"Real" love

I realized today that when I was telling t: "in my head, violation and abuse are genuine love" what I really meant was that they are "parental" love... dunno why it took me years to figure that out.
Now, how to change that association...?

What did your T say to that? How can those be love? I guess it depends on how you define abuse and violation.

Recognize what psychological abuse and stand up to it. That's what I'm working on. Learning to communicate what bothers you and hurts you. Don't accept bad behavior from others. Good luck.

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She asked what I meant. She asked if I thought my wife loved me genuinely... I couldn't define why I didn't question my wife's love, but I couldn't describe the difference. Today, on the way home from group, it hit me: when I'm feeling vulnerable, I'm looking for love. And I start to crave being really badly hurt...

T then simply said "hmm" (this was all through text)

I'm guessing we will talk about it at the next session...

I'm learning to put my foot down with others, but I still take on a lot of the abusive roles myself...

May I ask why you say that?

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I have a similar problem. when ever I reach out to anyone I feel at all close to, like T or close friends, I attack myself. A feeling of wrongness overwhelms me and I'm full of self attacking thoughts and feelings. Like I shouldn't be reaching out.

Or on a romantic level, I'm overly attracted to controlling men, thus I don't even date. Cause the good part of my brain doesn't want to get hurt and prefers nice guys.

I'm sure she will want to talk about that. You do think your wife genuinely loves you, right? I'm hoping that it's not because she violates you or abuses you. I don't know your history but it seems if you grow up in a home where people you love treat you bad we seem to accept that as the norm in life. What else would we know? I think as we get older we determine that there is a difference, but it's so ingrained in us that it's hard to move out of that way of thinking. This is just an uneducated guess, but I have seen it with kids I used to work with.

I push myself past my limits. I self-harm (sometimes really severely), and put myself into situations where I lose that control I was after... I'm also pretty damn mean to myself in my head sometimes.

Yes! I feel like I shouldn't ever need anything or anyone. The tape plays that says I'm worthless and useless. I should be an "adult" and be able to handle everything on my own, regardless of overwhelm or actual skill involved... I hate feeling "needy" (which for me is needing anything at all from another person, including comfort or company when I'm sad). I feel like a bother simply for existing...

I hear you about being attracted to overly controlling individuals. For the longest time, I only ever pictured myself with an abusive and controlling man. Domestic violence and abuse were what I thought was the norm, so I expected that for my adult life too. Then I was introduced to healthier relationships. I still sometimes fall into the thinking that I should be with someone abusive because that's what I grew up with. It still throws me of when my wife responds with compassion... :/

My wife is very caring and kind. It throws me off sometimes... I've gotten past the concept that romantic or platonic love should be abusive. I guess I don't know how to describe what the feeling is, and how it's different without necessarily explaining where it came from.

I've recently started remembering sexual abuse from my childhood. I've always struggled to explain some of my symptoms and why they didn't abate when I "dealt" with what I thought originated them in therapy... if what i'm remembering is accurate, then my dad was sexually abusing me pretty much from the time I was born until I moved out of state for college (and possibly also other times in my adult life, but those flashbacks are less clear)... I have almost no memory of my life through at least the beginning of college. I still dissociate a lot, mostly in intimate relationships. My wife is coming to terms with me having a super-sketchy conscious memory of things...


a side-effect of growing up like that is a confusion about what "real" (parental/familial/care-giver) love is supposed to be... Sometimes a need to force something else like that is triggered, and I struggle with feeling cared about if I'm not being hurt in that way...

Pretty ****ed up, I know. I'm actually not totally sure I will leave the part up that's in the trigger box. It's hugely shameful for me still, and super vulnerable... t says it's understandable given my history, but I'm not sure how it's recieve by others not necessarily trained in trauma and csa... :/ it'll be up for a bit anyway, because now I've total triggered myself and should probably contact t...

I'm sorry you triggered yourself with posting that. Please don't feel like you have to post something like that unless you want to share it. I think most of us can read between the lines in most cases and understand how hard it is to talk about some things. I know that was very hard to share and it's not offensive to me. Please do call your T and talk with her.
Has something happened recently to spark these emotions? I don't recall you being in such a dark place. Maybe the death of a critter? Please take of yourself and know you are worth saving and keeping safe. Your wife sounds like a wonderful person. My partner has come to grips with my change in who I am. At first it was hard to understand, with my isolation, and being in my head so much. Being involved with someone with PTSD or CPTSD must be very hard for the partner. I hope one day I can make this time up and show how much I appreciate them being here for me.
Take care.

Yeah, I contacted her, though I can't really bring myself to be more open about what's going on. I feel like i'm bothering her (not because of anything she said. She actually encourages me contacting her. It's all my own stuff)...
There's this internal push to not keep having these secrets, but they are also really triggering to talk about. It sends me right back into a panic about getting in trouble, and about me making it all up, and... I dunno. I wish I could talk about it with someone other than t, but also have t around in case I get overwhelmed...

I started processing the csa stuff via emdr. It's stirring up a lot of stuff. I guess it also opened up the self harm stuff and sui past stuff that's making it difficult to not re-trigger no matter what i'm doing. I was working with dogs the other day and just them bumbling into me as they played or greeted me triggered flashbacks... it's a huge wave of overwhelm that does eventual calm down; I just have to get through the first intense part without giving into the self harm urges. T & I have strategies for it, but sometimes I forget them in the moment...

Oooooo EMDR. Not sure if you saw some of my posts about how I wasn't prepared for EMDR and when we did it it "hooked" some past traumas I wasn't ready to address. Causing me to go into a downward spiral. It was my first experience with EMDR and a T. So I thought that what ever they did was in my best interest. But when I actually started seeing another T she said that I had not been prepared for the EMDR, hadn't discussed a safe space, and that it was something that needed to be done consistently not every now and then. Had terrible nightmares afterwards about things that happened so long ago that I thought I had dealt with.....but I guess not. So I hope your T has prepped you for this, it's wonderful you can contact her. Most say that's a boundary issue. But get me started on the morals, or lack of, of T's.
If you feel like self harm just talk to us, if you would like.
Yes, those grounding procedures are kind of hard to remember when you feel like you are knee deep in alligators, or not even connected to this world.
But try to use them and avoid the urge to SH. We are here for you.

Wow, sounds like that first t just kinda threw you into the deep end without teaching you to swim...

T and I have gone over a bunch of prep work for emdr, but it never seems to feel adequate once we actually start. It has me doubting my ability to tackle my trauma issues outside of an inpatient/residential program, or at least without iop support. I'm not sure why I seem unable to tolerate it as well as other people might (coz clearly they can manage outpatient trauma work when I still can't)...

This t is only one of maybe 3 t's I've seen over the years (out of about 18) who encourages outside contact. It's only ever been the trauma t's that have allowed me to call or text as needed, though most have only had a crisis line option... this t has seen me crash hard in the past. She had wanted me to reach out more at the time, but I was not able to get past my anxiety around it. Now it's part of the plan to keep me from having to go inpatient on an emergency basis... I'm kinda waiting for her to draw a line and say "no more" because I'm bugging her so much lately. :/ she says she won't, but I still worry...

Not an abuse victim, but I really really hear you out on this.

One thing that helps me is to focus on the thought that we shouldn't worry about things we have no control over. If you think about it that covers a lot of things. Once I realize that my worrying is not going to change a thing and if something bad should happen I would address it then. But then again my feeling of being numb to life helps a lot with that also.

There's a bunch of stuff I *should* be able to take control of, but I'm running out of energy, so if all just falls apart... 7 hours later, and i'm still fighting with myself around the self harm. It's finally getting a little easier though. Hopefully tomorrow and Sunday still be even easier.
Today has dragged. I feel like i'm stuck in a time freeze. There's so much going on in my head and body that it's making time feel stuck...

I was abused when I was 12... And I can relate to what you said here. That I idea cause me a lot of dysfunction in relationship to others and any hope of self care, It certainly set up an emotional wall with myself and others.

Really hard stuff here... hang in there!

Have any grounding ideas that work for you?

Don't get caught up the in the "should-of's of life" "All things in their proper time"

Nothing has really been working today... Sometimes loud music helps, or getting out of the house, or focusing on a physically demanding task. Distraction also often works. Today was one of those days where almost nothing was working. Physical activity intensified the body sensations. I had trouble focusing on anything enough to get distracted by it... the only thing helpful was the music and a nap.

Hey if that works go with it, baby steps I had a nap today as well. It is so freakin hot outside it almost takes your breath away. Will be glad when it gets a little bit, just a little bit now, cooler. I hate winter and cold weather. But anyway, I'm going to try to get out more and walk around or something.
Is it hot where you live?

Every time I see this title I think of that song Real Love by Mary J Blige , really telling my age now.

Haha, I'm singing in my head every time I see the title. My wife asked the other yesterday why I kept humming that song.

It's hot here too. The ac in the car messes with the engine, so I was driving around doing errands without it... I hear you on disliking the cold. I often question why I continue to live up north... we have a hard sale this morning. It should be fun and sweaty (and hopefully distracting enough).