AIBU to wonder whether you ever fully get over abuse?

[TheOpalFox]

do you ever fully get over abuse. ?

i have met an amazing man and had therapy etc. but when he’s not here I sleep with the light on . And hate being downstairs on ny own??? I’d rather be upstairs ? Anyone else. 🤯

Just keep going to therapy and be kind to yourself.
Getting over abuse isn’t everything going back to how it was or how you were.
It’s more about getting to a place where you are unapologetically doing whatever you need to do to feel safe.
Night light on, so what?
Prefer to relax upstairs- perfectly ok.

Not everything is mind over body. A good book I read was the body keeps score or similar title and it reminded me that we don’t have to conform to the blissful in their lucky ignorance lifestyle. There’s nothing inherently wrong in having habits that increase personal security or just make us feel comfortable.

A good book I read was the body keeps score or similar title and it reminded me that we don’t have to conform to the blissful in their lucky ignorance lifestyle.

What an odd turn of phrase. I'd never assume anyone else led a charmed life.

If someone doesn't understand the symptoms of PTSD then they've at least never experienced something that gave them PTSD. Which is "charmed life" enough compared to someone who has experienced something that gave then PTSD.

No ..

Some things in life you get through but never get over. You just have to manage life as best you can, and see the positive in things and situations.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing particularly but I’ll never forget and there’s parts of my character which were formed by my experience.

But I have learned to love myself and that’s all part of me.

Like the first poster said, sometimes you keep doing things you need to do that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. I’m ok with that.

I haven’t found therapy that helped though, not a single one has helped but I know some people do find it helpful.

I've had counselling which helped. But I find it can be ok for ages then something will take me right back there and I panic. My therapist taught me several grounding techniques which can help in those times but are not for everyone.
I do t think I'll ever 'get over it' but I'm safe and happy and that's enough for me for now

I don't think you can be unchanged by the experience of abuse, but you can deal with the trauma symptoms with support.

There's an excellent course called Own My Life, do Google it. It takes a trauma-informed approach to supporting women to heal from abuse and to move forward with a sense of agency and confidence. I've heard a lot of good things from abuse survivors who have done the course.

It can be accessed in person or on Zoom and the website will tell you where the nearest course is, many organisations provide it for free or for minimal cost.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

dandelions and orchids.

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.

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.