Trauma – PTSD

Question:

I’ve been reading your posts since you first came to this group and am impressed by your maturity.  I remember that most of my life I’ve felt like a very old experienced person – even as a young child. That helped the denial part win whenever I took a look at my life.  As a mature person I was able to "undertand" my abusers. But, see, the maturity is in my memory of my life and not in the memory of the little kid. It makes me deny so much of what has happened to me in my life. T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T After experiencing sexual abuse from both parents (as well as emotional, psychological, physical abuse) and sexual abuse by a boss at age 16 and sexual offers by complete strangers on and off until age 19 when I went to college. I was extremely depressed (although I didn’t know it) and on my own for the first time. I was hungering for someone to care about me — to care that I existed. I decided to get involved in a crisis hot line and was taking workshops to learn how to deal with suicide calls and drug calls etc. I figured if I could help others it would take away that emptiness inside. Well, the psychologist instructor had to leave us with a graduate student of psychiatry due to having some dental work done earlier that day. The evening started okay but for some reason (to which I cannot understand to this day) the student decided to turn the session into an Encounter Group.  Have you ever heard of that? It was very popular in the early seventies. Well, the way an Encounter Group worked is the group would tear a person apart — I guess to get to the core of the person. And then they were supposed to put them back together before the session ended.  They didn’t. I left in a total daze. I didn’t know what I believed about myself anymore. (I actually had repressed my memories of the parental abuse so that wasn’t an issue at that time.) Just the same I was a messed up kid of 19, already in the throws of PTSD and was now psychologically "raped" by total strangers! (By "rape" I mean invaded.) The rest of my year at college I spent trying to hurt myself figuring that maybe someone would care then.  I banged my head into trees, I burned my hand with boiling water. No one cared.  I went to the student counseling center. Because I was so bright, I was recognizing the psychological techniques of the counselor and not knowing how to share or even what to share. And she wasn’t telling me how. It ended up being a total waste of time for me.  I began summer so severely depressed and spending many hours alone (of course my family never asked me what was the matter). By the grace of my Higher Power I survived but it took me until I was 26 to get counselling — real counselling.  By then, I guess, I had the maturity to understand what I was supposed to do in counselling. Lots more has happened in my life but I wanted you to know that it’s hard to be 21.  We expect ourselves to suddenly be "adults" and think like adults and know (by magic I guess) what we’re supposed to do to take care of ourselves. If you find yourself confused and not sure what to say to your therapist or what the expectations are or anything at all — please be really, really brave and ask the therapist.  They are there not only to listen but also to help teach us stuff we might not have learned or had misperceptions about.   My present therapist is so good. She will help me understand, for instance, that parents don’t do certain things to their children — that what I experienced is abnormal.  She’ll talk about what the good alternatives could have been. When I get exhasperated and don’t know what to say — I’ll just say WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY? and she’ll help me find my voice. It takes a very courageous person to go to therapy and open up the stuff that’s inside. You seem very forthright I think you’ll do fine. Just be true to yourself. If you have a Higher Power ask for guidance for both you and your therapist. If you don’t have a Higher Power — trust your guts — you won’t lie to yourself. I admire you for your courage. I’m jealous that I didn’t get help until my late twenties. I’m still getting help and I’m going on 46. Sometimes it feels like a long, endless journey. And it is. But I’ve found lots of good and loving and kind people in my life who walk with me. Peace, Sally, and Blessings, Love, Minerva W.

Response:

Hey Minerva, Thanks for your message – I’m going to tell you now how the intro session I had got on, pretty much every single detail, maybe that is because I am after more people to tell me I am doing the right thing because even though I have gone through with it, I am so unsure right now. I was supposed to be waiting for a friend, she was ill though so even though I waited an hour and a half she never showed. But the staff member I may or may not have mentioned came past and wanted to know how I was, and I said that the session was in about three quarters of an hour from that time. So she told me to wait a little longer for Sarah, or go on my own, or, if I liked, to pop down to her office and she would cut short the unofficial lesson she was taking in there and come down with me instead. At that point I was so, so nervous it was unbelievable. All morning I thought I was going to throw up and then along she comes saying she will come and give me the moral support I was looking for. In all honesty I think she thought I would rather she waited outside, but I wanted her to come in with me because I don’t yet feel ready to sit talking to someone I don’t know, alone and in the same room, whether male or female. So she came with me. She claims she cannot do more for me than listen, but she was sooooo wrong this morning. What she did for me this morning I won’t forget in a hurry… She came into that room and didn’t seem to mind a bit that she was doing this. She had heard the story before. She sat and listened while I was trying to tell the counsellor my story. I found that whenever I faltered, I’d look to Christa and she would give me an encouraging look back, as if to say, go on, you can do this. I’m alright until I get to the bit where the guys came in and then I start feeling like I should stop and want to turn back. But she somehow gave me the courage to carry on. I actually still felt like I didn’t want to talk to the counsellor, but convinced myself that even though the counsellor was there, I was talking to Christa, and that way I found it so much easier – but still not easy – to tell what I had to say. I got through it and was not upset, but maybe I numbed out on that whole session. After the session was over, the counsellor says what I might need is desensitisation – is this the process whereby the triggers gradually are not triggers of flashbacks and panic attacks anymore or is this something else. I don’t know what I am going to do but Christa said she would come if she could come with me, as did Sarah (the one who was not able today) and they both say I can talk to them whenever, which I feel is brilliant. My one thing is that I am judging them by what people have done to me in the past, in that no matter how many times they say this, I always think to myself, oh, in the next x weeks they will turn around and leave me and there will be nothing I can do even though they said they are there for however long I need them to be. I know I shouldn’t feel like that, but I have been there before. After the session, Christa was telling me how well I had done in the session, all this kind of encouraging stuff which really made me feel a bit better. She let me talk to her for a while and was suggesting I went to the teachers to whom I owe an essay and told them about what happens to me every evening at the moment (ie panic attack-flashback-panic attack-flashback etc) and why I haven’t got their work done yet, to see if they will extend the deadlines, perhaps even beyond the holidays. We talked about so much, but not really how I felt during what happened. I want to talk about that with Christa sometime before going through it with the counsellor, because I find that it really helps sort things in my head, you know? She says she can’t help me much but I don’t think that she has realised what she has done for me so far is get me over a huge hurdle just by being in the same room. I don’t think she is up for leaving me in the lurch just yet, she is going to come with me if we can both find a convenient time and arrange with the counsellor to fit that time round her too. The counsellor implied it didn’t seem like what these guys did to us which was the problem for me, because they didn’t really do much, but rather the thought of what they could have done which hurt and affected me like this. I guess that’s true, but what they said and did and the fact they stood between us and freedom really frightened me too. It was a day full of flashbacks and panic attacks today and there was not a lot I could do. I still felt like hiding it all from everyone, like I am not suffering from them. I still feel like some kind of freak, whether this is a natural reaction to everything or not. And I don’t want to go to another session without Christa or Sarah or someone coming along with me, although preferably Christa at the moment. I don’t know why, she seems to understand more than she thinks she does about how I feel right now, you know? Why couldn’t she have come into my life sooner? That’s what I want to know… > I’ve been reading your posts since you first came to this group and am > impressed by your maturity.

Oh yeah, I feel soooo mature right now… I feel about as small as anything at the moment! > By the grace of my Higher Power I survived but it took me until I was 26 > to get counselling — real counselling.  By then, I guess, I had the > maturity to understand what I was supposed to do in counselling.

If Christa hadn’t happily volunteered to come along with me, I wouldn’t have gone. I can see I would have jumped up from the waiting room seat and then gone back over to my department and not stayed and sat it out. With Christa there not only did I have the support but I also had the encouragement to stay there and go through with it.  I know that Daryl would have done the same for me, but I feel I would invade too much into his busy working life, and he would have it constantly interrupted by therapy sessions. Having Christa there was nice because she is really friendly, she is a woman so perhaps she can identify with what I have to say about all this, that I am now frightened at times to be outside and certainly on trains, and she was very sympathetic. Not that Daryl isn’t, but I don’t feel I am invading Christa’s time so much as I would be Daryl’s, since whatever time she has for my counselling is time when she doesn’t have a lesson to teach. > If you find yourself confused and not sure what to say to your therapist > or what the expectations are or anything at all — please be really, > really brave and ask the therapist.

I know that both Christa and Sarah said that I was really brave to go to the counsellor, but I don’t feel in the least bit brave. > If you don’t have a Higher Power — trust your guts — you won’t lie to > yourself. I admire you for your courage. I’m jealous that I didn’t get > help until my late twenties. I’m still getting > help and I’m going on 46.

I should have done something years ago about all this, now I feel like it is all kind of embedded in me, like I cannot imagine myself without all these fears, flashbacks, nightmares anymore. I just could never face telling anyone pro about all this because I was that frightened of talking about it. I thought that in years that would fade somewhat, but I still feel as frightened and as childlike as I did back then just after it happened. I used to have faith in God, my parents brought me up that way I guess. But then when I studied GCSE RE I found there were other religions, parts of each to which I could also identify. Then this happened, and I didn’t know what to think anymore. In all honesty, I could not fathom how any human-loving, human-respecting God could let one of his "children" go through what any one of us on this ng has been through, what anyone in the third world has been through, without intervening. Made it feel like it was actually my fault. I will never again believe in God because of what happened to me – I had to get myself out of this situation, I never once felt protected by anyone, more I felt betrayed by so many.  And I don’t know that my believe was ever that firmly embedded in me anyway. I’m still really frightened and nervous about doing all this. I don’t think I can make it through unless I have all these people I have found lately around me, and even then I am still as frightened and unsure as they come! Sally xxxxx

Response:

Well, good for you and you managed to live to tell about it (LOL). You’re right, therapy is very scary. It seems that you were very fortunate to run into Christa. You are surrounded by people who genuinely care about you — in person (and now a new therapist) and on the internet. All of us are rooting for you and your success. I, too, had issues with God at first. I felt that I had a very close relationship and was God’s child. After I started remembering the abuse I became very angry with God and shook my fist at Him — "Why, why if you say you love me and that I am your child, why did you let my parents do the things they did?" And then I got a lesson in "free will".  Please if you get triggered by "God talk" exit at this point… T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T You see, my understanding of God and what makes God who God is follows… God, when he created us gave each of us a very free and (dangerous) gift — free will.  Which means I have the power to choose good or to choose evil (among other things).  For God to continue to be God the giver and omnipotent He cannot be an "indian giver"  that is He can’t take back a gift freely given.  That means some of God’s children have the capability to choose evil. If God prevented people from making those kind of choices God would be considered a manipulative God a puppeteer if you will. How awful to live in a world manipulated by a God who decided all the outcomes. I would no longer be human but a pet or a flexible doll for God to do with as God wills. As it turns out I/we live in a world where God can influence by grace and can help us to get through the things that happen because of evil. I do try to live each day as another gift. And I do try to live under the influence of God’s grace. Without grace in my life I definitely have a difficult time with my choices and my resentments and my pain from the past. I suppose I could say (since this happens to be a good moment) that had I not experienced the things I had I would be a totally different person (maybe good, maybe awful) and I wouldn’t have met so many people who need me and I need them. And despite it all, and even though I still suffer from my PTSD, today, I sort of like the person I’ve become and am becoming. Try not to solve it all at once. Maturity and growth are sometimes very frustrating to experience.  I once had a person tell me that trying to see changes in ourselves is like trying to watch a glass of water evaporate — if you just stare at it it seems that nothing is happening. However, if you look at that same glass of water a week later, a month later, etc. you’ll see some pretty dramatic changes. Keep up the good work, Sally. Peace. Minerva W.

Response:

Hey! > Well, good for you and you managed to live to tell about it (LOL).

Yeah, just… > You’re right, therapy is very scary. It seems that you were very fortunate > to run into Christa.

Only if she has not told the one person I bitch about because I hate her. And that person happens to share a house with Christa… I did ask her not to tell anyone what I have to talk to the counsellor about, so I sincerely hope she remembered and respected that when she was telling her housemate. Although, I don’t mind the housemate knowing that I am at the counselling session (for which it appears she thinks I do not need someone to "hold my hand" if you like – but then she thinks I am just having a minor crisis of confidence as far as my work goes… I’m not about to set her straight on that one) in the first place. But this housemate went to one of my friends after I talked to her some time back about another problem I had, and asked her about it, and after that I felt I couldn’t trust her. Christa is a good person, I don’t think she would go round telling other people, even her housemate, what I am going through right now and why. Christa I believe firmly I can trust, Margarete no. > You are surrounded by people who genuinely care about you — in person > (and now a new therapist) and on the internet. All of us are rooting for > you and your success.

Thanks – much appreciated. > And then I got a lesson in "free will".  Please if you get triggered by > "God talk" exit at this point…

I never really was the religious type. Went to church because my mother went and took us both along too. Went along but then in later years found through my studies for my first set of public exams that elements of each religion I studied at school seemed to appeal, but never one complete religion. Always little tiny bits of each. So I got really confused and wound up retreating from religions altogether, believing that one day I will find the religion which best suits me, whether that is a religion or atheism. Sure, I don’t really believe in God anymore, but what happened to me was only part of my walking away from religion. I was never fiercely religious to begin with either. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T > God, when he created us gave each of us a very free and (dangerous) gift > — free will.  Which means I have the power to choose good or to choose > evil (among other things).

I don’t want to start a debate on religion, because I can get pretty narky and probably even now begin to sound drastically narrowminded, which generally I try to avoid seeming. > That means some of God’s children have the capability to choose evil.

My take on all this is, one of the ten commandments asks to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves, and everyone is equal under God. Those who do what they have to the people on this ng break that mould, and so badly that it cannot ever be fixed. > How awful to live in a world manipulated by a God who decided all the > outcomes.

And how awful to live in a world where God gives people the right to do what they have done to all of us without him protecting us all. > I suppose I could say (since this happens to be a good moment) that had I > not experienced the things I had I would be a totally different person…

Had I not experienced the things which I have done, ok, in some ways I would be worse off, I have made some brilliant friends in the last few years, and others who have hurt more than helped. But had I not experienced this whole train thing, I would not feel betrayed by so many and helped by so few, you know? I would not be wondering who I could turn to for help and I would never have managed to hide something inside of me which really I should have outed as soon as was possible. Everyone has their own beliefs, and I do respect them – I guess this shows mine… Like I said, I don’t want to start a war on the ng so soon after the last has died down, you know? Take care, Sally xxxxx

Response:

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