SweetPeaandSunBird
Platinum Member
I've just read a few items in the forum and have already learned several things. Thanks.
I had an over-activated startle response by the age of four. My father and older brother tag-teamed me in all manner of "scaredy cat" games, the worst involving what seemed an enormously long hallway in the childhood house. Strict, austere disciplinarian parents meant that my brother and I were raised with belt whippings (for my brother, poor soul) and ping-pong paddles kept in the purse or bare-buttucked spankings (for us both). We were not allowed to cry or express frustration lest we be cry babies or "sassers."
My body memories (without visual clarifications for my mind to "proove") suggest very early molestations by my father (most likely) and/or my brother (less likely).
In desparate attempts to escape the household dynamics, I looked for acceptance from men twice my age; therefore, multiple molestations from age 12 to 16. Once I got it together and stopped engaging in risk-taking behaviors (no booze, no weed), I was duped by a final molester at age 17 (the scariest of all).
Then, during graduate school I worked in Ecuador for a summer. My third week there a (male) friend and I were mugged at knife-point but I got extra: sexual assault. I was 28. That's what caused so much havoc: divorce, "miscarriage," bankruptcy within the next 10 years.
But, now with a diagnosis, therapy and medication, I'm functional. I keep truckin' on, but sometimes I can't get the gears to stop grinding. Two weeks ago I had to go through an in-take with a new psychiatrist; and a cousin whom I hadn't talked to in over twenty years ago
told me how he remembered my cut-up wrists when I was 15; so, bingo, I sought out this forum in case my better coping mechanisms lose their way. These last two weeks have made me shaky all over again. Ugh.
Thanks for allowing me to post.
I had an over-activated startle response by the age of four. My father and older brother tag-teamed me in all manner of "scaredy cat" games, the worst involving what seemed an enormously long hallway in the childhood house. Strict, austere disciplinarian parents meant that my brother and I were raised with belt whippings (for my brother, poor soul) and ping-pong paddles kept in the purse or bare-buttucked spankings (for us both). We were not allowed to cry or express frustration lest we be cry babies or "sassers."
My body memories (without visual clarifications for my mind to "proove") suggest very early molestations by my father (most likely) and/or my brother (less likely).
In desparate attempts to escape the household dynamics, I looked for acceptance from men twice my age; therefore, multiple molestations from age 12 to 16. Once I got it together and stopped engaging in risk-taking behaviors (no booze, no weed), I was duped by a final molester at age 17 (the scariest of all).
Then, during graduate school I worked in Ecuador for a summer. My third week there a (male) friend and I were mugged at knife-point but I got extra: sexual assault. I was 28. That's what caused so much havoc: divorce, "miscarriage," bankruptcy within the next 10 years.
But, now with a diagnosis, therapy and medication, I'm functional. I keep truckin' on, but sometimes I can't get the gears to stop grinding. Two weeks ago I had to go through an in-take with a new psychiatrist; and a cousin whom I hadn't talked to in over twenty years ago
told me how he remembered my cut-up wrists when I was 15; so, bingo, I sought out this forum in case my better coping mechanisms lose their way. These last two weeks have made me shaky all over again. Ugh.
Thanks for allowing me to post.
