Doubts on our past?

[Jazzey]

Does anyone else go through phases where they start to doubt their own knowledge about child sexual assaults? I've now had a few episodes where I've really had strong doubts about my knowledge. Lately, it's stronger than it's ever been...I'm really thinking that this not be a part of my past.

And yet, I can tell you that when I'm here, I'm dissociative (I can feel myself floating above myself - if this makes sense). I'm trying to come back into myself but can't seem to.

This morning, trying to take a shower was really difficult - the water was hurting my skin, I was overly sensitive but stayed there thinking that it would bring me back. It did momentarily -but now I'm back to floating.

Anyone else go through these phases? What have you done with the thoughts? How did you process everything? Did you have any physical symptoms that went along with the thoughts?

 

[ladylore]

I have done that. When I do that I need to look at the evidence. My abuse wasn't outright sexual abuse. It was more overt or disguised as other things. It's confusing.

I do know that actually memories are tricky things - so let's say I wouldn't be taking anyone to court anytime soon. But the signs are there so I deal with what is evident now. Deal with the symptoms (for lack of a better word).

I also had trauma and abuse mixed up in some areas. My trauma therapist helped me to discover this. What I put in the abuse category was actually trauma. Meaning no one set out to do me harm at those times. But trauma can effect us in similar ways.

This is a difficult area but a great one to discuss.

 

[Jackie]

Jazzey,

There have been times I have doubted some of the things that happened to me as a child/teenager. I sometimes think maybe I dreamt it all, even mates said maybe you imagined it, but I have some things in my possession which proves it happened and when I get like that I just go to that stuff and it confirms it did happened, it reminds me that it was all real. I can't really go into detail as it might break the rules a bit and I'm sure people would say, what on earth have you kept that stuff for, but its just to remind me it really did happen, and as proof to me and only me. I do relate to how you are feeling:hug:

 

[Jazzey]

Thank you LL and Jackie

Right now I'm doing as you've said LL - I'm just trying to deal with the symptoms that I have. Maybe my remembering isn't an imperative right now? And I too would have a tough time distinguishing between a trauma and abuse. Although if what little memories I have are correct, I'd probably put it in the abuse category because of its sexual nature...If those memories are real that is.

I like your idea too Jackie. I've tried recently to look at old photos that I have. But for right now, I think it's just too difficult for me. That fear that I have of the past leads me more to thinking that those memories are real. I'm guessing that when I go down this path, maybe it's just me wishing that none of it were real, that I'd made it up - then maybe I could still look at everyone the same way?

Thanks again you two

 

[texasgirl]

I do understand what you are saying, Jazzey. I have so few memories that if it were not for external validation from both the perpetrators and others in my family, I wouldn't know what to believe. I also "float" as you call it (I call it that too) but mainly when I start to feel this pain out of nowhere, connected to nothing, maybe a fleeting memory, or if someone attempts to get me to recall something - even innocuous things - from my childhood. When I shut down, I shut down the whole thing.

That's why I wouldn't discount anything necessarily. And when I look at photos, it's often hard for me, and sometimes it's like I am looking at someone else as a child.

Take care :support::support:

TG

 

[Jazzey]

Thank you so much TG...You've just described to a T everything that I feel too... :hug: :hug: The end result is always shear exhaustion. I feel as though I could sleep for days on end after the floating.

 

[forgetmenot]

Hey Jazzey it is like this past has happened to someone else not me. I only remember parts and pieces and i don't give much importance to them. After flashback which consist mainly of emotions of pain i can be in bed for days. Yet i don't seem to care really because i believe this person that abuse happened to was not me. I seem to seperate myself from it. With physical symptoms i get a lot of physical pain I can't stand up straight pain in my back so sever. pain in my chest and arms. Just really don't seem to acknowledge that it was me getting hurt I somehow am not her and never was. Hope i make sense mary

 

[texasgirl]

I think that the sleeping has to do with the physical cost of the struggle of the mind to shove down the memories, even though it's not a conscious effort necessarily to do so. At least that's how I feel about it. It's kind of like coming back from a therapy session exhausted. It's kind of weird to know how much psychic pain takes it toll on the whole body.

This may not be the actual reality of it, but it seems logical to me anyway.
My thoughts are with you, Jazzey.

:hug: :hug:

Take care,

TG

 

[y-bloc]

I don't have actual doubts, but sometimes I feel like a massive thick glass wall a mile deep stands between now and then and I can't reach through it or get around it, like it is there but totally cut off...images and echoes from some parallel space...like I am identified with this film constantly playing out on the other side, but I can't reach out and claim it or reject it or stop or even alter it. That makes it all seem very surreal...unreal.

I don't get physical pain from flashbacks, I get sweaty palms, anxiety, overwhelming sadness a lot like loneliness.

I feel like I'm deserting some kid who is trapped in the room where the film is playing, and I really need to help her but I can't reach her...so I have to leave her behind over and over again. I actually envision myself turning my back and walking away.

 

[Jazzey]

Thank you everyone. I read your posts and I truly understand what all of you are sharing. Funny, I think to an objective observer, none of this would make tremendous sense. But for me, I completely understand every emotion expressed here.

Thank you all for sharing with me. It does help me a lot. I don't feel so alone in my thoughts. Sometimes, I start swimming in all of this *stuff*. It's very reassuring to know that others are going / have gone through this process too. :grouphug:

Y-bloc, most of the time I don't really doubt it...I think. But then my brain takes over and tells me that it's all lies, that none of it is true. So then I start searching my brain to try and remember even the smallest snippet. So far, a few things have come back when I wasn't expecting the memory. And then, I immediately hear myself saying - 'stop it, it's just not true!', 'life is complicated enough without you're making this stuff up'....etc...you get the point.

Thank you for sharing with me here too.

 

[ladylore]

And then, I immediately hear myself saying - 'stop it, it's just not true!'

I don't want this to sound mean because this isn't my intent. What if it isn't true? What then? What if only parts of it are true? What would that mean? Would that be ok?

Your still going through what your going through. You still deserve to be heard and to heal. Clearly you have gone through trauma and had some knocks in life. So what if everything isn't true. Your adult mind is trying to make sense as an adult about things that happened to you as a child. It's a fight between two perceptions.

This is ok. The last questions: What if it all true? What then?

You deserve to heal, feel good about yourself and live a healthy life. Period.
:2cents:

 

[y-bloc]

I'm lucky, I guess, that my bad memories aren't very fragmented. There is only a small aria that is broken and scattered, and I often find myself trying to make sense of that one episode...it is like trying to pin a fast moving bug to a sheet of glass with a dull pin. It doesn't make any sense when I try to patch it together, there are always some pieces missing, the pieces I can grab slip away or change order on their own. I don't have any idea why my brain decided to scramble one tiny experience among so many intact ones. It is the closest I come to really being able to understand what it must be like for those who have to struggle with piecing together a mountain of fragmented memories amid feelings of disbelief, denial and despair. I can understand why your brain tells you to stop, or tries to tell you that it just isn't true. It has be a painful task. Understatement.

 

[Jazzey]

Thank you LL. I have thought about that very question: "what if it isn't true?". I'll be ok with this outcome too. If it is true - I'll deal with that too.

These past few days have been a little rough for me. But I've come up with something in the process: All of my recent feelings is because I want certainty, one way or the other. Sometimes, I wish that none of it were true because i have a misguided idea that this would be easier. But then I remember that, if it were true, it would explain so much of the paths I've chosen over the course of my life, it would also explain the repeated re-victimization patterns and my reactions to them.

So for now, I'm going to pull the reigns on myself a little - stop being in such a rush to sort all of it out. Whatever comes what may, I will deal with it. And I'm now actually starting to "hear" what my psychologist has been saying to me lately. I didn't understand what she was saying. I do now.

In essence, she's been telling me to relax, to not beat myself up when I can't remember. I've been too busy fighting myself internally - on one end of it trying to remember, and on the other really trying to dismiss anything that came up. I will now just try and accept wherever my memory takes me...'try' being the operative word.

Thank you for your advice LL - always. :friends:

Y-block:

There is only a small aria that is broken and scattered, and I often find myself trying to make sense of that one episode...it is like trying to pin a fast moving bug to a sheet of glass with a dull pin. It doesn't make any sense when I try to patch it together, there are always some pieces missing, the pieces I can grab slip away or change order on their own. I don't have any idea why my brain decided to scramble one tiny experience among so many intact ones.

This is such an eloquent description of it. I have the snippet and poof, it disappears again - and I often find myself trying to chase after that snippet. But it's always faster than me. I think that's the repression - my brain stuffing it further away from the surface. And yes, it is painful. It those memories didn't come with the emotions - panic, sweats, shaking, floating etc...I think I could maybe manage. Hmmm I just had a eureka moment because of you y-block. I now understand why my T is getting me to focus on my reactions first....duh...

Thank you y-bloc

 

[ladylore]

The hardest thing for me is to learn how to live with Grey/uncertainty. I am still not great at it.

I try to go day by day - knowing that some things I will never know. I don't have to be ok with it, but at a certain point I have had to come to terms with some of it and accept it. That can suck.

:support:

 

[Charity]

Sorry I haven't been any help to you on this one, Jazzey. :friends:

I know we have a lot of similar experiences and feelings, so it's kind of weird for me to NOT understand completely about something you say! Though we were both abused by family members, I have no doubts or confusion about my memories of the events. Some of it is kind of fuzzy, probably because I simply don't have any desire to relive it... but I remember pretty much everything, I think. (Unless of course there's more that I'm not remembering, and I don't know that I'm not remembering it because I don't remember it!)

I wasn't a small child when it happened to me, though-- it sounds to me like several here were abused as very young children. I was older... maybe twelve? Physically, anyway. I was always so much younger inside than outside.

Anyway, whether we're peas in a pod on this one or not-- I'm still here for ya! :airkiss:

 

[ladylore]

:goodpost: Charity.

The stuff that happened to me when I was older I have no doubts about either. :agree:

 

[Jazzey]

Awww thank you Charity, from the bottom of my heart. :friends:

I also remember everything from the age of 12 onwards. But I also have some snippets of earlier childhood that have started to come back to me (3 - 4 years old). Some of it is with the same abuser, some if it is with another unrelated person.

About the stuff that happened when I was 12 - no confusion, no doubts. In fact, the abuser still wears the scar of it all: I stuck a fork in his hand. Darn, I wish I could get that strength back!

Thank you Charity. I don't expect people to always respond - I know that sometimes we're not always in the best head space. But I always know you're around. :hug: