"Can't you just let go of it?"

I just want to share that I can't believe still some ppl actually believe in beating and terrorizing a child!

Keep talking about it!

It needs to be told!

Billi

Thank you, JD, for bringing up the very point that helped me start to heal.

Learning that trauma leaves physical changes inside my brain meant I wasn't a crybaby cause it still hurts. Just as a broken bone has to heal at its own pace, so too, the broken heart & the shattered soul cannot be forced to mend.

I gained strength when I gave myself permission to take the necessary time to heal those internal wounds.

Although some might call it weak, that's no more true than hanging horns on a horse & calling it a cow. It's still gonna give out road apples instead of milk! Thanks for starting this thread.

haha I love this emoticon!

Anyway...

You aren't alone in having people treating you to get over it. It just makes my blood boil. I get the whole 'just because other people in your family are alcoholics doesn't mean you will be', 'we need to get you drinking', 'everything in moderation is okay', 'you need to meet all the bad guys to find the good ones so get out there and start meeting some', 'let me set you up with someone, I'll find someone good for you', 'why can't you just pretend to be happy and then you will be', blah blah blah. I was trying to tell a friend once about my PTSD, man she pissed me off. When I was trying to explain the way I feel in intimate situations, i.e. if a guy puts his arm around me or whatever, she just laughed, and then she said 'oh I wasn't laughing at you I was just, laughing...'
I rarely even talk about it to people anymore, it infuriates me to hear these things. Some people just have a ridiculous lack of empathy. It dumbfounds me that so many people just don't get it, yet I have the capability to try and understand when someone is suffering.
I don't understand why people just expect things to be solved with that advice. 'Why thank you, you've solved all of my life's problems, the world is good again.'

That is probably one of the worst things and most hurtful things that could be said to me (and has). Sometimes the rhetorical responce is the only thing that can drill the point and hit home. They say: 'can't you just get over it?'
Responce: 'Yeah, sure! Just as soon as you get over your ignorance, I'll get right on it! Let me know where your at with the process.!"

I am sorry that had been said to you, I think everyone here really understands. That's got to be comforting. (Wow my old combative self came out on this one and I wasn't afraid.)

Hi Lovebirdsflying,

You were right in your first post in this thread that memories of extremem trauma are stored in a different part of the brain. In case it is useful, I'm going to describe it a little. Normally memories are kept in the left brain which is also the place where a linear concept of time is kept. During moments of extreme trauma, this part of the brain shuts down and the memory is stored in the right brain. The right brain has no concept of time and so, every time is now. Therefore, a picture or a smell or a sound that you see or smell or hear today that is the same as back then - are both happening right now as far as the right brain is concerned.

I suffered from PTSD for many years and while I have overcome it, it was not easy or immediate. There is no 'just let go of it'. I know it may be painful to hear other peoples ignorance like this, but I've come to believe that we are all ignorant about some things - and I'm glad they get to be ignorant about PTSD; it means they never had anything bad enough happen to them so that they'd understand.

Interesting. I had not heard this before. Do you have more references/reading on this?

Either that or they have suppressed it, and do not want to be reminded.

Pachy: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publi...et/index.shtml

Thanks for all the new validations.

My mother went through some horror stories too, but she denies and suppresses, and I think in a lot of ways that makes her sicker than I am. She tried to teach me to deny and suppress too, but I never would have it.

The thing is, my family relies on me for my memory. They're all the time calling me up to ask me some trivia question, like the lyrics to some long-forgotten song we used to play in the 1970's. I recall details that they do not.

Yet, when I remember something bad happening to me, I "must have dreamed it" or I'm "remembering it wrong." My memory is unquestionably reliable, except when I remember being abused, and then I'm full of malarkey. (Is there a hair-pulling-in-frustration emoticon on this site? I'll look.... No, but this works. )

And then when I prove my case that it DID happen, that's when I get, "Can't you just let it go?" Once, my mother even told me that blogging about my abusive past violated God's commandment to honor thy father and thy mother. Translation: It makes her look bad, and she knows I'm a Christian, so she wanted to guilt-trip me into shutting up. Well, you know what? I ain't gonna.

This is just part of the brush-off vocabulary, words used to discount and invalidate. Some of my favorites:

"Just ignore it. Don't let it bother you." (Means, "I'm ignoring it. Don't bother me.")
"Can't you just let it go?" (Means, "Can't you just pretend it didn't happen?")
"I was only joking." (Means, "I'm not going to confess to being verbally abusive.")
"You're remembering it wrong." "You must have dreamed it." "You have a vivid imagination." "You're confused."
.....(All mean, "You're telling the truth, but it makes me look bad, so in return I'm trying to make you look crazy.")
"I never said/did that." (Means, "I shouldn't have said/done that.")
"You're so disrespectful/resentful/hot-headed." (Means, "...with good reason, but I won't validate you.")
"You're trying to ruin this family." (Means, "You insist on recovering from the crap we're slinging at you.")
"I'm only trying to help you." (Means, "....help you feel bad about yourself and your competence.")
"I miss you." (Means, "I miss having you here under my thumb.")

I just wonder how much the two-brain stuff is something that sounds good, or is there actual research that independently indicates that, for instance, one part does not deal with time the same way as the other.

Yes, I think there's legit left/right brain research happening:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news...pression.shtml

I may be missing something (part of my brain?) but things such as this get me:

That the thinning was present in people at high risk, but who had never had MDD or an anxiety disorder, as well as in high-risk children who had not been diagnosed with depression, shows that these brain changes likely come before illness onset and that they occur very early in life, possibly before birth, say the researchers. Furthermore, while thinning in the right half of the brain contributes to risk, thinning in the left half of the brain appears to be required in order for a person to show symptoms of these illnesses.

More research is needed to determine if the inherited risk for MDD is purely genetic...

Indeed. Just because a family has it over several generations does not prove it is purely genetic. I can testify from personal knowledge that behavioral effects can propagate over generations too. There's an interplay; it is not all one or the other.

(Now, what was the topic? )

Obviously things are more complicated than just "getting over it". If it's not very deep or long-standing and there are no genetic or inherited risks (familial traits) or childhood abuse then, yes, getting over "it" is possible, with time, but if one doesn't get over it then one is probably "stuck" with it and has to think about adapting. Apparently, "They" say that CBT used to replace the bad stuff with good stuff can help.

This is my fourth attempt to respond to this question and I'm losing the will... first I accidentally deleted it, then - not remembering how I came by the information originally I've tried to do a search for you but keep freezing up trying to open pdf files. I'll try to give you something but it's not going to be as complete as my first attempts, perhaps enough to get you started though.

http://www.psych.org/news_room/press_releases/ptsd11404.pdf
"The study, “The Nature of Traumatic Memories: A 4-T fMRI Functional Connectivity Analysis,” led by Ruth Lanius, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, Canada and an affiliate of the Robart's Research Institute, found that in people with PTSD, traumatic memories are associated with regions in the brain's right hemisphere, compared to the left in traumatized people without the disorder. The right hemisphere influences nonverbal memory recall, and the left influences a verbal pattern of memory recall.
These differences explain why PTSD sufferers experience traumatic memories as flashbacks, and traumatized people without PTSD recall traumatic events as ordinary autobiographical memories. Ordinary autobiographical memories are usually recalled as personal narratives whereas flashbacks, unlike verbal narratives, are experienced as fragments of sensory stimuli, such as visual images, sounds or physical sensations."

((((((((((((lovebirds))))))))))))

I'm not pleased for you...though I am for me. I thought I was the only one to have this issue. I mean I have found a measure of peace and I am happy I have it, but no matter how much I have forgiven, or completely released each person who I have wronged and who has wronged me even it it were a two way situation, I've never ever been able to drop a word that they have said to me, or the way it made me feel.

I don't think badly of them I don't get angry I don't want revenge I'd rather they be happy, but no matter what I can't stop the exchanges going around in my head; over and over like a stuck stylus. It just won't shut up, won't stop. I have to keep myself occupied constantly in order to drown it out....I dread bed time...it's like being buzzed at by mozzies all night but not being able to swat them enough to get rid of them.

If I find a solution I'll share it with you...If you find one, please share it with me,

Rhian