No doubt about it, his attraction to hysteria was probably subconscious healing. That's an interesting theory...I wonder if the people who use denial until the day they die feel that telling the truth will actually kill them? I mean, it is a sort of death when you grieve your lost parts, and face them, remember what happened for you to be who you are presently.
My mom uses denial 20 times a day and she has done this for all of my life. I am still astounded at how strongly her belief that nothing is wrong with her is. Nothing could ever prove her wrong. Even if I were to show her video of one of her psychotic episodes, she would make an excuse and say everyone acts that way and go on with her day...

I don't know about killing them but I know experiencing PTSD while reliving a memories can feel like you are dying sometimes.One of my relatives actually thought she was going to die as she relived a memory on the phone to me.She basically begged me not to ask her anymore about the abuse she suffered because she thought she was going to die from a stroke or heart attack.This woman is 25 years old and has already been hospitalized for what the doctors believe to be a stroke.She went two weeks with half of her body being paralyzed and then her ability to move just mysteriously came back.Little does she or her doctors know that people with MPD/DID can suffer partial or full paralysis as a symptom. If I tried to confront her with this knowledge she would most likely just deny until she is ready to face reality and unfortunately that may never happen.

I've always hated Frued...I don't know why...there was something about his obsession with sex. Everything in the dream world was about sex...I don't see this as true...but for some reason...he did. Perhaps, it was a little insight to what happened to him as a child. That would explain a lot.

Hmmmmm...denial is our greatest weapon...and our worst enemy. Sadly...EVERYONE is guilty of it. For something.

Personally, I think Frued had the right idea. Except that, instead of "sex" being the hub of the emotional wheel, I think, "intimacy" is. Intimacy is not necessarily, or all the time related to sex although it often is, in people's minds. I remember reading a jillion years ago, a short comment about him and his seemingly obsessive focus on sexuality. It said that it was confirmed, that one of his close relatives was known to have been sexually abused. Which would give credence to the idea that he may have been possibly dissociative about abuse himself.

I also learned once, probably in nursing school, that every emotion is felt through the general conduit of anxiety; for instance, hunger is motivated by a biological response to a certain type of anxiety triggered by certain hormones and biochemicals and nerve responses and all that crap. In that regard, talking about traumatic memories would also trigger anxiety. And depending on several factors involved with each person, a great deal of it. Or not. That said, when someone is in denial, confrontation is not usually the best method of opening someone's eyes about whatever they are denying. Conversely, confronting someone about their denial will most often just drive them deeper into it. That's the biggest reason why interventions for alcoholics, addicts, etc., need to be planned and facilitated by a professional mediator. A better way, I talked about in the "telling your kids" thread.

That's an interesting twist.... I hadn't heard it before. In *Trauma And Recovery* (the book that created the term C-PTSD) the author describes Freud's work with hysterics: how he was the first to listen to them and make the connection between symptoms and abuse. She goes on to say that he apparently got scared off by the idea that abuse could be so prevalent in society as to cause all of the cases he saw, and changed his mind to theorize that the women had *Fantasized* these experiences to fulfill some hidden desire. If he really DID recognize the symptoms in himself, it could explain the sudden change in the course of his studies, to insure he wouldn't become further entangled in stories of abuse that triggered his own memories. Not sure I believe it, but it's an interesting idea.

One quick side note (and I obviously don't know the backstory - only what you posted here)... Wheezie, dear, I ask that you be careful about asking people direct questions about their abuse. You said your friend "basically begged me not to ask her anymore about the abuse." I hope you respected her and gave her the space she needed. Healing only comes with a sense of gaining control over ourselves, including our memories, and being forced to relive them, tell about them, or even think about them, removes that control.... just like during the actual abuse.

Thanks for the interesting post about Freud. It certainly gives me a new angle to consider in the history of DID studies!

~ Wistala

Wistala, she confided in me about her abuse. The way the conversation started was she was being confrontational with me about filing suit against our uncles(she is my cousin) for abusing me in my childhood.She still lives within that cycle of abuse in our family and she was being argumentative about me seeking justice for the atrocities I(and I'm pretty sure she) has suffered in our childhoods. Then she said "why should I believe you when no one believed me when I came out and said your brother abused me". This revelation by her devastated me.Before that I thought that I could trust my brother(the only man in my family that I thought I could trust) and in learning he had done this to her destroyed me emotionally.I actually split that day because of it.I didn't push or force her to say anything.I am well aware of those dynamics and I respected her completely.The main thing I wanted to relay to her in our two conversations we had about this was that I believed her because she was so angry that no one ever had when she first came out and told people in our family.I know that feeling all to well.It is actually one of the reasons why we having MPD/DID supress our memories.That cycle of abuse and silence again you know? She begged me to stop talking about it but I was not asking her questions or forcing her to say anything. I was only telling her I believed her.She was actually confrontational about that too telling me "I don't care if you believe me" and "why do you want to live in the past?". All the while she was experiencing the symptoms of PTSD. So I explained "I am not living in the past I am healing from it.This is the only way you can heal from it and that is the only way you will not feel the way you are feeling right now".That is where our conversation ended and I haven't spoken to her since. She still lives around these abusers so I have no doubt she is suffering there in fear and silence and I believe the reason she chose to come out to me is because she knows that I don't live around these people and she also knows that by pursuing justice against these abusers I am breaking the cycle of abuse in our family so it would be safe for her to confide in me because I would be the one to finally believe what she had to say about what happened to her. Even though she was being confrontational at the beginning of our conversation.

Wistala, you have made a very good point. And actually, I think both parts of your last comment are linked; the key here is, I think, that maybe Freud and perhaps Wheezie, were the ones trying to make the connections for the people they were talking to. However well meant, that's usually counterproductive.

Wheezie, I hope this doesn't make you feel defensive. It's ok what you're saying; these things are a learning opportunity for all of us, even those inside. It really helps us all understand. It's really important for anyone (including those working with you; it's a two-way street.) who truly wants to help someone, to be supportive and informative, but also sensitive to how much the other person can handle emotionally. That's why it can be so difficult at the most vulnerable moments, because you want to help so badly, and they are in such pain. We all need to learn to hear as well as listen...and try to see things from the other person's perspective, even while we're talking with them. A daunting task, but a very effective way to help others and yourself. (because by learing to do this, you will also learn to be more aware of yourself and your own feelings when others are doing the same thing to you)...another reason why it's so difficult to stay in emotional balance when you're helping someone else in a crisis; it also triggers your own issues.

We're all here to support each other. We all have problems like this to work through. Now is just your time to be in the "fish bowl"....it's your issue on the table right now, but we all have stuff like that to share and learn from. It's a never-ending and infinite task for everyone, just a lot more for us.

OOPssss!! I forgot the most important part...

((( hugs )))

Starfish, I was not trying to make my cousin confess or confide any thing to me. I never even attempted to elicit any information from her about what my brother did to her. I called her one day just to talk and she became confrontational with me having heard from my mother that I was going to press charges on all of my uncles for abusing me in my childhood. In this conversation she confessed to me that my brother had assaulted or attempted to assault her when she was 14. I know she was telling the truth because she was experiencing PTSD while she was telling me about it.Saying she was a nervous wreck and shaking. I was floored by this (because I trusted my brother and never thought he would do anything like that) but told her I believed her and it wasn't her fault. She begged me to stop talking about it but I wasn't even the one who brought it up she was and also I wasn't asking any more questions about what had happened. That's just what state of mind she was in when we had this conversation and proof that PTSD can really feel like you are dying or going insane when reliving a memory.

Oh, yeah, most definitely. And oddly enough, telling her that you believe her might have, unintentionally of course, triggered her anxiety and what caused her to beg you to stop; if nobody believes you, it actually works in a backwards way to help you feel relatively better because you are not having to face the pain of the truth. It is when that inner pain gets overridden by outer pain from the dysfunction of your life, that things shift entirely, and you need to do that "retooling" I was talking about in the other thread...

I understand more now that you've shared the background about you talking with her, and I'm very proud of you for telling her you believe her. Yep, Star's right that being believed can open a floodgate because you can no longer deny it to yourself, but since she offered up the info, it sounds like she desparately wants to start healing. I'm glad you didn't push her any further. I'm sure she now knows that you are a safe person, and when and if she decides to take a stab at healing, she'll begin to ask YOU some questions about your own healing.

I'm also very proud (gosh, that's not the right word, because it implies that I have a right to be proud of you... but I don't know what other word to use!) of you for pressing charges and breaking the silence that allows abuse to continue! You go, girl! I'm cheering you on whole-heartedly for that, and will be here to offer support during the difficult parts that will inevitably arise during the process.

Again, thanks for the interesting thread about Freud. I kind of got us off-track on it, but learned a lot about your strength and kindness along the way, so I don't regret it. :-)

Hugs,
Wistala

Wistala, I take honor in you being proud of me and thank you very much.We are like sisters/brothers in arms here fighting against abuse and any encouragement is very welcomed and really appreciated. This is one of the main things I believe we should do as abuse survivors. Ban together and fight against it standing by each others sides as support. That is one of the ways these abusers get away with abusing us they isolate and silence.If we stand up and speak out and come together they will no longer have that avenue in which to manipulate and abuse us.

Absolutely! And going along with that, I just came across Erin's Law on youtube the other day. If you get a chance, check it out. This young lady is doing amazing things and working really hard at protecting the next generation.

As a quick summary, she survived SA as a child, and realized that while schools teach how to avoid being stolen by strangers, how to escape your burning house, etc., no one is teaching children how to stop being sexually abused (by finding a safe person to tell). She has gotten the law passed in her home state for schools to add that to their curriculum, and is now trying to make it national. She deserves all our support, and so do all the thousands of children out there that need this info as much as we did.

Hugs,
Wistala