Posted by Partlycloudy on November 30, 2008, at 16:57:05
In reply to Re: I am hating what therapy is bring out in me » Partlycloudy, posted by SlugSlimersSoSlided on November 30, 2008, at 16:00:15
> Do you know about the physical effects of child abuse has or had on your body? Not the scars but the stuff you don't see like increased hormones and stuff.
No, I don't know about these things, just incidental stuff that my T will bring up from time to time.
> I know I learned that a lot of times girls will mature early due to the increased hormones and other stuff I can't remember off hand right now. I know I was nine when I had my menses. I am wondering if the physical stuff with our brains and how it changed the frontal lobes (most abused children have smaller frontal lobes) . Is there any way to change that? I know that the brain is very resilient and you can develop new synapses even at an old age. So I was thinking that maybe you can rewire your brain physically not just emotionally. Maybe it is too soon to know.
>I was kind of young too. All I know is that my mom, who was even a trained nurse, just didn't want to know about it. Just - did I see the movie at school (yes) and did I have any questions (er, not for her!) What questions I did have I managed to get answered around the schoolyard like any self respecting 5th grader would have - with misinformation :-)
At least I can smile about it now.
> I know now that I have been suffering from PTSD even as a child. My T has shown me examples of myself. I thought it was just something 3 years ago, but that is what triggered the worst of it.
> There is a reason we have PTSD, a lot of it has to do with the past and how our body reacts.Yes, me too.
>I know EMDR can help the symptoms of PTSD, and I know it caused chemical changes in the body. There is a huge EMDR study that will be coming out soon that shows actual empirical evidence of the change in the brain and the body.
>
> I think I am confusing myself at the moment. haha! I am just wondering can we overcome the damage done to our bodies, the stuff we don't see, the stuff that causes to react to situations differently than others. Then if we do control the symptoms of PTSD, can we reverse the child abuse effects on our bodies.
> Because I know I am safe intellectually, and feel that way most of the time, but then my mom or someone will trigger it , and I feel it in my body, not just emotionally. With the holidays coming up I am trying to prepare myself for intrusive contact from my mom or her mom, or someone from that side of the family, but it zaps me every time even when I think I am doing better or when I feel I am prepared.
> I do choose to be a survivor instead of a victim, but don't you have to come to terms with what happened to you in order to heal it? I have hidden from it for years, and it did get me far, but it does seem to catch up to you eventually. So I guess I am in the part of trying to acknowledge that it did happen.For me, the coming to terms is starting to come to ME in lots of different forms - I'm not having any kind of an acceptance, forgiveness type of transformative experience about my parents; I seem to instead be coming around to perhaps understanding a little bit more of the impossible reality of their experience, and how I was the best possible product of it. And from that understanding comes the seed of forgiveness in me, if only the seed of it. But I'm not pushing it! I've lived with this reality for a really long time, so it doesn't have to change overnight or anything - and nobody has to know whether or not my perceptions are changing. It's a totally internal work.
>I think maybe you have come farther than me or maybe it is we all deal with different aspects of this at different times. lol
I really couldn't say - like I've said, you are much more in touch with your feelings that I am right now. I have a real disconnect that I've developed over the years, through self protection, that is reluctant to fall down all of a sudden.
> I am just wondering if you have to actually change the damage that was done to use physical if even possible in order to heal some of our emotional wounds. Are there some wounds that just can't be healed like developmental growth that happens when we grow as infants and children. Can that be reversed? I sure hope so because I am tired of just dealing with symptoms, and not truly healing.
I personally think (not because of anything I have learned or read anywhere) that our brains are capable of rerouting pathways to healthy circuitry. I also think that we have to give our brains all the help we can - with better habits, better diet, medication where it can help us, and all the alternative methods that are proven to work (for me, that would be yoga, chiropractic, and, when I can afford it, acupuncture).
That's PartlyCloudy's skewed view of this wobbly world we live in.
poster:Partlycloudy
thread:865878
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081120/msgs/865953.html