A bit more about the abuse

[justnothing]

Sorry again for not having posted in a very long time, I didn’t think that I had anything of substance to say for a while. Right now I guess you could also say that there is nothing factually new but as of yesterday I’ve been going through a bit of a crisis.

To make a long story short, yesterday I was talking to my therapist about my [lack of a] social life and she said it’s the result of my messed up relationship with my mother and the defense mechanisms I built up as a result of that. I guess that must have struck a chord with me because after that when I got to work (which unfortunately I have to go to directly after therapy), I started thinking about my mother and the abuse and specifically the sexual aspects of it and for some reason I started feeling really, really dirty. I think normally I would have dissociated at some point but this time the pain struck me in full force and it wouldn’t go away. I tried as hard as I could to keep myself together until the end of the work day but eventually I ended up breaking down and crying right in front of my colleagues and was allowed to go home early.

Right now the pain is a lot less bad than it was when it first hit me but it’s still there and that’s kind of a new experience for me. Mind you I think that’s probably a good thing because normally I would have “bounced back” within a few hours or a day but at the expense of having repressed it. I think it would probably be healthier if I allowed the pain and anger and so on to remain on the surface because I think this is like a part of me that I haven’t really fully processed… but at the same time it’s kind of hard. I also don’t have a lot of people whom I can talk to about it (I’ve talked to my boyfriend about it but at one point it got too much for him and I don’t want to overload  him).

I guess what makes it hard is the sense of betrayal. I mean I guess it’s kind of weird to only feel that way now after so many years of knowing she was abusive and knowing about all her issues but I guess maybe some defense is only breaking down now.

Throughout most of my childhood and teenage years she had been my “best and only friend” (though granted, that was largely due to her isolating me) and we had so many fun times together and so many in-jokes and she was the most precious thing in the world to me. So I’m thinking that every bit of love that I had to give growing up… was spent on someone whom I think sexually abused me from the time I was a small child… and it’s just so weird.

Heh… well on the “bright side”, I guess now it at least makes more sense why I’m so messed up (socially and otherwise) but right now I’m not sure where to go from here or how to deal with this rotten feeling.

How do people generally deal with it?

[CollectedChaos]

Hi, justnothing 

I'm so sorry that you're going through a rough time.  As terrible as it is now though, I would consider this a breakthrough!  Finally feeling all of those feelings you've held in for so long is really healthy and a great step forward in recovering from past abuses. 

I, like you, haven't had a lot of friends in life, and I can also definitely trace it back to my uBPD mom and alcoholic dad.  On top of my mom doing the whole isolating thing (making sure she was always my best friend) I always felt that I needed to protect them, and talking to someone else about my home situation would have been a betrayal of that so I always kept my mouth shut... .and therefore, kept my mouth shut about just about everything because that felt easier and safer.  Hard to have close, real friends when you share no personal details about yourself with others.

For me, when I have days/weeks/whatever where my feelings are pouring out and I'm a mess, I just need to ride it out and allow myself to feel those things (whatever those things may be at the time).  Not always convenient, but it is what it is.  I've found that trying to rationalize it away or "move on" before I'm ready just makes things worse, and I end up being a mess for a lot longer.  You were abused and hurt and it's important to feel those feelings and acknowledge that it is okay to be feeling the way you are.  If you don't, it will be impossible to move forward.  Sucks right now, but it will get better, I promise. 

I hope you are able to give yourself some time today to just "be" with those feelings.  I've found that journaling really helps me work through some tough memories/feelings.  Just writing down what is really going on in my head helps me piece everything together in a rational way - a lot of times I feel like all of the emotions circling around in my head are totally disjointed, overwhelming, and confusing.  Writing them down helps me see the strings that are attaching all of them and helps me see things more rationally. 

Make sure you are also practicing some self-care... .whether that be reading, exercise, a long bath, your favorite meal, watching a comedy... .whatever will put you at ease.

Hang in there - it will get easier and the intense feelings you're experiencing now will ease.  Allow yourself to acknowledge and validate them.  I do think that being able to see the "why" (in this case, why you have a hard time socially) does help us recover, we just have to get through the initial shock of it all first. 

[sweetheart]

Hello
I want to come at this from a very practical perspective which I hope might help a bit. When I was in long term therapy, I learnt, it took a while, that I couldn’t schedule my therapy sessions at times when I had other things to do or go to. I found that I often needed time to process the session and I how was feeling, and sometimes I would experience a delayed emotional response to what I had spoken about.

So I used to schedule my appointments at the end of a working day and if I could before my days off.

I don’t know if it’s possible with your particular therapist but if the feelings that it’s stirred up inside you are overwhelming you, contacting your T and scheduling an extra appointment might help just support you through whilst you continue learn to about how you process these types of emotions.

I remember feeling really quite wretched after therapy and I used to think that  sometimes my feelings would quite literally suffocate and crush me. What I came to learn is that they didn’t, I learnt to manage to be with them. Like CollectedChaos says it really does get easier with time.

[justnothing]

Thank you guys very much for your replies, today has been a lot easier so I guess I really just needed to ride it out. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make schedule changes with my therapist but I guess if it continues being a problem I might be able to make changes with my schedule at work. Anyway, thanks again.

[Harri]

Hi justnothing.  So good to hear from you though I am sorry you were struggling.  I understand how you can feel love towards your mother and how she was so important to you even though she sexually abused you.  I feel the same way about my mother, though I am very in touch with my anger as well. 

You ask how people work it through.  Well, I am still figuring it out!  Mostly I try to accept whatever it is I am feeling at the moment.  I still often avoid by dissociating or eating.  My problem is the opposite of most peoples in that I have way too much free time before and after therapy.  Either way, it is difficult.

I don't want to poke too much at the sexual abuse you experienced as I am unsure of how much you want to share or if you want to push yourself.  If you do want to talk here, I am up for it.  Just letting you know.

I also want to comment on what you said here:  "Sorry again for not having posted in a very long time, I didn’t think that I had anything of substance to say for a while."  Sometimes the most significant things are the ones that come from rambling conversations with people.  You, a couple of years ago talked with me about "conditioned choice" explaining how something that seemed like a choice made of my own free will was in fact conditioned from years of being abused and in  a dysfunctional environment.  It is funny because at the time you wrote that to me, I did not get the full impact of its meaning.  Well, I was reading old posts last year and came across your statement and what a revelation it was and still is to me.  So many things I have been beating myself up for 'choosing' to participate in (including the mother daughter incest) can be put into perspective with two words "conditioned choice".  It helps with the self loathing and cringing away from looking at some pretty difficult things so that I can process such happenings.

I have often thought about sending you a PM thanking you but I was hesitant and did not want to seem pushy.  Thank you.  I am still reaping the benefits from chatting with you over a year later. 

Take good care of yourself.

[justnothing]

Hi Harri, it’s good to see you too. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting to come across anyone I’d already talked to in the past because of how long I’ve been absent, but it’s very good to see you and I hope you’re doing well.

And yeah, about the conditioned choice, I reckon another term for it would probably be grooming. I’m glad to hear you’ve been able to get some comfort from the term, it sure helped me too at the time. Back when I started looking for info about sexually abusive moms one of the things I read about was that they generally tend to be less overt on the one hand but on the other they tend to be a lot more manipulative and often their kids end up becoming loyal slaves that devote their entire lives to them. I was extremely lucky to have had a breakdown (plus a series of other events that led to it) that resulted in me starting therapy from the time I was a teenager because if it weren’t for that I most likely would have remained mindlessly loyal to her until the day she died and then just killed myself right after from not having “anything else to live for” (and for many years I actually didn’t think I had anything else to live for).

I don’t really want to go into too many details here (but you can feel free to PM me if you want and regardless of this sad subject btw ), but I know what you mean about “choosing” to participate. At the time it didn’t even seem like a bad thing because I was completely suppressing anything that would have told me that anything bad was going on. If anything I thought it was part of our way of “bonding”. My anger only came to the surface in my late teens in sudden sporadic outbursts but at the time I didn’t understand what it was about so each time the anger would pass I would feel extremely embarrassed, apologize and go back to my usual “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” frame of mind.

Recently I’d been listening to a couple of audiobooks by Nathaniel Brandon (whom I highly recommend btw) about self-esteem and he made an interesting point about how the mind can’t really trust itself if it doesn’t act consciously (of itself, its environment, etc’) and that struck a chord with me because that’s basically how I had lived throughout almost all of my early life. On a subconscious level I was too afraid of being abandoned by the only person I had in my life and also too afraid of her wrath so that on a conscious level I didn’t even see any of the wrong doing and didn’t even think to try to protect myself from it for years. And now, as an adult, even when I try to think of it objectively I’m not 100% sure that I can promise myself that I’d never fall for another manipulative or forceful person’s traps. So yeah, basically, when I mind knows that it can’t really trust itself to protect itself and its interests than it can’t really be expected hold itself in high esteem and things like positive affirmations can’t really compensate for that.

I have often thought about sending you a PM thanking you but I was hesitant and did not want to seem pushy.  Thank you.  I am still reaping the benefits from chatting with you over a year later. 

Take good care of yourself.

Thank you and you’re welcome and you can feel free to PM me whenever you want or not PM me if you don’t want and one way or another please take good care of yourself too