I buried my memories so deep I forgot about the abuse within a year after it stopped when I was 12. I didn't remember again until I was 44. When I first started working on healing I didn't feel much either. I just had flashbacks that showed me what happened but I didn't have any feelings associated with them. This is 'normal' and is part of what we do to keep ourselves safe. I did eventually start to feel all the feelings but they didn't come on too fast. I got them a little at a time. Well, I guess sometimes it did feel that they were coming too fast but I think that is to be expected. After all, these feelings are not easy to feel.

I also had to deal with a toxic home life along with the abuse which took place outside the home. I found that the feelings from home intertwined with the feelings from the abuse because they are so similar. I found it difficult to separate the feelings from each situation so I pretty much just dealt with whatever feelings came up. The terror I felt at home was not much different from the terror I felt from the abuse so I just dealt with terror as a whole and healed both at the same time. I know others who have been able to separate the feelings and deal with each situation separately.

As you get further into your healing process you will start to feel all the feelings. Since you don't feel anything from the abuse right now I would guess that the abuse was much more traumatic than what your parents did and that is why it is buried deeper. If it's one thing I learned it's that it all comes out in time.

Take care

I have to say that what your parents did to you was criminal. They deserve to be prosecuted for child abuse. So you were assaulted twice. You have nothing to be ashamed of, but all those who assaulted you certainly do.

I repressed the memories of my abuse through most of my life. The brain does this as a protection, I think. The emotional numbness you feel on recalling the events is part of that mechanism. I don't think there's any way of predicting what will happen next...the memories may never surface at all, or they may come back at some future time.

I think we should just deal with things as they unfold...and do the best we can with them. I'm glad I remembered, but sometimes it does unsettle me.

I am horrified about what you write - some people dont deserve to be parents :( Very sad :( I too have a very messed up family .....

I choose to not have contact with them at this time while im healing...

Please please continue on your healing path and believe in your self.. im very sad for you about what you went through , no child EVER deserves that treatment EVER x

On the whole my parents haven't been too bad, apart from their reaction to this one time. Dad was very critical and short tempered which never helped.

I also lost a brother when I was three and a sister when I was 12, so this has all piled on top of each other. There's a lot there and it wasn't until I started to seriously face the trauma that I have different reactions to each of them. For some it is dissociation, for other bits I have strong physical reactions. I find that I am reacting being anywhere near my father and that has only happened since I started working through this with my counsellor. We have only had one session talking about it really and that was with me handing her notes from my journal. Every session since has been working on grounding techniques, distress tolerance and mindfulness in addition to handling other crisis that are prominent in our lives right now.

I know how you feel when you say you react when you are around your father. For me it was my brother. He has always had a violent temper and he was the reason I first started dissociating at the age of 7. Now, whenever I am around him, I feel like I want to cower in a corner to protect myself from him. I have been working very hard on this though and it is getting easier. I think it is great that you are working on keeping yourself grounded and in the present because it is an important step in the healing process.

In the words of a friend of mine here on the boards "healing is like peeling an onion." There are many layers and you never know what the next layer will bring, but you can always rely on the fact that once you heal each layer you will never have to go back to it.

I find other traumatic events in my life have overshadowed the pain of being sexually abused as a child. I don't feel anything either. Its like numb or something. A big fat nothing. I feel other things that have happened since have over shadowed it and made it nul and void.
I reckon being bashed and sent to a boarding school would over shadow anything that happened in that room that's for sure..
Have you told your therapist you feel nothing and are wondering if you getting anything out of it cause I would. im always 100% honest even to my on detriment after having to keep secrets for all those years I love honesty.

I guess I just want to say I getyou with the whole feeling nothing caper. I think its normal. it could be a coping mechanism for all we know.

All the best Darl

Donna

I am in my late 30's and I just started remembering the extent of my abuse. I knew I had some. Only the beginnings of some. My abuse happened and it involved my family also. I had no clue, partly of repressing and they made me forget. I am sorry your family did what they did. I always felt like the odd one out in my family. God does not give you anymore than you can handle. Remembering and flashbacks can be seen in different ways. It comes in layers for me. I hear and see more as time goes on. No support from family is very hard to accept. I always tried telling but they knew so they watched and they would always disregard me. God kept me going . I got saved at age 10. Repented and asked the Lord into my heart. The Lord got me through my life. The abuse was still bad and terrible. I took him as my father. Jesus Loved me and it meant a great deal to me. I knew He had to and he did. I am married and have two beautiful children and I am away from the abuse. I believe God moved me away. I am healing for almost two years. I have a long way to go . But I have come along way from where I was. I will pray you find your healing and hear are a lot of hugs and prayers. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Feeling nothing is a form of dissociation. I've seen the expression "floating on the ceiling" is connection with dissociation before. Unfortunately, the feelings are almost certainly there, somewhere.

In my own case, I think the feelings and the facts are in two separate compartments or channels. I have intense feelings that seem to be separate from any events - kind of like emotional flashbacks - but when I think of actual events, I feel nothing. At the same time, I react powerfully to small things, like crying over tv shows or getting enraged if I feel I've been "dissed" on the highway. Now that I am in therapy with someone who specializes in sexual abuse and trauma, I'm working on putting the feelings back together with the incidents. It's scary, though - it's much less threatening to consider abuse and other traumas without feeling the terror and despair and probably rage that were there at the time.

Thanks for your replies everyone. It confirms what I suspected. For now facing my own past is on the back burner as we are facing one crisis after another with our daughters as they struggle through years of sexual abuse. I'm just so worn out right now and numb. My counsellor is just helping me to deal with the immediate issues at hand. She was very gentle with me last session, thank goodness. I'm on the verge of not coping with anything else going wrong and have just started anti-depressants after resisting them for ages.

Sometimes I think it's not worth facing my own childhood abuse as my daughters have much bigger issues to deal with and I need to be there for them.

I'm still new at this. I was 7 when I was abused. I am scared of the prep of the abuse. The actual abuse scares me but not as bad as him pulling my hair telling me he's going to shut me up. I don't have flash backs nightmares or seeing him at places like a lot of ppl do. I just don't have those symptoms.

Detachment is a common form of coping mechanism. One form of it is not being able to pick up on sexual social queues. I have that issue specifically. The more you socialize the more you will learn differences between you and others. Every one is different, because reactions/coping mechanisms are different.