Mind Body and Trauma

[Mental Fairy]

Hi LG

I hear ya.

I wish so much I was six drinks in but sadly the risk with bowel is not worth it but I crave the feeling of being distant from myself.

You have just summed up how It is in a nutshell really.

Onto my last patient of the day and hit the gym with you in mind.

[troebia]

I survived the curtain hanger, I survived the incubator of doom

That's grim beyond any animal behaviour that we consider cruel. The fox will eat the chicks in a nest not because it is evil, but because it forms part of a naturally evolved ecosystem. The birds in nests out of reach will survive. I find it so hard on the other hand to rationalise human brutal behaviour, or even the violent thoughts that will fly through my brain.

[Mental Fairy]

I’m in a way not sure if I am doing the right thing by going further into therapy. I’ve done my fair share of it over the years, dating back to primary school.

I remember one lady at the reception once looking at me while I was being brought in by a teacher saying to the other clerk how she felt sorry for me. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me, I wanted someone to help me understand purpose and wtf was going on. Why was I the one kid who refused to change in the changing rooms, didn’t want to interact with others and ran away a lot. Why I cried under my desk when people approached me. I knew from at a young age what men around me or others were thinking just with their look, their eye movements. I knew that look well.

When I was in my mid 20s I was building my first home, my step father (previously convicted sex offender of his own two daughters) was the builder. When he cornered me in the back spare bedroom while we hung the blinds, he grabbed me in such a way it felt sincere in a way. Knowing I had recent surgery he was gentle about it. But in that moment my head felt like concrete, I couldn’t see for looking, I couldn’t hear a thing other than ringing in my ears. My world effectively stopped and my body became like a doll or puppet.

When I snapped out of it I was sitting on the deck outside. It was a bloody hot day, I remember hearing insects making their noises in the long grass in the paddocks next door, I remember the smell of wet concrete where the water was running on the freshly laid driveway, I remember the grain of the wood on the deck under my feet. I remember his sentence that burned into my memory, I WANT TO FUCK YOU. Then he called himself a bad man and he said he couldn’t help it, I said he wasn’t and we all had desires and needs and he was normal to feel that way……… Years later I learnt his father and grandfather were sex offenders. His grandfather killed himself. Why on earth would I say it was normal? Because i didn’t know any different. My brother felt it was normal, now mums boyfriend did also, so maybe it was normal….maybe it was my fault. Sadly I still feel that way.


I do wonder what life would have been like if love was displayed my in childhood. It was all bargaining, hush money, threats, anger and excuses. Denial, hypocrisy and selfishness.

I will go out of this world with no answers, the dead only hold them, I very sadly at times wished I was where they were and someone else could find the answers on my behalf.

How do you move forward when you can’t get the answers anymore, how does one find acceptance for something of such magnitude, I’m not sure I know how to accept? I might have accepted my quirks and weird habits.

Till next time

[lutherangirl]

MF

Keep going to therapy if you really like your therapist! If your therapist is a good match for you, he/she can give you the tools you need to have a break through. You have to retrain your brain to use the tools the therapist gives to you. It won't happen over night, because of all the trauma you suffered. However, when you start rewiring and work on it daily, you will start to see results with giving yourself a lot grace throughout. Think of it the way you spend time exercising your body--your brain needs it too.

You seem like such an amazing person from your posts! You got this!

LG

[Mental Fairy]

Thank you.

Something actually occurred to me overnight, I was thinking about your post.

The therapist is female and I’ve never had a female therapist before. It has made it easier and more comfortable.

She has asked me to come face to face in my minds eye with my younger self, something I fear.

This morning it occurred to me that I married someone who had the traits of my mother, who treated me badly and put me down over and over. I just expected it would get better but it never did. I ignored the red flags and tried to find green ones. But there were little. I stayed in this loveless marriage for 20 years too long. I let him treat me like my mother did. He hated my mother just as much as she hated him.

Maybe I was the six year old self for way too many years. It’s only now my marriage is over by almost a year, that I feel more grown up and less talked down too? Maybe now I’m trying to tap into my inner child by geocaching around the country and meeting amazing people.

I pine for my father. My grandmother especially. My mother I don’t. I don’t think she was capable of love. The traumatic death experience with her passing was so difficult to deal with. Holding buckets and towels covered in her blood was so hard process. On one hand this was the person who birthed myself and my twin way too early because of her determination to take our lives. Yet, she is also the person who didn’t love nor protect me. I was never enough. It made her ending so bitter and difficult to process.

I just have to carry on, never knowing the answers to anything. There is not one living or loving family member left.

Better go pull some teeth!

[snoringdog]

I just have to carry on, never knowing the answers to anything.

So much of the world is unknowable, and so many have this same burden.
And why *do* people do what they do? Even if you *could* ask them, they may not even know....

There is not one living or loving family member left.

Well, you do have your son, whom you've said has blossomed....

[troebia]

I’m in a way not sure if I am doing the right thing by going further into therapy.

From what I've learnt of you here, I think your bar is very high for getting actual productive therapy. There are so many therapists whose main objective is to keep you hooked for more sessions and more money. It's easy to string along someone in need of support.

I remember his sentence that burned into my memory, I WANT TO FUCK YOU. Then he called himself a bad man and he said he couldn’t help it, I said he wasn’t and we all had desires and needs and he was normal to feel that way.

As an man with normal(?) sex drive, there is a software constantly running in my reptile brain: when I see a woman roughly my age that is attractive to me the thought comes up: I'D FUCK HER. I don't even have to leave the house: my sister-in-law visits and sunbathes in a skimpy bikini or our divorcing neighbour comes by in a semi-transparent sundress. Or the woman in her 50s working in the bakery locks eyes with me for a little too long. It doesn't mean I'd ever act on it; in fact other parts of my brain throw up firewalls to block and defuse those brief animal rushes of desire. Maybe it's easier for me, having a daughter that became conventionally attractive and even did some modelling, and I still remember changing her diapers.

How do you move forward when you can’t get the answers anymore, how does one find acceptance for something of such magnitude, I’m not sure I know how to accept?

I guess sincerity goes a long way. If you get together with someone you like romantically and sexually, give them a sort of instruction manual asap. "You can push all these buttons of mine, but leave these other levers alone at all cost". If they balk at that, they aren't a good fit. There's always time to slowly share the really dark stuff later on.

[troebia]

What happened 20 some years [ago] doesn't define you now!

I'm afraid it does, when talking about traumatic events.

[snoringdog]

I would say "affects deeply" and possibly shapes, but doesn't need to "define" you.

That's too limiting and constrictive

[Mental Fairy]

Really got my cognitive wheels turning.

I have therapy yesterday. I am pleased to say my therapist never pushes me for more therapy. It’s all on my terms. I don’t have that feeling she wants more of anything. The bonus is she will only ask for what a person can afford. There is no set price. I found her through a police friend of mine as she works with their teams In the police department.

She has tapped into a part of me I’ve held close to my chest. That childhood trauma and memories I struggle with.

There has been a great deal of effort on my part not to disclose to much with the male therapists I’ve seen over the years.
In my first three years of school, aged 5-7 and possibly aged 8, I was driven to a counselling service at the hospital for child and adolescent therapy as I struggled to be in a classroom full of kids and noise. I didn’t cope well with male teachers. Every school knew there was abuse happening. Things were so different back then.

I have been seeing Brad who I used to date when we were 19-22. But not in a romantic sense. Just friendship. I can’t go any further as I can’t put myself in that situation as yet. We have always been friends and will continue to be. He had a very similar childhood. Thankfully we both live very clean lifestyles and enjoy the same things.

My son is making incredible progress. We have been having such a fun time together. There are rays of hope but also deep sorrow and sadness below the surface.

This morning I let out a big scream into the ether when I found myself getting angry for no apparent reason other than I was carrying too many things and dropped a bag.

I had hideous nightmares on Sunday night before therapy. It’s like my brain is trying to prevent me going.
I have to face things and learn about my triggers and emotions. Otherwise I won’t move forward and be the best I can be.