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Recalling the happy times with an abuser

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Justmehere

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I’ve been trying to deal with trauma related to one family member for a long time. It has been difficult because for years, I feel nothing about this trauma or person and I avoid it like the plague.

I started to work with it, some of the pain and anger came back in the session.

After the session, I kept thinking about a legitimately happy experince with the abuser. I’ve almost been obsessing over it for a week. I feel giddy and relaxed thinking of it. They are as real as the trauma.

This is someone who has been very hurtful to me, has committed attempted murder against me when I was a teen... and this is what I’m recalling? The happy times?

I can’t seem to even think if the horrible times. When I start to go there, my anxiety spikes through the roof. But I seem to easily be able to go to the happy memories. I can’t help but think this is some kind of weird defense mechanism, a form of denial and a lack of having this trauma integrated. Triggers related to this trauma have been stronger, so the negative impact of the trauma is still there. Yet what I’m thinking about are the happy times.

This has never happened to before. It seems to be the opposite of how this all typically works for me when working through trauma.

Has this happened to anyone else?
 
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My abuser/ rapist was a boyfriend/ lover too, so yes, there were many times when he was able to sweet talk me back into his life, because there had been good times as well as bad. I cannot really recall them either. I will have to think about it. I will get back to you on it. One thing I do remember is that we used to go swimming together a lot. That is about all I can recall right now.
 
I remember when we first met, he was so attentive and so interesting. We talked about things we had in common. He seemed so much like the kind of person I needed at that moment. I did fall in love with him. I do recall that. There was that loving look in his eyes. He took my hand in his gently too. That touched me somehow. It seemed to innocent. So safe.
 
The thread title caught my eye, though our experiences are different. For me the "happy memories" come along with strong sadness feelings and also with a really conflicted sort of feeling, kind of like confusion, anger, disgust, sadness, self-loathing, all rolled into one. I'll also sometimes have feelings of missing my abuser, which makes me feel really bad in many ways. I think to myself "he did so many f*cked up things, why am I feeling sorry for him or missing him?!!?" and I'm just left with this bad, low feeling

It's hard to know what he did, and feel/remember those things.

These things didn't start surfacing until I started working on my trauma with my therapist, rather than focusing on grounding/coping/stabilization methods.

Maybe your brain (and my brain too perhaps) is kind of bringing up the positive memories so it doesn't have to think of the negative ones? Or maybe to try to minimize the bad ones? I hope that makes sense. I agree that it seems like it might be some kind of defense mechanism.
 
@SpiritSong - I can recall times of feelings so safe with this abuser too.

@Sweetleaf - I think you are right I could be using the happy moments to hold the negative ones at bay. Right now, I think I’m holding even the pain of missing them at a distance, but I think it’s there, right under the surface. It is confusing to miss someone so harmful. I feel ashamed I’m recalling the happy times.

Intellectually, I get why people miss abusers. The good times can be so real and trauma bonding is so powerful. In the middle of it, I find it quite confusing.
 
@Justmehere yes confusion is a great word for this situation. It's so damn confusing. It's not like I was feeling those things for him at the end either - at the end I was f*cking terrified of him. Yet in spite of that terror and my continual fear that he will show up or I will run into him, I still have these confusing feelings of missing him. It's paradoxical. I feel ashamed too.

Part of the shame is thinking of what other people would think, if they knew.

It's been one of the things that I haven't been able to bring myself to say to my therapist.
 
I can’t seem to even think if the horrible times. When I start to go there, my anxiety spikes through the roof. But I seem to easily be able to go to the happy memories. I can’t help but think this is some kind of weird defense mechanism, a form of denial and a lack of having this trauma integrated. Triggers related to this trauma have been stronger, so the negative impact of the trauma is still there. Yet what I’m thinking about are the happy times.

One of the things I’ve come to realize is wrong with my traumas that bite vs the traumas I’ve sorted : the whole memory is there with the ones I’ve processed, & isn’t there with the ones I haven’t.

Self defence mechanism for sure.

But not in the way I used to think, I don’t think. The WHOLE memory? Includes the good times. Not just the bad. Until I can actually reconcile that, the pieces stay broken.

Not that easy, more to it, and all. But it’s been an unexpected “Oh.” Sort of realisation. I’m compartmentalising... by keeping the different parts seperate, it keeps them jagged, sharp, and impossible.

I have to remember the good in order stop remembering the bad / lay the whole thing to rest. It seems it has to become a whole thing, again? Can’t just stick the parts I don’t like in a box. They take on a life of their own that way. Are infinitely more powerful.

ETA... Just to be clear, not saying this is the only option! There’s definitely other defense mechanisms, denial, coming at a difficult topic in a way that eases me into it... but I had this sort of epiphany recently, and so that’s where my mind went.
 
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Bah. I brought all this up in therapy. I started feeling angry, stressed out, and nervously giggled all at once. Hello flooding? I was also totally avoiding it all at the same time. I don’t usually push and pull. My therapist said I was pushing her away, in a way she’s never felt with me before. I was pushing her away. I want to put all this all back in the damn box. All of it. She said she wanted to connect even more, but knew it would trigger the crap out of me to push in too much.

She asked me to try to not push her away and instead bring her along, and all I could say is that I had no idea how to do that.

I get it now...

She also said she was surprised to hear of how good it could be with the abuser, in light of how bad it was too. My friends as a kid envied that my abuser was in my life. (They didn’t know the person was an abuser.) Some people did see it, but didn’t do anything about it - only to apologize to me as an adult that they didn’t do anything and say they didn’t because the good times were *that* good.

Ugh. So yeah. I’m confuzzeled.

She tried to say something good about me, quickly backed up when she realized I was triggered by it. I told her I was scared I was like the abuser. Very skilled and very terrible. All together. She quickly replied, “uh, you don’t abuse children.”

Ok, fair point.
I have to remember the good in order stop remembering the bad / lay the whole thing to rest. It seems it has to become a whole thing, again? Can’t just stick the parts I don’t like in a box. They take on a life of their own that way. Are infinitely more powerful.
This. So much this.

I can’t quite sit yet with the good and bad all existing together - and yet somehow the disconnected nature of it is leading me to a be jumbled up flooded mess. All the memories are poking out as one bug hazard mess.

The one thing that helped: talking about the good and bad together. All together.
 
People are good and bad elements, all packed in together.

And what makes it difficult for me? Is when the emotions I have associated with that person? Are also good and bad, jumbled in together.

It’s okay to give those emotions space, and to let apparently conflicting emotions sit side by side. I don’t think it’s always a case of trying to persuade ourselves “This person was bad, I shouldn’t have any good feelings about them”. Sometimes having compassion for ourselves means being okay with having good feelings about someone we’ve labelled as “abuser”.

I wonder, if you could make space for all the conflicting emotions, would some of the avoidance about the trauma start to ease?

Trying to ‘overcome’ the good stuff - is that maybe a form of denial?
 
I think my mind does not want to be "wrong" and so since it has already decided that this person is "bad" due to the trauma, then it is difficult to change that perception, but not impossible. I will have to think about it.
 
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