remembering child abuse after many years - happened to anyone else?

[toosensitiveforrealname]

Hiya

Not sure this is the right place but I need to find out.

From late spring I have been having memories of being abused as a young child. I know who is the offender and what he did was really really bad. No one in my environment including my therapist(who for clarity's sake I started seeing AFTER the memories surfaced) has any doubt that what I remember is true because it is so detailed and distressing.

So this is then a time of my life that has been lost for 25 years - something my brain has done to protect me from it all. And it has left me deeply scarred - a lot of what I used to think of as strange quirks that belonged to me are defence mechanisms and other responses typical to abuse victims.

So...my world is upside down.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

too sensitive

Yes, I can relate exactly to what you are saying. I started a post on child abuse and my recovery and struggle with it.

I remembered some so it wasn;t a complete shock to me but when I started therapy for eating disorder it came out and since then I have remembered more.

Read my thread if you want to as others have added to it and we will also follow you on this thread.

It's a horrible realisation, and hopefully we can help each other. I'm happy to share my experiences.

a delicate question thanks for your response - it means a lot that there is someone else out there. I have amazing friends who have risen to the occassion despite having no experience with anything like it and feel well supported but I had to know if there was anyone else out there. I also have a fab dh of 11 years who is doing his best but is himself going through a difficult patch. And little angel of 20 months with some mild special needs and a huuuuge smile who seems to have been the trigger that brought it all back.

I have just been reading your thread. I too struggle with an eating disorder and have in the past tried everything to deal with that but of course that was impossible without knowing the cause. And the main issue for me is lack of emotions. I have lost too many people in my life and never grieved. I could do fear and panic and some level of joy but no sadness and no real happiness - just all level.

It seems to be changing rapidly though after just a few sessions and in particular after a confrontation with a photo of me aged 8 (when the abuse had started) with my doll. You know a doll with a dummy and sleep eyes. It brought it home to me how little I was and it made me sad and anger seems to be not far off. I went like OMG when he did that I was so small....and cried. Ad since i have cried more than in my whole life together.

Will keep reading your thread and wishing so much goodness

Hi, so sorry you are going through this. I too was abused for many many years. The hardest part was when DD came along. The same thing went through my head, how the hell could someone do that to such a small child. It has reached a peak now she has just turned 3 as it started with me when i was two and a half. I have been waiting to see a counsellor since July. well done for seeing a therapist, and understanding your emotions. I am 36, and am still trying to cope alone. Wish you all the best and hope you come through all of this.

WW and TS

Mine also started when I had DD. I had the most horrendous panic attacks and then had to put up with my useless HV arranging counselling for DH!

So for 9 years I struggled along (also after the arrival of DT). In th elast 2 years I have had therapy and finally in the last year have been put in touch with a fantastic psychiatrist and therpist and am now making progress. It took me almost a year to tell them things though.

I am now in the throws of experiencing great bouts of emotion.

Hope all goes well for you both and that you get an appointment soon WW.

I feel I am really blessed that I have some friends - one in particular (and strangely enough he is male!!) that I can actually talk to or if I can't then I can let them read things. It is incredibly hard to talk about the actual abuse, the shame just makes that if my mouth opens nothing comes out.

Those same lovely friends also show me the emotions that I should be feeling by telling me what I tell them makes them sad/upset/angry etc.

The therapy is an enormous eye opener in how I have held myself together all those years and I have been shocked time and time again by how much classic abuse victim traits i have.

ADQ I have been reading parts of your thread and I keep wanting to write oh yes I have that too - except that I am 25 or so pages behind.

TS

You are so lucky to have those types of friends. I have friends who are willing to help, but I haven;t felt able to tell them details of the abuse. In fact its only in the last month or two I've been telling my therapist.

I still don't feel any emotion about it. They tell me it will come. I want to process it but can;t until I feel something about it.

I'm a great avoider (thats my strategy for dealing with it!) but it's not helpful.

How long have you been having therapy?

My DH has been very good but I don't really think he knows what to do or say. But he just holds me and lets me cry and thats good too.

It would be great for me to comapre any techniques that your therapist is using and see if the approaches are similar.

If you are able to share this, I would be interested. I don;t mean details just the strategies they use eg imagery, journals etc that type of thing.

I know different things work for different people.

ADQ would be interested to compare notes but rather not on here!

Do you know how to CAT people?

I don't! but if you do you could teach me and we could do it that way through private messages.

TS

Just looked at to CAT you have to give your email address and pay for it.

I've set up a yahoo account which you can use

adelicatequestion @ yahoo.co.uk (without the spaces).

You can use that if you want to keep it between us.

thanks adq just emailed you

got it and replied.