Do You believe that one can heal from abuse?

[October]

So how do you feel about CBT October? Seriously.   

I think that is what my last t did with me.  There was a lot of good stuff in it, but the problem for me was that the system which supported that t was not adequate to keep me safe enough within it for me to benefit from it as much as I could have done.

With ptsd there is a huge element of hypervigilance; always on the alert for danger.  If the alert signals are triggered, then the t will not be able to work, because self protection comes before growth.  So, for example, Diane told me to write down nice things people said about me, and I did.  I bought a book, and wrote them down.  But then she went on holiday for two weeks, without any cover, and when she returned I explained to her how hard it is not to have anyone as a safety net, just in case, and she tried to tell me that was my problem, not hers, and to go to A&E, and then the next week she told me she was leaving.

Interpretation:  If you tell someone that they have been able to hurt you, then they will use that knowledge and hurt you even more.

And all of that was July 2004, and I am still waiting for the replacement. 

So CBT might work, but not in this kind of scenario, where the most vulnerable person in the chain is the one who always has to pay for any failing or any inadequacy in the system.  Even if your expectations are very very low indeed, in my experience, the NHS can disappoint you, and then blame you for expecting too much, and wanting too much.

I have yet to hear anyone tell me that actually, my expectations are reasonable, and I have been seriously let down.  However ...

The priorities for healing in cptsd according to Judith Herman are first safety, which can take years to establish.  Second trust.  Third reconnection.  I have never yet achieved the first, with any t.  And situations like the one above make it harder the next time, because you learn more caution, more fear and more hesitancy every time. 

I do not know how long it takes before I become incurable, but there has to be, somewhere, a point of no return.  I just hope and pray that I have not already passed it. 

[Hopalong]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you have not!

hope and pray I have not already passed it.

 

You've been waiting since 2004 for a new T? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I want you to take care of Ocotober, okay?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (me being frustrated at the idea of you being despairing)

BTW, when I'm not imitating tigers, I think you are SO smart, October, and so very insightful about yourself. There's no way you wouldn't do wonderfully with a stable, consisttent T. Maybe you need an older T who's gotten where they're going and wouldn't be rotating off to some new job???

((((((((((October)))))))))))))))

Hops

[October]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you have not!

hope and pray I have not already passed it.

 

You've been waiting since 2004 for a new T? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 

Yes.  I can tell you a thousand NHS excuses why this is the case, but in the end, it comes down to me, alone, waiting to be heard.

I want you to take care of Ocotober, okay?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (me being frustrated at the idea of you being despairing)

BTW, when I'm not imitating tigers, I think you are SO smart, October, and so very insightful about yourself. There's no way you wouldn't do wonderfully with a stable, consisttent T. Maybe you need an older T who's gotten where they're going and wouldn't be rotating off to some new job???

Thanks, Hops.  I like tigers.     And you are right, I need a stable, consistent t. 

The only problem is, there is nobody around who can help, and I have been referred to Oxford.  I have no idea how many miles away from here Oxford is, but at a rough estimate it must be 50 - 60 miles.  Which makes a 120 mile round trip, with t in the middle. 

I have no idea how anyone can think that is achievable.  But I have no appointment as yet, and no information about what will happen.  I will go (eventually!) for the assessment, and take it from there.  But if by some miracle a job came up first, there is no doubt in my mind that I would take it, and find my own healing.

I am not good at taking care of myself, because I have very little experience of what that looks like, or feels like.  But I try to take care of d, and by extension, realise that d without her mum is not a good idea.  Which works round to taking at least some care of whoever it is that I am.   

[GAP]

I'm able to mark my healing from abuse in a much more concrete manner then most.  When I filed for divorce after 20 years on a roller coaster of abuse I was a broken woman.  To the ourside world that didn't know about the abuse I appeared strong and courages for taking a stand.  To my close friends and therapist they knew I either filed or die.  When I think about the woman who wept out loud, that actually wrote journal entries contemplating learning techniques to manage abuse and considered returning to the craziness I can't believe how far I have come in a little over 3 years.

In my case I had kids to heal and very little authentic family support.  The narcissim of my authentic family kicked into full gear and I had to also withdraw from them in order to get better.  I was fortunate to have good friends, buy every book I could on the subject of narcissim, meet some excellent therapist (met some not so good ones to along the way) and somehow find the innner strength to put one foot in front of the other. 

Your question and other's answers really made me think and realize how far I have come.  I know I'm a much better mother, pick healthier friends, can spot a narcissistic man (or woman) in a heartbeat, have started believing in myself, enjoy living without feeling apprehensive of reprecussions and abuse. 

So I guess the answer to your question is yes, the wounds heal, you get stronger but you will always have the scars.  Sometimes they will itch to remind you of your wound, sometimes you will act in  certain ways that you may not be proud of only to realize it is your way to protect yourself from others  seeing your scars. Just as real scars  can be beautiful and interesting and add character if we stop trying to hide them and accept them so can emotional scars.  If we accept them and see them as helping make us into the people we are today they can be the key to us living a more fufilling life.  Healing truly begins when we leave victim mode and entire survivor mode!

[Portia]

(((((((Moonlight on the thread again ))))))


October

About those flashbacks, I remember you talking about this before. When I’m with people, I tend to concentrate a lot on what they say, how they behave and afterwards I’m exhausted from the stimulation. Alone, I do many re-runs of conversations, gestures, facial expressions and have a mentally active time analysing and replaying things. I can try not to do re-runs so long as I have some replacement activity (book, television) but it’s not easy.

After a two-day visit to another house and interacting with between three and eight people, I feel very tired but also totally over-stimulated, unable to stop the brain doing its stuff. This doesn’t sound to me like your flashbacks, but I wonder if both reactions are something to do with being deeply introverted and well, analytical? Is it something that could be trained in both of us to be beneficial - and if not, perhaps trained to calm down a bit? I don’t know!

I remember what that T said about it being your problem and about going to A&E. I can see her position (over-stretched, fire-fighting NHS general therapist with no specific training to help your sort of problem) and I can understand your reaction and emotional interpretation. And so can you! Is that part of the mix, the fact that you’re too bright for the system? 

I think many people on the receiving end of NHS mental health care are too bright for the system. I’m serious. Maybe your expectations are reasonable to you, they may not be reasonable to the NHS. Until you’re taking your own or someone else’s life, you’re not going to get priority – that is the way the system works. And the priority you’d get in those situations – I wouldn’t want to go there. Some of our A&E departments still treat severe cutters with disdain and contempt – keep them bleeding and waiting because it’s ‘their own fault’. The system is not intelligent. It's rubbish but that's the way it is.

I do not know how long it takes before I become incurable, but there has to be, somewhere, a point of no return. 

No there doesn’t have to be that point, I won’t believe it . ((((((((((October)))))))))


Gap

How far you’ve come .

Just as real scars  can be beautiful and interesting and add character if we stop trying to hide them and accept them so can emotional scars.  If we accept them and see them as helping make us into the people we are today they can be the key to us living a more fufilling life. 

My vulnerability makes me stronger. Are you a safe person Gap - here, want to look at my scars?

Healing truly begins when we leave victim mode and entire survivor mode!   

I like being a survivor and I like survivors. I love 'em.

[October]

About those flashbacks, I remember you talking about this before. When I’m with people, I tend to concentrate a lot on what they say, how they behave and afterwards I’m exhausted from the stimulation. Alone, I do many re-runs of conversations, gestures, facial expressions and have a mentally active time analysing and replaying things. I can try not to do re-runs so long as I have some replacement activity (book, television) but it’s not easy.

After a two-day visit to another house and interacting with between three and eight people, I feel very tired but also totally over-stimulated, unable to stop the brain doing its stuff. This doesn’t sound to me like your flashbacks, but I wonder if both reactions are something to do with being deeply introverted and well, analytical? Is it something that could be trained in both of us to be beneficial - and if not, perhaps trained to calm down a bit? I don’t know! 

That does sound very similar.  As I understand it, if the brain is overactivated with adrenaline, due to whatever stressor switches it on, there is an increased chance of memories being stored iin a different place from normal.  Normal memory gets stored and fades with time.  Traumatic memory gets stored elsewhere, in a kind of emergency mode, and gets reviewed endlessly, in order for the person to learn from it to avoid danger in future.  No matter how many times you review it, and no matter what length of time passes, the memory does not fade.  It stays fresh, and detailed, and brings back every detail - sounds, smells, feelings, and sometimes you cannot tell where you are in time and that it is not happening again in reality.  Part of the cure is to ground yourself in where you are, and study details of the time, place etc in order to not get sucked into the past.

This makes sense from a biological perspective, but when a person is overdosing on adrenaline because of being hypervigilant it has the effect of making everything traumatic, and every simple interaction subject to the same review and assessment process.  It is not a conscious thing, and neither is it easy to switch it off.  I avoid it by reading at night until I am tired, and then putting out the light.  Most days this works, but if there is something to be reviewed, it then starts, and I find myself half an hour later exhausted with the mental effort, and further from sleep.  At the same time my eyes are so tired, and it really hurts to turn the light back on again and force myself back into the book, to close access to my mind from the traumatic stuff.  Then I do the whole thing again.

Is that part of the mix, the fact that you’re too bright for the system? 

It is certainly the case that, imo, you need to have a therapist who is capable of leading you towards insights.  If you find that you are the one leading the t, then that might help her learning process, but will not help your recovery.  Diane was able to give me lots of insights, but she was not specialist in my condition, and was not able to see things which she did not already know.  In other words, if the system said one thing, and I said another, then the system had to be right. 

I do not know how long it takes before I become incurable, but there has to be, somewhere, a point of no return. 

No there doesn’t have to be that point, I won’t believe it . ((((((((((October)))))))))

   I won't believe it either.  But that doesn't mean that it won't happen, or that it hasn't already.  I may have to settle, after all, for what I have, and hope that the next generation can do the living instead.   

Being physically tired is becoming a real problem for me.  It may help to have more to do, or even just a new direction to try, but meanwhile, I am so tired all the time. 

[Portia]

I read this yesterday and felt a little overwhelmed just reading your descriptions, which is no help to you is it , or maybe it would be if you could print out all your descriptions and get your new T to read them before seeing you...to save time so that they can focus on you in the here and now. I often think that - that they could use some of the allotted time focusing on what a person writes, rather than using the personal time up with descriptions, maybe some do? i don't know. I remember someone here a long time ago saying they gave their written stuff to a T who, when the therapy ended unsuccessfully, said he'd thrown it away! This was in the UK. Sheesh.

I wanted to ask - please forgive me if you've talked about this before - if you've been given any type of medication for sleeping, or to slow or stop the mental cycling and dull the overactivation?

[October]

I read this yesterday and felt a little overwhelmed just reading your descriptions, which is no help to you is it , or maybe it would be if you could print out all your descriptions and get your new T to read them before seeing you...to save time so that they can focus on you in the here and now. I often think that - that they could use some of the allotted time focusing on what a person writes, rather than using the personal time up with descriptions, maybe some do? i don't know. I remember someone here a long time ago saying they gave their written stuff to a T who, when the therapy ended unsuccessfully, said he'd thrown it away! This was in the UK. Sheesh.

I wanted to ask - please forgive me if you've talked about this before - if you've been given any type of medication for sleeping, or to slow or stop the mental cycling and dull the overactivation?

I don't blame you for feeling overwhelmed.  That is why I live in a pretty constant dissociative state.  If reality ever hits, it isn't nice.

No, I am not on meds at present.  I believe that there is a case, sometimes, for a combination of meds, therapy and social suppport.  But I do not believe on taking meds when the rest is absent, because the danger is that I then settle for what I have, rather than fighting for what I ought to have.

I have some diazepam, which I use for emergencies (such as the dentist yesterday - took 2 because in right state, only to find all is fine.), and I only use about 2 or maybe 3 in a month, so it is very occasional.  Every time I see a doctor they try to talk me into taking antidepressants, and I generally agree to try, and then decide, actually, there is no point.  I also have St John's Wort, which can take the edge off if I am getting too snappy with d, or something like that.  It helps just enough.

I did take an anti-psychotic at one time, when I had a doctor I trusted.  It was a tiny dose, and the first time I took it was really marvellous.  It was as if someone had switched off a great noise in my head, and turned on a beautiful white light instead.  I could still think, but it was so peaceful.  However, that only lasted for an hour or two, and then the noise was back.  So the doctor said to increase the dose, and I did, but the light never came back.  Then he left, and I stopped taking them, because they were not having any effect.

I think it is that noise which tires me out.  All that thinking going on, to very little effect.   

What tends to happen with me is that the therapeutic effect gradually wears off, and I get left with the same symptoms, plus side effects from the meds.  I end up on the highest doses, with nothing working.  Which makes me think that the depression is in some way that we do not yet understand a protection, and something that my body is determined to maintain as long as it needs to, whatever chemicals get put into its way.  So given that scenario, I prefer to let nature take its course, and know that whatever I have and whatever I feel is me, and nothing else.

I have written poems in the past about what all of this is like, and I have given them to therapists, but in my experience, none of them has read them, or used the information contained within them to achieve anything worthwhile.  I generally get them back at the end, but then feel invisible.  So I won't bother with that again.  We learn as we go along.   

[Hopalong]

October, you sound very strong but also fatalistic.
Do any of the alternative things work v. your depression?

(Exercise, SAD light + tea, yoga...)

Hops

[moonlight52]

Sov & Safe ,

 I must say the icky can be removed. For any of the ones that were here when I first posted I was a truly in pain and believed I was worthless.

Not so any more .Funny how my h believed in me even when I did not .I do not know what that means but it is true.

The feeling is a kin to being on a beach with this film you can not remove and you walk and search and just over the hill there it is a pool of blue water you jump in and when you walk out you are washed of the film that was previously there free to experience the world with your true self.

S&S I can not agree more confronting the pain works for me square in the eye.Yep I ignore them as well.How was I to know it could get to a point where I just do not care.

But I do not want to cause pain I just believe after I have given so much to make foo look good It's my turn hello at 50 can I please live my life now?????

YES a big yes for healing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Always

MoonLight,


p.s.  I have kept the secret of the child abuse for all these years to protect parent I would like to find some way to help children in painful situations.

[Ineverknewangelsflew]

I believe it is possible to heal from abuse. For me it takes stamina to endure the time required. My sister has taught me that the times of searing pain are the times we are healing most deeply. I don't believe in self pity. I mean that feeling bad about yourself and being in a psychological soup of self loathing seems to be part of healing.I am interruping those voices now with meditation or with really getting into them rather than trying to extinguish them. I also do tapping that I learned in EMDR and find it helps to move through panic attacks more quickly.
Crying while being held  really helps restore my spirit.
I wonder about the question and the spirit of the question. Is this asked from a place a hopelessness? Connection with safe people really helps me. I find this site helps in that way.
What have you tried to help you heal from abuse? I think surviving abuse is sort of like surviving being mauled by a tiger. There are things you have to do automatically in order to survive the attack. The first thing is to get away fromt abuse and set boundaries ( even small ones).
Surrendering your burden to god, goddess and all that is helps to. Some things are just too big for a person to handle. Surrendering the burden and watching quietly for what comes to you is helpful,

[moonlight52]

Hey Iknewangels,

I wonder about the question and the spirit of the question. Is this asked from a place a hopelessness? Connection with safe people really helps me. I find this site helps in that way.

The Spirit in which the question was asked was from knowing healing does happen .
I have felt all those feelings you have mentioned.
But my healing came when I understood the worthlessness I always felt was because of the guilt in my family of origin not in me.

So when I understood my behaviors and came here I started to detach from the source of my pain.
I am healing I like myself I will not tolerate ill treatment from others .These are ideas I never understood before.I am worthy.
Now I do feel safe I have learned so much about protecting myself and how to understand people's behaviors better.

I have learned from suffering but humans can learn without suffering this is true.
Resting at times in between the work is a good thing to do .
To pick up when you are stronger and process your feelings is a good idea.

I posted this question and my heart was already filled with the answer and where the answer began for me .
Love and compassion for self also to be strong for self and then for others.
To know how to heal means telling your truth in a way that is comfortable for you.

Blessings to you

moonlight

[October]

Crying while being held  really helps restore my spirit.

This might well help - I can see that it would.  However, not everyone has someone they can trust enough to do the holding bit.

Some people have a tape which says, if you don't stop that crying I'll give you something to cry for.  Which means that tears are shameful, and to be hidden.  Any kind of vulnerability can be abused.  Sad, but true. 

[October]

October, you sound very strong but also fatalistic.
Do any of the alternative things work v. your depression?

(Exercise, SAD light + tea, yoga...)

Hops

I am not fatalistic in the sense that I think I have no control over what happens to me, and that whatever is meant to be will happen.  A lot of it will happen because I make it happen.

But I am realistic (I hope) about what is within my control, and therefore likely to happen, and what is subject to other people's varying levels of concern, and therefore less likely to happen. 

Exercise does not lift the depression.  Sunlight can help.  Drinking tea can help.  Yoga, I have not tried, but meditation is not good generally.  Raises anxiety.  I have to meditate while being active; gardening or whatever.

What helps most is physical human contact, but I have very little of this.  Even a handshake can help me feel connected.

[Portia]

October,

been reading back. Have you read ‘Prozac diary’ ? Your description reminded me of her experiences of Prozac and how she reached a point of no effect – and all her obsessive behaviours came back. Frightening stuff. She upped the dose and continued on it (don’t know what she does now but at the time she reckoned she’d be on them forever).

Which makes me think that the depression is in some way that we do not yet understand a protection, and something that my body is determined to maintain as long as it needs to

I agree in as much as I think that this can be true sometimes, for some people.

Crying, too true. I cry more now and more freely, I can cry in the street. I’ll probably get locked up for it one day!

Interesting, I have to try and remember to touch people – handshakes, hugs etc – have to make the effort to think about it, otherwise it doesn’t enter my mind and it’s not ‘natural’ to me. Does touch ‘ground’ you October? For me it invades my privacy/independence or something.


Moon

I love the image of the blue pool washing the film off. I’ve been having dreams like this over the past two years or so – always water, sometimes the sea, swimming through it and finding memories, washing the past. Dreams have told me a lot. 

I would like to find some way to help children in painful situations.
Me too. How shall we?