Posted by llrrrpp on September 17, 2006, at 8:46:55
In reply to Re: I told my husband **child abuse trigger**, posted by alexandra_k on September 17, 2006, at 4:45:11
> > I'm not making a mountain out of a molehill.
>
> You don't have to have suffered severe abuse to justify not making a mountain out of a molehill. Feelings are feelings. They are justified because they are.Thank you Alex. I have to tell myself this OVER and OVER. I feel this way because I am HUMAN, not because I am (faulty/defective/a victim/ill/diseased/wrong/weak/female/imbecile/self-indulgent...)
> You were getting some place with therapy. You were focused on the present. Feelings and thoughts in the present that you were struggling with.
>
> Now...
>
> There is the 'tell your secrets of the past' (which are what makes present difficulty understandable) 'and then you will be cured' model.
>
> Yeah. It can be a significant change...
>
> A change in self identity even.
>
> Focusing on past harms can make one identify quite strongly as a victim of past injustice.I've always known that this happened to me. I always was aware of it. I just didn't make the connection between what happened TO me, and how it' affecting me right now. I think that the missing link was that I never allowed myself to feel it. Emotions are ways that our minds bind and consolidate many diverse senses of information into an easy-to-read format. I've known about things that are causing me anxiety in the present, like physical therapy, or going to see T or pdoc, or my dissertation, or even visiting my husband, who lives a few hundred miles away because he's in the military. I've known about things that made me feel anxious as a child. But I've never connected the two in my head before. I just buried the past.
T told me over and over again that it's going to get really hard. That I'm going to have feelings come up to the surface that I'm not prepared for. And that those feelings can be very scary, and make me feel like I'm losing my mind. I've experienced this four or five times in the last 6 months. I guess I was getting somewhere with therapy.
> There was stuff in the present...
>
> You didn't feel comfortable telling your t your thoughts and feelings.
>
> Do you feel like you have to be a happy bubbly person in order to earn love / acceptance?of course I do. It works well in casual friendships and for my relationships at work. It's a good skill to have. Maybe it's a strong facet of my personality, but once I get to know people better, I'm not afraid of showing them that I have a little depth too. It's just that I have this crippling anxiety and insecurity that I've never been able to shake, even in situations where I have nothing to fear-- I can tell myself this OVER and OVER, but I still can't extinguish it. Fear conditioning is very powerful ((((amygdala)))).
> I don't know what to say...
>
> Sometimes the path splits and one can't go back.
>
> I'm so sorry.I'm not sorry Alex. I didn't like my path. I WANT to have a choice. I don't WANT to go back. I will have to remind myself that turning around 180 degrees and LOOKING at the past doesn't mean that I'm headed in that direction. When I get to the fork in the road, I want to be able to look behind me and figure out which branch takes me furthest away, fastest.
-ll
poster:llrrrpp
thread:686272
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060911/msgs/686752.html