Sexual Assault Raped 40 Yrs Ago Just Diagnosed Ptsd

[sami cat]

Well I had my last appt with him yesterday. It went really good he didnt act like he did last week. He did say he is moving me out of crisis therapy to regular therapy. I guess he thinks im not suicidal anymore. I told him if I wasnt on so many meds I wouldnt appear to be doing as good as he thinks I am.he agreed with me. So im gonna miss seeing him every week. I felt so depressed after I left him and today is just crappy too. I wish I could stab myself and all the pain would gush out and leave me forever!!!

 

[Flower Power]

I think many of us has feared this at some point but what I have learnt is that any changes are slow so...

I know this was one of my fears too. We don't know who we are because we have lived in such a shut down state. I know for years I let everyone else determine what I thought of myself. I finally realized that I was making everyone else my God. If someone didn't like me, then I didn't like myself, because "I didn't know me at all". After taking out the garbage, which was all the lies I had been told by others and by myself, and learning the truth. Then I was able to finally get some ground beneath my feet and not be so triggered all the time as if everything someone said or did, or every cross word was a threat of rejection and personal annihilation. My greatest fear was that I would be like my #1 abuser. Accepting that I am not this person, and nothing like this person has helped set me free to be me, and I am still learning who I am each and every day. We have too move all the manure that has been laid on top of us to get the growing seed that is beneath it, which is who God truly created us to be. It takes work to unweave this web of lies that keeps us locked in the insanity. You are a magnificent creation of God, you have the right to be just as you were made to be. I think another greatest fear that I had was believing that maybe the things that the stuff I had been told about myself was actually true..that I was worthless and had no value and that I was a disposable person and that I was so broken and trashed because of being raped that I was now permanently unloveable and I would never be loved by a decent man. Which is all that I was told by my Father after my rape. I lived believing that BS for most of my life. Now, I have been married to the most marvelous gift of a man who loves me like I could have only hoped for 13 years and he has taught me what unconditional love really means. Do not give up hope. Have courage. Be gentle and kind to your self and give up the belief in the lies. You are so much more. We are all butterflies learning to fly with our new wings. It takes time for the metamorphosis to happen and for our wings to unfurl and dry before we can truly fly.

 

[WillyKat]

I've struggled with anger a lot and have a few things to say.... You may find them helpful; then again you may not.

Accept your anger. I think fighting it puts you at war with yourself, and both sides fight, fight, and fight. Accept the source of your anger as legitimate. That's right, it's legitimate that you're angry. The source of my anger comes from my immediate caregivers (mother, family, teachers (I was six when the neighbor abused me)) not seeing the obvious distress I was in, not digging deeper, not being savvy enough that something was seriously wrong. There was a subconscious sense of abandonment and betrayal. Sometimes, people can be angry at their abuser but the bulk of the anger is reserved for those that stood by and did nothing. I'm not saying this is your case, only that it's worth thinking about.

Focus on small, attainable goals. Too often we try to slay the beast. We would use a nuke if we had one. But real progress, I believe, can only be had with small, baby steps.

Hug yourself, be the caregiver you missed out on having. During a vision quest in a desert wilderness (South Sierra Wilderness, Calif), I remembered a time my shrink asked me to imagine my older self on the school bus with by younger self. (My abuser was an older boy, who rode the bus too, and terrorized me everyday to and from school for three years.) So my older self got on the bus, sat down, and hugged my young self. See, the anger comes from fear. Some believe that anger and fear are two sides of the same coin. By telling my young self that he was being protected now, the fear could subside and take the anger with it. So, back in the desert, I tried to actually hug myself. Why not? There wasn't another soul around for miles. I cried like I've only rarely cried in my life. Good stuff!

Hope that helps.

 

[sami cat]

I know this was one of my fears too. We don't know who we are because we have lived in such a shut...

Ive been believing lies all my life too. My mother was always telling me I wasnt good enough. It didnt matter what I did. She was an alcoholic and addicted to valium. I spent my childhood taking care of her. Always afraid she was dead when she passed out. So I believed all the lies and I still do. Thats the main reason I never tpld anyone I was raped. Today I feel that anger bubbling up wanting to scream out but god I am so scared of it!

 

[sami cat]

I've struggled with anger a lot and have a few things to say.... You may find them helpful; then again...

I have alot of anger toward several people for different reasons. I know why im angry I know that I have good reason to be angry. But I was taught at a young age that everyone mattered more than me and to just sit back and be quiet. I carried that with me all my life and let others control me. Now that anger is really really wanting out and I dont have a clue how to handle it. Hoping my new therapist can help me with that. I try so hard to be in control of my life recently and I dont wanna lose that. If I let this anger out I will not be in control and im afraid if what will happen.ugh I hate being alive

 

[WillyKat]

I understand how terrifying the anger can be. It's like a monster inside that wants to eat you alive. I still struggle with it.

I really do believe though that accepting the legitimacy of the anger is a first step. I came to that conclusion in therapy, or rather a few days after a session. I had for my entire life never held my caregivers accountable. See, the little kid inside felt betrayed, while the adult rationalized it all: it was the mid 60s in a rural backwater within a larger rural backwater. They didn't know any better. But still the six year old felt abandoned, betrayed, and there was a tantrum inside that wanted out.

So one day my therapist asked if I wasn't giving them a bye, and not holding them accountable. I was kind of stunned. Three days later I realized that my little kid still wanted to have that tantrum nearly 50 years later.

I really hope this helps because dealing with anger so damn hard.

 

[sami cat]

I understand how terrifying the anger can be. It's like a monster inside that wants to eat you alive. I...

Nothing has changed im still living with that monster anger. I had hoped that since im taking so many meds I would be feeling better and sleeping better. No such luck. Still have that urge to cut myself everyday. Really tired of fighting.

 

[WillyKat]

I hear you. I'm four years struggling with it. Every time I think I've turned a corner, there's another corner.

We all get tired of fighting. That's a hint. Don't fight it, accept it. The anger comes from a legitimate place, in my case, a child's sense of abandonment. I have to keep reminding myself to hug the little guy, instead of telling him to stop being angry.

 

[Flower Power]

I think for me it was that the anger was so powerful and it really was the power that kept me alive. It was what kept me pushing back up from the bottom, it was what kept me from totally surrendering to the powerlessness that I felt towards everything that I couldn't change as a child. I have found that women have a tendency to label their anger as bad. Like we don't have the right to have it, or its not lady like, or not Christian, or we are not justified in having it or some how we are the ones that are wrong because we have the anger, or still have the anger over such a long period of time. And you know what, that really pisses me off. With therapy I was able to finally deal with all those layers of anger that never got voiced but only got buried because I as a child of a narcissist did not have a right to them, or the right to have human needs let alone my own feeling and emotions as it related to her abuse of me. There are constructive ways to have anger, and there are unconstructive ways, like hurting others or hurting yourself. We have a right to our anger. Personally I had to admit I wasn't anger I was enraged! Anger work is powerful work. But often anger is just the capstone over everything else we don't want to feel like the powerlessness, abandonment, rejection and worthlessness. I found that I had a lot of grief work below the anger that I had to do. I had to grieve for what happened and also for what didn't happened and for what would never happen. I still have a hard time letting everything go because none of my abusers have any acknowledgement of the hell they made of my existence. And some how in my mind that just isn't fair.

 

[WillyKat]

I should have also mentioned that a lot of my anger comes from frustration that the people I need to be a certain way can't or won't change. Or at least I can't change them. They can't see, they don't get it, they can't look at the same pile of evidence and see the obvious.

When I'm not angry, I'm able to just accept the fact that people can be very different from each other, almost like different species. We see the world very differently. Some lack empathy, which I've always interpreted as stupidity, which pisses me off. But *I* can't change them; its impossible. So I accept. The rage subsides.

I agree with you @Flower Power that its seen as bad, especially in women. For whatever reason, men seem to have accorded other men some kind of ignorant right to, you know, blow it off somehow. But it's not alright to walk down the street grumbling to oneself. I've caught myself doing that.

It's a continual struggle, another corner to turn, another ridge to climb.

 

[Flower Power]

I think one of the hardest things for me was that people don't act or think like me. Being a "care giver" empathy is big on my scale of important things. What I have had to learn is that empathy is gained by experience and feeling your own pain so you can identify with someone else's pain and suffering. Some people are so broken that they killed off their empathy before it ever got a chance to be born. Narcissist have no empathy for others, and often these people have had a tremendously abusive past that created that self-centeredness and lack of concern for anyone else but themselves. A lot of my suffering over the years was dealing with such people and no amount of wishing, hoping or praying was going to change these people into anything resembling a caring human being. My parents reaction to my rape and my mother's total narcisstic attitude was worse than the rape itself. It was injury upon injury. And It was worse because having been raped and attempting suicide as a result left me totally vulnerable and in a very unprotected state when attacked by my parents. Instead of sympathy, comfort and understanding they tried to emotionally finish me off. If it wasn't for the rage that was born towards them in those moments I probably wouldn't have made it through the life I have lived. So I guess I am grateful for the rage having carried me through. It helped me become more independent and to finally cut out the dysfunctional family relationships from my life and claim my own joy and happiness with my husband.