Flashbacks And Repression?

[Storm-ridden]

Not really even sure how to phrase what I'm trying to ask. So... I get flashbacks. They only last a few seconds, thankfully, and sometimes are only partial (which is really confusing sometimes, trying to figure out why a certain smell or sound suddenly throws me off kilter). The full flashbacks I get I understand which abuser they were from and how, but... my therapist and I kind of suspect I may be repressing some really bad sexually abusive memories. I'm.. sometimes incredibly afraid of intimacy, and will even get nauseated just from something my boyfriend has done a number of other times, simple stuff that I've never had problems with before. I'm more scared of men than I probably should be, and am almost phobic of any sexual assault scene in a movie/book/newspaper article. It almost seems over the top compared to the abuse I've gone through. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Raisin]

I can identify with what you are going through. My therapist and I don't know how much I have repressed but I know I have been seeing more and more of what happened to me as I slowly unpack it in therapy. My flashbacks have included more detail than I was aware of, and much of it is much more distressing than the little fragments I had "access to" before. Still, certain things will trigger anxiety, feelings of disgust, nausea or self hatred when I am intimate with my husband- worst of all, reaching orgasm is always followed by these feelings. I don't consciously recall any element of my trauma that should directly connect to these experiences, but I suspect there is more to learn.

I hope you find your answers.

 

[Storm-ridden]

Yea. There are times when I'm completely fine with any intimacy, and other times the uncertainty, the nausea, the "dirty" feeling is there, and neither of us really know what to do about it. I start to get this helpless feeling sometimes, like I have no control. Its incredibly frustrating, isn't it? I hope you get some relief from your problems- it sounds like we're in the same boat with learning about things we didn't know happened.