Yaku- I just wanted to say that I havn't been able to read your posts in detail lately because of the trigger warnings, but that I still want to be able to support you in whatever is going on. I hope you are doing ok, and that it isn't anything too horrible.

hugs,

BB

Thanks, BB. Sorry for all the triggery stuff. I'm getting P.A.D. about it and wondering if I want to delete. I told T that I'm having more feelings and thinking he believes I'm exaggerating. He said it's good to bring my understandably scary and difficult thoughts into the light and that they won't survive there...but I still can't manage to hear anything other than him judging me...

Thanks Jane,

I think I am projecting, yes. I was told my feelings were too much and berated for having them very frequently, which I have internalized, so any reaction that isn't me being "above" an experience or a willing martyr feels like a complete overreaction to me. But...that doesn't mean that other people aren't thinking the same.

The question I'm having is...if there were really more, I would probably remember it already, right? Like things with N, I don't remember WELL, but I always kind of knew that they had happened in a detached, meaningless sort of way. For there to be stuff that caused some of my early "thought patterns" regarding sex, it would have had to be by 5th grade, before either of these incidents...and that scares the $#!+ out of me. I have a couple pretty shameful memories before then (like playing with the neighbor boy), but nothing I could relate to as "traumatic." Ugh, I don't know what to think. I guess I am worrying over nothing, but I feel like something is coming and that is how I felt before this all hit me like a ton of bricks...

yaku,

I don't think you are making it all up either. And, from someone who has been there, I totally get what you are going through. You want to be there for your H. But maybe there is another part of you that still hasn't resolved all your feelings about "the incident" and really doesn't feel safe with your H. At least not yet. Maybe you need to heed your own warnings. Definitely talk to T about this one.

Early on in therapy a few years ago, when I began to share trauma stuff with T, I said to him- that maybe it is really not true, maybe it really didn't happen, and I was making it up, but for the life of me- I could not figure out why I would make stuff up. His response was(hated his tone- cuz he sometimes sounds a bit to ...happy-no, almost like- ah-ha) T's words- "that is classic! People who experience early childhood trauma often feel like they are making it up."
Any way- that is what my T said.

quote:

I think I am projecting, yes. I was told my feelings were too much and berated for having them very frequently, which I have internalized, so any reaction that isn't me being "above" an experience or a willing martyr feels like a complete overreaction to me. But...that doesn't mean that other people aren't thinking the same.

yeah, they could be thinking that... but, just because others think you are exaggerating, it doesn't mean you are. Yet, yeah, it is really hard to deal with someone thinking we are overreacting or exggerating. For me, I want to be accepted for who I am, all of it. If someone thinks I am making a big deal out of something small, it feels like... invalidating? and like I am not really being seen... or like I am wrong for what I was feeling... which is a huge feeling that can come up for me because I grew up in an environment where feelings were a problem to be fixed and put away, not experienced and provided comfort and validation and support for.

quote:

I feel like something is coming and that is how I felt before this all hit me like a ton of bricks...

I'm so sorry you feel this way. As I have worked through trauma (and it's still very much in process) it makes me look at things I know for sure about my childhood differently. I understand now how I was affected by my father -he was sometimes cold and/or absent and sometimes very warm and loving and sometimes very angry... and it wasn't just hard on me, a sensitive girl (and adult) because it was intense and hurtful, but I also internalized it and blamed myself for it because he could be so many things... and I wanted to be able to have the warm and loving father... It's taken time for me to see that and understand it better. To see it more fully. And it's been tough to realize more deeply my father wasn't the father I needed. (And yet it has been healing to walk through that pain and grief too. I end up at times blaming myself less for things now, as
I let go of blame for myself for the past.)

For me, it's like the events that I remember are the same, but the meaning I put to them and the understanding I have about them is different. The best thing is that, at times, as I walk through all of this stuff, even though it is amazingly painful sometimes, I find freedom.

I too may have been through more than I remember. My T says it's possible for just about everyone. She also says that in one way or another, those memories do come back, one way or another, if and when we need to remember. She also says that remebering can help, but it's not critical. It's important to work through what we do remember, and how we are now with what we remember, and even how we are even if we don't remember things that happened... that's what she says... I bet there are lots of people that can say a lot more about this and from different perspectives. I'm not sure about all of it myself. I do think that in time, as you keep working on this, you will heal and live and love more like you want to. It's going to come with rough patches and seasons, but they will pass, and you don't have to go through any of them alone.

Another thought. There may not be more in the sense of more "events" of abuse that you just don't remember - but yet still "more" in the sense of understanding in new ways the same things and events that you do remember already. Perhaps a painful process, understandings that are hard to work through and losses to grieve, but that will help you heal and live more like you want to now.

just some jumbled up thoughts - discard or ignore anything that is totally off the mark.

I hope you find some peace and rest from feeling like there is more hard stuff coming (almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop?)

hugs,
~jd

No, Don't delete, Yaku- I just said that because I've posted a lot on your threads in past and I wanted you to know that I wasn't ignoring you.

hugs,

BB

Oh, BB, not because of what you said. I'm just feeling overly needy by posting so much lately.

JD, everyone, thanks for all your input. I'm really struggling to be patient with myself with all of this. Hopefully, I will learn to pace myself, as T suggests, soon. I wouldn't count on it, though.