AIBU to wonder whether you ever fully get over abuse?

Re RSD:

https://x.com/naomicfisher/status/1756449386328953332?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

now NF has recently run what I felt was a good course on RSD but she did point out that it’s not really a diagnosis. Her suggestions still stood however and were very helpful and holistic.

It is behaviour that psychologists have recognised for a long time - which ways in which to handle it.

There are a few similar things that have evolved into what people think are official diagnoses via the internet. But they’re pseudoscience/ pseudo psychology. Not fully researched or evidenced. Another one is Gestalt Language Processing. It’s a fancy way of describing echolalia, but with an unevidenced programme that’s supposed to help. Speech therapists have always been very aware of echolalia and also how we can support language development in a child who uses echolalia.

This doesn’t negate the issues and experiences at all, all behaviour is communicating something - but it is important to be aware that there’s not the rigorous scientific background behind them, as there is with PTSD.

this is a longer explanation of the issue with RSD: https://x.com/naomicfisher/status/2053083211765371061?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

This.

I have many therapy sessions and medication over the years.

But because it started in childhood it so deep rooted and part of my brain and nervous system that I see my PTSD/trauma as something that I will never 'get over' but that I can at least manage with the tools and techniques I was given through therapy so that I no longer let it dominate and poison my life.

Ha ha I’m the same. I’m forever editing typos or my brain goes faster than I type so sometimes I have sentences with missing words. No worries.

Yes it does relate to trauma. I read a report that neurodivergent children are more likely to experience parental and/or sibling abuse. More likely to be bullied. More likely to have an abusive partner. This higher risk of being a victim of abuse consequently means that PTSD is co-morbid with neurodivergence.

In addition, the standard victim support therapies don’t help people with neurodivergency, so they tend to get more severe PTSD and have worse long term outcomes. It’s only recently that trauma therapy has been enhanced to be adaptable to, well, the most common, almost stereotypical presentations of neurodivergent conditions.

Thanks for the reminder that highly sensitive personality and rejection sensitivity are not diagnosed conditions. I did not capitalise them because that was my understanding too. Afaik the first is a personality trait and the other is a common trait amongst those with ADHD. 😊

I agree that importance is in what happens next? How do we help this? I would think that even though on the surface in how a person reacts to a single situation the two may look alike, the thoughts, patterns and the means to help would be different?

They haven’t been very good at helping, I completely agree with this. Especially for school age children.

Sorry I’m making loads of spelling and grammar errors as I’m rushing. (I should really learn not to mn when I am busy!)

This does all relate to trauma, as so many children and adults have PTSD with diagnosed conditions which complicates recovery. I’ve personally never fully recovered from mine (hence my interest.)

And I’m sorry this has gone off on a bit of a tangent

But wider conversations are good to have. And more quality research is needed.

rejection sensitivity isn’t a diagnosis, and can occur in a a range of mental health conditions.

HSP isn’t a diagnosis; it’s an observed personality type.

this is the problem with all these diagnoses; they’re based on subjective observations. Diagnoses are very helpful and crucial but at the same time what is AS important is what happens next. What will help?

the government are looking at this via this review. The main conclusion was they’ve not been very good at the help bit (no shit Sherlock!)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69cbdb2369dd81b3f213c660/independent-review-into-mental-health-conditions-ADHD-and-autism-interim-report.pdf

Complex ptsd isn’t something you get over. It shapes your nervous system. Especially if it started in childhood.
I learned to integrate my past and the impact it has now, into my life now. When I am struggling or “triggered”, I work on self soothing and parenting myself. No point in being cross with myself. I treat myself as I would my children.
Acceptance. Working with yourself. And being the kindest you possibly can be to yourself, is how I live a fulfilling life now.

Very interesting, not disagreeing but it does have me wondering how do they untangle highly sensitive personality from rejection sensitivity in a person with ADHD?

I suppose that is why they do so much medical and clinical training!

It is good that it is being recognised as a personality type rather than a result of poor parenting. I have seen posters that are convinced if a child is highly sensitive that they can be ‘toughened up’ usually through harsh measures.

https://amzn.eu/d/01H2f6Py

dandelions and orchids.

(highly sensitive people, a personality type, are thought to make up 20-30 % of the population.)

Yes - but also, crucially, it’s what helps us.

if you work with traumatised children you are very aware of ACEs - adverse childhood experiences that lead to trauma responses.

But there are also the BCEs. Benevolent childhood experiences. Everyone is also an individual; research shows that personality types respond in different ways. There’s an excellent book / research on children called dandelions and orchids; it’s linked to these ideas. (It’s worth noting that you can also be autistic / adhd and a dandelion or autistic / adhd and an orchid. Or tulip!)

highly sensitive people tend to react to negative life events more deeply BUT have a better response to therapy. They’re also often very deeply moved by the arts - and the arts heal. (Arts can be all sorts of things including flower arranging and cake baking.) lots on this in the art cute book - she’s been on a few podcasts too recently https://amzn.eu/d/01DFCKPY

‘flow state research’ taps into all this.

Ah interesting
« What the authors are objecting to is not really Van der Kolk’s clinical model, but an increasingly literalized cultural interpretation of it.
And to be fair, that interpretation does exist. Trauma language has increasingly become mixed together with social media neuroscience, wellness culture, and overly simplistic biological claims. Somewhere along the way, metaphors that were clinically useful sometimes began getting treated as literal anatomical explanations. The authors are pushing back against the idea that trauma is physically stored in non-innervated tissue independent of the brain and nervous system. »

So the Body Keeps Score book by Van der Kolk is still accurate & useful, it is just the past 12yrs of misinterpretations, over simplification and misunderstanding of their book by the wellness industry and wellness influencers means a course correction is needed.

You may find this very recent paper and research helpful OP:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-hope-circuit/202605/the-body-doesnt-keep-the-score

Thank you for this.

By saying a charmed life, I am implying that I do believe it is mostly luck that determines whether we end up with PTSD or not. I have zero tolerance for anyone who want to attribute PTSD to lack of resiliency or poor life choices or any other victim blaming nonsense.

What an odd take to think that means I am assuming everyone else leads a charmed life. I am obviously talking to those who haven’t not needing to feel like we should conform to an ideal lifestyle that is lived by the lucky. Some people are that lucky.

No, it is always there.

I think you have to learn to accept the person you are now. The most damaging thing for me was working to try to get back to who I used to be.

Tbh i don't think you "get over" abuse, whatever that actually means. Being a survivor changes you, and changes how you live afterwards. You never forget it, and it can hit you hard in lots of unexpected situations in my experience, however long ago the abuse was. And that's after years of counselling and therapy on and off. My belief is that survivors of sexual abuse and male violence always see the world differently, which those who have not experienced it can never completely understand so they expect us to "get over it". I don't think we do.

I think I have. That isn't to say it hasn't had a lasting effect on me. It has. BUT I don't suffer with it anymore. It's just become part of who I am.

It takes a LONG time though. We're talking 40 years!

That's not what she's saying, I don't think. She means if you haven't had it happen to you then you don't live with the nightmares/ other consequences. My mum couldn't stand fireworks because she'd lived through WW2, but to me they're beautiful.

I was thinking this...

7 years on. Never had another relationship. Lots of counseling and therapy. Medication.

Personally, I think sometimes the damage is too great.

I remember when I started dealing with the issues I had in my life I thought I’d never get over them but actually I kind of feel I grew over and around them rather than ever getting over them.

You definitely don’t get to go back to who you were ever but you do change back to someone you can be happy with.

I really struggled to sleep in a house alone for decades because of childhood abuse but I can happily now following processing the experience.

That’s a difficult question, whilst counselling helped me to feel strong, and helped me view my rapist as weak, I can still be irrational about DH wanting sex if I don’t want it (he doesn’t push it if I don’t). Therapy and grounding techniques have helped me to get myself balanced if I get triggered, but the triggers are still very much there. However in some ways I am stronger, as what I learnt about myself in therapy has really helped me navigate other challenges in life.

Another shout for you to read The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk. Superb book, written in laymans language. Very trendy this year, but it has been around for a few years. Worth every penny