Recovering from child abuse......help needed

[adelicatequestion]

Hi

I have been having hterapy for almost a year now for child abuse issues.

The problem I have is no emotions. I talk about the abuse as if I was buying a bag of potatoes or commenting on the weather. I can;t seem to bring out emotions about it to process them,.

Daily I have panic attacks and wake up in the night shaking.

Has anyone been thorugh this. What are the stages you go through. Will I ever be able to experience emotions. I do cry about other things - sometimes, but am not an emotional person.

TIA

I am very overweight and my mum has consistently intefered telling me to walk more, do things, lose weight.

I recently told her never to mention my weight again and she got vicious about how she was helping and maybe she'd better not come over any more - wtf!

So now she asks DD??!!!! I have to stop that too but my nan is very ill at the moment so now is not the time.

I have never found talking to mum of any benefit about anything that is deeper than superficial.

Silentcatastrophe -thanks for the link. I will have a look at that later.

I think I have amny layers to unfold, not just the abuse but self esteem issues, never feeling loved or valued and an affair that is unresolved. I'm sure all the issues will be tracked back to one thing, and when I discover that, I may then begin to heal properly.

I think that weight can go up and down a bit depending on what's happening in your life. I got very fed-up with people saying I was too thin. It wasn't an eating disorder - it was because I was effing miserable.

What does your mum know about the abuse? My mum didn't take much notice until my dad gave me a black eye. I don't think she really knew how he was behaving. I don't think she could. I don't think she thought people could behave like he did, and so I think she put it to the back of her mind. I wasn't abused sexually, but I was bullied and controlled and made to feel completely without function.

I know what you mean, Alypaly about the sense of lonliness. Although I can accept that it was not my fault, or anything to do with me, it's still sometimes hard to deal with, espcially now, with my mum in such a vulnerable situation.

I have found the Duluth Wheel of Power and Control a useful thing to look at. I have found it helpful to be able to articulate in which areas my father hurt me. Again, it's a step towards seeing that these things are not your fault.

I told my um about 3 yrs ago that I had been abused and no more has been said about it.

I felt bad telling her and told her not to feel guilty and she said " I don;t feel guilty" and that was that. No hug, no empathy, no nothing.

mum not um!

sorry silentc when i re read the posts i realise that comment'You are making so many steps on your journey of recovery. Keep travelling!and the ref to NAPAC was for ADQ.

although i did look at it to see if i could help for those two hour sessions,to help other abused people.

You would be a great support to someone Alypaly.

I know it helps me to talk to someone who has been through it. DH couldn;t possibly understand what it's like. He has no point of reference.

I have backed away a bit this week from the therapist. It was getting a bit too heavy and I was feeling very bad about myself being needy and desperate. I don;t like feeling vulnerable like that.

ADQ your mum should not br using DD as an information getter,that is very wrong of her to do that.

I honestly believe your feelings of worthlessness and low self esteem have been caused by DH and you are in a situation to transfer the same feelings from other times in your life ,almost as an evasion of what you need to deal with now.
What your DH has done to you was probably the final straw ,the final betrayal and that in itself has made you loose confidence and caused low self esteem. Anyone would feel like that,even without the abuse. Your brain is linking it all to ALL the similar feelings in your past...and what you need to do in your own mind...is to realise that NOTHING that you do, can change what happened then,but what can change is how you deal with situations that make you feel like that vulnerable little girl, in the present.
And unfortunately,recently, your DH placed you in that position...your self esteem has gone,self worth,trust,affection is probably nil because you are afraid of the ultimate betrayal again......
Your mum sounds very hard ADQ,did she honestly say 'i dont feel guilty'....thats awful...thats almost worse than denial.

silentcatastrophe its horrible when you know your mum is vulnerable too, isnt it. Do you still live with her or are you away from the home?

No you're right. My mum tells the children all sorts fo things like how I could end up in a wheelchair if I don;t lose weight or die young and now they're scared.

My self esteem was bad even before DH did this to me. I never really trusted him fully. I thought I did but would ask him to walk friends home if it was dark and then quiz him about what happened when he got back. I really am quite ridiculous and warped.

I don't think I ever really trusted anyone or will. That's part of teh reason i didn;t boot him out. He is basically a good man and even if I asked him to go , I wouldn;t trust anyone else any more than I do him.

The crux of the issue with his affair is I have this need to know what it is about him that made him carry it on for so long knowing that he was hurting me.

YOur post, ADQ, is terribly sad. It is so sad to feel that you are unable to trust anyone, or will again. Your trust has been betrayed by so many people.

Yuo say that your husband is a basically good man. Except that he cheated on you. Are you not too a good woman to whom terrible things have happened?

I don't live near my parents, Alypaly. It makes me very ill if I have to spend much time there. I can't cope with the controlling of my father and having one brother who comes round and gets drunk then starts smashing things.

SC

I'm hoping that through dealing with the abuse, lack of emotion and lack of trust in my parents, I will learn to trust people.

I have been let down so many times that it is engrained in me that I will be let down again. I don;t want to go through life feeling like that.

I think I know deep down that I do trust DH, but I'm scared to let myself fully believe it.

It is sad the legacy that some parents leave their children. One thing from all of this though is that my children never have nor ever will go without love, cuddles and emotional support when they need it. I am very confident that they know they are loved and supported.

My children are the one thing that I feel I have done right by them.

adelicatequestion i know what you mean about the trust thing.....i was exactly the same after the abuse. I never trusted boyfriends...( funnily enouugh except for my current BF ,but he doesnt tick many boxes)probably always assumed the worst,that they would go off and find someone better. Like you say,its this ruined self my esteem. Never felt good enough to keep anyone nice.
My ex (my boys dad)went off with his ex fiancee when i was pregnant and that just destroyed me.Then when i kicked him out he started seeing my very best friend. So all my trust in men and women was destroyed in one blow. I have never let anyone get under my skin since.

I am sorry to play devils advocate here ADQ,but after all that you have said about DH..you almost sound as if you are trying to convince yourself that everything is ok with DH...i am not so sure damage like that ever gets laid to rest.
The unfortunate thing is,that if you dont manage to get back your own feelings of self worth and this feeling that you are not good enough for anyone...the chances are you will push your relationship into the same situation as you have had in the past. Then you may well say to yourself...'oh well i new that would happen,because i'm not good enough'
You ARE good enough,good enough for something better and you sound like a good mum too....and im glad your children give you the same as mine do.

silentcatastrophe .......its horrible coping with a drunk and violence isnt it....my dad was just the same. used to get drunk virtually every night of the week and lunch times,gamble all the money,beat my mum ,me and my stepbrother(which at the time i hated...wish he'd beaten him senseless now). I couldnt wais to get enuf money together at 21 to get my own place.

Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to do Alypaly - get my self esteem built up so that I can make a judgment on DH.

I flip around with questions such as is he still here because I have low self esteem?, Can anyone survive an affair? Did he just make a mistake and has learnt from it? If I had good self esteem would I still be with him because I'd have seen his affair as a scream for help too at the time.

I am so confused at the moment with everything that's happening, I don;t trust myself to make an informed decision and would hate to regret a badly made one.

Does this make any sense?

People DO make mistakes, and people DO survive affairs. Perhaps you are not in a position to make a decision about things. Are you in a position to decide NOT to decide anything at the moment? It is a perfectly valid decision to make. In time, you will find space to work out the ins and outs, but it seems you have a lot of things on your mind. One thing at a time...

SC

I think that is pretty much what I have decided to do. I have decided to wait until I am ready to make that decion with a lucid mind.

You're right. I have way too many other things to think about at the moment. For me the right decision is to be with DH. Whether that changes in the future remains to be seen.

I suppose at one level, each day I am making that decision to be with him. I don't want it to be different at teh moment although I do question it sometimes, on the whole i choose to be with him.

Sorry a bit garbled. Have just received email from psych that has blown me sideways.....

That's a really positive statement, ADQ. I went to relationship councelling with dh for a long time. One of the things that came up was that he thought that I was mad because of things that had happened to me, and that it was my fault. Of course I though otherwise. I think he understands that life is a bit more complicated than that, and that I have been carrying the can for someone else's problems.

I think someone like Oscar Wilde said that there is no such thing as a perfect person apart from the one you marry. We have such high expectations!

I may already have mentioned it, but I found the Duluth Wheel of Power and Control helpful. It's designed for domestic violence against women, and so may be totally inappropriate to you. I hope you are not being abused in your marriage.

Do you see a shrink and a therapist?

I am absolutely NOT being abused in my marriage.

DH is a lovely, level headed, calm and caring person. He is patient with me and does so much for me and the children. He helps around the house and supports me in more ways than I gvie him credit for.

Due to my issues, I don;t recognise what he does or I dismiss it. I am realising this now through therapy.

Yes, I have a psychiatrist and a therapist.

I will google this wheel.

I'm not abused in my marriage either. It is a great achievement, I think! Despite everything, I am very very pleased with myself about that!

I agree SC. Despite what he did, I think there are worse men out there.

He really does try.

I emailed my psych today when I was feeling very angry with him with all the details of what happened to me.

Now I'm having panic attacks and he hasn;t replied.

Now what do I do?

Adq unless you have an agreement with your psych,he will wait til your appts. You are very lucky to get one that will converse via email....unheard of in my day. Dont panic if he doesnt reply....always think to yourself...'What is the worst that can possibly happen?.' The worst that can happen is that he doesnt reply....but weigh it up with the fact that you will be seeing him soon. Try not to let how you are feeling affect every sense of judgement...honestly there is nothing to panic about.

Why are you panicking that he hasnt replied, do you think he is thinking bad about you?

My psych and therapist have both said I can email/txt if I need to.

There is a proviso that they may not respond straight away and that is ok. Sometimes he replies same day, sometimes it's a few days.

I was not panicking that he hadn;t replied. I was having panic attacks all afternoon and unrelated to those, was commenting that he hadn;t replied to my angry email. Sorry, it got a bit garbled in my post.

I'm seeing the therapist tomorrow so he will probably wait until I've seen them. Don;t see the psych for another 3 weeks.

He replied to an email saying I needed to tell tehm all the details so they could help me and I had been avoiding doing this.

I got very angry and told him all the details. I didn;t feel good.

I am thinking he will be angry with me for what i wrote.

why would he be angry with you ADQ?