going to places where you were traumatised

[Kubash16]

It’s a tad multilayered for me I guess. Most of the time just being in the same state has me on serious edge. On the other hand when I’m having a particularly bad day I will take a drive and usually end up at one or more of the places. I also visit other painful non trauma places, they are painful because they are where I had my dad. It’s not a good idea I do this stuff though because it’s in a self harm frame of mind. It’s double edged too because I’m mad at the places that haven’t changed at all for not changing and I’m mad at the places that have changed (even trauma places) for changing. Like the blue house has been torn down but you would think that would make me feel better but it doesn’t. I will add though there is one particular place that I am so sure another trauma I cant remember happened that I visit way too often trying to purposely trigger anything past the little bit of memory I do have and I haven’t been successful which just puts me in a worse mood.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

I don’t know if it’s still okay to post here but I hope this is a good contribution. Living in the city and in the same part of the city that I was abused in nearly drove me to suicide. I would see him everywhere. My anxiety was so bad I couldn’t function. Couldn’t leave my room.

Moved home, have been going to therapy, and I visited in May. Only mild anxiety. Hasn’t gone away completely, but I’m functional. I can enjoy myself there, for a few hours. I still avoid it. I think the state of mind I was in afterxthe trauma was in some ways more traumatic to me than the abuse. I lost my mind. I have no idea how I survived but I did.

Never want to go back to the town where the worst of the abuse was in but one day drove through the college town adjacent to it bar hopping with my friend. I dissociated but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Funny enough, an apartment in the exact style he was sexually abusing me in in the same town is being used for Reiki healing. I saw the room advertised and had flashbacks, but I talked to the people and they told me they had cleansed it completely, that there was so much negative energy there. And ghosts, funny enough.

I’m at a pint where if the opportunity is inticing enough, I will go to wherever. My symptoms are manageable enough where I can. Could I ever go back to that apartment? Hell no. But I don’t have to. So I won’t.

 

[PTSDGuy]

I avoided that city I grew up in for years. Whenever I'd have to go back every few years, I'd find myself totally overwhelmed and wanting to run. I wouldn't even book a hotel there - I'd stay half an hour away.

I'd always end up in front of the house I grew up (and got abused) in, just sitting in a rental car and sobbing. Along with being furious - knowing my abusive mother, who refused to talk to me for years was inside the house. The woman who put my picture on my father's casket and told everyone that I "lived too far away" to come. Like a 5 hour flight from California was like flying from Australia or something. A few months after my father died, I decided to visit. I booked a flight, and went back and visited - I even stayed in town.

I went out with cousins who I'd been avoiding for years. I grew up thinking they hated me or thought I was an idiot, just like my immediate family did. Turns out they all thought my father who abused me was totally creepy and they were avoiding him - not me. And they had no idea at the abuse I'd been through as a kid.

It still makes me emotional just thinking about how my family had kept me isolated from everyone who might have been supportive.

So, while I was in town, I went to the cemetery where he had been buried, and saw that they still had a temporary marker on his grave... So, I pulled it out, ripped it up, told him what I thought of him, threw the pieces on his grave, and left...

I've been back again since, and it's actually been fine. I've become amazingly close to all my cousins since I started opening up to them. I still wouldn't want to move back there - ever - but I'm actually planning a trip to visit again next summer. And I'm looking forward to it.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I will be going to the CAMP location where my trauma began in august 2019. It's an adult fun camp now, and the director has trauma that is camp related which is a source of support. My T says I am bound to have suppressed memories emerge. But overall the focus is to have fun fun fun creating new good memories over the old.

For me its part of my therapy path to confront my trauma.

 

[Lucycat]

I have really avoided some places, but in the last year I went back to them. Not because I wanted to, but because they were in the vicinity of places we were at. It worked ok. It has been many years and a few bridges have been repaired. People I've avoided because of where they live , I reconnected with. Things are moving on, and recovery is happening.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have really avoided some places, but in the last year I went back to them. Not because I wanted to, but because they were in the vicinity of places we were at. It worked ok. It has been many years and a few bridges have been repaired. People I've avoided because of where they live , I reconnected with. Things are moving on, and recovery is happening.

That's very supportive to hear, I know it's going to be a hard thing to do, but I have to do it, it's an opportunity to get some resolve to what took place there, my first day there will be the hardest, as it is the same day of the year my first trauma there took place. But this time things are different, a lot of triggers like cabins and such have been replaced, and I will be among a lot of supportive people, a lot of challenges for me to break barriers and push thru hyper-vigilance. Like the equestrian therapy it will be one of the hardest things I have ever done. And it will be a place of fun this time, not a place of horror. A good memory I hope for to replace the bad one of the place.

Make no mistake, there are a lot of potential for things to go wrong, it's like walking into a fire. But I have too. Me and my T are going to great lengths to have a plan in place for every thing that might happen, so I am not finding myself in a crisis with no plan on how to deal with it. I do have one asset to count on, the camp director has "camp" based trauma himself. And I am sure I am not the only one of the 200 or so who will be there with trauma. I am expecting there will be a lot of support for me there.

I am looking at it as a positive, regardless of how it goes once i am there, I will be able to say I was there to confront what was done there. On my terms.

Joey little, I am sure you recognize where I am with my process in contrast when I first joined the forum. If you recall I was hopeless back then, and often suicidal to the point I even posted so on the forum (and got chastised by you for it). I think I have come a long way. And I thank you and everyone on the forum for being there as it has been an anchor for me at times I needed one. I have a long way to go in this process, my recent steps are big ones, but baby steps in the scale in my process.

 

[HealingInProcess]

I don't plan to go back anytime soon.

 

[Lionheart]

After a few years of therapy work, when I felt safe enuff, I went back to the old neighborhood where I grew up and visited the place where I was brutally molested. Memories flooded me. I was aged 10-16 and had quite a few memories, both positive and negative as there were multiple traumas.

I felt a lot of sadness and a great sense of loss but also had some good memories of happier times. I had mixed feelings about being there. I think the key was that I had done enough emotional work to allow me to visit the area without being significantly triggered. And had anchored to the happy memories....at least, that is my take on it. I definitely do not recommend anyone revisit places of severe trauma until a great deal of healing work has been accomplished.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I really like this thread, because part of healing is dealing with the past so as to move past it, where we spend much of our lives, trying to suppress the past because it hurts, yet we still suffer in pain from it.

I am on such a path, that has changed my life in the short time I have been on this forum.
I had grown tired of existing in a world of mental pain. The only way forward was confront all of it. Very hard to do. But I am.
Confronting the PTSD itself is hard, it's become a combo if CBT and Equestrian therapy, the equestrian therapy confront's my hypervigilance, and the CBT confronts my emotions that come from doing that.

I am note sure if there is a point in the process where what I get from it tappers off. I am open to feed back on that if anyone has some experience with this.

And in line with this thread I will be going to the camp in august where my trauma began. Hoping to turn a bad memory of the place into a good one. Confront what took place where I need to so I can move on.

I do have to thank everyone here on the forum, the forum got me through some tough times. And has been a source of inspiration and guidance from the wealth of experiences other here have. I am going to continue to build on the present.

 

[The Albatross]

I did exposures at trauma locations where possible or did exposures for people or situations remaining longer in places that may have been considered useful to normies. For my own reasons. Tough but necessary and I stayed the course no matter how f'ing hard. I will not be volunteering for a reduced/controlled/minimized life environment because of my trauma history.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@The Albatross I am sort of using the same approach with both the equestrian therapy and will also at camp.
With the equestrian therapy, if I find my hypervigilance won't let me, I have two choices, give in to my hypervigilance for comfort which means giving up on the therapy because my hypervigilance would have already won, or confronting my hypervigilance so I can move past it. I have chosen the later. I think the same thing about camp. But the reality at camp has yet to be seen. So me my t and pdoc are all working together to plan for any thing that might happen at camp. I am hopeful about camp. I don't feel it is going to be as bad as one might imagine, I will have a lot of support there, I can't say the same thing once I return home, when it all starts to sink in.

 

[The Albatross]

@recoveringfromptsd - yeah you've made some solid progresses lately and I'm very pleased for YOU.