Abandonment.......Yes, I think people who struggle with PTSD feel abandoned and marooned. It's very hard for someone who is suffering "intrusive" memories that crop up to challenge one struggling and re-experience to explain it to others.

I believe you, I believe that while you want to be able to enjoy a close relationship and even have normal intimacy, you experience "unwanted" intrusions of the trauma you experienced when you were violated, hurt, victimized and too young to know how to stop it or understand it on the level you do now as an adult, or are trying to understand as an adult.

The reason for the "avoidance" is not about weakness, instead its about not wanting to have the intrusive flashbacks and all the pain/challenges that come with them.

It is hard to find a therapist that can understand the need to be validated and comforted and for the one suffering to have that "witness" that they had so needed when they were traumatized.

The ongoing deslre in one who struggles is that of finding a rescuer, A WITNESS, that can validate them in a way that can go as deeply as needed and for however long that takes.

What it sounds like to me is that this therapist helped you by sitting "with" you and "witnessing" with you as you talked about the depth of how you were hurt. It is important that a therapist understand that when someone is "telling their story" that each time they do so they are also feeling it, often a new piece of something deeply injured comes forward. You had this therapist help you, as you mentioned, this therapist was the first one that was helping you. However, with this therapist's desire to shorten the session and the discussion, you are feeling as though you are losing the witness that you so desperately need to sit with you as you work through telling your story with that "new piece" that has surfaced.

Traumatic events get storred in different areas of the brain, including areas where there is no language. And trauma also gets storred with identifying a lot of the environment where that trauma took place. The truth is, this is how we are designed in order to avoid things that can be dangerous to our survival. When a human being experiences something that has impacted them, there is always a desire to return to wherever this experience took place so that something can be learned about the danger. The human brain is designed to "learn" and "problem solve" because it is a huge part of our existentialism.

A child is very vulnerable because they simply do not have enough life experience to understand how to self protect. A child doesn't even understand their own emotions, they feel them, but they don't really understand "why". However, what often happens is that a child can experience something and go into a state of mind that shuts down, and this is because there is not enough "there" to even begin to know how to react or feel.

It is very hard to remember trauma that took place in one's childhood because there is more life experience years later that did not exist in that child. One of the things that needs to be "grieved" is whatever was "lost" to a child because of the trauma they experienced. Trust and safety is typically something that a child with a history of trauma and abuse struggles with. A therapist that is working with someone like you that has this challenge has to be "available" to the individual that is struggling in their effort to slowly work through this challenge. When the therapist fails to show they are "available" the feeling of "abandonment" can take place in the patient.

Perhaps, this is what you need to work through "now" that you need to talk about with this therapist. I have been very challenged with this myself. I find that one thing that has been "missing" for me in my own healing is experiencing "others" who can relate to my challenge. I had gotten to a point where I needed to talk about a lot of my history, much like having reached a point where I had a lot of the pieces to my own puzzle put together, and it really took a lot of work. I started to post it, and next thing I new I was posting a lot, all the while seeing the puzzle finally coming together, but still struggling with it emotionally, still feeling so very alone with it. I took a chance and wrote it down, all the while fearing that someone would present some kind of "you need to, stop, just, don't allow, you talked about this before, you are just stuck, that is in the past, get over it, you survived it, you need to move on, I have heard this before and I am tired of hearing it, your post is too long, go somewhere else and talk about this, you need to talk to your therapist instead of writing this all down here, you are not the only one that struggles, others have had it worse than you, do you realize you said that three, four, years ago, why do you torment yourself? I kept being triggered when I committed to finally just letting things come out instead of "shoving them down inside". I often wanted to delete all that I shared too. As much as I had wanted that, I realized I had to work through that "strong desire to run away and hide" and take away my feelings, words, puzzle of hurts that I had slowly put into that puzzle I was slowly putting into words.

I kept trying until I got triggered so badly by a response that I finally did delete. I realized that what I have needed and wanted was for someone to say, "Wow, OE, you have done a lot of work, you have put a lot of the pieces of your puzzle together and got up the courage to "PRODUCE" the complicated puzzle of the things you have come to recognize that have hurt you in ways you did not realize the way you are seeing "now".
So I deleted and crawled away feeling once again my effort was invaded, walked on, intruded on, damaged, discarded, criticized, disrespected done wrong, said wrong and I had done something very bad.

It reminded me of a time in my life when I had finally had a chance to get to know OE better, instead of being in the constant shadow of my older brother and older sister. I decided to take my geometry book and for the first time really spend time learning what was in it. After all, most of my years before that were overshadowed by the constant stress I was under because of my two older siblings. I decided I would try to see how I could do if I made it a point to focus on that book. After all, there was too much "stress" in my life to really have that chance. And no one would know expect me, so why not see how it goes. I studied almost all of that book so I could see how I did on the big exam.

Well, I studied and took the exam. I had decided that if I did not do well, no big deal because no one would know that I had really tried. To my big surprise the day I sat in that class after the exams were corrected, the teacher stood in front of the class very angry with the class because so many students had failed the exam. I had assumed I was just one of the students that failed it too. The teacher then said in such a sarcastic way, "No one will believe who got the highest grade on the exam" and "if this student can do this then EVERYONE should have done even better". Apparently some "known stupid student" got a good grade, almost 100%. This teacher made it a point to build up the classes curiosity of what stupid student did so well. I admit, I was curious myself, the student must be so stupid, who was it? Then, she called my name and EVERYONE turned and looked at me in shock. It was not just how that teacher felt about me, but apparently all the others. I was too young to know how to react to that experience, to even stand up and tell this teacher off.

I could not wait for that bell to ring, so I could get away from that humiliating experience. I ran out of that class, and the front doors of that school to my car and all I wanted was to get as far away from that experience as possible. I was so traumatized by that experience that I feared ever doing well again like that so I would "stand out" like that only to be humiliated.

However, RavensPOE, the one thing I did take away from that experience is that I would NEVER hurt someone else for TRYING. I will say that I did carry a deep fear of "if I do well, and produce something good, that it could hurt me". I have come to know there are a lot of people out there like that teacher. I was constantly reminded of that fact, everytime I made the effort to achieve and value what I had achieved in my life. I had not realized that I had been looking over my shoulder with every achievement, always running away from "that teacher or anyone like her". I was ALWAYS fighting that same battle, not really realizing the depths of it until something I did work so hard to achieve was not only destroyed by someone elses disrespect and negligence, but that I was deemed a bad person when being overwhelmed by so much loss, that I had a post traumatic breakdown. Oh, believe me I KNOW ALL ABOUT ABANDONMENT.

I am sorry for ANYONE who struggles on such a deep level and NEED to be validated and heard as they slowly figure out the kind of damage they have suffered. My own comfort zone was in helping others, being "there" to help others develop their sense of "self esteem" by having someone in their life that CARED to take notice, to listen, to encourage and praise for every gain. However, what always escaped me is finding someone who would do the same for me. Especially when I was so traumatized by so much loss that I had that breakdown and needed it the most.

I have gone through over eight years of facing constant criticisms about not only what I witnessed happening, but, constantly facing "what you lost is not worth, or should not be valued and more invalidations then I had EVER imagined experiencing". And forget about talking about the PTSD, that would only be used against me to say "see, she is crazy" and further proof that what she lost has NO TRUE VALUE.

Well, this post to you is rather long isn't it? I suppose I just wanted you to know that I hear you and that I am sorry that something so important was taken from you, you were just a child and what happened to you took having a normal SAFE childhood away from you. I am sure you developed some kind of self protection as you continued to live your life, some of these methods developed in ways you probably were not really aware of so in talking about your own puzzle, it will take you time to slowly see ALL that puzzle, and that can seem like you are repeating, but I know that as you do so, you are slowly seeing new pieces of that puzzle, it's something others listening may not understand and when they fail to understand that, YES, it can feel like you are being "abandoned", I do know that well myself. Perhaps, with my input, you can talk about this with your therapist, because this IS PART OF YOUR PUZZLE TOO.