My Attacker Is Dead.

[RussH]

First I am sorry you are suffering, but I am thankful you no longer have to fear your abuser.
The way I understand it is' PTSD is trauma that has been unresolved in our mind. So when we are triggered, the mind or the emotions revisits that unresolved trauma, and we relive the trauma as if it is happening again for the first time.

Therapy is supposed to help us resolve the past trauma so that we don't keep reliving it. Hope this helps

 

[City Slicker]

I found for myself as I continue to grow and change so does my processing and understanding of the trauma I went through. While it never goes away, it continues to grow and change right along with me. When something triggers a past even, a smell, a death, anything at all, in my case it can let off an awful stench of fear in me and I become vigilant/conscious/fearful about things that never bothered me before.

When I stop to try to figure out why I am afraid, I find it's not so much being fearful of what might happen again but rather superimposing those past fear feelings on the present or future - we fear and relive that which has already happened. I work to ground myself and tell myself things like 'you aren't afraid of the future, what you fear has already happened.' And I try to stay focussed on working my way through the feelings that have been triggered keeping them focussed on the events that caused them in the first place and avoiding 'stimulus generalization.'

An earlier post mentioned the betrayal of trust - that's the hardest part I think because we start looking at people we know, seemingly innocuous situations worrying 'are you going to do this to me...' The betrayal shakes our foundation of trust, beliefs we thought were true or those beliefs and truths we held that defined us so that nothing feels true or familiar anymore.

 

[Mystery]

Hi Kirsten, my heart goes out to you to hear that you have been through such a thing and as well as that, coped mostly on your own. I agree with all that the above members have said.

The thing that came to mind for me, when I read you story was that, sometimes the response to trauma doesn't really surface until you are in a 'safe' environment. It happened for me like that anyway. Not necessarily for everyone though. I think that, a certain degree of hypervigilance exists during trauma and for a long time after.

One of my adult life abusers, the father of my fourth child (18 yo), is currently terminally ill, it has brought up all sorts of feelings for me. Happiness, relief, guilt for being glad, sadness for him that he couldn't heal enough to have a good life, a belief in Karma being reinforced and sadness for my son who will lose a father even though he is a very weak and useless one.

I wonder what will happen to me when he dies. He absolutely wrecked my life and is the main cause of me having an injury to my nervous system, I'm still dealing with the aftermath of him and I will until the day my life is over. I both hate him and have extreme compassion for him because he had one of the worst childhood's I've ever heard of. He showed me that evil exists and changed my worldview forever.

Experiencing trauma is an unfolding process that reveals itself over years and every person's story and coping and support mechanisms are totally unique.

 

[kirsten]

I can't say honestly that I feel pure joy about his imminent death tho. It's also mixed in with a lot of rage and anger that he never got to pay for what he did to me.

So yeah, I don't feel ashamed for wishing ill on him. And if you @kirsten also feel that way or want to just laugh it up, while screaming "rot in hell!" and dancing, preferably on his grave, I for one wouldn't blame you one bit or judge you. That's what I feel like doing with my attacker too. I'm not saying it's something constructive to feel this way, but what can you do right? It's a normal reaction.

Maybe this response is constructive. Think about how you would feel if you were laughing it up. There'd be a lot of anger, right? It wouldn't simply be a vengeful attitude. It'd be a healthy and appropriate response, because anger is appropriate. It's not as though you've gone out and killed the guy, or egged his car, or sent him threats. You didn't avenge yourself. You simply feel (a little) avenged. Anger is a way of processing the trauma. I think forgiveness is a tough one, but it's something we do for ourselves, and not for anyone else. Which means we can take as long as we need to forgive, and anger is probably a step in that direction.

I must say today I feel rather a lot better. I'm a bit out of it, feeling out of my skin, but not as trashed as I felt yesterday.

 

[RussH]

Hi Kirsten,
I am glad you feel better today. You went through an extremely tramatic experience, and it would be suprising if there were not some residual effects from that trauma.
There is absoutely nothing wrong with feelin relieved that your abuser is dead. I would thinking that would be an amazingly normal reaction to the news.

The next step is this, now that the physical threat is over, dealing with the emotional / pyschological threat should be done. It sounds like you suffered a phychological injury as a result of your trauma, and therapy will help you resolve those memories, so that this evil guy can no longer invade your peace.

 

[greenleaf]

@kirsten, sometimes when I have reactions I can't explain, I can start to explain them by sort of proposing possibilities to myself and waiting to see which one sort of "resonates" and feels right. It doesn't matter how strange they seem to the "adult, rational" part. The theories and models that talk about "parts" of ourselves have helped me here...

For instance, there could be a sort of frozen "part" of yourself for which that man is still there, and the part is not only still traumatized and triggered, but now really upset and confused because it seems like it's being told that he is gone... so the part is yelling he's not, and what about me, anyhow? From my experience, just accepting that the part feels that way is a first step. This won't destroy your adult part; you have loads of adult capabilities that can help the frozen part. It's all "you", and it's ok -- we seem to have evolved these amazing survival abilities. Also -- grounding and relaxing seems to help a lot with this stuff for me, it's a slow learning process though.

I am just giving a possible example, none of it has to be true at all for you of course. However a good trauma therapist is crucial!

 

[Mercy]

And if you @kirsten also feel that way or want to just laugh it up, while screaming "rot in hell!" and dancing, preferably on his grave, I for one wouldn't blame you one bit or judge you.

When I got home from my mother's funeral, I skipped up my walk way singing, "Ding dong the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch." Not very mature but most ofher abuse happened in my childhood.

Then later, I thought about going up to her grave with Round UP, which would kill anything growing there-showing just how poisonus she was. I didn't do it. But I thought about it.

For a couple of years,I dreaded coming up to my own front door, fearful of getting a phone call from her. I feel differently now nearly 10 years later. I can see her differently but the loss of never having the mother I needed has caused me to look for mothers in many of my relationships. I never found one no matter how hard I tried to be a good daughter especially with my sister-in-law.

 

[WillyKat]

@Mercy:

he loss of never having the mother I needed has caused me to look for mothers in many of my relationships. I never found one no matter how hard I tried

My mother didn't abuse me, but I believe she understood that something really bad had happened to me, as did the teachers, and they just ignored it. As a result, I kept looking for that relationship with a couple of women in my life. Boy did that not work.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am so sad about what you are currently experiencing although I am very happy that you are now feeling better.

Two thoughts come to mind.

Your trust was betrayed and the desire for revenge and for him to suffer is perfectly normal. You have been surviving and now it is safe for you to revisit the great trauma this criminal did to you.

As for your guilt, I believe it is either survivors guilt or false guilt and you do not need to have to suffer through that although I believe it is part of the experience of surviving such a crime against you.

You had to move away so you lost out on your safety and security and stability and had to start over fresh thus you went through so much just surviving to cope with this great trauma.

I agree with everything everyone said and I think you deserve to have so much support right now and a lot of validation.

Having the police keep losing things must have been so traumatic on you, but I commend for fighting and not giving up on yourself because you are so worth fighting for.

When my father died two years ago, I felt very weird. Hard to explain. I just felt weird and then the feelings of relief that he would never be able to keep tabs on me nor would he be able to harm anyone ever again.

What you are going through is so normal and you will process all of it and come out of it eventually. I offer you some hope. Time does help to heal your wounds. It is just that going through this really sucks.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@gizmo I had no feeling at all when my father died. Nada. He was dead to me for 40 years already. I don't feel guilty or glad he can't keep hurting me. He's finally gone, thankfully.

 

[shimmerz]

I completely wigged out when one of my abusers (a birth parent) died. I didn't even know at the time that the trauma involved her! Now I understand why I broke down. It found later that it was because I 'couldn't see her'. It didn't make sense to me that I would be so affected as she was gone. Incidentally, I have a friend who flipped out when her mother died as well. Later she put it down to the flu. I don't believe it was that. I have seen this happen more than once. Not saying that the reason I did is the reason everyone does.

Our primal brain does not have a concept of time imho so I doubt that whether it happened today or 50 years ago would matter to the area of the brain that reacts and responds to these things.

Anyways, just wanted to validate your feelings and say I am sorry.