[dawnhopeful]

When My dog died, I was about 17. This was very traumatic, because ,you see, I had been abusing my dog. i once chased him under the swing with some wire hangars. It is only recently (I am 58 ) that i have begun to connect these events with my emotional distancing. You see, my brother and boyfriend buried the dog in the front garden, while I sat indoors and watched. Recently, when my rabbit died, I was the one who buried him in the back garden. I cried for a long time. I think i was also crying for the animals from my youth, who had died.
i have come to believe, over the years, that i was an abused child, even though i dont have concrete recollections of the abuse. It is very difficult for me to cry now. I dont have anyone in my life to whom I am emotionally connected, even though i have a husband. I would like to be in tune with my emotions, without being bowled over by them. I am on meds. but wonder if they are preventing me from feeling . I couldnt travel in an airplane before i started taking them. Now i travel all over.
Anyone share any of these experiences? Thanks, Dawn

[arcangel]

Originally Posted by dawnhopeful

When My dog died, I was about 17. This was very traumatic, because ,you see, I had been abusing my dog. i once chased him under the swing with some wire hangars. It is only recently (I am 58 ) that i have begun to connect these events with my emotional distancing. You see, my brother and boyfriend buried the dog in the front garden, while I sat indoors and watched. Recently, when my rabbit died, I was the one who buried him in the back garden. I cried for a long time. I think i was also crying for the animals from my youth, who had died.
i have come to believe, over the years, that i was an abused child, even though i dont have concrete recollections of the abuse. It is very difficult for me to cry now. I dont have anyone in my life to whom I am emotionally connected, even though i have a husband. I would like to be in tune with my emotions, without being bowled over by them. I am on meds. but wonder if they are preventing me from feeling . I couldnt travel in an airplane before i started taking them. Now i travel all over.
Anyone share any of these experiences? Thanks, Dawn

I can relate to one of those. I think when we grieve and cry over the death of a pet there is grief, and anger, from the death of previous pets. Part of it is old memories stirring. For me it's that and the "******mit why does everything I love have to die" anger.
Maybe someone else here can relate to the other experiences and offer some helpful insights.

[dawnhopeful]

I have read that people who have been abused, can take out their experience on an animal or even a child of theirs, in return. I am trying to unravel who is responsible. For sure, the victim is not. In this case the victim(dog) isnt, but nor am I because I am a victim. However because I am a victim, doesnt mean that I can take my anger out on the dog. So that i am just as bad as the perpetrator.
When they buried my dog, I emotionally distanced myself from the experience because it was so painful. I felt like I was being punished when he died. (He was run over) Thus when my mom died, when she was living near me , I blamed myself too. She died because I asked her if my dad had abused me sexually. She denied it. I couldnt cry and was in terrible shock. (when she died) I tried drawing (art helps) her ,and I could cry. ( I had drawn very angry illustrations of her before her death.)
Has anyone taken meds. for depression, and then worked on their abuse issues, and finally felt strong enough to quit? I suppose this is my main question Thanks for input, Dawn

[amandalouise]

Dawnhopeful yes I take antidepressants and work on the abuses of my past. Im not sure what you mean by quit.. quit the meds? quit the working on abuse? quit being depressed? quit feeling dissociated (Distanced) from your emotions?

What I do know is that abusing animals and dissociating happens for all kinds of reasons. not every person who has abused animals and dissociated their self from their emotions are abused..

for instance people with add and adhd are sometimes dissociated from their feelings and can be violent,

people who have expreienced a death of a family member can be dissociated from their feelings and because rage is part of the grief cycle can take out their anger, rage of any situation out on others including animals.

people who are war veterans sometimes come home from the war distanced from their emotions and have angry outbursts that can be violent acting out against people and animals

people who have gone through the foster care system (doesnt have to be because they are abused, it could be they lost their family, or thier family just didnt have the financial means to raise them, there are all kinds of non abusive means can lead to someone being abandoned and placed in foster care)these foster kids can have what they call reactive attachment disorder where they are dissociated from their feelings and take it out on animals.

theres all kinds of mental disorders and physical disorders that can lead to someone harming animals and being dissociated from their emotions.

you say you are in treatment for depression. I have seen many kids with depression that have never been abused and they are dissociated from their emotions and harm animals.

what Im saying here is don't jump to the conclusion that you must be abused and just dont remember it based on you having hurt animals when you were a child and you are dissociated from your emotions.

dont worry about all that. work on what you do know about yourself and becoming stable. learn about emotions and how to stimulate them and how to allow yourself to feel them. take care of your depression and those daily things that cause you problems.

if you were abused time will tell. any time a person has a repressed memory of abuse its usually after their life is in order and they are mentally ready to handle it those memory slide forwards back into the present and surface memories.

and if it turns out you were abused then all this work on becoming stable with your depression, daily life and emotions, will give you the skills and experience that you will need for dealing with the repressed abuse memories.

My father abused our animals (won't go into it, too triggering). I was a witness to these horrific things he did. When an animal died at his hands I was sent away to a family friends horse ranch to help me deal with my huge emotions of grief and sadness. When I came back, there was no place the animal was laid to rest for me to go to. When I came back, I was muted from expressing my grief. When I came back, there was no hugs and consoling of my tears and grief from my family of origin.

In my 30's, while I was hitting my dog, my husband did me a huge favor. He grabbed me and hit me in the same fashion as I was hitting my dog and it hurt like hell. He then sat me down and explained to me that this is abusive behavior and if I didn't stop it, he would find a new home for our dog. I never thought of this as "abusive behavior" because I was repeating generational abuse and thought it was normal behavior and everyone did this. It was all about dogs, never any abuse towards cats, just dogs. To this day, I will not allow myself to own a dog. Once when dog sitting and the dog became stubborn while out walking, I felt the old surges to abuse and recognized that it may never go away, but I did recognize it and kept myself in check.

In my 40's while sitting out on my parents porch during dinner, my father became abusive towards his dog. I looked around at all my family members and what I saw was very interesting. No one tried to stop him and no one said anything. My two sisters looked like they were in a trance, their children just witnessed it and accepted what was being done all the while smiling. My mother looked down and away. Generational abuse again was being accepted and repeated. It was then that I reflected back on what my husband was trying to get across to me when I was abusing my dog, 10 years earlier, and I will be eternally grateful with his guidance through this process of stopping this behavior.

It's only natural we repeat generational abuse. The key is recognizing it, which is what you are doing, dawnhopeful and that is the beginning of working on this. I, myself find it extremely difficult to express and feel any emotion so I do collages to help me. I find National Geographic has the most graphic pictures that help me identify feelings. I tear them out of the magazine and arrange them on a poster board and take into my therapist to work out the feelings. I also find Dialectal Behavior Therapy (DBT) has been a big help in dealing with emotions.

Keep posting about this, there has been alot of insightful information from the other members here which I hope has been helping you