JME but talking about our childhoods in safe therapeutic enviromnent can be very hard but very healling as well. I refused to accept my CPTSD Dx for a long time, because I kept saying to myself "Come on it wasn't THAT bad." From talking to friends and my T I've come to realize that a lot of what happenned to me in childhood was dysfunctional and bad and most importantly not my fault. But it shaped my core beliefs and how I interact with people now, to continue to protect myself, when I couldn't as a child.

To me it's not rehashing - it's making connections between what happened and what I believe now, and how that impacts my behaviour. For example, I was pretty much abandoned after my Mom died by the adults around me.. I interpreted that to mean I wasn't worth caring about, and that I wasn't lovable. That turned into a stronger belief that I hated myself because I wasn't loveable. So I built up emotional walls and wouldn't let anyone get close to me, because if they found out who I really was they wouldn't like me and wouldn't want to be friends. So I became lonely and isolated. My T helped me see the distortion in my thinking. And now I'm slowly letting people into my life emotionally and letting them get to know the real me. And guess what they don't hate me. They actually like me. This is forcing me to change my core belief from I hate myself, to I might actually be likeable (Yeah, big progress I know.)

I've done a lot of work with EMDR and that's been really helpful.

I took have a lot of gaps in my memory about my childhood - it's called dissociation. It's been my experience that the memories come back when we're emotionally strong enough to deal with them.

Take care.

--splitimage