Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
So, I've been trying to figure out how to approach this subject without sounding any more crazy and pathetic than I feel right now, but I can't think of any way but to put it out there. At our first session (the first in a long time anyway), the crisis counselor asked me to start remembering and writing down incidents that have happened in my relationship. I didn't and she asked again at this last session, so I started doing it last night. I mean I hadn't really forgotten them, I don't think anyway, just kind of pushed them to the back of my mind, I thought. So....writing them was easy in a weird way. I mean the details started becoming crystal clear the more I wrote and more things started coming to the front of my mind as I wrote, stuff I had clearly forgotten about. As I reread what I had written I felt horrified, but in a detached way, almost as if this had happened in a dream or to someone I only vaguely knew. What's most concerning to me is that I can't understand where this stuff went. How could I EVER justify, minimize, and forget crap like this. How could I have thought I was in control, to any extent, and that things weren't that bad. How can I sit here and feel so detached from it all. I understand that the human mind protects itself from overload but this seems extreme even to me. I was going to start writing some more, probably still will, but right now I'm feeling physically ill from what I wrote last night. I honestly am wondering if I have had some kind of mental break and god I can't even explain what I'm feeling right now. Has anyone had this happen to them before?! (God I pay someone has!)
As painful as this exercise is, I say stick with it, of course, at your own pace. This is hard, but I think ultimately it will help save your life, not to sound drastic.
Big hugs to you tonight! Do at least one thing really special for you as soon as possible.
Peace
Girl, please stay strong. You can beat this! You have already demonstrated that ability.
It is entirely possible that your mind just blocked it out to enable you to continue as best you could in the face of his crap. I have found myself recalling little things only now that happened years ago and were forgotten - but nothing remotely like this.
Massive, massive hugs to you, and I am glad it sounds like you have a good therapist there. I really hope they can help you through the rest of all this. I am still in shock that someone could be so unadulteratedly evil... as ltwist said, despicable is a very very accurate word.
We are all with you, too, as you attempt to confront and survive these horrors xxx
Please see your therapist and go over it with them. I agree with the others, your mind must have blocked this out as a defense mechanism.
Sending strength, courage, peace and hugs,
Fast forward to my relationships today,.. One day I was telling my therapist a painful story about my ex. I forget exactly what it was about, but I remember telling him, things like that don't really bother me. At the time I really believed it because I couldn't remember the hurt. He said, I think it may bother you. You've just been taught all your life to mask your feelings, I don't even think you realize that it does hurt you.
Is is possible that you were conditioned to mask so well, that you don't feel? I have since learned to deal and call a spade, a spade.
defense mechanisms can be lifesavers, but then they can keep us stuck. things like writing make you look behind the couch and under the refrigerator to bring things to a conscious level where you can actually do something with them. putting yourself back there forced you to relive the trauma, and now you are suffering the fallout as the aftershocks bounce through you, but this is catharsis! this is growth!
it can be overwhelming, and some advice you've gotten about working through it with your therapist is a great idea, but what you also do is write about your reaction to the journal process. the same way the journal made you slow down and look at everything your psyche tried to hide during your incidents of abuse, processing it further will make you realize how you react to these feelings and what you do with them. it's very good information to have, and getting a lot of bang for your buck, mentally.
give yourself time, try not to judge yourself and remember to breathe, but you are doing good work and the sore muscles are just the price to look fantastic on the beach.
You have shared, in
your journals, an abuser
who perpetrated an extremely
high level of cruelty.
Please don't criticize yourself
for anything you did or didn't
do. You were living in an
environment in which you
were being systematically
TORTURED. You were
doing what you had to
to SURVIVE.
You survived.
Good for you.
When, in the course of the
work of recovery, we begin
to excavate the singular acts
of abuse, it's actually, in my
opinion, not analogous to
ripping off a bandaid. It's
more like intentionally
RE-BREAKING a bone
that was previously broken
but never tended, so it fused
together, but not properly.
So we re-break it to get
an opportunity to tend it
and set it, now, properly.
Or, it's like having to go
back into a wound caused
by an operations that was
stitched up, but developed
an infection.
Hon. . . . . . please, as you're
able, go forward with the work
you're doing, together with your
therapist.
You've been emotionally abused
in horrific ways. Over the course
of time, you did what you had to
to survive. You survived. That's
the first battle.
Now it's time to do the work
of recovery. You're an amazingly
strong woman (by evidence of
your survival). I'm confident that
you're capable of doing what you
need to do now.
I hope you focus on self-care
every moment you can.
Please take good care
of yourself.
Sending you humongous
hugs and prayers for comfort
and healing.
You're so articulate,
your words about
what you have endured
are SHATTERING.
(I went back and read
what you've written today
since I posted a response,
as well as what was there
before. Sorry, I'm missing
the reference to the incident
at the bridge.)
What you wrote about
times in the past when
he was violent. . . . . is
an indicator of a potential
MURDERER.
This is an exceptionally
cruel. and potentially
FATAL abuser.
Whatever you choose to
do, going forward. . . . .
please be very,
VERY CAREFUL.