Marymickaela
Silver Member
I'm so glad to have found this forum as I need support to deal with my PTSD and the EMDR I’m starting to deal with it.
I’m 64yo and live a quiet life in northern Illinois with my husband of 43 years. We’re both retired, but I keep myself busy quilting, photographing my 6 grandchildren, working as an ESL tutor at our local college and taking classes. We have 3 grown daughters, ages 40, 37 and 29 and I have a good relationship with all 3 of them.
I grew up with an extremely abusive father and had to be a mother to my mother. I remember as a teen I had started dating. We’d be sitting on the back porch and my date would go to put his arm around me and I would throw up my arm, as if to ward off a blow. It was embarrassing. At 19 I filed assault and battery charges again my dad after one particular beating. I was so proud of myself for standing up to him. I thought I had broken the cycle of abuse, married a nice guy who’s never touched me. However, as my new therapist points out he has difficulty showing me any affection, but he doesn’t give me a hard time about going to therapy.
I think I’ve been the abusive one in our relationship with my husband saying once “that only venom comes out of your mouth” and I always hated it when my mom would say “you’re just like your father”. Raising my 3 daughters I had difficulty showing affection, esp. during their teen years. I’ve been a very angry person most of my life, but covered it up and most people think I’m really nice.
In 2003, due to multiple stressors from work and family I had a nervous breakdown, took a major drug overdose and was hospitalized and dx’d Bipolar. I have a really hard time accepting this dx. I was in a deep suicidal depression for several years and have been in traditional therapy since 2004.
In 2005 during an acupuncture treatment to help me sleep I experienced a repressed memory of being gang raped around age 6 or 7. It was terrifying and I was at a loss of what to do with this memory. Every time I relaxed, such as taking a bath, the memory would startle me, my heart pounding in terror. The memory finally subsided until about 2 years ago when a trial involving some college boys digitally raping a girl was shown on TV. I thought OMG, that’s what happened to me, however, I never thought of it as being raped. I recently asked my brother if he remembered an incident when he was around age19 and my father was choking him. My mom was pounding on my dad's back and we were both screaming at my dad that he was "killing him" as my brother's face had turned dark blue and he couldn't breathe. When my dad stopped, my brother later came into the kitchen and told my mom and me that if my dad ever touched him again he'd kill him. My brother said he had no recollection of this ever happening. That floored me that he couldn't remember something so awful.
I have many diagnoses: major depression, bipolar disorder, severe anxiety, ADHD, OCPD, and finally during a psychological evaluation in 2012, PTSD. During that evaluation I didn’t tell the doctor about the repressed rape memory, but was still dx’d PTSD. At the moment I’m stable, but on way too many meds with my goal to decrease or get off many of them. I started having dental and eye problems this year and the doctor asked me if I was under a lot of stress. I didn’t think I was.
It was only after this trial I did research and learned about EMDR therapy for trauma. I found a therapist in 2012 for EMDR but we just weren’t a good fit so for the last 2 years I was back to traditional therapy seeing my therapist once a month for check-ins. I finally found a trauma specialist the end of this April who treats with EMDR. We’ve spent the last two months with her getting to know me. I like her a lot and feel we’re a really good fit. We’ve now developed a list of “Targets” that we’re going to work on and found my “safe place” to use to help keep me grounded, as I tend to dissociate when talking about traumatic memories. I have trouble feeling any emotion.
This last week I had two acupuncture treatments with a licensed auctioneer for a painful shoulder that’s been going on 6 weeks. I asked her about the rape memory and after listening to the details of my memory she is sure it did happen as does my new trauma specialist and two prior therapists. My psychiatrist says the only way I’ll really ever know for sure is maybe hypnosis, but do I really want to know?
My therapist says we’re going to finally start EMDR this week at my next session. I have a full page of “Targets” and she wants me to rate them from 1 to 7 with 7 being the most traumatic and to pick one. I don’t know what to pick.
So again, I’m thrilled to have found this sight and look forward to getting and giving support.
Marymickaela
I’m 64yo and live a quiet life in northern Illinois with my husband of 43 years. We’re both retired, but I keep myself busy quilting, photographing my 6 grandchildren, working as an ESL tutor at our local college and taking classes. We have 3 grown daughters, ages 40, 37 and 29 and I have a good relationship with all 3 of them.
I grew up with an extremely abusive father and had to be a mother to my mother. I remember as a teen I had started dating. We’d be sitting on the back porch and my date would go to put his arm around me and I would throw up my arm, as if to ward off a blow. It was embarrassing. At 19 I filed assault and battery charges again my dad after one particular beating. I was so proud of myself for standing up to him. I thought I had broken the cycle of abuse, married a nice guy who’s never touched me. However, as my new therapist points out he has difficulty showing me any affection, but he doesn’t give me a hard time about going to therapy.
I think I’ve been the abusive one in our relationship with my husband saying once “that only venom comes out of your mouth” and I always hated it when my mom would say “you’re just like your father”. Raising my 3 daughters I had difficulty showing affection, esp. during their teen years. I’ve been a very angry person most of my life, but covered it up and most people think I’m really nice.
In 2003, due to multiple stressors from work and family I had a nervous breakdown, took a major drug overdose and was hospitalized and dx’d Bipolar. I have a really hard time accepting this dx. I was in a deep suicidal depression for several years and have been in traditional therapy since 2004.
In 2005 during an acupuncture treatment to help me sleep I experienced a repressed memory of being gang raped around age 6 or 7. It was terrifying and I was at a loss of what to do with this memory. Every time I relaxed, such as taking a bath, the memory would startle me, my heart pounding in terror. The memory finally subsided until about 2 years ago when a trial involving some college boys digitally raping a girl was shown on TV. I thought OMG, that’s what happened to me, however, I never thought of it as being raped. I recently asked my brother if he remembered an incident when he was around age19 and my father was choking him. My mom was pounding on my dad's back and we were both screaming at my dad that he was "killing him" as my brother's face had turned dark blue and he couldn't breathe. When my dad stopped, my brother later came into the kitchen and told my mom and me that if my dad ever touched him again he'd kill him. My brother said he had no recollection of this ever happening. That floored me that he couldn't remember something so awful.
I have many diagnoses: major depression, bipolar disorder, severe anxiety, ADHD, OCPD, and finally during a psychological evaluation in 2012, PTSD. During that evaluation I didn’t tell the doctor about the repressed rape memory, but was still dx’d PTSD. At the moment I’m stable, but on way too many meds with my goal to decrease or get off many of them. I started having dental and eye problems this year and the doctor asked me if I was under a lot of stress. I didn’t think I was.
It was only after this trial I did research and learned about EMDR therapy for trauma. I found a therapist in 2012 for EMDR but we just weren’t a good fit so for the last 2 years I was back to traditional therapy seeing my therapist once a month for check-ins. I finally found a trauma specialist the end of this April who treats with EMDR. We’ve spent the last two months with her getting to know me. I like her a lot and feel we’re a really good fit. We’ve now developed a list of “Targets” that we’re going to work on and found my “safe place” to use to help keep me grounded, as I tend to dissociate when talking about traumatic memories. I have trouble feeling any emotion.
This last week I had two acupuncture treatments with a licensed auctioneer for a painful shoulder that’s been going on 6 weeks. I asked her about the rape memory and after listening to the details of my memory she is sure it did happen as does my new trauma specialist and two prior therapists. My psychiatrist says the only way I’ll really ever know for sure is maybe hypnosis, but do I really want to know?
My therapist says we’re going to finally start EMDR this week at my next session. I have a full page of “Targets” and she wants me to rate them from 1 to 7 with 7 being the most traumatic and to pick one. I don’t know what to pick.
So again, I’m thrilled to have found this sight and look forward to getting and giving support.
Marymickaela
