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How Do People Feel Hearing 'details' ?

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'whiny' as in 'drown-that-chick (me)-in-the-river-STFU-annoying' kind of way!...
Yep... definitely find myself a passenger on that train of thought a lot! Intellectually I know it's a bunch of crap - me punishing myself. I keep telling the part of me that delivers such damning, cruel, unfair and untrue criticism that it is not true - in my case a memory [albeit v. strong] of a way of thinking/being forced on me at an early age. That helps...
 
Junebug,
I've been wanting to start my own thread on where I am with this exact issue. In April it will be 2 years when I stumbled on this site and started "just found out the details of my wife's rape" thread. I've come a ways sense then and will elaborate here but if you want to see how I poorly handled the situation had little to do with my wife and a lot to do with me which I am just figuring out. Regardless I feel qualified to respond.
How do non-traumatized people feel, and 'see' you, if they know about sexual assault, child sexual assault, abuse?
I never had a problem with the abused. My problem was with the abuser. Still dealing with that anger/rage.
Is it really gross?
What the human race is capable of? Yes. The victim no.
Is it like you are left with a horrible mark on your head? (If that makes sense- I don't mean it offensively at all, like just a connotation. For example, things from work that now have a connotaton for me have become horrible. And once, when I was 16 I failed someone miserably after they showed me their scars from a suicide attempt. :( :tdown: )
No scarlet letter for being a victim. You asked "how do non-truamatized people feel. Some of us you think are non-traumatized were as well just to greater or lesser degrees. I just went through my most productive therapy session trying emdr for the first time. I am trying to figure out why a trauma (wife's rape) has thrown me for a loop like nothing else and I didn't have a rosie childhood. My worst fear as a child was when my mother tried to put my father in prison for the way he handled the family business after he had won custody of my brother and I in divorce. I don't think my dad did anything wrong but I do think my mom knew how to criminally go after someone and attack them in a cheap and efficient way and was guilty of far worse than my dad. We made the newspaper in the capital of the state we lived in. I never cared about me so much but it was a damaging time. I was 10 when they divorced and knew I had 8 years to go to get out of the house and off to college. I always dismissed my own feelings. I think the court ordered shrink said I was highly dissociative. When I found out the details of my wife's rape the rage I had towards her rapist was so bad I had trouble making sense of it. The connection made during my emdr session was that my mom committed a violation and used the courts to do it on my dad. My wife's rapist used her age, alcohol and everything he could to make sure she would say nothing. Rapist are highly successful at getting away with their crimes. So was my mom. I know this sounds off tangent but I am figuring out today why I reacted in such an unpredictable way. Someone's reaction to what you tell them can have nowhere near as much with you as it does them and their life experience.

Does it feel 'creepy'? :(
No. Very sad and very proud of how she handled it and who she is today.

Also, do you feel like it doesn't matter? That it's past (especially a child). Do/ did you feel it's wrong to say?
I loved my wife before I knew what happened to her so in that sense it had nothing to do with anything. It wasn't until we got serious she felt the need to disclose. It was 2 years ago I wanted details.

Did you feel like it's your fault?
No. There was nothing I could have done about it. There is today but my options aren't legal which doesn't make them viable options. I do feel fault in not doing something about it anyway.

Did you regret it? Did you fall apart after?
Yes and no. I literally slept 2-3 hours a day for a few weeks. I wasn't prepared for the details and I'm just figuring out that I may be using my wife's trauma to deal with my own.
I hope you won't feel badly to just say 'the truth' (it's appreciated).Thank you all in advance.
Appreciate you bringing this up. It helps me to try to put into words where I am at a given point in time. I may have to start my own thread. Wish you the best.
hooper
 
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@Hooper I very much appreciate your reply and am quite overwhelmed & very humbled with the compassionate & forgiving-of-the-person response & thoughts you gave. It made me cry. It certainly drove home a different focus than what I was thinking. And maybe some self-compassion..

For now thank you very much, I will come back to respond when I can be better composed & less tired, also.

I wish you and your wife the best in your journey, individually & together. Perhaps dealing with it is a blessing (though unmistakably terrifying and emotion-laden to get through it), if ultimately it can help each of you, in different (yet similar) ways.

:hug:

Thank you, and thanks to all who responded. :notworthy: :hug:

(Ps, I'm sorry @Hooper , for what you & others have gone through too. :hug: Thank you for helping me.)
 
Junebug,
I'm glad you got something out of what I had to say. I definitely got something out of writing it out. If you were to come across someone who lacked in compassion and couldn't forgive you for being a victim I would be tempted to have nothing to do with them or accept that they have trauma or issues of some sort that do not allow them to see your situation for what it is. I didn't mean to make you cry but you got to me to so I guess we are even. I've noticed lately I do cry more. It's embarrassing because it happens in public. By nature I am very empathetic and all 3 times it happened had to do with other peoples children. One had an insulin pump empty and nearly kill her daughter, another acquaintance had a tree fall on his son and when I asked him how he was doing he pointed to a bunch of kids running around and I couldn't figure out which one it was that had a broken pelvis and femur just 6 months prior and then my neighbor told me about her 15 year old committing suicide 30 years ago. I guess all my fears are what could happen to my kids as well as my wife. My therapist thinks I minimize my own importance. My greatest fears have little to nothing to do with me. That's what we will be working on for a while now. Overall I do think I am improving. I'm finally aware of why I reacted so poorly to my wife's rape that obviously didn't even happen to me or when I knew her for that matter. The only other thing I would add is be careful with details. I am not sure what good it does. It's taken almost 2 years for me to not regret the question. I am finally getting somewhere but who knows. By the time I get where I need to go I may regret asking again. Very few people know what I have been through. I am guarded by nature. Like anyone who has been through a tough time or in the case of many here horrific times one way I coped was knowing someone somewhere had it worse than me. Maybe that's me minimizing myself again but there was always some solace in knowing what I went through was nothing compared to some. I see your profile and I know I can hit "Junebug" and go through your threads and posts to get a better idea of what you went through but it would get to me and I don't even know you. It's just how I'm wired but even if I did my reactions would be what I posted above. Again I wish you the best and a special thanks to whomever edited my previous post.
hooper
 
Oh @Hooper , no thank you, I am pretty super-soft hearted but usually don't cry- I suppose what's the point?, and it feels selfish- worst case scenario I might never stop, so it's good. Different kind of tears, of gain of self-compassion than loss.

I understand. Seeing small children, it was 'weird' to imagine that must have been me, too (as it was you). But others' suffering, -oh yes.
. My greatest fears have little to nothing to do with me.
Me too. All pretty much the same as you've expressed about yourself. But add in guilt, shame, remorse; the inability to trust any of my own decisions, likely from consequences.

Hard to accept kindness; trust; risk. Even (sometimes) the basics, feeling 'entitled' to eating, etc.

Yet in many ways, not all the fault of others or upbringing; key players weren't all those always.

Difficulties knowing perhaps childhood, my personality, etc, contributed to priming me for what happened later (well 'probably' vs 'perhaps'), but you know, as an adult we are expected to choose, protect ourself, etc.

I too pretty much minimize. Minimmization, maybe denial (too).

From what you said before, and peoples' own histories, wounds etc, we have no idea what they might think or feel, or how badly it might bother them.

One of the harder parts is knowing, too, how to get around something being triggering, without saying to anyone 'why'.

I definitely got something out of writing it out.

I am glad. :hug:

If you were to come across someone who lacked in compassion and couldn't forgive you for being a victim I would be tempted to have nothing to do with them or accept that they have trauma or issues of some sort that do not allow them to see your situation for what it is. I

This is such a kind thing to say though.

Thank you so much. :hug:
 
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Oh, PS, not a biggie- I had originally meant does the 'sufferer' (saying 'you') feel guilty, at fault, etc, never meant to infer anyone else.
 
I too pretty much minimize. Minimmization, maybe denial (too).

Then, too I (personally) get all these related questions in my heart and head: was I 'flawed' to begin with? Am I just 'nuts'? Did experiences make me 'nuts', or was I crazy already, & that's why they happened? Was I neglected as a child, or was I neglected because I was 'nuts'?, etc. What is my fault?

Oye. :(
 
I have a mixed group of friends, some with trauma histories like sexual abuse etc, and a few that lived rather iconic childhoods.

All the people in my circle know of my traumas. They may not all know major specific details, but they all know the actual traumas themselves. The ones who know more in depth details, share some similarities in trauma with me.

Anyways, no body looks at me one way or another. My non-traumatized friends see me as a wise, strong individual, with great character. Because they've seen me on both sides of the coin. Some have been with me in the beginning of my trauma healing, others in the middle and a few at the end. They reallu all have the utmost respect for me and what I've endured and I in now feel they see me differently or that I wear some sort of mark.

But this is a place I've come to, and haven't always thought and felt this way. There were years where I was certain people could take one look at me and just know that I had been sexually abused.
 
Am I just 'nuts'?
That's always possible but I doubt it. I always wondered if I was normal mainly because I didn't want to be. I'd take a little nuts over normal personally.

Did experiences make me 'nuts', or was I crazy already, & that's why they happened?
The nature vs nurture question. With trauma I'd say environment outweighs genes.
Was I neglected as a child, or was I neglected because I was 'nuts'?,
Can't answer that. I can say I don't know really any family that doesn't have its dysfunctions. I try to minimize those to.
 
Aw @Hooper , thanks. :notworthy:

I m going to say what I never have before about the stuff I wrote above: normally I'd say I'm embarrassed, but feel it's true; this time (1st ever) I'll say I'm embarrassed, but it sounds a bit harsh . Which is, really, improvement. I still find it strange for myself to qualify my happenings, no matter how bad, as 'traumatic', which I only realized when you said:
With trauma
.

I did think, that probably 85+% of the emotional regulation I expend (on 'negative' emotions, anyway) is encased by past memories. Considering how bad the 're-livings' feel, my regulation is better than most people could probably present. I also thought, what is it with 'details' or disclosure that even it should matter? And I think other than triggers- explaining or avoiding- it's the emotion that occurred at the time (eg terror), or the beliefs that arose, the questions related.

always wondered if I was normal mainly because I didn't want to be. I'd take a little nuts over normal personally.

Oh , hee, that makes me laugh. And (seriously) reminds me I have to get the clothes out of the washer. :p

Thank you so much for your encouragement, & kindness & perspective. :hug:
 
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