Looking For (Male) Incest Survivor Groups & Qualified Therapists In NY State
I just finished a 5 day codependency program at the Caron Foundation. It was so so. They tried to help, but frankly it felt like using band-aids for major surgery!
I feel like I have just woken up in a Hospital Emergency Room with broken limbs, & multiple trauma after barely surviving a train wreck, and the doctor is handing me a bandaid and a couple of asperin, and is telling me I can leave the hospital and that there's nothing wrong with me.
I left there feeling like they conned me. At the intake they said they could help me, but once they got my money, and I was there, they started to "tap-dance" and equivocate about whether they could provide the kind of help and support I needed. I guess they were just more inteterested selling tickets than actually helping me or directing me to where I could get the help I needed and still need today.
My "group" consisted of all kinds of "unsober" & "unrecovered" addicts. In my "pod" of six persons was one highly "active" male sex addict, who couldn't keep his hands off of the women all the time he was there, 2 "active" female drug addicts, one "active" female overeater, and an "active" female sex addict. I was the only person in my "pod" who had ANY kind of abstinence, recovery, or sobriety!
I felt totally unsafe and threatened all the time I was there.
I'm having all the classic symptoms, night terrors, flashbacks, insomnia, depression, paralysis, crying jags, etc... plus all the emotional stuff, problems with initimacy, relationships with inappropriate or unavailable women, etc...
I've been clean and sober 23 years. I did primal therapy and attended incest, ACOA, & survivor groups and therapy back in the early 80's, and enjoyed some really good years of recovery & happiness.
Somehow all the bad stuff has gradually crept back into my life. I'm still clean and sober, but somehow I've re-traumatized or re-injured myself and have triggered most of the old symptoms.
At the very least, I'd like to find some kind of Incest Survivors 12 Step Group, but I'd really like to find a qualified therapist or a (male) Incest Survivor Thrapy Group.
You really have to careful, there are so many "quacks" out there.
Also I've found that most "arm-chair" therapists are scared and don't want to deal with what happened to me.
I've found that I've often had to fight the therapist's denial more than my own!
Even the counsellors at Caron were clearly frightened by my pain and started to back away from me.
I was even told by one of the counselors there, "Don't discuss this stuff too much in group, it'll scare the other clients".
I remember one clown saying to me "Surely you did something to provoke this behavior from your parent(s)"?
He then proceeded to suggest that I needed heavy drug treatment.
I just finished spending a lot of money at Caron, and I didn't get what I needed, I'm really low in my finances, I can't go wasting my time and my money on groups, therapists, etc, that misrepresent themselves and don't do any good.
I need to get back to work and make some money!
Most important of all, I'd like to join either a 12 Step Incest Survivors Group or a really qualified professionally run (Male) Incest Survivor Therapy Group in the NY State Hudson Valley area. I'm located in Woodstock, NY so anything in Albany, Dutchess, Ulster, or Orange Counties, would be reachable.
Please advise me of any (Male) Incest Survivor recovery resources in my area!
Thanks!
TG
I feel like I have just woken up in a Hospital Emergency Room with broken limbs, & multiple trauma after barely surviving a train wreck, and the doctor is handing me a bandaid and a couple of asperin, and is telling me I can leave the hospital and that there's nothing wrong with me.
I left there feeling like they conned me. At the intake they said they could help me, but once they got my money, and I was there, they started to "tap-dance" and equivocate about whether they could provide the kind of help and support I needed. I guess they were just more inteterested selling tickets than actually helping me or directing me to where I could get the help I needed and still need today.
My "group" consisted of all kinds of "unsober" & "unrecovered" addicts. In my "pod" of six persons was one highly "active" male sex addict, who couldn't keep his hands off of the women all the time he was there, 2 "active" female drug addicts, one "active" female overeater, and an "active" female sex addict. I was the only person in my "pod" who had ANY kind of abstinence, recovery, or sobriety!
I felt totally unsafe and threatened all the time I was there.
I'm having all the classic symptoms, night terrors, flashbacks, insomnia, depression, paralysis, crying jags, etc... plus all the emotional stuff, problems with initimacy, relationships with inappropriate or unavailable women, etc...
I've been clean and sober 23 years. I did primal therapy and attended incest, ACOA, & survivor groups and therapy back in the early 80's, and enjoyed some really good years of recovery & happiness.
Somehow all the bad stuff has gradually crept back into my life. I'm still clean and sober, but somehow I've re-traumatized or re-injured myself and have triggered most of the old symptoms.
At the very least, I'd like to find some kind of Incest Survivors 12 Step Group, but I'd really like to find a qualified therapist or a (male) Incest Survivor Thrapy Group.
You really have to careful, there are so many "quacks" out there.
Also I've found that most "arm-chair" therapists are scared and don't want to deal with what happened to me.
I've found that I've often had to fight the therapist's denial more than my own!
Even the counsellors at Caron were clearly frightened by my pain and started to back away from me.
I was even told by one of the counselors there, "Don't discuss this stuff too much in group, it'll scare the other clients".
I remember one clown saying to me "Surely you did something to provoke this behavior from your parent(s)"?
He then proceeded to suggest that I needed heavy drug treatment.
I just finished spending a lot of money at Caron, and I didn't get what I needed, I'm really low in my finances, I can't go wasting my time and my money on groups, therapists, etc, that misrepresent themselves and don't do any good.
I need to get back to work and make some money!
Most important of all, I'd like to join either a 12 Step Incest Survivors Group or a really qualified professionally run (Male) Incest Survivor Therapy Group in the NY State Hudson Valley area. I'm located in Woodstock, NY so anything in Albany, Dutchess, Ulster, or Orange Counties, would be reachable.
Please advise me of any (Male) Incest Survivor recovery resources in my area!
Thanks!
TG