where I am making some of those choices- how do I deal with the knowledge and effects of abuse and what am I going to do next on this journey.

 

[ghotiff]

I'm tired of living with the bad. I'm tired of all the things it limits me doing or enjoying.

While I believe I can be happy and live a good life, it will always be limited.

 

[anonymous]

If how it shapes me is all on me then I'm well and truly f*cked I think.

While I can refute thoughts and feelings intellectually, how things feel at the core remain unchanging. How long do you keep telling yourself these things when your emotional self is seemingly incapable of believing them? How long do you keep faking it if the making it part never seems to get any closer? How long do you keep acting as if when if remains beyond your reach? Some point you got to get real.

If all this has been part of your sense of self ever since you had a sense of self, I don't know how you change that?

I'm glad some of you can find positives in what the abuse did to you. What it made you. That it brought out some good things in you. I honestly can't see any of that in myself.

 

[RussH]

I think it will always be a part of us; after all it is a part of our history. However, we can gain a perspective on it, and put it in its proper place. It will always be part of what has shaped the person we are, but it don't always have to be what controls us.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

While I can refute thoughts and feelings intellectually, how things feel at the core remain unchanging. How long do you keep telling yourself these things when your emotional self is seemingly incapable of believing them? How long do you keep faking it if the making it part never seems to get any closer? How long do you keep acting as if when if remains beyond your reach? Some point you got to get real.

It doesn't happen overnight and I think the process is as different as each person is. For me, I have really hard days, weeks,..., but even during those hard times I can see strength and hope (most of the time). Also, when I try to challenge thoughts and feelings that might be cognitive distortions, I have learned to make my challenges more believable. If I think: Everyone hates me. Then my challenge might be: Maybe there is someone out there who doesn't hate me or ____ doesn't hate me. I can't just tell myself, that the thought isn't true. Intellectually, like you, I get that, but I won't believe it. And with some of the more ingrained thoughts, I know it will take time and evidence to the contrary before I start believing. But I have faith that things will continue to get better because I want them to get better and so have committed to working towards that and over the last 3 years, I can see how things have changed for me for the better even though it's still a struggle.