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Trauma detail that is too humiliating/shameful/embarrassing to be able to mention?

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FauxLiz

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There is a detail related to one of my traumas that is for me so humiliating/embarrassing/shameful that I have never been able to bring up. Because of that, other thoughts, distortions, actions and feelings that are connected do not get brought up in therapy because I don’t know how to talk about them without having to disclose this horrible shameful detail.

Is there anyone else that has dealt with something similar? I can’t even write it down, it doesn’t matter whether I am dealing with disclosing to a man or a woman because it won’t change how I feel or think nor will it change what I believe they will think of me if I disclose the lengths that I have gone to in an attempt to remove any reminder of the detail from my life.
 
yes. absolutely.

i have grown a bit more accustemed to speaking of it in my trama diary. even with out in public. (like right now.) but there are things that even which i had written which are. there is worse. they are a lot. there are all these feelings that you cannot comprrehend. i carry a lot of shame. due to incest. due to friends and others. due to other children of the friends. due to animals. due to torture.

i am naming these things now. it is a lot. cbt is very much exposure. you write it privelely. you turn and face that person inside of you. and square up. you need to name it. so name it and name it. all the horrible feelings come. but then you do it again and again. and then you just post it. under a spoiler if you have to. and people here? the judgement is not there.

i have never been judged even though i feel i should be. and people here have been very, very nice to me. on my jorney. as i try to over come thiis. it took me 15 years, a supportive family. and 10 years of dbt. to begin to name some of these. it is fairly clinical. i am also aware this thread is more to deal with the feelings of not being able to do. it where as i am showing where i had done it. so it may not be effective.

it is trama. it happened to you. that shame that you feel is because you feel distinct. that other people? you say "i was raped." it sucks and they feel it. but most people understand what rape and physical violence are. when it comes beyond that? beyond the point that you cannot even name it? they don't understand when you come out with something that is simply beyond ordinary experience.

within my trama i have had incedents that happened which i genuinely have tnno name for. o name that here? to admit it? the thoughts and feelings are immense. i have written a little of it in my diery. within the spoiler blocks. it is still not the total sum. because it is too vast and too much. to admit this to others in another sceries is nearly impossible. there is just too much.

the only place that i have ever feltt that i could was my diery. my therepist knows the basics. i want her to know more. because i want this to be better. people ancouraged me to be hones. so i have been. and no one has banned me yet! the way in which i do it. i square up. take a deep breath. watch that person (Iinternally standing there.) in my mind. brace your self with calm. and speak or write.

but i know i need to get it out. i need to do the work. i cannot run and hide. i had a bigger trigger melt down yesterday. i actually ended up at the hospital. but i cannot stop. i cannot give up. i have to be here for my family. i have to continue to do my work which i value highly. i apolegize if this is not what you are looking for.
 
There are certain aspects of self-harm that I kept to myself because of shame and embarrassment, but I was still able to address self-harm in such a way as to ensure that I would not repeat the self-harming behaviors any longer.

Perhaps you will be able to address the trauma without going into every little detail. I think it is enough to deal with the fact that I was hurting myself, while keeping the how and the why to myself, as it was secondary and required only that I understand and stop the behavior.

I would encourage you to talk to your 'T', but do not feel pressured to reveal anything that is only going to cause you grief unless it is conducive to your healing. This can be a tough one to figure out and I am glad you are reaching out for others' opinions and suggestions.
 
Yeah, you can tell your T that there is this thing that you can't talk about but it leaves you feeling these things, and you can then talk about the feelings of it and not the actual event?
I did that and then that opened up the ability to talk about the event. But also, there have been other events that have been humiliating that I have never spoken about because it didn't then seem necessary. It was the power of the shame and the power of the secrecy of the shame , that once I spoke about that, the actual events were not as important. Because it was the narrative of shame that I had put on to those events that were the issue, not necessarily the events themselves.
If that makes sense.
 
a few things that feel embarrassing. Each time I gather courage to glance near one my T receives it with grace and doesn’t treat it any differently to any other aspect of anything I have told her. I actually went a little bit into one of these last week.

what I am wondering if we started a thread of embarrassment- non T related or entirely non traumatic - if that might help us sit in that discomfort for a short moment to deal with traumatic embarrassment?
 
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a few things that feel embarrassing. Each time I gather courage to glance near one my T receives it with grace and doesn’t treat it any differently to any other aspect of anything I have told her. I actually went a little bit into one of these last week.

what I am wondering if we started a thread of embarrassment- non T related or entirely non traumatic - if that might help us sit in that discomfort for a short moment to deal with traumatic embarrassment?

i have now started such a thread but put it in social. If admin think it should be somewhere else I apologise for creating work :)
 
100% relate. Except for me it’s something *I* did in response to severe trauma in every area of my childhood, and trying desperately to get out.

What’s even harder to tolerate (for me) is a month or two ago I got up the courage to post it on a different ptsd forum and I wrote this long post and fully explained my motives for doing what I did and why and was fully honest about it for the first time…anonymously of course…and the forum deemed it too triggering and deleted it without explanation. Which made me feel even worse.

with stuff like this I think it’s possible to talk about feelings in therapy without disclosing details, or write the entir thing down word vomit style on a piece of paper and immediately burn it. My pastor who has a trauma history herself taught me that trick.
I know the pain you must be going through about this probably feels intolerable. It will continue poisoning you until you get it out of your body. If you cant write it down and burn it I’d suggest vigorous exercise (assuming that isn’t an addiction for you!) or something else healthy and physical that gets the toxic emotions out of your body.
 
Yeah. I don’t think it’s so difficult to get the broader thing. Or even certain details. But there is a cluster of responses I had as a child, things I did, not things that happened to me, that just make me feel like I should die on site. And objectively, I know it’s… well it’s not amazing but it’s of no gravity, rationally. But no way I’m ever going to write this down! I don’t see how! It could be a single sentence.

It’s possible I think to sort of circumvent around the trauma and the details by speaking of feelings and all. But I think there must be a moment, would it just be for yourself, to know you can have it out. I’m not ready for that one. I find the idea of writing and burning at first quite good. Because it’s intermediate. You don’t have to keep the exposure if you don’t want to. You can test it.

I’m sorry @that_1_girl that forum has responded in that way because it was "too triggering." Here a thing that I find really great is that we assume we know what we’re doing when going in a diary and reading it. By default, it’s a trigger warning everywhere. I did read things here that did trigger me, but it never would come in my mind that the person who wrote it shouldn’t have written it. It’s their diary. And even beyond getting triggered, well the feeling of togetherness and understanding is generally much stronger than triggers, and THAT HELPS. I hope that the atmosphere here will be more welcoming and reassuring so you can feel comfortable to share what you want, how you want and when you want, without fearing it to be received with antagonism. Sometimes it’s just too important to have brain dumps, and everyone understands that. Everyone understands moments you have not been so great or in fact no great at all. At least so far that’s what I’ve seen around here, and it’s what makes this place so special. Flowers to the mods here lol.
 
There is a detail related to one of my traumas that is for me so humiliating/embarrassing/shameful that I have never been able to bring up. Because of that, other thoughts, distortions, actions and feelings that are connected do not get brought up in therapy because I don’t know how to talk about them without having to disclose this horrible shameful detail.

Is there anyone else that has dealt with something similar? I can’t even write it down, it doesn’t matter whether I am dealing with disclosing to a man or a woman because it won’t change how I feel or think nor will it change what I believe they will think of me if I disclose the lengths that I have gone to in an attempt to remove any reminder of the detail from my life.
Yeah, I have a couple of things like this. I'm just too ashamed and e!embarrassed to mention them. I'll probably take them to my grave.
 
a month or two ago I got up the courage to post it on a different ptsd forum and I wrote this long post and fully explained my motives for doing what I did and why and was fully honest about it for the first time…anonymously of course…and the forum deemed it too triggering and deleted it without explanation. Which made me feel even worse.
Ouuuuch. Well, most places are not as evolved as this place is.

I had some things that were deeply embarrassing and shameful to me, but I was able to post them here and was met with sensitivity and zero judgment ... which helped me to be able to talk about them in therapy, where I was again met with sensitivity and zero judgment. Now I'm able to talk and think about those things with almost no embarrassment and shame. Those things have almost ceased having any power over me at all.

Some secrets should never be kept, because the more we talk about them, the more we realize that those things are not our fault at all.
 
I had some things that were deeply embarrassing and shameful to me, but I was able to post them here and was met with sensitivity and zero judgment ... which helped me to be able to talk about them in therapy,
This describes a whole lot of the trauma-related issues I have going on now as an adult, as well as traumatic experiences from the past that I couldn't talk about in therapy.

Some of those things, where there's simply too much shame to talk about (it's been a long list - I'm still working through it!) I started by journalling here in my trauma diary in a really vague sense. Sometimes I journal about "things that I can't write about", and that's as much detail as I'll give. And I can then start working on the thoughts/feelings/behaviours, without actually saying out loud, or writing out, details that I can't explicitly state. That's opened the door a crack, dipped my toe in just enough, to get some momentum for change.

Shame is a huge barrier to recovery. And sometimes talking about the shame itself, rather than the specific details, can be a really helpful way to move forward on experiences that I don't have the capacity yet to talk about.
 
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