Connecting the dots

NOTE: can TRIGGER, so be careful. Thanks.

Sorry for the long post:

Today while I was at home, trying to relax and clear my mind of the daily stresses, I found myself sinking back into the past again and remembering things that I probablly would have been better off forgetting.

But even with the anxiety of these past memories making me feel extremely uncomfortable at the time, I did come across a startling realization:

About the time my baby brother was born, the situation between me and my step father was beginning to spiral out of control. The abuse, I believe, was at its worse, or at least it was getting to the point where it was visibly affecting me.

My stepfather use to take my brother up stairs to my room and just stand in the door way and stare at me.

For a long time he wouldn't say a word, but just stand there in the door way with my baby stepbrother in his arms and give me this disgusted look.

The anxiety would build in me to the point that I was on the verge of screaming, or crying, or both. Usually when my step father came to my room, some "punishment" was going to be issued, and my "punishments", if you would say, often fell under the term of abuse.

Sometimes I think he liked watching me gradually collaspe under the weight of my fear of him.

During these times though, when he had my baby stepbrother in his arms, my stepfather would suddenly break the silence and start talking.

He wouldn't be talking to me, but he would be talking to my baby brother, as if he could understand what was coming out his mouth.

He would tell my brother that I was a nobody that I wasn't going any where. He said that if I was going somehwere, "it would probably be to jail or some loony bin."

I would just sit there at my desk, powerless to make him stop, or question his motives for having a "secret" conversation with my infant brother while I was right there.

He would go on, telling my brother (while looking at me) how the "evil" inmates in jail and the "evil" doctors in the hospitals would take away whatever dignity I had left and leave me with less than I had at home (which I can say wans't much).

My stepfather would paint these horrible pictures in my head of what the jails and "loony bins" would do to me, and how what he did do me at home was nothing in comparision to what could happen.

I remember dwelling on these things for hours at a time, terrifying myself to death with all these vivid images that I think I was far too young for.

I think what hurt me the most was that my younger brother was there...hearing it all (it didn't matter if he could understand it).

My brother hearing how much of a criminal and nutcase I was made me feel awful. This hurt me more than any beating could have.

Even though all this happened five or six years ago, I today still have this unnatural fear of prisons and hospitals.

Even though I know its completely irrational to think that I will be thrown away into some dungeon like prison or some prison like mental hospital, I still have this intangible wall in my head that makes me believe if I discuss some of the things I think (my personal feelings), I will be labeled "crazy" and be put away somewhere; becoming the nobody that my stepfather predicted I would be.

Sometimes this wall keeps me from discussing some things that I should with my T...sometimes it keeps me from showing any anguish at all.

Now if only I could explain this to my T without breaking down into silence...the type of silence that I think my stepfather casted over me those years ago.

It's a good feeling to know why you act the way you act, but at the same time, it's crushing to know that someone had so much control over the way I thought that I can't speak when I need to the most.


Just something I thought that I needed to "write" down.

Why don't you print this and show/send it to your therapist if you're not comfortable talking about it? Maybe that would be a way of giving her an inkling of what you went through. Your stepdad instilled an irrational fear in you and it will be hard to move on from that. Your therapist is there to help, but you need provide her with the tools to do so (in a way that is non-threatening to you)...

You are no longer that child. You are free to get away. I agree with Always. Therapy is be essential.

"Even though all this happened five or six years ago, I today still have this unnatural fear of prisons and hospitals."

I'm going to respectfully disagree with your statement. And in more than one way.

Your fear is perfectly natural. What happened to you was psychological torture. Your vulnerability was extreme, and that was the whole point of the experience. By speaking as if to your brother, your step-father was laying down what virtually was a perfect tape recording in your brain. It was a deliberate act of torture. It was the ultimate disempowerment. A truly evil act.

Now, back to the first part of the statement. Your concern with time is also the result of psychological torture. The wounds you received are timeless wounds. At any point in your lifetime, your emotional state will be transported across time, to take you to that feeling of disempowerment, as it was laid down in your past. It's as if time bends back on itself, and touches two different times simultaneously.

You have done an amazingly huge part of the work of restoring your internal state to a healthy one, already. You already know, with clear recollection, what was said to you, and what was done to you.

I do not mean to suggest that this insight is easy. It is anything but easy. Somebody else made it hard for you, on purpose. And you can learn to take that back. You can learn to pull that torturous memory from your mind, just as you can tease a burr out of a sweater. It's a ***** of a job, but it can be done.

I do strongly support the other voices, that you print your message off. All you need do, then, is show it to a potential counsellor. They'll understand the situation, because you have made it so starkly clear already. I suggest you seek out specialized counselling, for PTSD arising from child abuse. There are specialized therapies for that. Interview counsellors for the position. Find one that can read your message, size up the situation, and give you an immediate sense that they can help you work the burr out of your emotional sweater. Trust your gut on that, and you're already doing it. Just like that, you're turning back the pendulum.

Just so you know, there is a trigger icon. It's that funny orange-red ball thing, with crossing lines on it. You also completely managed the trigger aspect with words. You did great. I'm just saying, there is an icon for it.

Take care,
Lar

I have always had a fear of being "locked up" and edited myself in therapy accrdingly. But, over the years, as I have learned to trust some people, including my t, I still have the fear, but can push myself past it enough to communicate more completely with my t.

"Don't let them get me!!!" is a catch phrase between me and my friends. Being in an institutional setting would destroy what little is left of my limbic system. I need a degree of silence that is beyond impossile in that setting.... I wouldn't be able to sleep. Heck, I wouldn't be able to relax. It would drive me straight to hell. . . I can't spend much time looking at this or I can give myself a panic attack. You are not alone.

Thank you everyone for the encouraging responses.

Thank you Always and Larry Hoover for giving me that extra "push" to bring this post to my T and have her take a look at it. Its something that I plan on doing our next session (I've said that before, but I'm going to follow through this time).

I have a huge problem with being able to verbally express myself, but when I sit down and write it, my thoughts and feelings come out a whole lot better (and a whole lot clearer).


</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
You have done an amazingly huge part of the work of restoring your internal state to a healthy one, already. You already know, with clear recollection, what was said to you, and what was done to you.

I do not mean to suggest that this insight is easy. It is anything but easy. Somebody else made it hard for you, on purpose. And you can learn to take that back. You can learn to pull that torturous memory from your mind, just as you can tease a burr out of a sweater. It's a ***** of a job, but it can be done.

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Those are words of wisdom Larry Hoover. Thank you for them.

Also, I'm seeing a therapist now for PSTD, but I did not know there was specialized therapy for PSTD with child abuse, that is something I have to look into.

PS: I'll make sure I use the icon next time. Thanks.

(((hugs)))