Count me in
Sorry (((Sadly))) this is the really painful part of healing, facing the feelings about what happened.

(((sadly)))

me too, it's awful and being alone with it now, is by far the worst of it all.

starfishy

(((Sadly)))

Yes, I'm intimately acquainted with that place. I'm sorry that it hurts so much.

Dear Sadly

I am appalled at how badly you were treated. To be an infant and burned with boiling water must have been terrifying and to have no one to care for you must have almost broken you in half. My heart aches for you. You poor child. I wish I could go back and hold that poor baby back then and give the love she so needed. I wish I could erase all that pain. And to think that you have survived that and more and gone on to be an adult is truly amazing. I know this- you are an amazing person to have lived through all of that and still be able to function in this world. I know that any T or any person now in your adult life can never replace what you lost as a child.

I am in sort of the same place. Though I was not burned or anything of that sort I was beaten to the point where I thought my life was going to end. So in that remote sense I can relate. And I too can relate to the idea that I once thought someone like my T could save me from the pain. Reparent me entirely. Then I got to the place where I thought perhaps at least I could be "special" for having gone through such tragedy and surviving. That is where I left off. I know that I alone must recover from this. I am told that support is always there etc but again like you I feel it is not enough. And there is the horrible grief. And sometimes every breath feels like a burden because I am so upset that I am even alive to have to endure this. I am afraid of people and though I know the next step is to reach out to ordinary people I seem to not be able to do that. I feel so very alone. And your post has helped me feel just a little less alone

((((Sadly)))) If I saw you in person I'd give you a big hug.

L2F

L2F,
I've seen a few posts around the forum and just wanted to say welcome! Glad you're posting.

Sadly, sorry for the hijack, just screaming through.

Thanks AG! I have read here for a long time so I actually feel I know you guys in some ways already. Looking forward to getting to know you better.

L2F

Thank you each of you for replying, and L2F for your long post.

Some days I think the kindness and listening of my sweetP is going to help heal the pain of this, other days I am just in the pain and raging at him. Like today. And he takes the raging on the chin and continues to be kind and listen.

That does make up for a lot of neglect and abuse in my childhood. It does. It is a sweet feeling to be heard and really listened to.

I cannot ay that I have experienced the type of trauma where I was left to die, but I did experience a lot of ongoing physical violence growing up, mixed with ongoing emotional abuse in high school after my father died. And his death was very traumatic for me. Sprinkle in some sexual abuse by several people and well...I have a lot of pain to work through and its effing scary. Sometimes I think it was better left buried deep within me. I often wonder if therapy is making things worse for me by forcing me to 1. admit to someone the horrible things I experienced and 2. relive the pain involved. and 3. relive the shame I felt at the time of the abuse as well as the shame I feel as an adult having shared these embarrassing experiences with my Ts.

Some days, I just want to crawl under the covers and close my eyes and wake up in a time and place where nobody knows my deepest darkest secrets, and I can just continue on with my life behind the facade of fake happiness. I want to be that person I pretended to be...the one who wasn't abused. The one who isn't a victim. The one whose pain is buried so deep within themselves that it will never see the light of day.

LG: I know that place of wishing it would all go back to being buried, but I lived a half life really so the only way through is THROUGH.

I think my sweet P is asking me to look at the terror I get into which he thinks is directly linked to the real life imminent annihilation I experienced as a small child. On another forum I talked with a woman who was raped at knife point and the man told her he was going to kill her so for the whole ordeal she had to grapple with being aware she only had minutes left of living and there was nothing she could do. It was like that for me. I think sweet P is trying to encourage me to face the particular specific fears I have with that, the deep pain of powerlessness and the agony of loss of control over one's own life. He says it is a very specific terror and I know this, as when I talk to people, just vaguely thinking one might not survive is very different to being in a position where one is about to die. And there is nothing one can do. sigh

I am grappling with what you said Sadly. I know it's your process you are talking about. Above I said I was beaten until I thought I was going to die. My terror was very real. My rib cage was broken. I got no care for it. I have found out over time that this was common in my childhood. It was only as an adult that I had x rays that showed fractures in my rib cage most likely from childhood and showed a psttern of abuse. Apparently these scars though they heal never go away. I remember having great pain in my ribs too but never recalled the abuse until later. Then I put two and two together. I have never been able to face the actual terror. At least so far I haven't and maybe I never will. But I give you credit for doing that Sadly.

(((L2F))),

I think when you are beaten as a child, you don't really know that you are not going to die or that you are going to die. Its trauma regardless and it can destroy your life.

I don't doubt that Sadly's T's statement that there is a different level of trauma associated with thinking you are about to die, but I don't know that a young child understands death. I also don't know that a child who is being beaten knows that it will stop.

Kid brains process the world in much more basic ways than adult brains do. Also, when we are afraid, when we are going through sheer terror, our excutive reasoning part of our brains (which develops as we grow up) sort of turns off, and our more basic primative part of the brain kicks in and takes over. I've been told it matters how much we feel out of control and powerless - that makes the trauma more impacting neurologicaly, not just the threat of death.

I have experienced trauma where I faced death as an adult. (once instance was when someone broke into my home and attacked me and was comming after me w/ a knife.) I also experienced truama as a child where I was terrified, but didn't really think of death, and yet it was a very real possibility - and the terror of that part of the trauma didn't really hit me entirely until I was an adult. But I was still scared and shaken to the core as a child.

I'm not sure if the emotional scars ever go away entirely. But I really think it's very possible for us to heal. I'm sort of counting on it...

Thanks Ladygrey

That did help me understand. Yes I was only about 8 yrs old being beaten by a 350lb man who was about 6'2" It was terrifying. I had complete flashback of it and I didn't even feel the individual blows because all I could think was that he was out of control and he was going to kill me. My whole body shakes when I recall it.

Anyway thanks Ladygrey. Your words were very helpful to me.

JD we cross posted.

Thanks for your input as well. Now thinking about it I do think my life was in danger. That sort of added to my body shaking.

I hope some day soon to be past all of this and JD your experiences both as a child and adult sound horrific.

((((((L2F)))))))
it's all just awful, and none of it should have happened to either of us... I'm so sorry for what you have been through and are going through now.

((sadly)) yes unfortunately.

I'm so sorry you went through that... so scary and sad

Yes, I have been in situations where I could have easily died and was left alone. It is a painful place.