I just want to say .........

[Twoapenny]

Aaaarrgghhhh!!  Bloody hell, it still knocks me sideways sometimes!  Was taking part in an on line discussion today about law and order, amongst other things, and the conversation turned to issues relating to abuse.  Initially I thought I was handling it well and was giving myself a big pat on the back for being at a point where I could talk about things - in very general terms, not personal stuff - without being badly affected by it.  An hour later, I came out in a rash all over my body, I started to shake, my muscles ache as if I'm holding something in (or up), I feel terribly sick, my head has that horrible foggy feeling coming over it, I feel incredibly irritable, my skin feels sensitive - like every nerve ending is jangling and that feeling of disassociation has started to come upon me.  I have taken my herbal tablets, drunk lots of herbal tea, the house is clean and tidy and I can just go to bed - will probably all be better in the morning but bloody hell, I really thought this was behind me and here it is again.  Sorry for ranting but bugger bugger bugger!!!!!

[Ales2]

Hi (((((((((((Two)))))))))))))

So sorry to hear about this. Its very hard sometimes even when not talking about it directly that the old feelings get triggered. I was in T today and started scratching my arm as we talked. I came out with a rash and needed ointment as my scratching broke the skin.

I can relate - although your reaction sounds more involved. I'll just throw this out there - have you ever tried to envision yourself having solved the problem when you arise? Sometimes, it helps to just say "I'm beyond this" and go to bed thinking and feeling that you ARE beyond it. I've done this and it seems to settle my subconscious into thinking that things ARE being solved. Actually, I need to follow my own advice again, its been awhile since I've done this and it has worked for me in the past.

sending best wishes to you....

[Meh]

Gosh, hope it resolves in a few days. It's amazing that emotions can cause what sounds like a poison ivy reaction!

I still think there is more to emotion than "cognitive interpretation of a physiological response".

[sKePTiKal]

Oh, Penny... I'm sorry, really I am. Those taboos about "talking about it" are that strong, for sure. And they do show up physically like this -- I've got my own issues that I'm currently dealing with too. Funny how it's "itchy" stuff... too...

Maybe... since skin is kinda the vehicle for another type of communication - tactile soothing - a massage would help? A warm bath?

[lighter]

((((Tup)))))

::Handing Tup a cup of tea::

I'm so sorry you're feeling like that, dear.

Letting all that poison out of your system is probably necessary.

I picture the rash as a physical manifestation of all the abuse and keeping of secrets.

Let it out, mourne it, keen in the shower like an animal for yourself when your son isn't home, but get it out of your system, bc it's time for it to go.

Lighter

[Twoapenny]

You are all amazing.  Still feeling like shit but hanging in there - soothing, nurturing and being good to myself.  Will write more when my head is in a better place but thank you, all of you.

[Ales2]

I had to get up and put benadryl spray on it last night at 2am. I think taking care of the rash is also a metaphor for taking care of ourselves emotionally too. I'm going to put on more lotion each day until its gone and use more moisturizer, maybe its just dry skin that needs to be tended too.

I also went to be envisioning the I am done, solved and beyond therapy and today I wake up feeling it to be so. I'm going to try this again every night this week with things in my life I want to finish.

(((((Two))) hope you are getting better today.

[Twoapenny]

Sorry, just rambling and need to get things out of my head, will respond to posts properly soon.

There are patterns - that's what I notice, patterns in my life that still keep occuring despite all the attempts I have made to change things.  This particular situation was triggered, I think by:

Refusal of other to acknowledge how I feel - attempts were made to rationalise my feelings.  They're my feelings, I own them, I don't need to justify or explain them to people, they are there and they are valid.  Over and over again, for almost thirty years now, people have denied me my right to feel.

Focus on the behaviour of the victim and their response rather than the offender.  Again, a pattern - coming into contact with people who think 'victims' should behave and react a certain way.  Over and over again people have justified or explained the abuse by focusing on my behaviour and the way in which I deal with it rather than focusing on the abuser.

Dismissing me as irrational, emotional - generally not listening - no voice!!!!!!!!  So many people want to deny me a voice.

Inability to accept difference - I have a view, you have a view.  A view is an opinion, right?  Not a statement of fact, not a right or wrong - I like coffee, you don't.  Neither of us has a greater right to an opinion - but again, a pattern of people who are convinced they are right and I am not, because we see things differently.

Being shouted down - I get this a lot - people who over power you in order to silence - sometimes physically, sometimes verbally, sometimes emotionally.

More generally - friends who are there through circumstance, rather than friendship.  So many people in my life basically see me as someone to accompany them somewhere.  I have thought and thought and thought about why I am so alone.  I can't do a lot of socialising because of my son's disability.  Therefore I hardly ever see anyone.  A friend would visit instead, rather than inviting me to things I can't go to?

Dumped when no longer useful - this has happened to me so many times in my life.  I feel invisible.  I feel ignored and disconnected and like no-one has got any clue I even exist.  Inner child?  15?  I reckon around two dozen people know my step father abused me now, and not one person has even had a go at him about it.     He is surrounded and protected.  I am alone and vulnerable.  If he speaks, people obey.  If I speak I am silenced.

What to do next?  More counselling?  Have had so much I don't know whether there's any point?  Is it that effective if 12 years down the line this is still happening?  Sorry - rambling.  Just need to get things out of my head.  Will write properly later.

[BonesMS]

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((TwoAPenny)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[sKePTiKal]

Can I ramble along with you? I'm "going through something", too... and these thoughts sort of hit home with me, as a place for me to start:

Refusal of other to acknowledge how I feel - attempts were made to rationalise my feelings.  They're my feelings, I own them, I don't need to justify or explain them to people, they are there and they are valid.  Over and over again, for almost thirty years now, people have denied me my right to feel.

Focus on the behaviour of the victim and their response rather than the offender.  Again, a pattern - coming into contact with people who think 'victims' should behave and react a certain way.  Over and over again people have justified or explained the abuse by focusing on my behaviour and the way in which I deal with it rather than focusing on the abuser.

... that phrase: "people have denied me my right to feel"... that reality, has so affected me, that I (much of the time) am walking around not even paying attention, expecting that I might, or even being aware... that I feel ___________. And then, when I do feel - and still not being conscious of it, really - inevitably someone (most often my hubs... sigh...) insists that I need to feel something else instead... or not feel as intensely as I feel - and I'm left befuddled wondering what the hell he's talking about - because my brain's not processing the collective sensations into an understanding of "I feel ______." Talk about a relational "death spiral"! Leaves people around me confused, too. And takes forever to process it down to "here's what happened".

Usually this has to do with anger or sadness or frustration -- but the kicker is - what my hubs doesn't realize - is that by clamping down on any one emotion, selectively... they're ALL clamped down. That switch is on/off for everything... and the programming code doesn't allow for variables: this emotion, not that one. At least, that's how I've seen it work for me... maybe I'm missing something.

[Twoapenny]

Hi all,

Starting to get back to normal.  I feel like I've been run over and I'm so tired I want to stay in bed for a week, but the fogginess has lifted and the numbness has gone.  Normal life is returning!!

The therapy question is one I'm still thinking over.  I found a listing for a different therapist; I'm wondering if I would benefit from a different approach for a while?  Not really sure what to do but I feel like fate is steering me along a certain path.  I've repeatedly called Rape Crisis and have only been able to get their answerphone.  My old T only has an appointment free at the one time in the week I really can't get along to.  Perhaps I should just wait and see if a solution is presented to me.

I feel so incredibly flawed.  It came over me in bed last night; I have always felt that there is something fundamentally wrong with me and that I needed to improve myself.  I have done so much over the years, made so many changes to my personality, my appearance, my lifestyle, my circumstances, all in the hope of filling this great gaping hole inside me.  Why am I so bad?  Why am I so hateful, so unacceptable, so ugly and stupid and useless?  How can anyone be so unloveable?  How can one person be so revolting to so many people?  I am thinking this is inner child stuff - 15, maybe?  There's been a big gap - last time was around eight years.  The abuse started at 12.  Maybe I'm starting with it near the end and working backwards?

Anyway.  I am having a weekend of nurture and niceness.  I am spending the weekend with my adult self, my 15 year old and my actual ten year old.  We are not going to pressurise ourselves or make ourselves do anything.  We will do what we feel like doing, when we feel like it, and if that means lots of time doing nothing that is what we will do.

Phoenix, I identify with what you say.  Who has a right to tell us what we should and shouldn't feel, how strongly we should feel it, whether or not what we feel is rational?  It's there, we need to own it and give it space to be, I think.

Bones, Ales, LIghter, Staright, thank you for your kind words and advice.  It all makes a really big difference. Thank you

[Twoapenny]

Back again, just writing stuff down as it comes to me.  I think?  feel?  that I have spent my whole life trying to create a life within which I can live, instead of living the one I have.  Perhaps the one I had as a child was too difficult so I had to keep creating new ones to put some space between me and it?  I forever need a project to work on, a situation to develop or cope with, a problem or a crisis to be working on.  I can never just sit still and accept and be who I am, what I am.  I find myself completey unacceptable.  So I am going to try to just be this weekend - not to focus on anything in particular, just to sit when I want to, talk when I want to, to try to stop second guessing and getting it right all the time, even with myself, with who I am - who I think I ought to be, rather than who I am?  Confusing myself now, will stop thinking and go sit quietly!

Thank you all for being there, for your understanding and acceptance.  Dr G, thank you for this board and for giving all of us the space to be who we need to.  Thank you

[sKePTiKal]

I wonder...

in some ways, in your rambling... I hear a bit of my own itchy, restless, squirmy, but tired, sluggish, tired-of-it-all beat head on wall ... sigh... ONE MORE TIME... and try to "get" whatever it is... that I don't have... or see what everyone but me sees... or... something!

and I wonder...
for me, in my circumstance, if I haven't got my understanding of my personal situation completely bass-ackwards. In that, what I really NEED in my present moment isn't something I "don't have"... rather, what I NEED... is to let something GO. Like I'm carrying too much and it's starting to slip out of my fingers as I strain to lug something I never really liked or wanted in the first place around with me, to the next stage of my life...

I wonder...
if it's like my inner child is the "guardian" of my strong emotional core self... and running through the self-exposure, the self-analysis, the hypervigilant double-checking, personal responsibility, self-reflexive picking at old and new wounds... just doesn't cut it anymore. It was great to finally experience that; I absolutely NEEDED to experience that - once.  The "magic" of that process - while completely appropriate initially - wears off. (and every T will have a different perception of and opinion about - me). And maybe "someone else" never, ever had the "magic" to accomplish the final "hat trick"...

I wonder...
if - in it's simplicity - there is more powerful "magic" in reminding myself: my perception of the world around me, of my own self (thoughts & emotions & behavior) was overtly TRAINED to first accept a negative definition and description and "prediction" of motivations. The word "can't"... inability to... seems to be some kind of strange nemesis for me - something to be defeated, proven wrong, a type of tyranny of self-definition....

So many good things about life were tainted for me, at such an early age, with this negativity... the "bad", the "can't", the shame, even.

Maybe this "discomfort" I'm experiencing is simply my inner child desperately trying to get my attention and permission to change the "channel". Watch, experience (even if vicariously)... DO... BE... something else - SANS the constant automatic NEGATIVE association. Put it down, bury it in the sand, let the ocean have it... forget where I left it...

I really don't need THAT, now do I?

I'm gonna buy 2 pair of cheap sunglasses. One pair will have black frames and dark, dark lenses. The other will have white frames with green (the color of healing) lenses. When I take off the black pair - it'll be reminder to just set down that whole complete encyclopedia of "negative" - too. Put on, (even if I'm "putting myself on") my soul-satisfying-it's all good in this very moment- glasses... once a day. And then go giggle at myself for such a rediculous idea.

THAT'S "good juju". DO-BE-DO-BE-DOO....

[Twoapenny]

Hi Phoenix,

I'm sorry to take so long to respond to your last post.  I felt that I needed to do more inner child work and to work more on the sexual abuse after my last 'incident'.  I got a couple of self help books which I am finding helpful but I'm still amazed at how strongly this stuff resonates inside me and I find doing just a little bit of work on it takes me a long, long time.  So I haven't felt able to concentrate on much else and it's only today that I've sat down and read your post properly.

I think a lot of what you say is how I feel at the moment.  I think, because I'm approaching 40, I feel that I want to make my own decisions, rather than letting my past define me.  And I feel like, to do that, I need to heal that little girl, at every stage in her life, because she's still drawing me to experiences that make me notice her and re-experience the shame, the humiliation, the degredation and the over whelming sense that no-one cares.  I've also been reading a bit about somatic therapy, and that kind of makes sense to me - I get such intense physical sensations linked to rape and sexual abuse but there is very little in the way of clear memories.  So I am trying to work through that a bit at a time.  I guess it all links in together, in some way.

I think your idea with the sunglasses is a great one - that kind of external change of a viewpoint prompting an internal shift.  I am currently trying to be more in touch with my body.  I realised, whilst reading about somatic therapy, that I don't 'feel' my body at all.  I know it's there, but the only sensations I experience are pain. I have a lot of pain in my joints, my muscles, my bones.  I can rub my skin and I only 'feel' it if my skin is rough and scratchy.  If it's smooth then it's like it isn't even there.  So I'm trying to spend more time in myself, trying to feel my body parts, to touch them, to look at them with something other than disgust.

I think your comments about needing to let go are spot on.  I really feel it's about giving away things now, not bringing things in; an internal clear out of junk and old feelings and sensations that I don't need any more.  I'm not in danger now.  No-one can do those things to me again.  I have the skills I need to cope.  I think we were trained to pick up the negative, as you say, and see that befoer we see anything else.

Kind of rambling here now, as needs must sometimes!  But feeling better in myself, more real?  More me - all of me, the good bits, the not so good.  I hope you are doing okay? xx

[KayZee]

(((Twoapenny)))

Just had to let you know how strong, brave, insightful and fundamentally good you are.  It take so much courage to just sit with these strong emotions and continue to sift through them even after the storm has passed.  You're an inspiration.  Hang in there and remember to be as warm and compassionate to yourself as you are to so many of us on here.

lots of love, Kay x