Poll Trauma and the Paranormal

[spinningmytires]

And your focus on “who’s the monster/predator/baddie” lies elsewhere.

Interesting about the black boxes.

Well to some extent I might be experiencing other baddies in addition to my father. As for the 'black boxes' apparently they are very real.

I suspect I’ve always struggled with confusing and frightening similarities between my CSA, my past sleep-paralysis and paranormal experiences. Often these experiences seem to overlap each other if via my dissociation, emotional and/or physical numbing, confusion, fear and loss of mobility - where these might seem related. Then there are my reoccurring and intrusive fear-provoking thoughts with vague mental imagery.

The frightening ‘dark shadowy figure standing behind me’ in my kitchen doorway while at my kitchen sink might be related to my mental imagery of the ‘dark shadowy humanoid figure standing behind me’ which I had described to my first T during my 20’s.

I could go back even farther to my childhood and relate these ‘dark shadowy humanoid visualizations’ to the ‘dark shadowy monsters’ I would imagine hiding under my bed or behind my closet door at night.

Part of me can understand that these frightening visualizations were only in my mind and yet, another part of me wlll begin to panic anyway - perhaps, because I’m unable to convince myself that I'm not actually being threatened. All I can do is try to divert my attention onto something else - though this might only push my fears down below my conscious awareness, while my body continues to suffer with my physical symptoms of PTSD.

I know for a fact that my father was entering my bedroom at night to masturbate while I slept and that this continued into my 30’s. I don’t know when he first began doing it. A few times, I’d gotten a glimpse of him with his pants down, though I had always quickly fallen back to sleep. Perhaps, I’d gotten use to him being there.

Normally, you’d think I’d be startled and fully awakened by his presence to strongly protest, as any non-traumatized adult female would have done. I should have given him a swift kick in the balls. Yet as a traumatized child, I would immediately block my awareness of it. This splitting or forgetting of my father’s abusive behavior had once helped me to cope early in my life. Yet even during my mid 30’s, I was still automatically ‘forgetting’ my father’s offensive behavior in my bedroom.

Beyond this point, my paranormal experiences, don’t seem to be related to my father’s past sexual abuse. This being said, there might be some overlaps related to my ‘out of body’ dissociation, my imagined sense of being grabbed and pulled by my forearms (a visualization occurring during a trance-induced state by my T in 2001) including one frightening dream about being pulled into a vast black empty space where I’d lost all connection with my physical reality. These experiences might be related to my CSA. Even my fear triggering kitchen sink water faucet sensations might be related to my childhood bath-time vulnerabilities with my father.

The ‘black box’ I have seen inside an amber-tinted, clear ‘glass like’ sphere. This object was moving slowly over my backyard and was about 200 feet away from me so, I got a good look at it. There were several other spheres hovering over a power line tower at then same time. My sighting occurred over 20 years ago - I’d described it on another forum at that time. More recently on social media, a US Air Force training pilot described witnessing a similar ‘clear glass’ sphere with a ‘black cube’ contained within it. I don’t know what to think. During the 1980’s, my second T (who received his training while in the Air Force) advised me never to talk about it.

 

[spinningmytires]

@Rose White

I’ve been describing my paranormal experiences as accurately as I can, over the past two decades while realizing that much of it isn’t understandable. However, many of these experiences do seem to overlap, if related with vague CSA memories.

I’ve been trying to sort out the paranormal experiences from my CSA, as being either misinterpretations or distortions of my CSA. As for abduction experiences, I’ve only read a small fraction of the literature since much of it is based on what people claim they’ve experienced themselves.

The UFO objects themselves, hold my greatest interest while others often seem far more interested in the social aspects, if invited to converse with extraterrestrial intelligence. I don’t talk to aliens nor have I ever considered myself to be a ‘contactee.’ I’m far less trusting and still struggling with gaps in my memory immediately following a UFO sighting along with a few suspected close encounters. What make people think these abduction experiences aren’t frightening and that they can be easily fluffed-off and forgotten. They can’t.

But getting back to my CSA, my frightening vision of the dark shadowy figure standing behind me might be a vague memory of my father masturbating in front of me - as that he did do. My fear of being grabbed from my bed might have also once been a memory of my father grabbing me. He might have also hidden himself behind my closet door. Although my bedroom door was usually partly open at night to allow in some dim lighting, this door might have been completely closed during an abusive attack.

Then too, I might dissociate, find myself in a frozen state, unable to move or to suddenly find myself floating with no body nor feelings if in another world. This makes perfect sense to me.

Even during a trance induced state by my T — in 2001, I had screamed while envisioning hands grabbing and pulling my forearms towards them. My T then abruptly intervened to tell me that this was my father molesting me. I told her that it wasn’t. What I saw were thin white arms pulling my forearms towards them - the surrounding area was totally dark. Perhaps, I was imagining this, however, the extreme intense negative emotion I was feeling at that time were very real.

Somehow, I think I need to sort out all of these frightening experiences as they often seem to either contradict or merge with each other. And because they contradict and fragment, I might not be able to process them well enough to put them to rest. The problem is that my abduction experiences, whether real or imagined, are just too frightening.

This lack of logic never seems to be an issue when I’m dreaming. Yet, when I’m awake and unsure about my reality I’ll have difficulty dismissing these experiences entirely. Perhaps, this might partly explain why these visualizations often repeat themselves, like my frightening repeated visions of the shadowy figure standing behind me.

I’ve witnessed more than 50 UFO sightings over a span of about 40 years beginning in my late teens. I kept telling myself that these UFOs were only glitches in my perception, since I didn't believe UFOs could be real until 1988. For the following ten years however, I still tried not to think about it.

In 1998 I began to document these sightings and experiences. This I did for the following five years or so which did help to ease my anxieties, somewhat. Still, I had never discussed these experiences and anxieties with my T which only made me feel more isolated and alone. I know we have no way of truly understanding these experiences - still it is difficult to deal with them alone is this isolation.

My palms still sweat when I think about my past UFO sightings, as my palms are sweating as I type this post - yet, is this related to my CSA.

I realize that I’m not under any kind of threat at the moment. My father died over 20 years ago and I haven’t sighted any UFO in the past 5 years. The panicky feeling that a dark shadowy figure might be standing behind me comes and goes on occasion and much less so over the past year.

I don’t understand how anyone can heal from their CSA. Just being consciously aware of my CSA doesn’t seem to resolve anything. I’m still plagued with hyper-vigilance, possible episodes of dissociation, depression and insomnia.

 

[Rose White]

@spinningmytires thank you. Deeply appreciate you opening up about this. I believe there are more people who have these connections and experiences but it is very difficult to talk about—partly because of society and partly because of the fragmentation you talk about.

I feel more thoughts about it but they aren’t coming to the surface yet.

 

[spinningmytires]

@Rose White

Thanks, Then you likely understand how confusing my life experiences have been for me.

I know I’m not the only one having these UFO experiences. Eight other blood-relatives had once told me they had at least one UFO sighting. Only my sister had once told me about her very frightening close encounter where an orange luminous ball of light had been closely chasing her car on a winding country road. She was then driving a convertible with the top down! Years later, I'd mentioned this sighting to her and she replied saying she “honestly had no memory of it.” Was this fragmented trauma-related amnesia?

My grandfather multi-witnessed a UFO sighting in early 1947 - this had occurred months before the well publicized Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting. He had immediately reported this sighting to his family who later told me they had believed him - there have been only a few other family sightings that I know of. Still UFO experiences were rarely mentioned in my family.

I suspect that healthy intimate relationships have also been lacking in my family, if passed down from one generation to another - everyone seemed as if ‘pre-wired’ for hyper-vigilance …trying to adapt to a world where they couldn’t feel safe.

 

[DSkyler]

I can tell and locate ‘bad’ energies in houses, remove unwanted energy and ‘entities’ from properties. I do it from my home, remotely.

I can also ‘see’ and feel energy around people, including dark attachments and other stuff I’d rather not.

I never knew I could really do this, until I had a psychic reading 7 years ago out curiosity. This experienced psychic told me all sorts pf things she saw about me. To get to the point, I’ve since had all sort of weird experiences and comments from people in the psychic and paranormal field that have both changed my world view and also made me want to just fix my CPTSD and not worry about these ‘gifts’ as people have called them.

I have a friend who is an experienced and busy medium. She wont let me come to her events and gallery readings as she says the spirits are scared of me and don’t show. There’s other things too. It’s all very strange.

On some level I wouldnt believe any of it if I didn’t have emails from strangers who have found me and have thanked me for clearing their properties and making their lives better. I’ve accepted I can do something though I don’t know how or why. It takes me just 2 minutes to remotely walk through a property and pinpoint where entities and stagnant energy is.

I nearly died at birth due to a difficult birth and subsequent separation and time in an incubator. That was back in the late 60s when attachment and primal damage wasn’t really thought about much. Through therapy and analyzing deep feelings and memories and reliving painful times, I do believe my consciousness had to leave my body. That’s why I can place my attention and consciousness into different realms as it were. That’s my explanation to myself.

I don’t ‘see’ stuff. I don’t physically sense it in the usual way, I just know its there and seem to be able to effect it.

I’m a very grounded person in many ways. Good at sport and in physical tasks.

I don’t worry about it anymore. Too focussed on being a normal human and not all the other things people have told me I am. A friend who has been reading palms for four decades and has read for about 15k people tells me my hands are the most unusual he’s seen. Not helpful for someone with CPTSD who wants to feel normal! Fortunately he is a dear close friend who supports my recovery journey.

But this is an interesting thread. I will take time to read all. Whatever ‘abilities’ I have I think are down to my experiences rather than being not a ‘normal human soul’ as many have described me. There is more to tell on this but much along the same lines.

 

[Mach123]

I saw a ghost in a mirror who was gone when I looked again an a ghost on the road at night walking alone. That was a really frightening experience. It got pitch dark almost at once and all I could do was walk I couldn’t see well enough to run. She had walked across the road in front of me within 50 yards but it was too dark to make out much except she was dressed in very inappropriate clothes like from another time like a black cowl or overcoat thing she was deathly white her face and she walked into the woods and I kept walking and I could hear her cracking twigs and so on it was very still and then it was very dark . I thought I’d be paralyzed by fear but I kept walking.

Idk how long it was till a car went by but I drove up and down that stretch of road a lot. It never again look the same way as it did that night when I was walking through there everything about the way the exits were because it was right near an exit on the highway, deserted highway in the winter time was different and never look the same again.

No one really believes me of course. That happened though. After thinking about it all these years because I was about 19 at the time or 20 or 22 I don’t remember but I figured it was a ghost of a witch you know that probably died in the area because I think he knows they probably did that a few times around the other Puritans back in the early days of 1600 and they were for a settling the area. Or maybe someone who died of violent death in the area you know something like that, a woman.

Guess I got a ride eventually idk I’m glad hitching rides and stuff like that ended long ago lol.

 

[spinningmytires]

I don’t believe I’ve ever had any non-physical entities living inside my house, neither good nor bad. The negative behaviors, emotions if, spooks and monsters, seem to manifest within my family alone.

No one in my dysfunctional family has ever had healthy loving inter-personal relationships. None have had a loving marriage. Their children have been abusive or alcoholics. Though I didn’t drink, the others relied heavily on alcohol during family social gatherings. They didn’t enjoy each others company.

As a child, I experienced an irrational fear of the dark and of my imaginary monsters hiding under my bed and inside my bedroom closet. Some might suspect that I am still experiencing these intense fears during my panic episodes of suddenly imagining a dark entity quietly approaching me from behind, as I stand at my kitchen sink later at night. I don’t understand why I would repeatedly experience this same vague frightening imagery and panic episode, year after year. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced this panic episode in over a year now.

Yet I don’t believe that my frightening mental imagery and adjoining panic episode ever were caused by any approaching ‘bad spirit.’ Emotionally, this only felt very real to me.

A thought occurred to me recently - as my mother once told me that I was physic as a child. My sister and I would sometimes speak the exact same words in unison. I don’t known if the following might be related to my non-contact sexual abuse by my father but anyway...

Although, my father’s sexual abuse was not physical, I’m wondering if, I might have mentally received frightening mental imagery of my father’s imagined sexual fantasies towards me. If so, as a child, I might have misinterpreted his sexual fantasies as a frightening physical assault against me. Just a thought.

As for my UFO sightings and even a few experiences involving strange lights inside my house — I don’t believe that these experiences are related to my past childhood sexual abuse at all. Though there might be a very slight resemblance between sexual abuse and the alien abduction narrative, I don’t believe these are related - not in my experience.

I don’t know why I’ve experienced these UFO encounters. At first, I assumed these were only brief glitches in my perception - yet later I began to struggle with this assumption. Sometimes I’ve felt very confused or numb during the encounter yet, afterwards, I’ve felt frightened and haunted by them. These experiences make me feel so very much alone.

A few years ago, I was once briefly discussing past traumas with a friend, and though, I only briefly mentioned my past UFO close-encounters with her, she immediately responded saying. “Oh that’s nothing.” Well yeah, I’m still here and in one piece but the same could also be said for a rape victim or an abused child. The injury is emotional. These encounters change people. Unlike a weird dream, these experienced can’t be easily fluffed-off and forgotten as if, they were merely a bad dream.

For those who claim that these abduction encounters are simply an imaginary narrative meant to ease the harsh unpleasant memories of past childhood sexual abuse, you are very very wrong in your assumption. In view of my own experiences these are not related. These encounters have offered me no comfort what so ever.

 

[whiteraven]

My poll is black and white but I am curious, if you want to share, whether your paranormal experiences, if you had them, happened before, during, and/or after trauma.

I think I answered the poll a long while back, but I've been thinking about this.

I think that trauma has actually helped me deal in a more calm and effective way with the paranormal experiences I've had. I don't remember a lot about growing up, but I don't remember any other-than-normal experiences. The older I get, the more I have, I think because I am more open, more able to regulate my response to things, and more interested.

For example, I am pretty sure the cats that died in 2020 visit occasionally--there are distinctive jumps on the bed that are not my current cats. I might have been freaked out by that when I was little. But now? It just makes me smile. And I have been seeing dark cat-shaped forms that *may* be one of those cats. Instead of scaring me, I am intrigued.

 

[ags1]

I have had psychotic experiences that were paranormal in nature but I have a strong belief in materialism so I do not consider those paranormal experiences.

 

[spinningmytires]

Perhaps my trauma came first. I suspect my first trauma occurred during my near-death whooping cough episodes when I was 6 weeks old. I had at times lost consciousness. The doctors said I wouldn’t survive it. But then too, I wasn’t crying during my infancy and that also hindered my mother-child bonding. I had no awareness of my no contact CSA trauma until I was 4 years old.

Aside from a few weird childhood dreams, and then a few premonitions (related to death or near death) during my teens, my first awareness of actually witnessing any paranormal events was my first sphere sighting in the sky during my late teens. Yet I immediately dismissed it as a glitch in my perception. However, there have been many others since then.

During my later teens, I dismissed my second sphere sighting as being only the full moon outside my window. Yet I couldn’t recall walking to the window nor walking away from that window. I think I must have been in an extreme state of dissociation at that time.

At about age 20, I began talk therapy with Valium and an anti-depressant. I was then living alone in the house at night with extreme hyper-vigilance and panic attacks. Not until age 24 that I become consciously aware of my father’s ongoing no contact CSA.

During the mid 1970’s, when watching the Betty and Barney Hill TV movie about their abduction paranormal experience — when they said they thought they were seeing the full moon overhead, I suddenly began to panic. I then recalled my own past dream-like experience of having observed the full moon from my window. Still I quickly dismissed it.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1980’s that my experience became disturbing real to me, so much so, that I couldn’t dismiss it anymore. Whatever I had experienced resembled a Bigfoot creature, yet, I was unable to recall this experience until three years after the event. And when I had suddenly recalled it, it hit me like a ton of bricks with extreme cold chills rushing through my body. Why that experience has frightened me so such, I still don’t know.

 

[Rose White]

@DSkyler @Mach123 @spinningmytires @whiteraven @ags1 I very much appreciate you sharing your experiences.

@DSkyler I’ve been curious about going to a psychic but I haven’t found pulled to any yet and idk what to ask. I did have my palm read once and she was quite accurate about my short term future—hoping she also is also accurate about my long term future because she said something very hopeful.

@whiteraven I get stuff like that too, little jumps on the bed or a soft hand on my shoulder when I’m falling asleep. I also didn’t have psychic experiences as a child and have learned to be more open to them. Even the kind of scary shadows still make me feel kind of honored that I can witness them. I have a strong sense of a group of guides/protectors around me at all times—and that has been cultivated—mostly with support of my old T—I think when we realized that my recovery meant the dissolution of my concepts of self and “safe family” we had to build up a kind of cosmic order for me to stand within. I think my ability to develop those beliefs was an important strength in my ability to recover.

That said, I understand your pull to materialism @ags1 ! Lately I’ve been exploring psychoanalysis and realizing that so much of my past beliefs were useful fictions. Mostly I’m talking about the ideas of “wholeness”, “integration,” “soul retrieval,” etc. But I still hold onto my Goddesses and Tarot cards for some reason—they are comforting and I don’t care if they are real or not I guess.

@Mach123 that is fascinating about the ghost witch. I love how she made that impact on you and the image of her snapping the twigs in the woods as she walked away from you in her black cowl and skirts is stunning.

@spinningmytires the way you described the abduction experiences for you does sound very isolating—it’s hard to imagine how someone can process something like that.

Some paranormal experiences I’ve had in the last few years that stood out… for one I do tend to get them more when I am especially stressed—and I do realize that hallucinations are a thing that happens when people are stressed. But anyway…. I remember these two experiences happening around the time when therapy with my old T was ending…

Both happened when I was walking my dog. One was in the morning. I saw a bunny sitting on the side of the road and as we approached it leaped straight into a chain link fence with nothing on the other side of it and disappeared. I looked and looked for a hole in the fence and there was none. And there was no way it could have squeezed through the small spaces, plus it wasn’t on the other side. I had been grieving that therapy was ending and wondering how I would manage and keep on with my life (T was retiring). And as I was in the throes of grief that happened. And it was such a shock! I felt like it was a message from the Goddess about how the universe is “curiouser and curiouser” (to borrow from Alice in Wonderland) than I could ever imagine. And just like the rabbit leading Alice; this was going to be the start. I have since found a kind of kinship with Alice, and see her as a kind of csa warrior because of how the real life Alice was groomed by Lewis Carroll—he wanted to have a special relationship with her.

Around that time at night I was walking and again lamenting the end of therapy and as I was walking near a school I saw in the distance a bright spotlight, like a parking lot light, in the parking lot and then it turned off. And as I approached the place where it was I saw that there were no street lights or parking lot lights of any kind in that parking lot. And again, in my mind it was a sense of the Goddess showing me that the Universe is so much more complex than these small worries and she could make miracles at any point if she needed to, and most importantly she had my back.

There are more—always these kind of small, almost like breadcrumbs on a trail—miracles. Maybe I’ll share more later.

 

[Rose White]

I remembered another paranormal event. I was walking with my younger son in the wash by our old house. All of a sudden we heard this loud whooshing sound go over us—like a low humming whoosh— but nothing was there and we sort of looked at each other as it went away and then maybe 5-10 seconds later a flock of ducks squeaking and quacking in V-formation flew low right over our heads. Where I live there are very few ducks flying, let alone whole flocks. So that was thrilling. And all I could think was that there was some kind of spirit leading them on their way. It was very poignant because it was in February, if I recall correctly, which is right near Saint Brigid’s day and she has the duck as one of her sacred animals.