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.
I normally don't add trigger warnings, because anything can be a trigger but there is going to be some particularly gruesome things in this post that could be obvious triggers for those who have suffered violence.
I am in a pretty good place with working through my abuse from my ex husband. I feel like I'm making steady progress, dealing with it in a healthy way, using my tools well, and although not totally healthy about it I think I have a good handle on it.
However, since coming to terms with it and really coping and healing well, suddenly I am finding another recent trauma like a fresh wound. It seems like the tools, the acceptance, what I use to deal with the abuse has not translated to this other trauma, and I find it very confusing as to why.
Back in July of 2012 my bf's nephew came to our house at night, turned off the electricity, and when my bf went out to check the box he stabbed my bf in the lung and diaphragm, causing my bf to be in a coma on a ventilator for two weeks and he almost didn't make it. My daughter and I were home at the time and a witness to this assault.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a full fledged visual flashback. My daughter had been walking our dog and two pitbulls came out of nowhere and attacked him. Bit up his leg pretty badly. I was sitting on the floor putting pressure on the wounds to my dog's leg, and suddenly, out of no where I was THERE again, on that night. It was dark, and instead of putting pressure on my dog's wounds I was putting pressure on L's wounds, just for a second. Immediate panic attack, just like that night.
Then there was two other times I was thinking about that night and I got that depersonalization feeling I get when I'm in "panic mode." Ironically the first time I was thinking about how I didn't have any residual issues from that truama, and BAM, my body said "Ah, yes you do!" The second time I was thinking about how I didn't remember seeing the wounds when I was putting pressure on them before the EMT's came. I remember asking my daughter to use the flashlight app on her phone to illuminate them, because we were in total darkness and couldn't see, I remember the sound of her gasping when she saw them, and I must have seen them because I put the wash clothes on them and applied pressure-but I have no recollection of it, and BAM, that derealization feeling again.
My question is when you are processing one trauma, and healing from it, is it common to bring up other traumas like this? I would have expected it to be all enmeshed together and to be able to deal with one the same way you deal with another, why does this trauma feel so compartmentalized from the other, like I have no skill set for dealing with trauma, which I clearly demonstrated that I have? How can they be so separate, but somehow tied together like this? Or are they not tied together, was it that flashback when my dog got hurt that is causing this? Why do I feel like a "trauma healing virgin" with this stuff?
My anxiety is starting to go back up in way it hasn't in a while, and I feel unprepared and inadequate in dealing with it. I want to avoid it, but I feel I can't. What is going on here?
I am in a pretty good place with working through my abuse from my ex husband. I feel like I'm making steady progress, dealing with it in a healthy way, using my tools well, and although not totally healthy about it I think I have a good handle on it.
However, since coming to terms with it and really coping and healing well, suddenly I am finding another recent trauma like a fresh wound. It seems like the tools, the acceptance, what I use to deal with the abuse has not translated to this other trauma, and I find it very confusing as to why.
Back in July of 2012 my bf's nephew came to our house at night, turned off the electricity, and when my bf went out to check the box he stabbed my bf in the lung and diaphragm, causing my bf to be in a coma on a ventilator for two weeks and he almost didn't make it. My daughter and I were home at the time and a witness to this assault.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a full fledged visual flashback. My daughter had been walking our dog and two pitbulls came out of nowhere and attacked him. Bit up his leg pretty badly. I was sitting on the floor putting pressure on the wounds to my dog's leg, and suddenly, out of no where I was THERE again, on that night. It was dark, and instead of putting pressure on my dog's wounds I was putting pressure on L's wounds, just for a second. Immediate panic attack, just like that night.
Then there was two other times I was thinking about that night and I got that depersonalization feeling I get when I'm in "panic mode." Ironically the first time I was thinking about how I didn't have any residual issues from that truama, and BAM, my body said "Ah, yes you do!" The second time I was thinking about how I didn't remember seeing the wounds when I was putting pressure on them before the EMT's came. I remember asking my daughter to use the flashlight app on her phone to illuminate them, because we were in total darkness and couldn't see, I remember the sound of her gasping when she saw them, and I must have seen them because I put the wash clothes on them and applied pressure-but I have no recollection of it, and BAM, that derealization feeling again.
My question is when you are processing one trauma, and healing from it, is it common to bring up other traumas like this? I would have expected it to be all enmeshed together and to be able to deal with one the same way you deal with another, why does this trauma feel so compartmentalized from the other, like I have no skill set for dealing with trauma, which I clearly demonstrated that I have? How can they be so separate, but somehow tied together like this? Or are they not tied together, was it that flashback when my dog got hurt that is causing this? Why do I feel like a "trauma healing virgin" with this stuff?
My anxiety is starting to go back up in way it hasn't in a while, and I feel unprepared and inadequate in dealing with it. I want to avoid it, but I feel I can't. What is going on here?
IMHO, they are two separate traumas. Both, IMHO, would be considered what are called big T traumas. (of course, each of us process traumas differently, so what is a big T trauma for one may be a little t trauma for others)
IMHO, your experience w/your bf was certainly different enough to be a separate big T trauma. And while it could have intermingled w/the abuse trauma(s), I am not surprised that it wasn't healed as you were healing from the abuse trauma.
I can't say for sure, but I would guess that your dog getting hurt could certainly have been a trigger, especially because you were basically re-enacting what you did for your bf. IMHO, it sounds like a classic PTSD trigger, but I am not diagnosing.
Even tho it was your bf who was attacked, it is totally understandable that you have carried this trauma inside and not have it come up in your other healing sessions. I base this on you saying that you feel unprepared and inadequate in dealing with it and that you want to avoid it. Again, perfectly natural response to what happened. You said you feel you can't avoid it, which, I suspect means you are ready to deal with it and begin that healing process.
Sending you healing hugs!!!
MTC, That was really what I was feeling and trying to understand. I knew traumas could create an accumulative effect, and so were related that way, but I niavely thought they would feel the same, and that I could use the progress towards one as kind of intellectual and emotional credit towards another. I guess it doesn't work that way-darn it!
I don't think I've processed much of the other trauma, and to make matters worse it was compounded by several immediate additional traumas. 6 months after the stabbing my bf got a TBI at work, and my daughter had a psychotic episode (at the exact same time I might add). I strongly feel the stabbing triggered the psychotic episode in my daughter, but if it wasn't for that something else could have triggered it later. It was a really tough time, I had a bf with basically dementia (and PTSD), and a daughter with psychosis, both in and out of hospitals, and with their own treatment teams, and it was just crazy. Basically, I was in survival mode, and caregiver mode for several years, and now that they are doing better-the first thing my psyche decides it can handle is the abuse. DK why, but that was my mental health focus once they both improved.
Now I feel on the verge of dealing with the stabbing, and I just can't believe so many of the same friggin emotions just like I've never dealt with them before. Like they are completely new. For example, shame. I feel shame for feeling like I have any right to process this as a trauma, since I was not the one injured, just like when I went through processing the abuse I had to work through accepting that it was okay for me to feel traumatized even though I was never beaten. Same crap, even though I KNOW better! Just as one example.
Although I was not injured the whole thing was extremely traumatic for sure, and I thought that night we all might die-I didn't know if M could get in the house before the police came and renew his attack, I didn't know if he had others with him, and if even after he went to jail if they might come back to eliminate witnesses or finish what M started-the hospitalization, the police, the prosecution, just the whole thing was a living nightmare. And yet, I feel totally disconnected to it, like it happened to someone else, or was just a surreal dream. I do feel like it's looming on the horizon. Just reading your response brought me close to tears, which is the closest thing I've had to an emotional reaction to it almost the whole time.
Now I'm wondering, if I've dealt with one trauma and still left another undisturbed like some sleeping dragon, is the whole thing with the TBI, and my daughter's suicide attempts and that whole nightmare going to be lying in wait for me to start at with "trauma square one" when I'm done with this, or what? I don't really feel like dealing with all this-it seems extremely daunting, but I know the alternative is panic and anxiety and nightmares and insomnia, and triggers with no awareness, and a lot of other nasty stuff.
Whipple, thanks for responding. I have such a strong avoidance to wanting to deal with the emotional part of it-just like I did with the abuse, even though intellectually I KNOW I can deal with it-I've done it before and I can do it again, and like you said, fighting it causes more trouble than it's worth. But it's a visceral reaction. Right now I'm just not only dreading the roll coaster ride again, but feeling irritated I have to ride that thing like I've never ridden it before.
It really is quite mind blowing to me right now that I'm aware of it.