[zooropa]

I've been preoccupied for the last month or so with finding photos online of the public place where I was brutally SA. I keep finding more and more pictures on various photo hosting sites, but none of them are the pictures I have in my head. I KNOW there are no pictures of that night. I KNOW that even if there were, they wouldn't match my memory exactly.

But somehow, I keep looking. I think in some ways, or some parts, I am afraid I made it all up in my head. That by having nobody in my life to validate what happened to me, I question if it really did. Kind of like how other parts of me question whether I actually survived.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone else has done this?

I finally mentioned it on the phone to my T and she said I shouldn't do it, that I'm just beating myself up by looking and getting upset when I find photos that are of the right place, even if they are the wrong time of year or from a different perspective, etc. I'm sure she's right, that there is no value in searching, searching, searching, but I can't seem to stop

[ilovecustard]

I definitely think it is a bad thing to keep searching because it is keeping this attack in the forefront of your mind for longer. After I had been raped I remember it was all i thought about for months, and i wanted to go back to the place it occurred without even knowing why. I think it was because my brain was desperately trying to deal with what had happened by going over and over it and obsessing about it. I think talking to people about what happened is better than searching alone. Talk to your T, family, us etc. x

[pachyderm]

I visited a "scene of the crime" a few months ago -- not of SA, not even of physical abuse, but of a kind of abuse nevertheless: the mental hospital where I spent two years. The place is all run down now, the building where I spent my time has broken-out and boarded up windows, and so on. I thought it was an advance for me to go back there after all these years and take a look.

[zooropa]

how did you fee, pachy, looking that place and then afterwards? I hope it was healing for you.

I want to talk about this w/my T tomorrow. I'm trying to stop looking at it online until after I see her. It's hard, it feels like an addiction. I guess it's a compulsion? I don't know. It is hard to stop. Maybe part of me thinks by going back there (even just through photos) I will somehow come to a better outcome, kind of like the repetition compulsion or whatever it's called?

I don't know. It's very confusing.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by zooropa

how did you fee, pachy, looking that place and then afterwards? I hope it was healing for you.

Yes, I think it was healing just to get the nerve to go back there and look at the place after all this time. I knew the place was mostly out of service but was surprised at the extent of the deterioration.

[Rhiannonsmoon]

((((zooropa))))

I've done this too. I am going to visit my beautiful grandmothers resting place soon and I have every intention of returning to the very spot that I was SA.

I intend to act out a ritual of finality and strength, retake my personal power and innocence...I look often...and I don't feel beaten up I feel anger and I need to reclaim me, which I will do...