Sufferer Realising What Really Happened

[kirsten]

Hi. I feel rather odd having found this group because I have never considered that there may be people out there who have gone through what I have. About ten years ago I survived an attempted murder. After the man was caught, the police told me that he had recently murdered a 17 year old girl on the other side of the country and had come to my city to get away from the police. I had also been told, although I don't know if it's true, that he had murdered a man as part of a gang initiation ceremony. He had gang prison tattoos and I had always assumed that it was a gang related attempt. I also never, ever discussed the incident with anyone in depth, partly because it was retraumatising and partly because I guess I just didn't think anyone would really believe me. Ten years later and I have gotten over the suicidal ideation I used to suffer from and have built up a largely trauma free life for myself. For some reason, during the last month I have been going over the events of that night trying to figure out what happened, so today I spoke about them with my therapist, who also works as a forensic psychiatrist. What she said to me was really weird for me to hear and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

When the man attacked me, he strangled me. I have epilepsy and I apparently had a seizure. When I came to I found myself sitting on the floor with the guy's arm around my shoulder telling me it was okay, I'd just had a seizure. It was because of that physical distance that was created that I managed to get away from him and eventually survive. I have always wondered why it was that he didn't just carry on strangling me when I had the seizure, since that would surely indicate that things were going the way he wanted them to. My therapist told me today that she believes he was a serial killer and that my seizure had interrupted his routine, which was why he stopped. She said he'd have killed me after that given the chance. I had always felt pretty impressed with myself for fighting as hard as I did. I felt I had saved my life. My therapist says that serial killers like it when their victims fight and if I had simply lain still he probably would have stopped, and that it was my seizure that saved my life.

This is rather a different perspective than what I had had before. Somehow, a gang related attack seemed less severe. Serial killers belong in movies. There are not very many around in the world, and there are not very many people who survive them. I think what is bothering me is the fact that I always used to filter the event through the lens of pride in my epic battle for my life and my pride in being a survivor instead of looking at the entire event as a whole, for what it really was in the moment. Now that I am looking at the truth of it, I am finding it rather difficult to stomach and I'm not feeling to good. I suffered terribly from dissociation for many, many years after that attack and my therapist told me that I was one of those patients who would get better from not talking about it because talking about it just retraumatised me and didn't allow me to heal. I'm not sure at this point what to think or do. I feel fragile.

I'm sorry this is so long. I just have never discussed this with anyone who had first hand experience of what I went through. I've not given this post much focus but I guess I'm hoping to hear a few thoughts about this experience and whether others can identify. I posted in this particular accomplishments area because I had felt I had accomplished something triumphant just surviving. Now I just feel like I was a victim. Without my triumph, I'm left in a darker place and it's not one I tolerate easily.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Welcome to the forum!

I disagree with your therapist. It's not just talking about your trauma, it's about processing what happened to you.

You can talk about it until you're blue in the face and get very little true healing. You need to see a therapist who specializes in trauma.

It took me quite a long time until I found a therapy program that finally let me process my trauma without having it retraumatize me. All previous attempts gave me severe dissociation (and I never experienced dissociation like that any other time).

I hope you can find the support you're looking for here on the forum. Our traumas are uniquely our own, but we deal with many of the same struggles.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Welcome to the forum kirsten. I am agreeing with ScaredOfLonely. A trauma specialist makes all the difference. You are a strong survivor and you are not alone! You can use a word in the search to find threads that may interest you. There is also a wiki and it has very good information in it. I also want to tell you that everyone has opinions and knows what works for them, If you can honor that and take what you like and leave the rest there is so much to be learned here. Best wishes on your journey to healing.

tb

 

[Hashi]

Hi kirsten,

I'm so sorry for what you've been through.

What you say resonates with me. I have also survived an attempted murder, and although it wouldn't have come under the label of serial killer (the situation and reasons were different), they had killed before and they had plans and rituals around how they did things. I was already very close to death or unconsciousness, but they resucitated me so it would be their way and so I would react.

I have to process it in layers. I'm still doing that. It has been very difficult to accept that something so extreme happened to me. I'm certain that no-one would believe me. I'm considering asking for a copy of the hospital records as proof, but I don't know if that's something I'd ever do, or if I'd ever tell anyone except a therapist.

I think it's important to talk about it and process it, but to approach that very carefully and cautiously. I can't see how I'd get better if I didn't talk about it in a healing way in therapy. At the same time, to suddenly talk and over-expose myself would be retraumatising, and I work hard to avoid that. It's always going to be difficult and distressing to process what happened, but I don't believe it has to be retraumatising.

I have to agree with the others that seeing a specialist trauma therapist is very different from seeing a general therapist. Safety (not being overwhelmed) is really important in trauma work. I'd add a word of warning that "trauma therapy" takes many different forms and some trauma therapists use very direct exposure therapy. This is right for some people, but it's not right for me. There are other, more gentle approaches too (it's still incredibly hard to do). It depends what approach is right for you as an individual.

I have also had a somatic therapy (craniosacral therapy) for this and other trauma. Personally, I wonder if I would have been able to have trauma talk therapy without having had this first. I would emphasise the importance of seeing someone trained and experienced in adult trauma work, not just birth trauma, if you have any kind of therapy like this.

Every step of facing it on a new, deeper level can be devastating all over again. I understand what you say about having previously felt pride in surviving, and now feeling something else. I go in an out of many different feelings, working through this, including feeling like a victim more than a survivor. I think and hope that the pride in surviving will come back to you as you move through this new and very difficult understanding. You have even more reason to feel proud for having survived.

In fact, the pride can be very important. I survived in a different way, but there was one point during what happened when I hit back and tried to escape. It didn't save me, but it's been one of the most important things for me to hold onto, that I did it. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I have sometimes obsessed about their other victims. At one point, I kept reading books about murder and murderers. I had to stop myself from doing this, it didn't help me at all. However, other things have helped me. In my case, these have been things relating to goodness, beauty, healing and creativity, especially things relating to our ability to heal from even the most horrific experiences. I do believe that we can.

I hope that being here on the forum will be one of the things that help you.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome. :)

 

[KP the nut]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[Crimson]

Welcome kirsten.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Kirsten,

Welcome to the PTSD Forum! :)

I am sorry you had to experience such an attack and glad that you survived. However, unless your therapist has professionally evaluated your attacker, speculating on his motivation or why he discontinued his attack, is just that speculation. What is important is that your therapist help you process the trauma so that you can heal and live your life to the fullest.

I hope you find the information and support here beneficial as you work on healing.

Take care.

Debbie

 

[The Albatross]

Welcome Kirsten, I'm with your therapist, you're seizure disrupted his routine. Glad you're here.

 

[HighwayToHell]

Sorry Albatross but I also disagree with the Therapist.

To Kirsten I say this.
You have every right to be very proud and comforted that you are a survivor. Does it matter why?
Your therapist is a typical Forensic - all science and no soul. I think she is batting for the wrong team in treating you in the first place. Then again, she is the one with the PhD but my concern is you, my friend.

I am fully with Hashi on this one. Life and survival and pride and recovery is about YOU now, not your attacker (may he burn in Hell). The fact you have not only survived but got on with your life and prospered in so many ways, says to me that you are way stronger (and way more worthy) of recovery than any lousy, low-life, scumbag killer.

Good living is the best revenge so you do whatever you need to do to get stay well and live well.

You deserve it, you are worth it and I already think you are fabulous even being coherent and functional at all after going through that. In awe of you girl, absolutely in awe.

 

[Deleted member 19035]

Welcome

 

[kirsten]

Wow. I was stunned to have received so many responses. I thought they'd come through to my inbox, so I discovered them quite late. My therapist certainly couldn't do more than speculate about my attacker's reason for doing so. She did make the fact that she was speculating quite clear. She specialises in seeing victims of violent crime through their court cases. I guess that doesn't make her a trauma specialist, though. Still, she has been the only therapist who has enabled me to move forward. When I first saw her, I was being absolutely strangled by my PTSD and was barely capable of living an ordinary life. After four years with her, I no longer have PTSD at all, and I am making great strides with my life--something I haven't been able to do for a very long time. I'm reluctant to stop doing something that is working, although I do see that I need to process my responses to the attack at this point in my life.

After I wrote here I came up with a thought: If I survived, then I did the right things. Is that sentence too easy? There should be no competition about how 'well' someone behaves when attacked. It is an abnormal situation that nobody should have to respond perfectly to. The main thing is to survive, which I did.

I had rather a major realisation about the attack after I wrote and was wondering if any of you could relate. Before the attack, my home was the most important thing in my life. i took great joy in making it the perfect place for me to be. After the attack, I left for a city that has a lower incidence of violent crime straight away. Oddly, for a decade I put absolutely no effort into making my home my own. I had the necessities but never bought things I wanted or decorated it. When I moved, I had the habit of keeping some of my things in boxes as though settling anywhere would be a waste of time. I did settle for three years in an apartment but at no point did I unpack all of my things. A friend mentioned in December that it was strange that there were no personal 'marks' in my apartment and while we were talking I came up with a reason. I had been reluctant to put down roots because, in the past, my life had been taken from me and if I tried to make a life for myself it might be taken away again. If I didn't create a home, I couldn't lose it. I didn't, at the time, relate this to the attack. I moved home at the beginning of March and began to put plenty of effort into buying furniture, decorating and essentially creating a nest for myself. I also unpacked all my boxes and threw all the empty ones away. My apartment looks too gorgeous for words. It was at this point that I began to obsess about the night of the attack, so it seems clear to me that there is some kind of fear of committing to life or settling into my own home that relates to the attack. As soon as I began to put effort into my home, I began to think about the attack but I can't really make sense of why this should be this way. I was hoping someone would have some insight about this issue.