This might belong in sleep rather than flashbacks, I'm not sure.
My therapist and I have just started to unpick older memories of past trauma - I mean we've literally just talked about what that might be like and she's tried out a process for exploring these issues using something that feels very safe to talk about. I've been doing very well day to day and generally have been feeling fairly strong. My sleep pattern is still all over the place but that tends to take a while to settle again so I've not been worried about that. My therapist plans to take things very slowly and I'm in complete control of what I do or don't bring.
Tonight I woke up after about 2 hours sleep in tears, feeling shamed, scared and very angry - remembering clearly an assault at the hands of my dad, feeling right back in that moment again. I also "remembered" what sparked the assault, I say "remembered" because while I've always remembered the assault, this memory placed the incident in a different time span (I thought I was 16 when it happened but tonight I coud see the house we lived in and the room it happened in and we didn't move there until I was 18). The incident giving rise to the assault was me being late home from my after school job, missing my curfew. The following day, someone in the street told my dad I was going out with a guy on the estate who was married - I've written elsewhere about being groomed into a relationship with this person but in my parents mind I was a slapper. My dad stripped me to my underwear and used a garden cane to beat me until I bled, my mum eventually intervened, I think because she honestly thought he might kill me.
The part I hadn't any memory of was that I was late home and had been with this guy, he had met me after work, offered to walk me home and when I tried to refuse and said I didn't want him to be around me, he raped me. He walked me to my house to make sure I went straight home, which is when my neighbour saw us and told my dad. I couldn't tell my parents about it that night because they were so angry I was late and I certainly couldn't tell them after what happened with my dad. I was so traumatised by his assault, i had completely forgotten about being raped.
I feel very shaken and will take it to therapy but I needed to get it written down somewhere and out of my head. I'm worried though that I might keep having flashbacks about this now that it's seeped back into my memory... I know there are good reasons why it may be coming back to me now, but its so hard to manage.
My therapist and I have just started to unpick older memories of past trauma - I mean we've literally just talked about what that might be like and she's tried out a process for exploring these issues using something that feels very safe to talk about. I've been doing very well day to day and generally have been feeling fairly strong. My sleep pattern is still all over the place but that tends to take a while to settle again so I've not been worried about that. My therapist plans to take things very slowly and I'm in complete control of what I do or don't bring.
Tonight I woke up after about 2 hours sleep in tears, feeling shamed, scared and very angry - remembering clearly an assault at the hands of my dad, feeling right back in that moment again. I also "remembered" what sparked the assault, I say "remembered" because while I've always remembered the assault, this memory placed the incident in a different time span (I thought I was 16 when it happened but tonight I coud see the house we lived in and the room it happened in and we didn't move there until I was 18). The incident giving rise to the assault was me being late home from my after school job, missing my curfew. The following day, someone in the street told my dad I was going out with a guy on the estate who was married - I've written elsewhere about being groomed into a relationship with this person but in my parents mind I was a slapper. My dad stripped me to my underwear and used a garden cane to beat me until I bled, my mum eventually intervened, I think because she honestly thought he might kill me.
The part I hadn't any memory of was that I was late home and had been with this guy, he had met me after work, offered to walk me home and when I tried to refuse and said I didn't want him to be around me, he raped me. He walked me to my house to make sure I went straight home, which is when my neighbour saw us and told my dad. I couldn't tell my parents about it that night because they were so angry I was late and I certainly couldn't tell them after what happened with my dad. I was so traumatised by his assault, i had completely forgotten about being raped.
I feel very shaken and will take it to therapy but I needed to get it written down somewhere and out of my head. I'm worried though that I might keep having flashbacks about this now that it's seeped back into my memory... I know there are good reasons why it may be coming back to me now, but its so hard to manage.
