please help, I can't go on like this

[alnitak]

namechanger

this thread is bringing up all sorts of stuff for me and I am screaming and losing it at my DH and feel like crying all the time

it was my mum though. and I don't even know what she did I just know it wasn't right

please help me

I'm not going to ascribe to the school of thought that says you've had 'rubbish' counsellors because I have not been privy to your sessions and therefore do not know the context in which your concerns were allegedly minimised by one or any of them, nor am I aware of what your particular therapy was aiming to achieve or what form of pyschotherapy you chose to engage in.

However, whatever issues or concerns or feelings you express in the 'confessional booth' of a similarly priviliged counselling session have a validity that should not be dismissed out of hand by either yourself or your therapist.

Having a disciplinarian as a parent can instill a lack of self-worth and self-esteem that can have far reaching consequences when recalling the past and when looking to the future.

Any real or imagined memories that may have been suppressed in early childhood can be compounded, or overlaid as it were, with the more obvious sexual feelings that emerge around the age of puberty.

For those of us who do not have total recall, embarking on a quest to uncover our earliest memories requires a painstaking search to distinguish fact from fiction.

I would suggest that at present time you refrain from further counselling and allow yourself a period of 'time out' of therapy during which you can utilise the therapeutic skills you have learned to connect with your inner self, that part of you that sees and knows everything - the 'keeper of the secrets' for want of a better term.

There is considerable controversy around what has come to be generally known as 'false memory syndrome' and alleged 'recovered memories', which have subsequently been found to be unreliable, have been known to profoundly impact on families and individuals alike with predictably negative outcomes.

For this reason, I would counsel you to proceed with caution by limiting the time you spend reflectiing on these matters to a 5 or 10 minute session per day in quiet meditation during which you dispassionately 'observe' your thoughts.

Word association can be a useful tool to signpost the paths which you may need to travel. You can either randomly flick through a dictionary and note your immediate response to whatever word you alight on, or intersperse more specific words such as 'mother', 'see', 'look','uncomfortable' 'watch', 'hurt', 'father' wrong' 'right', 'friend' in a previously complied list. Or quietly reflect on a word of your choice which seems to have some resonance for you and note your responses/feelings to it.

It may be that, given time and using a cirumlocutory route, you will feel able to raise your issues with your db but, again, this is not something you should rush to achieve.

If, after some six months or so, you feel no further forward it may be that further therapy will help you either pursue the matter and/or lay any real or imagined ghosts to rest.

It is frustrating when a memory or memories elude us, but it can be in our best interests to believe that what we may have put away in a place that we may have forgotten will eventually be uncovered without our having to 'force the lock'.

izzywhizzy apologies if I've misread your post but it sounds like you are trying to minimise and cast doubt on the reality of the OP's experience. Many victims of abuse have hazy memories- you only need to look at the FIL thread to see some examples of this. And False memory syndrome has been widely purported to be spouted mainly by abusers trying to evade punshment.
Trying to blame sexualised behaviour by a parent on the OP's feelings at puberty is way of the mark and is actually been known to be spouted by paedo's themselves as an excuse for their behaviour by attributing their sordid thoughts and behaviour onto the child. Sexual feelings if they do occur at puberty do not equal sexual knowledge. They are still children who often don't realise til they are older what the adult was really doing.

OP I could have written your post. I, as izzywhizzy suggests, also had disciplinarian mother, she says it herself as well. But in actual fact she was and is a bully with no personal boundaries or maternal feelings and so there were sexual behaviours by her as well - which I didn't realise what they were or significance of them until I left home and had my own dc. I tend to want to let her off the hook by believing like you that she was exhibitionist or disinhibited as the other option is to realise she was abusing me- that's certainly what it would be seen as if it was done by a man, much more straightforward. Yes my memories are sketchy re dates etc but my counsellor said this was because we repress memories as a safety mechanism and they often come back at certain points, such as having our own children.
I also sought advice from NAPAC and was told by that I was imagining certain experiences or reading more into them than what was intended by my mother. You can imagine how this might have set me back! I thought perhaps I had a dirty mind and made up these memories, but I then realised people just want to deny abuse happens, esp by mothers. So maybe don't go to them!
Please seek help and keep talking.

Someone from NAPAC told you that mynewme? Ouch. That seems rather at odds with the charity's aim :(

And False memory syndrome has been widely purported to be spouted mainly by abusers trying to evade punshment.

Indeed, and Loftus' famous work on this doesn't have the best reputation anyway, for various reasons.

The point is OP that you, and only you, need time to figure out what your feelings are. You need to be able to do this in a safe place. Maybe writing it down in a notebook would help? Nobody has to see it.

Thank you for all your responses. The therapist I mentioned is a very very experienced NHS psychologist, who I went to for CBT - she was amazing for that, but possibly this was just outside her realm of experience I don't know. I certainly don't want to slag her off. Of the others, one was very good but I dealt with different stuff with her, one I didn't click with and had one session and one was an absolute disaster, he was recommended by my GP surgery but I think he was in training, and he didn't know what he was doing. He did a lot of harm.

The point is, I don't want to open up to someone who won't be able to help me with this specific thing, and I wish there was a short cut to finding someone good

Anyway. I don't think there necessarily are other incidents that I have repressed, although of course there may be. I have realised though that what I know I experienced is in itself not right and needs to be dealt with

Re DS. It was someone on hte other thread saying that children express themselves by saying that they don't want to see someone that made me start this thread actually. There is no question of him seeing her on his own - luckily for us, that is very rarely an option anyway

The memory of the abuse from my Father is very hazy in places, in other places I am a third person looking in and some memories are just of emotions and feelings of fear, wrongness and shame.
I have learnt through the help of people here that this is common in childhood abuse survivors so please don't feel alone or that the abuse you suffered is somehow less awful or less wrong because your memories are cloudy, it is simply your brain protecting you and a self preservation tactic a young brain uses to survive.
Due to other factors with my Father I was visited by the police (I didn't contact them but I told somebody else who was involved in an ongoing investigation into my Fathers sexual abuse of somebody else long before I was born), as I suspected they were unable to do anything due to the nature of my memories making it impossible to take an official statement and the clearly remembered abuse being 'low level' (my words, not theirs). They were fantastic though the two officers, so lovely and caring, they gave me what I needed, they told me that they believed me and I was sexually abused by my Father and to me that was worth more then being able to pursue charges against him, someone outside, in a position of authority who had seen more cases of child abuse then any one person should ever believed me, validated me and that meant more then I ever realised it would. When social services contacted me (again due to the other investigation and eventual caution and placement on the sex offenders register) I summed up the courage to tell them about my abuse, saying it was hazy and had been repressed my whole adult life until it was all triggered by the investigation, I told him I was conflicted (this was before the police came) because my Father had never raped me and my memories are jumbled my social worker told me that what I was experiencing was quite normal for a child abuse survivor and abuse is rarely remembered clearly in a linear fashion. He reassured me about the validity of my thoughts, feelings and memories, another person in an official capacity who has seen more abuse then any person should have to believed me. Both these things gave me strength and helped clear my mind (although they happened in reverse order, social worker first, then police) and then there was all the wonderful posters here, I couldn't have got through the last 6 months without them, they were the first people to validate me, to believe me (people who had survived their own abuse and some who had no personal experience, both groups acceptance and belief gave me immeasurable strength in different ways) and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have been able to speak out about my own abuse to social services or the police.

I believe you, I believe every word you write.

In the last 4.5 years I have had sex with my husband 4 times. I have no interest in sex. for me it isn't the act its self that is the problem it is the lead up and after I can't hack, I can't be close to someone in bed, I feel trapped and terrified. Until I was forced to start dealing with the abuse from my childhood I didn't allow myself to acknowledge the reason why, I just burred my 'problem' down with the the rest and never talked about it.
I have now talked to dh, reassured him that the problem is not that I don't love him or find his sexually attractive and we are working on it, he now knows that hugging me from behind in bed triggers the feelings of fear so he will always ask first, this has been a big help. Recently we shared a cuddle in bed, I managed it for a short time and didn't have the need to get out of the bedroom straight after, big step for me. I still have a long road to travel and I am waiting to start counselling through my GP so I can't help on that front as I am only just starting my own journey on that point although I do think I could do with therapy over counselling to be honest but we will see.

I just wanted to post, share some of my story just to let you know you aren't alone, the posters here are amazing and know what they are talking about and will hold your hand as much as you need throughout your journey and above all your memories and feelings are normal in this situation and you are believed.
Sorry for the long post.

Thank you
Do you know what, already I am going, oh it was nothing, it wasn't really abuse, just slightly odd behaviour

I so don't want to go there

If you see a decent therapist, you will be safe to deal with everything that comes up. When I had CBT the psychologist described it as a box in my head. When you're young and bad things happen you put the stuff in the box, but you can only really deal with it when you get it out of the box. Therapy helps you take a little bit out at a time, and deal with it fully, before you get the next bit out. It is not the same as just fully opening it and letting everything out at once.

And please please don't say "oh it was nothing". I did this when I first got together with DH. He was abused in horrific ways, locked up, broken bones, incest, etc - and when I found this out I suddenly felt all sorts of guilt that I'd got so depressed over fairly minor sexual abuse by my uncle. But DH said I mustn't see it like that. It's how it made you feel, and the abuse of position and trust, that matters.

Have you spoken to your DH yet? Does he know how upset you are?

izzywhizzy - I think that was a spectacularly unhelpful post. alnitak - I strongly suggest you ignore it.

Apologies for the NAPAC recommendation, shocked at what they said to mynewme.

haunty and rhinestone it really was quite breathtaking. If she could just have chosen to listen instead of saying what she did..

alnitak please don't minimise your experiences, though safer in some ways than facing up to what kind of parent you had. In the short term it helps you cope but maybe the anger you are feeling is increasing due to you minimsing iyswim? Also agree with a previous poster who said your emotions are the main indicator of the impact of what you experienced, though it is easy to bury these as well (until they resurface as anger which is easier in some ways to feel than the other horrid emotions associated with abuse that end up buried- shame, wrongness etc).
Someone suggested writing things down, would that help do you think? Maybe talk to your dh as well?
Its horrible feeling in a sort of limbo wondering whether it was abuse or odd behaviour. As someone else said ( on phone so can't scroll up v well!) having their experiences validated by the appropriate agencies as the abuse it was was very helpful- would you consider approaching the police or another agency like victim support in the future to guage their thoughts?
Sorry if this is a bit of jumble and laden with typos, did not wish to post and run earlier but having one of those days! look after yourself

Thanks again, I'm away this weekend, so if I don't post much that's why. I still really appreciate your thoughts and support

This thread is making me cry....

I don't know what abuse I went thru, it's kind of hazy, I did go thru "domestic abuse", I know.

Can't even imagine how it is to have a husband on a long-term basis. Have been alone most of my life.....relationship-wise.... (have a son, tho, amazing kid!).

So right about finding the "right" therapist....Been thru enough and I'm still searching....

Thank you for starting - and continuing - this thread, it IS helping me....

So many sad stories on here and on the other thread. Just heart breaking. I truly hope you all get the help you deserve.
I want to don my dds fairy costume, go back in time, and sprinkle a protective shield of fairy dust around you all.

Alitalia - would it be a help to talk about this 'odd behaviour' ? Of course you might find that too unsettling. But I wonder whether it might help you get a sense of perspective as to how odd it seems to an outsider. Although if no one else finds it odd and you still can't shake that feeling, then please have confidence in your own sense of what's right. None of us were there, have context, etc, it's what you know and feel thats important.
I hope you can put these thoughts on hold and have a lovely weekend.

alnitak I've been worried I've been putting an emphasis on abuse when it may have been nothing more than odd behaviour - not to say it wasn't abuse but that only you will know what happened and how you felt iyswim. I hope I haven't forced my own opinions onto you.
Previous poster is right about how you will know better than outsiders about context etc. For example re my experience with NAPAC, as an outsider she may have thought "well that sounds innocent enough"'but in actual fact there were "looks" my mother gave me, certain times of day she did certain things, and just the way she did some other things that made her behaviour innapropriate and downright creepy, and in my book some of these were clearly and straightforwardly abuse. But some things she did were the sort of nuances in a situation that aren't immediately obvious or explainable to others (and may be perceived in isolation as innocent) and imagine if you are a child and can't pick up on it yourself until you realise when you are older, which is partly why the FIL thread scared me as abusers are so deceptive and subtle in how they go about it (which may be how it happened to other posters in rooms full of people).