I'm scared of finding out what i was "remembering"

[Sideways]

He was going out of his way to avoid hurting people.

I’m not really sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate a little bit?

This seems to be very difficult for you to talk about - do you have a T that you’re working with?

 

[Muttly]

I want to reiterate what some of the others have said. You are not a mind reader. You couldn't know what was in the person's head. You couldn't know what he was going to do or when. Let's switch this up a bit. If someone had been doing CPR and a few minutes after they gave up, the emergency staff showed up with the crash cart, would you blame the person who stopped doing CPR? The person who did it to the best of their ability for as long as they felt they could?

You are also not all powerful. Even if you'd talked to this person one more time, that doesn't guarantee they would have lived. You don't know how the conversation would have gone or what would have happened next.

It's clear you care deeply. I understand how it feels to wonder if you could have said or done something different. It hurts so much. You don't deserve the self-blame though. It's adding more pain to a tragic situation.

 

[CatInTree]

I’m not really sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate a little bit?

This seems to be very difficult for you to talk about - do you have a T that you’re working with?

I do, but it's going slowly.

I meant that this wasn't someone who was trying to make anyone suffer. He waited until he didn't have any family left to avoid causing them any pain.

 

[Sideways]

Ok, that makes sense. And you would be one of the people that he didn’t want to end up suffering...

Go as slow as you need to, just don’t give up on yourself. You’re worth it, you deserve to heal from this.

 

[Whirlwind]

CaitlnTree,

For what it is worth I have recovered some heinous memories, been in some awful situations.

The memories would start with recurring dreams, random bits of things that meant nothing but it would eat at me. Eventually I would have these dazy days then flashbacks. It was unreal, I would never have believed it until having experienced it. Sometimes I would even remember something stunningly important, black out and then POOF it was gone. Extremely frustrating. My T said I "threw a circuit breaker" when things got too intense. He said the brain "protects itself"

Eventually they would coalescence into "something" and that was not pretty.

The process is not fun, there is no way around that...but what amazed me is the aftermath. I felt so much better...even remembering things! It is like they lost their power.

I never thought I would say this but processing the yuck was worth it.

Hang in there...realize you are "in the fog" and it feels horrible. But it gets better, I truly believe that and I've been there.

Hugs, Whirlwind

 

[CatInTree]

The thing is, I'm not better of for remembering what it was that was coming up. What I'm remembering is not what happened to me, it's what I did. I know that it probably puts me in a minority on the forum, but I'm not the one paying the biggest prize in my situation. I'm alive. Remembering that I walked out on someone else to be here doesn't make it lose it's power. I've been falling back to things I thought were years in the past during this week.

 

[CatInTree]

I'm sorry.

I know I should be fine by now.