Ready To Heal

[Skyfeather]

Ok, so I've been on here for about a week and I feel ready to open up a bit. I began remembering the abuse a few months ago. I always knew there was something wrong, something different but couldn't remember. I remember the acting out I did as a child, I remember the physical abuse done by my family and I remember the 2 rapes but I still can't remember the actual sexual abuse. My body remembers and keeps flashing me with vignettes and smells and emotions. I started therapy in August but would leave each session feeling bad about myself. I felt like she wasn't understanding me and she minimized my suspicions of sexual abuse. She kept saying I just needed to "journal it out", get on some depression meds and "get out there and meet people." After a couple months of this I decided to liten to my gut and look for another T. I found one who duing our first session encouraged me to talk about what I was feeling, about the suspected abuse, about my childhood...blah, blah, blah, and got me some contacts for group support and psychiatry. What a difference! I felt relieved and heard when I left her office. I am nervous to go back but looking forward to it next week.

I reached out to some friends and recieved support from 3 of them, the 3 closest to me. I couldn't ask for better friends. I haven't told my family yet. Not sure how to go about that. My mother has suspicions about me being abused and that makes me angry. If you have suspicions about your child being hurt you should follow up on them. I did tell her I was seeing a T who specializes in PTSD and childhood abuse, hoping to get it into her head that I am taking care of what she didn't.~Whoa, just realized that~ I am finding a lot of fake people while on this journey too. If I mention that I have PTSD I see 2 reactions. Either that look of concern followed by "Can I do anything to help?" or a look of pity mixed with confusion, as if I don't look unstable so I couldn't possibly be suffering.

I began researching sexual abuse on my own a few years ago. I've read up on disassociation, PTSD, DID, and all things related. This has helped and hurt my recovery. The helping part is that I recognize some of the stages and while mentally replaying parts of my childhood I am able to tell myself that my coping skills were normal for that kind of abuse. The hurting part is that I am sensitive to all kinds of abuse and see it everywhere. I believe that abuse is rampant and the norm rather than the exception. It is evil but we are all capable of it without realizing it. I teach preschool and see it everyday. People abuse each other, children re-enact abuse on each other, on teachers, and teachers abuse students (not the severe, sexual abuse but the manipulative, condescending, verbal and psychological abuse). This is making work difficult for me. I am trying to bring this to light to the people doing it. They truly do not see it. This makes me wonder if my abuser was able to see himself for what he truly was. I can look back on the times where I was abusive(verbally-yelling) to students I had 10+ yrs ago and I see how awful I was. I do not make the same mistakes today. Does my abuser feel remorse? Since he was/is mentally unstable is he uncapable of feeling that remorse normal people feel?

Well, I will ramble more later, this is making me angry. Please comment. I appreciate any insight or uplifting commentary.

Skyfeather

Edited December 7, 2013 by Skyfeather

[angelic]

Hello Skyfeather,

welcome to After Silence, my name is Paula and I am one of the newbie support team here. I hope you are finding your way around the board okay,. if you need any help with anything, please let me know and I will help if I can

take care, Paula

[drowningnotwaving]

Welcome Skyfeather

[~FOUND~]

Welcome!