[Raging Quiet]

My T has asked me to write about abuse that happened and to word it like a story; e.g to have a character instead of writing it as me.

I've looked online and I can't see many mentions of this or have any idea if this usual for speaking about SA to a therapist.

Have you ever had to do this homework?

Hope you are all well

Thank you

[stopdog]

I don't see therapists who try to give homework. But it does not sound like a bad idea to me. I do write stories to make sense of things so I can see how it could be useful for some people.

[healed84]

My t asked me to do it just to make sharing my story a bit easier to share. Then I read it to him.

["Tilly may"]

My T asked me to spend a month drawing and painting about my feelings. I did the assignment and she was very happy with i t and wanted me to do more in depth stuff. i told her that it is too disturbing or painful. she said to do it anyway, i have not.

Yes. It made it lots easier to share my story.

[wotchermuggle]

No. I have no idea how you guys do this (for those of you who said you have). I agree though, that it's easier to think about (and probably write about) from someone else's perspective because you basically get to dissociate from it. That's how most of us survive the experiences in the first place.

Definitely makes sense to do it, but I could never do it.

I did this on my own because I could not talk about what happened to me and I could not write about it as happening to me. I quite literally started the story with, "Once upon a time ..." It was hugely helpful in getting the information out.

My T asked me to do this and I have to admit it was very painful for me to do.

[stopdog]

I usually write in the second person.

[Hetty]

When I was a child I went through some things that kept me feeling terrified, hurting, and despairing. One day my mother said, just ranting about something, "Oh, well, what difference does it make anyway? In a hundred years we'll all be dead."
She didn't say it flippantly, but tragically as she had a way of being the tragic heroine. I thought about that for awhile. I thought of my awareness existing somewhere long after this life was over, watching a movie of what happened here a hundred years ago. I thought maybe I could stand it then, when it was all over, and when I was just looking back watching a movie of what happened 100 years ago. I made the movie small and black and white.

Many years later after I was an adult, I met someone - a marriage counselor actually - that I thought I might come back to meet. I became interested in the practice of therapy and read a lot, took courses, and talked to many people. I felt like until then I'd only seen people try to take each other apart with words, and here were people trying to get people back together with words. For awhile I felt like I couldn't believe there could be such a thing.

I have often seen two suggestions used - to watch what happened on a movie screen or to write it in a story that happened to someone else. It's to distance a person from feeling endangered by recalling the events and feelings too intensely. Many people write or read stories that they wouldn't actually want to experience. That counselor didn't do that though, the one I met first. He used hypnosis a lot. I think anyone should only do as much as they feel they can handle. When I first tried coming back here, I couldn't take it all on without setting out to kill myself, but I got over that part. I think we are the best judge of how much we can handle or how far we want to go at a time.

For myself after all these years, I don't think it's necessary to face and relive and integrate the things you don't want to be there, unless you want to do that. I think it's enough to focus on your goals for yourself and just let go of the things that hold you back. Easier said than done though Relaxation and meditation exercises have helped me a lot, learning new things, and living for what I care about. People often say that you can't change the past, but I think that as we grow and live and learn, the way we see ourselves and the past can change. I've come to believe that although acknowledging and sharing what happened to us can be comforting (not always), what heals us is making different decisions about it than we did at the time. Writing out a story and talking about it can be one way to open it up to making different, more empowering interpretations.

My therapist ask me to do homework 1 time. I I told her if anyone's gonna be doing homework its gonna be you. I refuse to do homework.

[Anne2.0]

It is always your choice to do homework or not, as I'm pretty sure your T would agree.

I have found writing to have the potential to be transformational; over my 6+ years of therapy, I have done lots of writing. Most of it in the first person and lots of it about nitty gritty details that have at times felt like I was punishing myself by reliving them. Then I stopped writing and I started talking more in therapy about more of the incidents that happened to me. And although I completely respect the position that one does not need to relive the past in order to heal, it is the only thing that has really healed me. Confronting what happened and finding the words to explain it has brought forth an understanding of what I thought at the time and how I coped in ways that had not arisen before. It is like I really got IT, and really got myself, and both accepted and understood and even found some compassion for the girl that I used to think was compliant and pathetic. Turns out she was really quite clever and rebellious.

I have also recently been writing a short story, not about my childhood but about some painful interactions with the people responsible in adulthood. I've been writing it in the third person and that has been really helpful, and has allowed me to not just write stuff, but to be more like a creative writer in the process. It has been really, really good for me. I wish that my T had given me this homework assignment years ago-- but I probably wouldn't have done it anyway

[Paige008]

My T has asked me to do this exact same thing. For me, it is just a little too much right now and I'm not ready to put so much on paper or to remember so much.

She also suggested that maybe if I just started by introducing the characters, that may be easier than just jumping right into the story.

I have tried to write out some about the characters. It is hard for me though because it still feels very personal even though it's all written in third person.

I understand the reason for doing this. It's hard to identify your abuse as your own and to talk about it is even more difficult. Sometimes it's easier to put those experiences on an imaginary person, someone who isn't you. Writing a 'story' is a way to let you T know what happened and what kind of feelings are there, but it also protects you from going 'all-in'.

This is really difficult and I can understand the fear behind this. Like I said, I haven't been able to get very far on my own assignment and she gave it to me months ago. I wish you all the best if you decide to do this. I hope that it works for you!

My T said he doesn't believe in homework and will only give it if I request it... and that isn't happening.

[amandalouise]

my therapist always asks me to do some sort of homework, it could be something we are discussing and she says ...think about it this way this week and see what happens,... or she will say something like ...have you ever thought about it from this side of things.... give it a try this week... or she will ask me to write about something, ....take a walk and count how many....

my therapist is a firm believer that if a person doesnt learn new things, doesnt look/deal with things outside of therapy like they are working on in therapy nothing will change.. a person is in therapy because theres something that needs to be changed, worked on. She cant be with me outside of therapy so its up to me to make the changes that need to be done outside of therapy..

I know I can always tell her no I have never thought of things that way and wont do so after I leave you, no I dont want to write this list, this story...and I wont do it... but who is that hurting...not my therapist...it would be hurting myself and sabotaging my own therapy/healing, sabotaging the rate in which I heal/ sabotaging my becoming the person I dream I want to be...

the assignment of write about your abuse...that was easy for for me..I remembered very little of my abuse so it wasnt like I had many to choose from. and I had PTSD.. part of my having PTSD was the fact that I had lack of affect....thats when a person doesnt feel or show emotions appropriately...example laughting when the situation is sadness, and other odd or inappropriate shows of or lack of emotions. I was able to sit there talking to police, therapists and psychiatrists about the abuses I remembered as if they didnt happen to me... like I was reading it in a book, where the abuse wasnt real to me.. the assignment for me was to make it real to me, let me see that if what had happened to me had happened to someone I knew I would feel things like anger, against the abuser and other appropriate emotions.

I think it took me about 15 minutes to write out what had happened to me from the limited memories I had.

then my therapist had me read it as if what I wrote was about my wife..instead of saying I and me in the story to say my wifes name and the word she..

doing this made me see, feel and deal with that abusive event so that it no longer bothered me in dreams, nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts (my PTSD issues) and PTSD like dissociative problems..

[tinyrabbit]

Sometimes I write things down if they're too hard to say in T. If they're really hard, I will use a character e.g. the rabbit did this, the rabbit feels that. It helps a lot.