Still On The Fence About Disclosing Details Of My Abuse

[Ellabella44]

if its a "part" meaning a dissociate, maybe try writing to that part that it is safe to discuss this with your therapist. the time when you NEEDED to keep this secret is over, gently reassure that part that this is the time to talk about it because you want her to feel better and heal. (worked for me) Nobody who made you feel threatened is there or will find out what is said with your therapist. It does sound like he is trying but may not have a good way with words for you.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Yes the time has come to accept her needs and comfort.

 

[FindingMyself88]

Inner Child work can be very overwhelming but VERY rewarding. My T has done it a very little. Also I think a way of tapping into my inner child has been through art journaling. I cannot write out my feelings at all, not in a journalistic way. I get frustrated and give up. But I have picked up collaging, drawing, and such. Collaging has been a HUGE way for me to express the way I feel in my sketchbook journal. I don't over think it. On days that I'm not journaling, I will flip through my magazines and cut out anything that I like, words, pictures, patterns, etc. and put them in a file folder separated by categories. Then on days when I want to journal I sometimes try to pick a them, but a lot of the time I don't. I look through the different things and pick out what speaks out to me. Before I know it there is a pattern or theme and once it's done I can see my feelings on the page.... huge success! Just this might help your inner child speak. For me I really have a great relationship with my T and I take them in sometimes to show her. She is very intuitive and can see my inner child. Sometimes she helps me process more difficult ones and understand what I was feeling since I have a problem with that.

Another type of art journaling someone showed me is to draw my inner self or how I see her that day. I am a perfectionist, so they told me to draw an animated me so it doesn't have to be perfect. It really helps.

Just throwing this idea out there for you. I literally spent my christmas money on art supplies and magazines. Now I have several of my doctor's offices who are going to save old magazines for me. I would not mind sharing some with you if it might help you. This helps both my inner child and the "shut down" emotions come out for me.

Another exercise my T has me do to help my inner child is to imagine a comforting figure. It doesn't have to be anyone you know, you can make them up. It can be someone off a TV show you like, it can be Annie your dog. You can choose different ones for different needs. She helped me come up with several for a nurturing/comforting figure, a protective figure, and a wise figure. Then whenever I am feeling overwhelmed by emotions or anything she has me visualize a figure from which ever of those I need and imagine what they would do for me or say to me. We do this a lot with Bristol in sessions since I do not take Bristol to sessions, sometimes it helps to imagine her there when needed. Some of mine are real people who have come into my life, some are made up. One of my favorites is a grandfather off a TV show I watch :). Maybe this will help!

EDIT/ADD- I will say though in some situations I am too embarrassed to bring anyone into a situation aside from maybe Bristol. We are working on this in therapy. So just be gentle. In those cases I try to imagine someone comforting me after the situation that caused the flashback or whatever..

 

[KwanYingirl]

@FindingMyself88 thank you for your advice. I made a collage years ago when I was working out of "the Courage to Heal" I'm lousy at free hand drawing. I'd be making stick figures for sure. I got a nice message from my therapist. We have work to do. He thinks this episode was a choice I made to tell my story. Finally. We have to be careful because I'm prone to cutting. My hope is that he will pave the way for my disclosures to be spoken.

 

[FindingMyself88]

*hugs* I am proud of you! I get that, I'm only a month out from my past cutting. Just take it slow. I'm not a great drawer myself, but the collage doesn't take skill. I honestly try to keep my "mind" out of it if that makes sense. One that I did ended up saying "Don't Judge My Journey." I thought at first that I did it as if saying to others but then I realized it was more to myself. Telling myself not to judge where I am at... was very powerful!

 

[KwanYingirl]

I have what I call anticipatory anxiety. Perhaps it is all my secrets wanting to be released. It's about a week after my meltdown. I have emotions I actually could articulate. And my anxiety is at least 50% of what is usual.

 

[ShyFromEarly]

"You were told when you were younger directly or indirectly to keep a secret. You decided you didn't want to keep the secret anymore and that is where the healing starts. I know that disclosing your abuse makes you face it head on. You did a great job and it's OK to slow down and take care of yourself with breathing, yoga, comfort food, and sleep. Keep touching base and you are going to move through this".
I'm stuck in that memory. I can't get anything done except to yoga. Does this response sound comforting or solicitous?

Standard psychology holds that sharing a traumatic experience kept secret, will make things better. However I've read that, in practice, recalling and disclosing traumatic experiences can simply make things worse; it's not like confession, where you simply share a secret of something you did wrong, but rather it's usually something that someone did TO you, often in a power-situation to violate, humiliate and otherwise establish control and inflict harm, as well as establish that dynamic in your relationship-- i.e. to show they were "boss" and you were their inferior.
In such situations, bringing it up will only make the experience worse; often it's because the memory is unchanged, and he underlying vulnerability is still there. For example I had lifelong feelings of anxiety and inferiority, as well as depression; and as a result, I was vulnerable to humiliation from bullying and threatening circumstances, being alone etc.
If I were to tell anyone about these experiences, it would only humiliate me further by exposing my shame and feelings of helpelessness to another person, but would also deepen the trauma.

 

[blackemerald1]

@ShyFromEarly, have you tried to disclose to a psychiatrist who is legally bound to keep safe your trauma and try to help you deal with it? You clearly still suffer from it. Or are you speculating that disclosing would deepen your trauma?

 

[ShyFromEarly]

@ShyFromEarly, have you tried to disclose to a psychiatrist who is legally bound to keep safe your trauma and try to help you deal with it? You clearly still suffer from it. Or are you speculating that disclosing would deepen your trauma?

I'm going by the latest science on the issue, along with proven data wherein PTSD patients would write out their traumatic experiences, and it got worse.
Even Freud didn't try to elicit buried problems directly, but used free-association psychotherapy to probe around traumatic issues and determine the source by the patient's resistance to certain questions, from which he could put together a pattern of what they were covering... and not surprisingly, Van der Kolk subscribes to Freud.
A therapist doesn't need to know the private details of your trauma to help deal with it; it's about the feelings associated with the event, not the details of the event itself.

 

[blackemerald1]

So you have not seen a psychiatrist then and tried it out for yourself. So you suffer in silence and tell no-one what happened to you to avoid an adverse reaction to speaking about it, but you still suffer from it? Is science the answer here? Not knocking your references to Frued etc., but he did have some pretty wild ideas, that are now considered defunct.

 

[scout86]

From what I understand, the point isn't just to relate the memories. The point is to take those memories and attach different meaning to them.

To begin with, as my T keeps saying, that they are MEMORIES, which means they are something that happened, "over there, back then", rather than something that's happening now.

The memories of things "done TO you" tend to be associated with thoughts of being powerless, helpless and somehow at fault, guilt, responsibility, etc.By revisiting those memories, safely, in the present, when you are NOT weak and powerless, it can be possible to come to accept that you WEREN'T responsible and to put the guilt and blame where it really belongs. At least that's the theory, as I understand it right now. This is sort of a work in progress, so no promises that I've got it 100% right.

The other thing that I've found, for myself, I tend to think "If people knew the truth, they'd hate me." Or maybe a more complicated version of that. Once or twice, I've taken a chance on that and said something to someone that I REALLY thought I could trust. To my complete surprise, he didn't hate me. Didn't change out relationship at all..I had no real idea that was possible. Turns out it is. That's worth knowing, I think.

But none of that is the same as pressuring someone to talk about stuff they just aren't ready to talk about yet, just for the sake of talking about it.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I once disclosed that I had PTSD and I was shunned by my office as many thought I was two fries short of a happy meal or shoot up the whole office. Peoples' perceptions about PTSD is ignorance at its finest yet those who are ignorant tend to fly off the handle at the first thought of us who have the affliction. My suggestion is to talk to your therapist and write down FIRST what you wish to discuss.
LISTEN TO YOUR GUT INSTINCT for it will not fail you.