Lost

Lost
I will check out the book I remember being beaten and tortured. I have scars on my hands and other parts of my body with no recollection of how they occurred I am assuming those memories will come to me sooner or later
 
Frustrated,

The book I mentioned is not the best one for therapy. I'm sorry if I misled you on that. There are a bunch of books on therapy for torture or various aspects of it. I'll try to find a better one for torture therapy.

My scars are mostly invisible except for the eye problem. It has taken me a long time to figure this out.

One of the first things to do in torture therapy is to find a therapist who knows how to dealt with it. If you experienced the torture in early years then you may have dissociative disorder, which I have. If so, then your therapist should be able to deal with that issue.

Something that you can do early on is to write out a statement of what you went through. It is mainly for you and your therapist. However I went ahead and posted mine here in MS. It is very raw stuff and I'm not sure that I recommend that you read it. It might make you more depressed.

I also have depersonalization disorder, which means that I have basically a very low opinion of myself. This goes with torture a lot of times.


Puffer
 
Jay1946 said:
It happened to me today. I was at a Therapy session and was talking about my abuse in very "matter of fact" manner. My therapist asked me if I felt any emotion, and I honestly had to tell him I didn't. He explained that not feeling the emotions connected to the CSA is a defense mechanism we develop to protect ourselves.

I have done this for years. When I got married, I told my wife that I just did not have emotions. I believed that and of course she pretended that she agreed. However, this is beginning to "break up" now. I'm getting so that I feel lots of emotion. It may seem to some as though I'm moving backwards in my healing journey.

I recently attended the movie: Heaven Is For Real. I wept through most of that movie. Yes, I had a near-death experience when I was tortured. The movie brought me to re-experience that, in a good way. I'm glad I saw it.

Puffer
 
I saw the Movie. It's a little too sugary for me, but I believe in the message. I've witness one death, where the person dying started talking to someone "out there" even named his parents, as if he was seeing them and then died. He was a very spiritual person and throughout his illness (pancreatic cancer) prayed daily and was at peace.

With regards to my wife, the fact that I am now expressing my feelings more openly has been a game changer for her. At first she had problems dealing with my newly found emotional assertiveness.
 
I'm trying to think of something to say in response to everyone's post but every time I start to type my mind goes haywire I don't know what to say I don't even know what I am feeling most of the time I just know it's not good. Thanks for the responses it's enlightening and helpful. This shit sucks.

James
 
Sorry, James. I think it's safe to say that we are all here to support you and hope for the best with your healing.
 
I will read and reread all the posts and try to make sense of all this. I realize I have a lot of work to do and investigating to do. This site is a good place

James
 
I want every one to know you are not wasting your breath I read it all and appreciate it very much
 
James, the effort you're putting into posting and responding is commendable. I think that tenacity will serve you well in your healing journey.

My personal experience is that recovery around CSA is not linear, there are ups and downs, but the downs become less problematic until one can eventually keep an even keel for the most part as far as responsibilities go.

Even being at a reasonably hopeful place at this time in my life, I can still get caught up in melancholy. But, I also purposefully look for good things in the news and such to remain hopeful during the down times.
 
I just finished watching the C-SPAN coverage of a conference on PTSD. The speaker was Joanne Difede from the New York area. I think I really profited greatly from watching this conference.

I think the coverage is available online.

A lot of us, or all of us, have PTSD. Sometimes it is quite serious.

I posted previously about how the military is developing treatments for PTSD. It is quite a serious problem for guys returning from military conflict.

Puffer
 
The way healing from PTSD caused by childhood trauma is this:

Suppose you have some terrible emotions from your childhood. But you can't really think about those emotions because whenever you get close, you recoil with pain.

Now, I had very difficult feelings from my mother. (I'm sorry this is close to Mother's day). My mother was a very difficult person. So I would watch the movie: Mommie Dearest. Many episodes from that movie would bring me to tears. Those tears represented PTSD wounds. OK, this sounds crazy, but that's where the healing took place. When the movie brought out those emotions in me then they were amenable to healing. The movie brought out emotions which I could not deal with on my own. I watched the movie a couple of times and then I became aware I wasn't reacting anymore. That was because those deep hurts were actually being healed.

That was the healing of PTSD in me involving mother-hurts.

To experience healing from other kinds of abuse, you have to have a movie which resembles or represents your hurts.

There are lots of movies about difficult mothers. I can post a list if desired.

For a movie which brings out hurts from physical and emotional abuse by a father, try watching: The Pellet (English title) . It's a Spanish movie with English subtitles. In Spanish the name is El Bola. It is a movie about a boy who was emotionally and physically abused by his father. You will understand this as you watch it. If you had father abuse, this movie will probably bring the emotions out. It's an interesting movie, but I'm talking about healing from PTSD wounds.

Puffer
 
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T wanted to do EMDR treatment with me I didn't get the chance to do it. I understand what you are talking about didn't realize that was healing
 
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