need a little outside perspective: having all your difficulties blamed on one 'event'

I just want to give to deli, tree, and everyone else who has suffered from CSA, or any other kind of abuse. It makes me feel so sad and angry that these things happened to you. I admire you for your ability to become such wonderful women and for the courage to heal yourselves through therapy.

i'm sorry to bump this up again. i haven't had a chance to reply to everyone, but i'm also not sure if i should just let this thread slide into PC-oblivion. writing things out helps me think more clearly, i dont need any replies. i am torn between wanting help, but also not wanting to burden anyone with having to respond. i know i'm not forcing anyone, of course, but just... i know i dont really deserve it .

impy, i am asking you because i know you will not think i'm being nit-picky but genuinely being confused. you said when people know the "whole" story, then they will not think those things about me. pdoc doesn't know the whole story. does that mean he thinks those things about me now? is the only way to get him to stop thinking bad things about me tell him all the bad stuff? how will that help if he knows everything? won't it make him even more disgusted in me? and also... am i being manipulative then, if i tell him everything? i'd only be telling him to make (in the hopes of making him) stop thinking bad things about me.

you're the one person who's not exempt from replying .


far, far from unhelpful. i read this soon after you posted it, and it has stayed with me. "If you regret writing, know that we don't regret you sharing your heart." i hope this is true of at least a few people here, but it means a lot even if it's only true of you. that you dont regret me sharing. ok. crying now. time to switch thoughts and go back into unemotional-deli mode. (thank you tumnus ).

i do "therapy" with pdoc, i guess. kind of like... i know most ppl just go to pdocs, get their meds adjusted, and only go back when they need a check up. but i see pdoc for an hour every week, and he provides a lot of support. i dont know if he does talk therapy in the sense that a psychologist does (empirically based treatment), but more just like... he is someone who cares about me a lot. he wants to listen. he hasn't rejected me. it is the kind of support i guess one could find from a (very understanding) friend - something that makes you feel not so alone, and as if someone is with you, and sometimes some clear insight - but... i don't know if it is "therapy" in the sense that we are working towards clear goals, or that there is any idea of how to move along.

i think pdoc can handle/deal with deep stuff like csa/trauma, but i dont think he knows how to "treat" it(?). like... when i started with him, he was still a newbie pdoc who only specialised in drug/alcohol counselling (only pdoc available within the week that i needed one, so he's who i got ). he has now expanded it to ptsd and stuff, and i know he has helped others with this.... but i dont know. i'm someone who's so goal focussed, and needs the steps planned out and stuff, and i don't know where we're going and how to get there.

maybe the problem is that i haven't said "i want to work on this", and also he hasn't pressured me to do so. i am sure if i came to him with all these thoughts he would be brilliant. but that would involve doing the scary stuff, and i like having pdoc as my safe person.

no one helps me with the trauma stuff, i guess. i stuff it down and only let it come out sometimes. this thread probably represents the furthest i have ever gone in processing it and sharing with someone else.

i like having Austin-T only work on uni stuff with me. it is the one big thing i want to achieve right now, and i dont want to let my other issues get in the way of me focussing on that. my old-T didnt want to focus on uni stuff because he thought the trauma stuff was more important, so we never attended to uni stuff and i kept withdrawing from school. and then he didnt believe me on the trauma stuff, either, so the whole enterprise was a bit of a waste.

maybe when uni is more under control Austin-T would be good to talk to about this stuff. but im still trying to build up basic trust with him. even something as neutral as uni - i find it difficult to talk about with him (or anyone). i dont like ppl knowing when i am failing, but at the same time i'm just as ashamed when i go well. so everything gets kept inside. i think being able to talk to Austin-T about trauma is a long way off yet .

dear tree - i am not quoting your post should you ever want to go back and edit. but thank you for sharing and making my actions more understandable and not so... alone .

'*****' is probably too good a word for me. i actually have a lot of respect for the (many) people i know who do that for a living. they do it for good reasons, like needing money. deli, on the other hand, did it because she wanted a hug.

i'll go put it to them the next time i see them: do you think someone who has sex with her father so she can pretend she is getting a hug is going to add value to the *****dom kingdom? taking applications?

(((((((((((((Deli)))))))))))))



I hear you.

Why do so many of my favorite people here worry about being a burden (or bother, as the case may be)? Worse, why do they seem to get most concerned about it after doing what sounds to me like some of their best sharing? If they really are being burdensome and I'm failing to see it, and being drawn to them on that very account, and I lack the good sense to even feel burdened, there must be something seriously wrong with me. Where's that : pacingfloor : unsmiley when we need it? [Flips through DSM-IV R] failure to feel burdened, failure to feel burdened... which axis would that be on?

Well, first things first: (((((((((()))))))))) <--- If you won't take that bag off, you'll just have to settle for crackly hugs.

Re: pdoc and therapy
Sounds to me like the very essence of therapy as Carl Rogers, for example, envisioned it, before the witch doctors got hold of it and added bells, whistles, diagnoses, clear goals, and other mumbo-jumbo (JMO).

I say the real therapy is something that sneaks up on you from behind while your mind is distracted with how the goals and steps and stuff don't seem to be working. I don't think I'm spoiling any surprises by telling you that, because you're not going to get it anyway till you're good and ready.

To go to, in between doing the scary stuff by yourself? Why not? Whatever works for you. You're obviously doing something right or -- guess what -- this stuff wouldn't even be coming up for you!

Which just goes along with what I've suspected since I've known you: there's no stopping you.

Two important points I get from that: (1.) If you already know you're going to give yourself an equally hard time whether you win or lose, I should think that would take a lot of the pressure off and give you the freedom to play it whatever way suits you best; and (2.) if you're ashamed even when you do well, then being ashamed sounds like just this thing you do to give yourself a hard time, and doesn't mean anything. The sun rose this morning. Deli's ashamed. What else is new?

If she were to join it, yes, I do (JMO, of course, as always). Compassion for sex workers -- that speaks well for you but from what we already know of you is hardly surprising. Meanwhile, how come none for you?

(For you, once you take the off):

deli,

This is impy after reading your post wishing he could go back in time and edit his post to remove the word "whole."

Let's put it another way or two.

Very, very few people would have a negative view of you as you imagine even under the worst of circumstances of what they think and why based on not really understanding your story. But even those very, very few would not have any sort of a negative opinion if they knew more--"whole." Most people don't need to know much to understand how horribly victimized you were, people like pdoc and me. We don't need to know more, everything, or any other word trying to signify "truth/whole truth" to be 100% supportive. Virtually everyone would be already supportive--I was referring to the universal recognition of how horrifying your experience was if--no one could know all about it without being supportive of you. Just because there might be a few who would be confused doesn’t mean that all, most, many…are. Your pdoc seems to recognize the abuse and that you were 100% a victim and 0% to blame.

So pdoc isn’t (nor am I) one of those people who needs to be convinced about the wrongness and reality of what happened to you. We don't "think those things" about you. Your pdoc seems to be extremely supportive and helpful; I think he's a good guy and you're lucky to have him. Not many like that around.

Being manipulative isn't an issue with a T or pdoc as long as you're not trying to exploit anyone. pdoc gets paid to help you, trying to get him to understand you isn't manipulation, it's what's supposed to be what's going on. Whether you're internally driven by this or that in telling him is a very secondary issue. The most important thing is that you tell and then work through it with him or others you have in your life. We all end up revealing things in particularly ways with particular people in varying ways based on varying motivations. Whether to impress or to prevent them from seeing us in a negative light, what we talk about is important material to address regardless of motivation.

Since he's performing a professional service, it's not manipulation or exploitation. HE's gaining from the sessions--money, service credits, workload coverage responsibility, ethically performing his responsibility--his ego: pdoc wouldn't be doing what he does if he didn't believe in the worthiness of it. He benefits from session with you in different ways. You aren't taking away from him; you aren't misleading him to get something from him as if you used someone as a friend when not really feeling that way about them. You're not cheating, not mistreating. Right? It's a unique relationship-type and it exists because you both want to see you get help.

I really wish I could give you a real hug after reading some of your posts. I recognize your pain and it makes me want to protect you from it, but all any of us here have are words on a screen, and it's not enough.