Unable To Talk About It

[goingonhope]

Just wondering if anyone else here has experienced recent trauma or is experiencing trauma that they couldn't dream of talking about until it reaches the far past?

I can't begin to share much of anything from the present and recent present, so I keep my mouth shut, it all and everything is just to overwhelming!

When I stop to think about it, it's almost always been this way with one exception. I've always had to wait months and years to talk about something traumatic, with the one exception over this past year where I have pushed myself to talk anyhow and then only to be indirectly discouraged from a psychiatrist who preferred his approach over my desire and willingness to give a voice to a fairly recent enough traumatic experience of mine.


So what I'm trying to get at is, Is this common to generally only be able to talk about traumatic experience once it is no longer as real, frightening and traumatic, and is in the long, far past?

 

[Tinyflame]

Hi hope,
It is for me, by and large the past never is far enough away to ever speak of it (in person).

I guess my exception are the times I've asked for feedback/ help fairly immediately, seems to prevent it from being revisited the same way/ doesn't 'become' something that sticks with me. Maybe because it isn't hidden?

I'd find someone other than your psychiatrist if at all possible, or insist that your experience has to be named. I can't say that response from him makes any sense to me at all, to be honest.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Hope, I wonder if when you were being abused as a child, if your abuser drove it into your head to NOT tell anyone, or you would be hurt for it?? Just a thought and I could be way off base...

 

[goingonhope]

From one period of abuse the message not to talk or tell I don't believe was ever directly verbalized.

Instead, the things I may recall being stated were along the lines of, I'm your daddy and I love you very much honey. I won't hurt you. This doesn't hurt! If you tell this to anyone Mommy will be hurt and I will have to leave you. You won't hurt Daddy would you?

I just realized Wendy that you didn't say verbalized anything, instead you said "drove it into my head", which is the first thing that stood out to me when first reading your comments stop to think about it because, ya' it was driven into my head and then again quite literally by my mother's lover.

But years have passed since and I had healed much but you know what I really think is the biggest factor activated now is the real threat of re-traumatization. It would seem that every trauma was multiplied, and is invited to be compounded, through retraumatizations if I dare(d) do anything but keep my mouth shut.

 

[kers]

Gosh Hope, no wonder you learned to be silent. Those messages have some very powerful threats in them. Children know, instinctively, that they depend on adults for survival. When an adult threatens to go away, a child's complete existence is threatened. Children don't yet know that they other adults can step in, that there are other protective measures that can be taken...they just know that someone who represents love and security, as they know it, tells them that if they talk, it will all end and they will be alone. The prospect is life-threatening, to a child.

When an adult denies a child's experience--and says "this doesn't hurt; I love you," it tells a child their experience cannot be trusted, they don't know what is bad and what is good. It makes it hard to speak out, because a child can't trust what they think and feel any longer. Finally, when an adult says "don't hurt me," a child's speaking out is distorted from a natural protective measure into a malicious hurting of the adult. The adult makes the child believe that telling would be the bad act, not the abuse that occurred.

What a mind-f$#@, you know? It's no wonder you have a hard time speaking about what happened. You speak about the fear of retraumatization. I wonder if it would help to make a chart for yourself of the best and worst possible responses if you tell one person about what happened. Seeing those on paper might help you cognitively decide whether to speak, overcoming the residue of the past?

 

[Deleted member 541]

I agree with kers, but wanted to also add.... We know that in order to heal we have to get this crap out, we know we have to talk about it, write it down, tear it apart, feel it taste it, sense it, hear it over and over again to desensitize ourselves to it... So, by not talking about it, by keeping it in, are we not just re-traumatizing ourselves in a way, by further delayed the healing , process???? I don't know, maybe I am just to tired tonight to make any sense of anything....

 

[Aine]

Hope,

Like Junebug, my trauma will never be far enough away to talk about fully. For me, being unable to talk about what happened is part of my avoidance, rather than my abusers encouraging me not to tell. My mother forbade us from speaking about what happened in the house to anyone, even each other and when I lived at home, I lived by this rule except for when it was absolutely necessary (e.g. I once grassed my mother up to her lawyer when she was going to breach the terms of her custody battle to keep her out of prison). My father relied on my fear of him to make sure I wouldn't tell (this failed - I told my therapist). Not talking is easier than facing the things that haunt me.

Love and Light,

Aine.

 

[goingonhope]

Hi kers, I'll give this a try, and I guess I'll do so here. Thanks for the suggestion!

Now this is tough because it is personal, and I'm choosing to share it here in a ......'can't get more public place then this'.

Here goes, anyhow.

I wonder if it would help to make a chart for yourself of the best and worst possible responses if you tell one person about what happened. Seeing those on paper might help you cognitively decide whether to speak, overcoming the residue of the past?

Generally, if and when I speak of what happened or is happening I believe I can trust:

• that the message that would come across clearly back to me is that I barely exist and neither what I experienced or am experiencing, ......Or, what I felt then or feel now, none of it matters anything to those closest to me.


Generally, if and when I speak of what happened or is happening I believe I can trust:

• that I will be met with indifference, no response at all, the backside of another as they carry on their way and/or rejection followed by emotional abandonment.


Generally, if and when I speak of what happened or is happening I believe I can trust:

• that underneath the message that will follow clearly, there will be the obvious communications that absolutely nothing about me, but my physical prescence and/or body, or what I can or might do for someone else, matters anything at all! (not necessarily of of a sexual nature).

------

Now in the best case response, it is important to me that if I speak of what happened or is happening that I can trust:

• that some acknowledgement, however small, that I once really did exist, had the right to exist, and that even though I sometimes knew this, that this is both O.K. and good because I had a right to be, and to survive.


Now in the best case response, it is important to me that if I speak of what happened or is happening that I can trust:

• that it's more then O.K. that I survived, and if I live today while others are still suffering, (including so especially family relations, FOO) that this is Ok. as well.


Now in the best case response, it is important to me that if I speak of what happened or is happening that I can trust:

• that what I share will be believed, can be heard, and does matter something to those closest to me or even someone, and because I do matter something, however small to another.


Now in the best case response, it is important to me that if I speak of what happened or is happening that I can trust:

• that I can be freely given some nonverbal acknowledgement that there is reason to believe in me and that I am worthy of receiving back the truth that though a human being, I am a spiritual being as well and a child of God, NOT AN OBJECT to be manipulated, used or abused in some fashion.


Now I'm not sure I came any where's near doing what was suggested, but I certainly learned some, once, personal things. (LOL) ...not really that funny, it's rather kind'of scary writing all this here.