I am in Therapy with a new Therapist for the last 4 weeks, so far so good. I had read an article she wrote in a national magazine about adult survivors and childhood abuse and I had to wait 3 months to get an appt, glad I waited.
Therapy I have found often confuses me because it ends up going down roads that you did not know where there. Sort of like peeling an onion with multiple layers. I have many to go. My struggle is that as I learn about the abuse and long term damage it has caused I am beginning to realize that this invisible hand has guided many key decisions in my life that have led me down many negative paths.
This leads me to the ultimate question I am struggling with, what could my life have been? Here is an example, I am an extreme introvert but when I think back to my youth before the sexual assaults began at 10 I do not believe I was an introvert. As a matter of fact, even though my memories are extremely limited I remember a young boy who was very gregarious and friendly, that person does not exist anymore.
There are scores of examples like this, basically I am saddened by the loss of what could have been and this leaves me spiraling downward. My T has quickly recognized something I did not, namely that my abuse at 10-12 certainly effected and changed me but it was not the only abuse. I suffered a string of traumatic items both caused by me and not but they hardened and set me for life down a road I would never have seen without all the damage.
Example - I went to 3 different high schools, NY, TX and PR. In my two years living in PR I lived in 10 different places and my brother and I were on our own starting in my Senior year of HS. Years of wild behavior, drugs and lack of any guidance took their toll. Another behavior that she has identified is my inability to grieve. My father whom I was very close to and loved dearly passed 34 years ago, I still can not talk about him without beginning to cry, I say beginning because I do not allow myself to cry. . I feel that if I were to start crying it would never stop. She said (correctly) that is because I have never allowed myself to grieve for him or for anything else for that matter. I have built a steel wall around my emotions that nothing gets through. I am beginning to understand that this behavior probably saved my life when I was 10 but has caused immense damage over the last 50 years.
Therapy opens up lots of feelings, so far for me all bad but I know I need to go through this process if I want to survive and not fall into a total collapse.
Therapy I have found often confuses me because it ends up going down roads that you did not know where there. Sort of like peeling an onion with multiple layers. I have many to go. My struggle is that as I learn about the abuse and long term damage it has caused I am beginning to realize that this invisible hand has guided many key decisions in my life that have led me down many negative paths.
This leads me to the ultimate question I am struggling with, what could my life have been? Here is an example, I am an extreme introvert but when I think back to my youth before the sexual assaults began at 10 I do not believe I was an introvert. As a matter of fact, even though my memories are extremely limited I remember a young boy who was very gregarious and friendly, that person does not exist anymore.
There are scores of examples like this, basically I am saddened by the loss of what could have been and this leaves me spiraling downward. My T has quickly recognized something I did not, namely that my abuse at 10-12 certainly effected and changed me but it was not the only abuse. I suffered a string of traumatic items both caused by me and not but they hardened and set me for life down a road I would never have seen without all the damage.
Example - I went to 3 different high schools, NY, TX and PR. In my two years living in PR I lived in 10 different places and my brother and I were on our own starting in my Senior year of HS. Years of wild behavior, drugs and lack of any guidance took their toll. Another behavior that she has identified is my inability to grieve. My father whom I was very close to and loved dearly passed 34 years ago, I still can not talk about him without beginning to cry, I say beginning because I do not allow myself to cry. . I feel that if I were to start crying it would never stop. She said (correctly) that is because I have never allowed myself to grieve for him or for anything else for that matter. I have built a steel wall around my emotions that nothing gets through. I am beginning to understand that this behavior probably saved my life when I was 10 but has caused immense damage over the last 50 years.
Therapy opens up lots of feelings, so far for me all bad but I know I need to go through this process if I want to survive and not fall into a total collapse.