People I Love Aren't Believing Me :(?

[McCray]

Yesterday my mind revealed what we could call a "repressed memory".I was previously sexually abused at the age of 8, and I remember everything from that. Now my flashbacks are going to when I was even younger. Since yesterday I've continuously had flashbacks of my mother's step father molesting me. I took laxatives and usually abusing any form of medications have triggered flashbacks for me. However all my past flashbacks have revolved around the 17 year old boy who sexually abused me, not my mom's step dad. I have 2 close friends I confided in and they both have similar opinions. They think my mind is fabricating this due to the amount of trauma I already went through. But i really feel like this all was too vivid to be "made up". This man had a wedding ring on, which I have not seen in over a decade, not since my toddler years. In the flashback it was a very clear depiction of his hand and a specific ring and when I found a photo in my closet after the flashback it was a match. The same ring, the same hand. I just don't see how that could be a fabricated hallucination :(.

Why is it my friends are not believing? I guess it's so difficult to have people from the outside understand. Could it be because this discovery hurts them too and they do not want to accept the awful thing happened previously than we thought? I am trying to see this from their perspective but it's difficult and I don't know how to make them better understand my disorder and why I think this really did happen :(

 

[Deleted member 19804]

I'm so sorry you're going through this, @McCray . It must make you feel really isolated.

Whether or not the memory is real is not up to us. You can best speak about it with your therapist.

Do you remember what triggered the memory yesterday?

 

[shimmerz]

I don't know how to make them better understand my disorder and why I think this really did happen

I have been fighting this one for years. Doesn't work. Best left for a good therapist. Some people will get it but most want to deny that these things even happen in this world, which most of us here know for a fact that they do.

So sorry. The feeling is hard not to take on when people don't believe you but in all seriousness, your truth is your own - nobody else's. They can take it or leave it but please....always be true to yourself. Don't let anyone else define you. That will hold you in good stead while you sort this all out.

 

[Springer80]

I agree with @shimmerz people don't understand and more importantly they don't want to even entertain that things as horrible as this happen.

I believe you and I don't even know you. However, most people who have been abuse as youngsters know how their minds work to protect them from things they can't physiologically handle. Perhaps you have worked enough at the trauma from this 17 year old who abused you that you are now remembering the earlier stuff.

Unfortunately when kids are abused they often become targets for more abusive behaviour because they are already traumatised, they need comfort but they walk straight into harmful people.

You need help and support and lots of it. Trying to bend your family and friends round to being trauma specialists will not work. It will upset you greatly and cause you to feel more isolated and distressed. I understand that you need acceptance from the 'real' people in your life and not a paid professional but it will take too much from you if you try.

Of course most people on here have learned the hard way, including me, and that is how most people learn. I only stopped because I burned myself so many times and it caused me so much distress that I ended up not being able to work.

Try if you can to stick to getting help off people who already understand.

 

[Justmehere]

I'm so sorry they don't believe you right now. In order for your mother to believe you, she has to believe her step-dad is a child rapist and that her daughter was hurt even worse than she already knew. In order for your friends to believe you, they have to accept very painful information as well. Denial is a common defense mechanism to pain.

If you want them to understand PTSD better, I would focus on explaining how PTSD affects the brain and the body and what your symptoms are like, and what helps you get through things better. That might be something they can handle more easily.

I don't think you are making things up. That being said, laxative abuse can cause a lack of magnesium which can cause hallucinations. It's unlikely that you would hallucinate something so specific. It's best for you and your therapist and/or doctor to figure out the reliability of the memories that are coming for you.

 

[shimmerz]

I have to ask....I am sorry. Laxative abuse for weight loss? You mentioned that you flashback anytime you self harm and that laxative abuse was one of those ways. Are there many more ways? Just ignore me if I am being intrusive but I see a pattern of sorts here.

Also, it just occurred to me that perhaps your mother is defending so well because she as well is hiding behind denial or repressed memories. People who are perpetrators rarely skip a generation. Just saying.....

On the other hand that ring could symbolize something (like a bond) that may be at risk (your mother). I would wait before I pass judgement on this until you get more signs that this is, in fact the real thing and not just symbolic of something else.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I personally don't think abuse memories are 'made up'. Your brain and body protected you in your times of greatest need. And guess who wasn't there? Your Mom and your friends. Your recovery is not predicated on getting them on board. So much is being discovered about the neuropsychobiology of PTSD. This is where you will find validation.

It is common knowledge that people involved in accidents can lose the memory of the event and the moments before and after. No one denies them. The sad truth is that sexual assaults are too disturbing for people to accept happening in white bread civilization. Oh, it's ok to mourn for the women in the Middle East getting savagely raped, but not in their house.

Focus on your true knowing. What you will know and that your brain will need love and understanding.

 

[McCray]

Well earlier this year I attempted to overdose on medication as a suicide attempt and that also triggered flashbacks. I did take laxatives yesterday for the purpose of weight loss and sometimes I also take caffeine as a laxative. I guess for me self harm ties back to when I was sexually abused at 8 because that's when I started cutting myself and it took me nearly 7 years to go a year without cutting but I am a year clean right now. I don't think my mother could have possibly been abused by this man. He was only in the picture for about 10 years and then passed away and during those years my mom lived with her biological father, not him. The strange thing is I've had 3 separate flashbacks so far all of him abusing me on different occasions

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I struggle with that in my own mind and don't know if I could share my "new" memories with anyone other than my therapist. I have read about how there is a belief that one trauma can cause your mind and body to think there were others. My therapist and I both believe what I am remembering is true because it explains other fears and quirks that I have that were in existence before my car acccient which triggered all of this. I think that it is hard to talk to others who have not been through trauma because it iso different from anything they can imagine. And that makes it hard for them to believe that such bad things can happen.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@McCray how old are you? You have a lot on your plate. I'm a cutter so I am proud of you going a whole year without cutting. Remember what you did instead and go with that. The puzzle for you is trusting your memory right? The answer is manifesting now. It's not unusual to have fragments of the whole story. It's possible they'll never coalesce.

I didn't have therapy at a young age and I developed what I call anticipatory anxiety and it closes me in. With the help of a therapist you can learn to tolerate the distress of not knowing.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Most people like to live in a happy little world where nothing bad happens "in here"....that is, nothing bad happens to them or anybody they know. Bad stuff is always "out there"....as in, overseas, in foreign countries, or even just in the bad part of town. Nobody likes to admit that bad things can hit so close to home.

I can't honestly relate, as I have never been denied or dismissed when it came to disclosing my trauma. (My PTSD has been minimized, but that's another issue.) I am SUPER careful about whom I tell. That is, I size them up before any sort of disclosure. I make sure the person has a reason to believe me. The last two disclosures were to people very familiar with PTSD. One is a case manager and had a PTSD client kill himself within the last year. Another is former military and is all too familiar with PTSD (but does not have it himself). It a perfect world, we would be fully accepted. Unfortunately, we do have to judge others in their ability to accept us. Its a protection measure, I know.

 

[McCray]

@KwanYingirl

I'm 17