E
Echo
I'm not sure whether this is the right part of the forum to post this. Please move if required, moderators. Thank you.
I have been avoiding sharing what has been going on for me on the forum. It has been more pain than I've ever consciously known, though I accept that great chunks of it no doubt belong to my past self. Something happened this morning that has really unsettled and frightened me and I was wondering if anyone can tell me what is likely to be happening to me and the probable consequences. I do see my therapist on Wednesday late afternoon, so I may have to hold on until then, but any help would be greatly appreciated. I feel helpless and useless that I can't manage this on my own.
I am fairly early in therapy and have been working with a trauma psychotherapist since September. She works with sensorimotor therapy and so far we have been working on grounding techniques and other aspects of helping me to feel safe in a variety of ways.
The key thing I had been working on recently was preparing a letter to write to my abusive parents, not to accuse them at this stage of anything directly, but to give them my diagnosis, tell them I was working with a rape trauma therapist, and ask them for space to heal. I also prepared e-mails to my sisters asking them for the same. I sent the letter and e-mails almost two weeks ago now and then immediately spent a week away out of contact of everyone. I specifically asked them all not to contact me in any way and to please wait until I contacted them. My sisters have known about my rape at 20 for years; only one sister knows about the abuse; and I have never talked to my parents about any of it. I know my mother heard me being raped.
I felt a great need to have a safe space away from the psychodramas that surround my mother and her constant manipulations. My therapist agreed with me that I would never get to do the trauma work necessary with my family as continual triggers and with their perpetual invasions.
When I returned from my safe space a week ago, I predictably found a card from my mother and an envelope from one of my sisters. I had decided not to read anything from my mother and I have just put the envelope away. I know it will be full of weasel words and many triggers. The envelope from my sister, which I persuaded myself would probably contain thank-you letters for Christmas and birthday presents I had given to her family, in fact contained a letter I had written to her shortly after I was raped. When I told this sister about my diagnosis a year ago, she told me I hadn't been raped based on this letter, in which I do not mention the rape. She had now chosen this as the moment to forward this to me ("in case it helped"). I remember vividly the distress I was in at that point in my life and that I had no words for what had happened to me. I had just moved abroad (less than a week after my rape) to go to a first job and was having to cope with all that and a foreign language. I was all alone, deeply shocked and traumatised and with no-one to help me. I felt the receipt of this letter now like a slap in the face and that she was again saying she did not believe me (which may or may be the case).
The following day, I had a very difficult phone call from the sister who has supported me wonderfully so far. She was evidently panicked, wouldn't let me speak, and although she has known all along that I was planning to do this, I guess the reality had hit home (and the gossip and manipulation had got going) about how it would affect her, and she now wanted my permission to cut ties with her, too. I have very few supporters and we had hoped to keep in touch, but not mention any of this stuff. Probably very unrealistic. She raised her voice at me, said I had got lots of things wrong, etc. I was deeply hurt and shaken, particularly after a week of constant nightmares, panic attacks and palpitations.
My youngest sister told me a year ago that I was on my own (when I told her my diagnosis) and she has not been in touch since. She has her own problems.
Anyway, it was evident that none of the boundaries I had set in my letter and e-mails had been respected by any of them. They were not letting me deal with my parents in my own way and my own time, and they are evidently more concerned about themselves and my mother than me. No surprise there; the pattern has been there all my life.
After all this, I have ended up in a terrible state. I have fought to suppress all the agony. It is just overwhelming and raw. I haven't got time to collapse and deal with it now. I have to work like stink in order to complete a project on time for a client, followed by several others, all of which have been delayed by all of this and my inability to concentrate. I work freelance - if I don't do it, no-one does. I have no partner and have to earn my living and pay for my own therapy.
So I have been doing what I guess I have always done throughout my life, which is to suppress as much as I can, foster this coping strategy and just not go there.
This morning, after a conversation last night in which I told a friend about all of this in more detail than here and got utterly triggered (of course - silly me), I woke in a horrible state. My therapist suggests when I have work that must be done by a deadline, that I talk to all the suffering parts of me and ask them to hold on, to get down in my feet, please, and that I will give them attention as soon as possible. I have to explain to them that we need to survive, need a roof over 'our heads' and to eat.
I 'tuned in' to find my 20-year old self split away from me in a very marked way (up to now these parts have always been inside me). Now she shared only my feet and was pulling away from them. She was desperate in the way I was desperate immediately after the rape. She is suicidal - she showed me a variety of ways she wanted to kill herself (jumping off a high building, etc.) and she was very angry at me for abandoning her, as she put it. She showed me blood all over my head (blood is big trigger for me after my rape).
In order to work, I have become very blank and numb over the past few days. I feel like I am looking at everything going on in the family, my emotions and life in general through a thick mist. I can't connect to anything from the past. It all feels very theoretical and empty of feeling. It is the only way I can manage to work, exhausting as it all is.
My question is (and sorry it has taken me so long to get to it), how do I deal with this? I am utterly petrified that she will re-enter me and that I will suddenly be in a state that I cannot manage. When I went abroad at 20 I sought help from the doctors there, was told I had gastro-enteritis (what a laugh!) and was dismissed after 5 minutes with a prescription for Librium. It so knocked me out that I felt nothing after that for the remaining year abroad, so if I was suicidal then, I did not feel it. I guess my real feelings are emerging now with the replay of so many of the constituent parts of my abuse and rape in my family's behaviour. I feel like my heart is on fire and is rent down the middle with indescribable pain.
How will my therapist deal with this if I doesn't happen before I get to see her?
I feel deeply ashamed to be having these feelings and for having to ask here on the forum, but I know there are many lovely people here who have been through similar things. Again many apologies for the length.
I have been avoiding sharing what has been going on for me on the forum. It has been more pain than I've ever consciously known, though I accept that great chunks of it no doubt belong to my past self. Something happened this morning that has really unsettled and frightened me and I was wondering if anyone can tell me what is likely to be happening to me and the probable consequences. I do see my therapist on Wednesday late afternoon, so I may have to hold on until then, but any help would be greatly appreciated. I feel helpless and useless that I can't manage this on my own.
I am fairly early in therapy and have been working with a trauma psychotherapist since September. She works with sensorimotor therapy and so far we have been working on grounding techniques and other aspects of helping me to feel safe in a variety of ways.
The key thing I had been working on recently was preparing a letter to write to my abusive parents, not to accuse them at this stage of anything directly, but to give them my diagnosis, tell them I was working with a rape trauma therapist, and ask them for space to heal. I also prepared e-mails to my sisters asking them for the same. I sent the letter and e-mails almost two weeks ago now and then immediately spent a week away out of contact of everyone. I specifically asked them all not to contact me in any way and to please wait until I contacted them. My sisters have known about my rape at 20 for years; only one sister knows about the abuse; and I have never talked to my parents about any of it. I know my mother heard me being raped.
I felt a great need to have a safe space away from the psychodramas that surround my mother and her constant manipulations. My therapist agreed with me that I would never get to do the trauma work necessary with my family as continual triggers and with their perpetual invasions.
When I returned from my safe space a week ago, I predictably found a card from my mother and an envelope from one of my sisters. I had decided not to read anything from my mother and I have just put the envelope away. I know it will be full of weasel words and many triggers. The envelope from my sister, which I persuaded myself would probably contain thank-you letters for Christmas and birthday presents I had given to her family, in fact contained a letter I had written to her shortly after I was raped. When I told this sister about my diagnosis a year ago, she told me I hadn't been raped based on this letter, in which I do not mention the rape. She had now chosen this as the moment to forward this to me ("in case it helped"). I remember vividly the distress I was in at that point in my life and that I had no words for what had happened to me. I had just moved abroad (less than a week after my rape) to go to a first job and was having to cope with all that and a foreign language. I was all alone, deeply shocked and traumatised and with no-one to help me. I felt the receipt of this letter now like a slap in the face and that she was again saying she did not believe me (which may or may be the case).
The following day, I had a very difficult phone call from the sister who has supported me wonderfully so far. She was evidently panicked, wouldn't let me speak, and although she has known all along that I was planning to do this, I guess the reality had hit home (and the gossip and manipulation had got going) about how it would affect her, and she now wanted my permission to cut ties with her, too. I have very few supporters and we had hoped to keep in touch, but not mention any of this stuff. Probably very unrealistic. She raised her voice at me, said I had got lots of things wrong, etc. I was deeply hurt and shaken, particularly after a week of constant nightmares, panic attacks and palpitations.
My youngest sister told me a year ago that I was on my own (when I told her my diagnosis) and she has not been in touch since. She has her own problems.
Anyway, it was evident that none of the boundaries I had set in my letter and e-mails had been respected by any of them. They were not letting me deal with my parents in my own way and my own time, and they are evidently more concerned about themselves and my mother than me. No surprise there; the pattern has been there all my life.
After all this, I have ended up in a terrible state. I have fought to suppress all the agony. It is just overwhelming and raw. I haven't got time to collapse and deal with it now. I have to work like stink in order to complete a project on time for a client, followed by several others, all of which have been delayed by all of this and my inability to concentrate. I work freelance - if I don't do it, no-one does. I have no partner and have to earn my living and pay for my own therapy.
So I have been doing what I guess I have always done throughout my life, which is to suppress as much as I can, foster this coping strategy and just not go there.
This morning, after a conversation last night in which I told a friend about all of this in more detail than here and got utterly triggered (of course - silly me), I woke in a horrible state. My therapist suggests when I have work that must be done by a deadline, that I talk to all the suffering parts of me and ask them to hold on, to get down in my feet, please, and that I will give them attention as soon as possible. I have to explain to them that we need to survive, need a roof over 'our heads' and to eat.
I 'tuned in' to find my 20-year old self split away from me in a very marked way (up to now these parts have always been inside me). Now she shared only my feet and was pulling away from them. She was desperate in the way I was desperate immediately after the rape. She is suicidal - she showed me a variety of ways she wanted to kill herself (jumping off a high building, etc.) and she was very angry at me for abandoning her, as she put it. She showed me blood all over my head (blood is big trigger for me after my rape).
In order to work, I have become very blank and numb over the past few days. I feel like I am looking at everything going on in the family, my emotions and life in general through a thick mist. I can't connect to anything from the past. It all feels very theoretical and empty of feeling. It is the only way I can manage to work, exhausting as it all is.
My question is (and sorry it has taken me so long to get to it), how do I deal with this? I am utterly petrified that she will re-enter me and that I will suddenly be in a state that I cannot manage. When I went abroad at 20 I sought help from the doctors there, was told I had gastro-enteritis (what a laugh!) and was dismissed after 5 minutes with a prescription for Librium. It so knocked me out that I felt nothing after that for the remaining year abroad, so if I was suicidal then, I did not feel it. I guess my real feelings are emerging now with the replay of so many of the constituent parts of my abuse and rape in my family's behaviour. I feel like my heart is on fire and is rent down the middle with indescribable pain.
How will my therapist deal with this if I doesn't happen before I get to see her?
I feel deeply ashamed to be having these feelings and for having to ask here on the forum, but I know there are many lovely people here who have been through similar things. Again many apologies for the length.
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