Sexual Assault Therapy isn’t working

[Friday]

You’ve highlighted those sentences above yes, but have failed to acknowledge the parts where they’re also like “give it time”, “I encourage you to try it”, or “it’ll take a while”, “eventually it’ll catch up with you” and other likewise things etc etc.

Because those parts don’t apply.

If someone gives you 3 options, and 1 of them is not useful to you? And the other 2 are? Why fixate on the 1 option that’s not useful and ignore the parts that speak directly to what you’re looking for? UNLESS you’re all geared up for a fight, that makes zero sense. 3 totally different options, but the only thing you care about, and spend time replying to, is the one you don’t want? That’s backwards.

Personally, I DGAF if you’re in therapy, or not. I very much doubt anyone else cares if you’re in therapy, or not, but I clearly can’t speak for anyone but myself. And I really couldn’t care less.

I didn’t do therapy the first time I got hit with PTSD, and I sorted my own shit out over time. Took me roughly 5-7 years. The second time around, I decided not to reinvent the wheel & find as many resources as I could, in hopes of shortening that timeline. Shrug. I’ve done it both ways, and there are benefits/drawbacks to each.

For thousands of years “therapy” has simply not been an option... but trauma still happened. And people coped. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. You don’t even have to read Latin or Japanese (with translation software, or full on already translated texts) to be able to learn from the same lessons those people learned, and can still read about lives and methods for dealing with the exact same problems we have today, 2,000 years ago. Or you can reinvent the wheel, and wing it, like I did. Or you can use sites like this and kick knowledge / brainstorm / share what’s worked in your life & what hasn’t, or you can see a trauma therapist, or... whole lotta different options out there.

Fixating on the one option you don’t want, and then deciding what all the rest of us think/feel about it, even when you’re straight up told “Nope. That’s not what I said, & not what I think/feel about it.” isn’t US not listening to you.

Seriously... take what’s useful to you. The rest doesn’t matter.

 

[justasimplecat]

I don't know if you'll come back, and I was going to post earlier but I had the morning chores to do.

First - I read what happened to you in an earlier thread, and I was shocked and appalled at how horrible your experience was. It was NOT YOUR FAULT! None of it. You did not have to fight back to not give consent. It was horrible! You did not in any way deserve to be treated like that. I would love to get my hands on those creatures who did that to you.

Anyway, if you read Anthony's (the forum founder) response on another thread, he also stopped therapy and healed through this website. Here is a quote.


Maybe it would be helpful to start a diary, or read some articles on here if you haven't already. If therapy is too retraumatizing, something else is in order.

This is not referring directly to your thread. One of what I consider the best things about this website is that forum members don't coddle anyone. They try to alert one to cognitive distortions and patterns of behavior that is causing one distress. This may come across feeling like blame, or being unsympathetic, but it is done from a place of caring. I have found it's helpful to hear and think about, after I am done feeling mad about it, lol. I hope you stick around and continue to post because most of my healing came from here also.

Thank you.
I do still have trouble accepting that I’m not at least partly to blame. I guess I see it as how a court would lay into me if I tried to take it to court, and of course society love to blame the victim. I know I’ve internalized a lot of that and I hate it. I know logically that I wasn’t to blame; I didn’t give my consent. It’s just hard to deal with sometimes.

I keep a journal (I’ll mention a bit more about that in just a sec)...
Yes I agree something else is definitely in order.
Anyway yes, I do journalling right now which has been quite helpful. Also those ‘anxiety colouring books’ for when I am experiencing a panic attack and need to hide away and calm myself for a few minutes - an hour or so. They have helped tremendously.
I also spend time gardening, with the horses, with our other animals, or cooking (my profession, but also for fun), and I find all of those incredibly therapeutic! Especially coming up with new recipes and ideas! :)
They all give me something physical to do, something to really pour all my focus into and work hard at, and I’m finding it helps so much.

Also we have made steps to move out of this city - too many triggers, too many awful memories etc etc.
Since we’ve gotten the ball rolling on moving away (getting our house valued, booking viewings and so on), I finally feel a huge weight being lifted and for the first time I actually feel positive which is something I have not felt in years. It’s overwhelming to say the least.
I finally feel like I’m actually doing the right thing here, by myself.
I do have a support network (husband, family, good friends and coworkers), and I know I’m incredibly lucky to have them. So that helps too.

I wasn’t looking to be coddled, just understood. The thing is I am very aware of my situation and I do hate it, but I’m also not in denial.
What I will admit to is I am incredibly self critical, so I’m already berating myself enough as it is, and quite honestly I feel like I’ve just been attacked a bit since coming here, or been forced into giving therapy another shot when it’s not worked at all. Not everyone has said it, but a few have and it’s so frustrating since I clearly have mentioned how damaging it’s been for me.
I’m not saying it to be edgy or different or to pick fights! I’m not here to argue the pros and cons of it either really; therapy has helped a lot of my friends and I feel like a failure that it’s had the opposite effect on me. It’s not due to me not being ready either. I’m more than ready to heal, and it’s not like I’m in denial about any of my issues, but it’s just that I guess my healing journey will be different to most people’s. I’m not one to give things one session then give up lol I’m pretty determined and stubborn in that sense. I work at things and I work HARD at things.
If ever I’ve given up, it’s because I’ve had no choice but to.
I assumed that other people with PTSD might see where I’m coming from, and be a little more gentle because they should know how it feels. But I will admit I’ve been made to feel even worse (not by you personally, just in general) and like I’m being attacked or interrogated more than supported or understood.
And now someone else has accused me of starting fights which isn’t the case AT ALL! :/ Just feels like I can’t win, and I’ve been made to feel like sh*t.
So I think it’s time to just leave this thread.
But thank you so much x

 

[justasimplecat]

Because those parts don’t apply.

If someone gives you 3 options, and 1 of them is not useful to you? And the other 2 are? Why fixate on the 1 option that’s not useful and ignore the parts that speak directly to what you’re looking for? UNLESS you’re all geared up for a fight, that makes zero sense. 3 totally different options, but the only thing you care about, and spend time replying to, is the one you don’t want? That’s backwards.

Personally, I DGAF if you’re in therapy, or not. I very much doubt anyone else cares if you’re in therapy, or not.

I didn’t do therapy the first time I got hit with PTSD, and I sorted my own shit out over time. Took me roughly 5-7 years. The second time around, I decided not to reinvent the wheel & find as many resources as I could, in hopes of shortening that timeline.

For thousands of years “therapy” has simply not been an option... but trauma still happened. And people coped. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. You don’t even have to read Latin or Japanese (with translation software, or full on already translated texts) to be able to learn from the same lessons those people learned, and can still read about lives and methods for dealing with the exact same problems we have today, 2,000 years ago. Or you can reinvent the wheel, and wing it. Or you can use sites like this and kick knowledge / brainstorm / share what’s worked in your life & what hasn’t, or you can see a trauma therapist, or... whole lotta different options out there.

Fixating on the one option you don’t want, and then deciding what all the rest of us think/feel about it, even when you’re straight up told “Nope. That’s not what I said, & not what I think/feel about it.” isn’t US not listening to you.

For crying out loud. I am NOT “geared up for a fight” at all! I have just explained above.
Kindly read it and quit attacking me.

 

[Survivor3]

No-one is attacking you. You posted this thread in the 'trauma and stressor discussion' therefore people will discuss. I agree with what @Friday said. Your focussing on all the things you don't agree with and paying very little attention to all the good and supportive comments that other people are giving "their" time for you.

 

[coraxxx]

I don’t want to be sorry if certain of my messages came across blames or forcing suggestions through. In your case of not wanting therapy with a therapist, I was trying to delineate options, that you can take or leave.

If I can make a comment, you might not necessarily being antagonistic, but it looks like you’re being very reactive to any suggestion and I’m unsure that the people answering here are the right targets.

I more than understand the dread of feeling misunderstood, not being heard and having the impression that everyone is criticizing you while trying to give suggestion. I understand because I feel that too.

However if you keep with the belief that "therapy doesn’t work", it will not work. It is frustrating because it’s SLOW. And everyone is agreeing here with you that sometimes, it’s even counterproductive. And trying to find out other solutions or adaptations and sharing experiences. Just ways to calm your distress or at least coping with it. I suggested DBT because you can do it through books and implement it in whatever way you want, it’s hard but very flexible and I would not say it’s a therapy, but rather a collection of methods.

I also suggested that moving away could actually good if your own location is triggering you. I used the term "running" away because that was how I felt in my experience, and this isn’t suggesting that you’re doing the same, will do the same, or have done the same. It seems that this sentence has triggered you for what I see in your answer because you might have taken it as a judgement or misperception of you on my behalf.

People here also have PTSD. Which means that they also can get triggered and defensive or not especially gentle when a situation like this arises. And it’s part of the thing truly. I don’t especially like to be confronted to a wall of suggestions of something that is already making me defensive. But as a support group, what can we do other than trying to suggest stuff that might work, share some experience, have some projection, make you notice that the way you are responding might also be the result of heightened arousal and problematic core beliefs? We do this because we know it from inside.

But really if I can try to share something, and this comes from my hyper self critical heart that detests anything that looks like a solution that I haven’t found by myself, just keep open to listening, because in fact we are listening. We also are imperfect and don’t necessarily convey things as gently as a… therapist will be trained to do. But we try. And I’m trying to suggest you to take some time and slow down in yourself, because right now what I’m seeing is someone triggered, extremely frustrated, looking for comfort and not knowing in which form it should happen. I’ve been there.

It doesn’t feel like you’re "set up for a fight" in the sense that internally, you aren’t telling yourself you want to attack us, you’re feeling like you’re responding to attacks, judgements, criticisms, misunderstandings and callousness. And from experience, it’s exactly when I am in this state of mind, looking for the smallest micro-aggression around me or focusing in what I think is dumb or whatever, that in fact I become aggressive, reactive, defensive and then am undoubtedly perceived as "willing a fight", with actually some reason.

This "willing a fight" state is a stress/frustration state that is looking for something to get that energy out. And protesting against the bad advice is a form of that. It’s not wrong, it’s understandable, but for you, it will not productive to consume yourself with all this reactive energy.

Please don’t take this as criticisms, but as observations.

From someone who’s been, and still is there. I had this very exact sensation today with coworkers and it’s difficult to deal with this kind of old frustration all webbed with past judgements and criticisms on oneself. It’s okay to feel like this.

You seem to have a very high level of energy and wanting to do things, which is good! It will help you. And it is helping you. You are also seemingly taking good decisions for yourself and self-care, and that’s really good too.

What isn’t helping is to take any comment as sandpaper grating your skin, it seems that a bit of distance will really help you too. Otherwise things just rush and can quickly become a bit dramatic in the sense feelings are fast and heightened, and time is lacking to think straight. And >>>>THIS<<<< IS PTSD, blinking in full letters.

The simple fact that this thread is turning to a point it seems to be accelerating is very symptomatic I think of this, and it’s symptomatic of situations that start being perceived as conflicts, then in fact end up becoming conflicts. And the others of us, ptsd’d too, well we tend to keep adding on that kind of situation because that’s part of our problems, wanting a direct fix for/against something that is perceived as a threat, and rushing it. And like when you try to wash a stain on a curtain and end up just making it bigger because you couldn’t wait just to apply the right solvent on it, reacting to sequences of very strong, quick feelings will cause chaos.

I know a woman that was so stressed because of an eventual electricity problem in her house she ended up throwing her entire gas cooker and oven away in a whim of 15 minutes rather than testing all the devices around the house; the culprit was the fridge and she had to buy both appliances again. But in her head it was the only way to fix the thing because she was in full panic mode. Myself I managed to cook absurdly disgusting things because I was rushing through and not thinking at all and being in fear of impending doom if I didn’t make some sort of cake NOW.

^^^ With the examples above, I’m not saying you’re doing exactly this or will ever do. But I just want to exemplify what drama, acceleration, rush, hightened feelings of fear & anger under stress can cause.

Hoping that you can find something useful here. If it’s not, then it’s always your right to simply ignore it.

 

[DharmaGirl]

and I’ve been made to feel like sh*t.

Edited to say @ruborcoraxxx said it all already.