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Deleted member 34561
This is something I have lived with all my life. I learnt to cut off from my body and emotions in order to cope with the incest I suffered as a kid and teenager then just carried on doing it as an adult to survive domestic violence and being repeatedly raped and sexually abused by multiple abusers in the years after my you kid was taken into care.
It was easy to do while drunk and stoned. It kinda happened automatically with me need to be consciously aware I was even doing it at all. I just glided through life in a moreorless permanently numb feeling state. Now I'm mostly sober and completely drug free the feelings are slowly returning to my body but if I'm triggered (like I was yesterday on seeing one of my former abusers in a pub in town and him threatening me verbally to and in my face) those emotions come flooding in like a tidal wave and I get overwhelmed.
I didn't show this bastard or his friends any fear outwardly but inside I was bloody shitting myself scared out of my wits. The worst of it was I wasn't expecting to see him in this particular pub as it was my understanding he had been barred from going in there for either violence or drug dealing. And I didn't even go in there for a drink, only to use the toilet as I was caught short and busting to go having done some shopping beforehand and not being near a public toilet and having a weak bladder, otherwise I wouldn't have even gone in this pub at all.
As this c*nt stood there threatening me I could literally feel myself shutting down emotionally. I got away as soon as I could without running (I certainly felt like running away but I didn't want to lose face in front of him and his mates). I got half way down the road then I started shaking and sweating. My legs felt all wobbly and I felt sick to my stomach. I had cold sweaty palms and my vision was blurred. I knew from past experience I was on the verge of having a full blown panic attack so what did I do? Yep went in the nearest off licence and bought myself some beer.
Probably not the wisest thing to do but it's an old coping mechanism. I had one beer sitting on a bench in the grounds of a church near the bus stop and calmed myself down enough to get home. Then when I got home I got proper good and drunk. I wasn't even intending to have any booze yesterday at all, I was even tempted when I went in the pub for a wee, but after what that shithead did to me I was a total nervous and mental wreck. After 5 beers I wasn't feeling any fear or pain anymore. I literally used the alcohol to deny my emotions. I was even lying to myself in my head that my former abuser hadn't frightened me at all, I was that desperate to pretend he didn't manage to shake me up at all. I don't like feeling weak or humiliated, so I tried to convince myself that I'm actually really strong and that I should be proud that he didn't see my weakness or manage to get me to react in such a way that I would degrade myself in front of him or his nasty friends. That's always been my way, you know, full of bravado and bluster in public, but behind closed doors or even inside myself, a quivering blubbering mess.
Anyway, I invited my partner over last night as it's his birthday today and I didn't want to be on my own after this upsetting experience I was desperately trying to deal with by killing the feelings with the lies I tell myself and the booze. He arrived and we had some more beer and then somehow ended up in bed together. He inadvertently did something to me sexually which triggered me (he wasn't abusive at all, quite the opposite in fact) and I got angry with him then he felt hurt and got angry himself. He went downstairs in a huff while I lay upstairs in bed trying to figure out the root of the trigger and upset with myself for inadvertently upsetting my partner.
Well I worked it out quite quickly given how drunk I was and went and told my partner. Basically he was really gentle and tender with me but given how abusive this other bloke that I saw yesterday was to me sexually in other words really rough and violent, and given how I was conditioned to find that kind of sex exciting through the incest I suffered at my brother's hands in my puberty, I wasn't getting turned on in the present with my partner with him being really loving and kind to me in bed last night, and being drunk and triggered from my run in with my former rapist earlier in the day, I blamed my partner for my inability to respond appropriately to his sweet care and attention and punished him for what was inside me that I wasn't dealing with.
So I went downstairs and apologised to my partner for being so mean to him and explained myself and he was so lovely about it, I then burst into tears and spent the next half hour sobbing in his arms about all the sexual trauma these other men have put me through. That I have taken out on my partner for years because I'm too scared to get my former abusers punished for. Several of them including my brother and this bastard I saw yesterday should be in prison for what they did to me but I've let them get away with it. Now I'm wracked with guilt over hurting the wrong person for what others have done to me and angry at the others for violating so badly and angry at myself for not being brave enough to do anything about them.
So I've gone from being triggered to disassociation to overwhelming emotions and now I'm sat in the middle of those two extremes. My emotions have calmed down to manageable levels and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. I know what to do with the guilt regarding my partner, I will allow it to impel me to make amends to him, which I started today by buying him a thoughtful birthday present and treating him to a nice Indian takeaway, running him a nice bath and giving him a nice massage after (that's all I felt able to do for him after yesterday and he was perfectly happy with that I'm pleased to say). But it's the anger at my former abusers and the anger at myself I'm clueless as to how to deal with.
Logically I know I must try to forgive myself for being so severely abused as it was the abusers choice to hurt me but my Christ I kept putting myself in harm's way over and over again, I kept going back like a bloody glutton for punishment. It's been years since I stopped doing that, and I broke that particular bit of the dodgy programming I received growing up. But I let myself get hurt, I never protected myself, I guess for so long I just didn't know how. So I guess I have guilt about not valuing myself enough to look after myself plus a healthy dose of shame as well as the anger at myself.
It doesn't help that this bastard I saw yesterday doesn't feel an ounce of guilt or shame himself, in fact I would go so far as to say he does even think he's done anything wrong to me and he acts like he is the victim in this situation because I reacted to his abuse of me by sending him dozens of letters and thousands of texts which he holds up as 'proof' I abused him in the first place not the other way round as it really was, because he did all his abuse of me behind closed doors where nobody could see, whereas he has shown my letters and texts to loads of people, therefore publicly as well as privately humiliating me and making me look and feel like the 'bad one'.
But he's plenty angry at me because I kept confronting him about his abuse of me in those letters and texts and he doesn't want to feel the guilt and shame he should be feeling for the wrong he did me, and I suppose he doesn't want to be reminded of that, so when he saw me yesterday that's why he was horrible to me again, because he wants me to go away and not show my face in that pub again. Well he needn't worry about that because now I know he's allowed in that pub I will be avoiding it like the bloody plague. And avoidance is a big part of my PTSD as well, and I have enough material about the role that plays in my life for several other threads lol. And thinking about it, isn't disassociation just a form of avoidance in and of itself? Because I'm avoiding the feelings I don't want to feel, I suppose. But I know I have to feel them in order to heal from them, and to learn from them, so I can get off this hamster wheel of triggers denial then emotional flooding. At least I stayed relatively sober today, I recognise that drinking yesterday after the trigger was the worst thing I could have done. I've got to learn a better way of dealing with this problem.
So I'm sorry about another novel you guys lol. Support and positive comments and feedback welcome.
Cheers
Crazydiamond47
This thread should really be entitled 'Trigger, disassociation/denial, emotional overwhelm'. Can a moderator change the title for me please if possible? Thanks.
It was easy to do while drunk and stoned. It kinda happened automatically with me need to be consciously aware I was even doing it at all. I just glided through life in a moreorless permanently numb feeling state. Now I'm mostly sober and completely drug free the feelings are slowly returning to my body but if I'm triggered (like I was yesterday on seeing one of my former abusers in a pub in town and him threatening me verbally to and in my face) those emotions come flooding in like a tidal wave and I get overwhelmed.
I didn't show this bastard or his friends any fear outwardly but inside I was bloody shitting myself scared out of my wits. The worst of it was I wasn't expecting to see him in this particular pub as it was my understanding he had been barred from going in there for either violence or drug dealing. And I didn't even go in there for a drink, only to use the toilet as I was caught short and busting to go having done some shopping beforehand and not being near a public toilet and having a weak bladder, otherwise I wouldn't have even gone in this pub at all.
As this c*nt stood there threatening me I could literally feel myself shutting down emotionally. I got away as soon as I could without running (I certainly felt like running away but I didn't want to lose face in front of him and his mates). I got half way down the road then I started shaking and sweating. My legs felt all wobbly and I felt sick to my stomach. I had cold sweaty palms and my vision was blurred. I knew from past experience I was on the verge of having a full blown panic attack so what did I do? Yep went in the nearest off licence and bought myself some beer.
Probably not the wisest thing to do but it's an old coping mechanism. I had one beer sitting on a bench in the grounds of a church near the bus stop and calmed myself down enough to get home. Then when I got home I got proper good and drunk. I wasn't even intending to have any booze yesterday at all, I was even tempted when I went in the pub for a wee, but after what that shithead did to me I was a total nervous and mental wreck. After 5 beers I wasn't feeling any fear or pain anymore. I literally used the alcohol to deny my emotions. I was even lying to myself in my head that my former abuser hadn't frightened me at all, I was that desperate to pretend he didn't manage to shake me up at all. I don't like feeling weak or humiliated, so I tried to convince myself that I'm actually really strong and that I should be proud that he didn't see my weakness or manage to get me to react in such a way that I would degrade myself in front of him or his nasty friends. That's always been my way, you know, full of bravado and bluster in public, but behind closed doors or even inside myself, a quivering blubbering mess.
Anyway, I invited my partner over last night as it's his birthday today and I didn't want to be on my own after this upsetting experience I was desperately trying to deal with by killing the feelings with the lies I tell myself and the booze. He arrived and we had some more beer and then somehow ended up in bed together. He inadvertently did something to me sexually which triggered me (he wasn't abusive at all, quite the opposite in fact) and I got angry with him then he felt hurt and got angry himself. He went downstairs in a huff while I lay upstairs in bed trying to figure out the root of the trigger and upset with myself for inadvertently upsetting my partner.
Well I worked it out quite quickly given how drunk I was and went and told my partner. Basically he was really gentle and tender with me but given how abusive this other bloke that I saw yesterday was to me sexually in other words really rough and violent, and given how I was conditioned to find that kind of sex exciting through the incest I suffered at my brother's hands in my puberty, I wasn't getting turned on in the present with my partner with him being really loving and kind to me in bed last night, and being drunk and triggered from my run in with my former rapist earlier in the day, I blamed my partner for my inability to respond appropriately to his sweet care and attention and punished him for what was inside me that I wasn't dealing with.
So I went downstairs and apologised to my partner for being so mean to him and explained myself and he was so lovely about it, I then burst into tears and spent the next half hour sobbing in his arms about all the sexual trauma these other men have put me through. That I have taken out on my partner for years because I'm too scared to get my former abusers punished for. Several of them including my brother and this bastard I saw yesterday should be in prison for what they did to me but I've let them get away with it. Now I'm wracked with guilt over hurting the wrong person for what others have done to me and angry at the others for violating so badly and angry at myself for not being brave enough to do anything about them.
So I've gone from being triggered to disassociation to overwhelming emotions and now I'm sat in the middle of those two extremes. My emotions have calmed down to manageable levels and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. I know what to do with the guilt regarding my partner, I will allow it to impel me to make amends to him, which I started today by buying him a thoughtful birthday present and treating him to a nice Indian takeaway, running him a nice bath and giving him a nice massage after (that's all I felt able to do for him after yesterday and he was perfectly happy with that I'm pleased to say). But it's the anger at my former abusers and the anger at myself I'm clueless as to how to deal with.
Logically I know I must try to forgive myself for being so severely abused as it was the abusers choice to hurt me but my Christ I kept putting myself in harm's way over and over again, I kept going back like a bloody glutton for punishment. It's been years since I stopped doing that, and I broke that particular bit of the dodgy programming I received growing up. But I let myself get hurt, I never protected myself, I guess for so long I just didn't know how. So I guess I have guilt about not valuing myself enough to look after myself plus a healthy dose of shame as well as the anger at myself.
It doesn't help that this bastard I saw yesterday doesn't feel an ounce of guilt or shame himself, in fact I would go so far as to say he does even think he's done anything wrong to me and he acts like he is the victim in this situation because I reacted to his abuse of me by sending him dozens of letters and thousands of texts which he holds up as 'proof' I abused him in the first place not the other way round as it really was, because he did all his abuse of me behind closed doors where nobody could see, whereas he has shown my letters and texts to loads of people, therefore publicly as well as privately humiliating me and making me look and feel like the 'bad one'.
But he's plenty angry at me because I kept confronting him about his abuse of me in those letters and texts and he doesn't want to feel the guilt and shame he should be feeling for the wrong he did me, and I suppose he doesn't want to be reminded of that, so when he saw me yesterday that's why he was horrible to me again, because he wants me to go away and not show my face in that pub again. Well he needn't worry about that because now I know he's allowed in that pub I will be avoiding it like the bloody plague. And avoidance is a big part of my PTSD as well, and I have enough material about the role that plays in my life for several other threads lol. And thinking about it, isn't disassociation just a form of avoidance in and of itself? Because I'm avoiding the feelings I don't want to feel, I suppose. But I know I have to feel them in order to heal from them, and to learn from them, so I can get off this hamster wheel of triggers denial then emotional flooding. At least I stayed relatively sober today, I recognise that drinking yesterday after the trigger was the worst thing I could have done. I've got to learn a better way of dealing with this problem.
So I'm sorry about another novel you guys lol. Support and positive comments and feedback welcome.
Cheers
Crazydiamond47
This thread should really be entitled 'Trigger, disassociation/denial, emotional overwhelm'. Can a moderator change the title for me please if possible? Thanks.
Last edited by a moderator: