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Nine months ago, a visit to where I grew up sent me into a tailspin. I had been working with my current therapist for over 3 years, and I had not been willing to even begin to address childhood trauma with her. I came back early, got myself into her office, increased my visits, and started sharing my background.

I had shared the SA, or the parts I remember, with a couple of previous therapists, but it has been different with her. For the first time, I actually really trust that a therapist holds me in unconditional positive regard, which we also call unconditional love.  And I could actually be really honest.

Now, I'm starting to put feelings together with the scenes in my head. Those feelings slip into place, and I want to pull them apart again. But I don't. It's making me not just "know" it was real, but "feel" it was real, too.

Sometimes progress just doesn't exactly feel like it.

I just want to say that I am really new to this website and happy to find this active journal. I'm hoping to find something of a community with people like me--something I'm just starting to learn about an understand. Thank you so so much for sharing your experience.

I just want to say that as a newcomer, this is tremendously helpful.
And the idea of writing something for the blog, one day, is very appealing. 

Thank you for sharing this. It's a hard thing to deal with.

There's so much here that I can identify with. My Papa died when I was a baby and my mother was profoundly neglectful. She married our stepfather when we were almost 3.
I remember climbing on the roof of the house when we were 3. Slicing my foot open by playing in the ditch by the road and stepping on a broken bottle when I was 4, and babysitting my baby brother when I was 5. There were never stitches, unless the injury was visible.
We were dressed so prim and proper for church three times a week, but it was all about appearance and not reality. We sang about love in church, but were ignored to the extent of our stepfather openly coming into the bedroom at night.
She had no concept of protective factors and no attachment to us at all. (Look at me using my big girl therapy words! Lol)
We actually bonded with Grandma, after our father died, but we were separated from her when our mom married. I'm pretty sure the separation anxiety I'm feeling with my therapist is about losing my Grandma, and not my m.

 Hello...
My name is Devin, I am 48, and I have just begun being able to learn about c-ptsd without dissociating and not being able to retain anything.
My background is a patchwork quilt of childhood traumas. My mother is a covert narcissist who never attached to us and ritually whipped us from the time we were 3. My father died when I was a baby, my step-father is both a pedophile and sociopathic, and my paternal grandfather was a serial child rapist. My entire adolescence was spent in extreme agricultural labor trafficking.
I did manage to graduate high school, escape the farm, and start over in college. I learned to mask, to present as normal, and I spent the second half of my life trying to pretend the first half didn't happen. But, of course it did, and it influenced all my decisions in ways I didn't understand.
I missed learning so much, and adulthood was a struggle. I was honest with a professional about the sexual abuse I had memory access to, and I ended up with a team of therapists and sponsors who helped me, although I wasn't able to really understand what they were doing, at the time. They helped me learn be a good parent and learn to manage things like running a household, but when my therapist changed jobs, I wasn't able to get past it and keep going with therapy.
I ended up in relationships that were very unhealthy, and about 4 years ago started seeing a therapist to deal with the high-conflict co-parent I share custody with.
I wasn't willing to actually delve into the past or my issues, and I didn't even know what it meant to truly trust a therapist. But she saw a lot that I was oblivious to and started building a foundation of trust.
Then, 9 months ago, I went back and visited family. I hadn't been back in years. I saw the twisted dynamics in neon, and the illusion of my mother that I had nurtured for so long fell crashing to the floor. I had two telesessions with my therapist while I was there, then I packed up the kids and left early.
Since then, I've been in intense therapy, and am starting to be able to understand more. I feel like I am waking up from spending most of my life half asleep. Before, I didn't even know what autonomy was. Now, I'm learning about boundaries, self-worth, and self-talk. I'm starting to make sense of the dissociation and memory-loss. I feel like both my memory and identity are in pieces. But the two things that feel biggest right now are learning about attachment and the disparity between my emotional age and physical age.
I feel like this attachment to my therapist is allowing her access to my subconscious, because even though I can't remember most of a session, I still feel like I am putting puzzle pieces together. I am learning that maybe it's ok to "let someone in"--and nine months ago I didn't even understand that phrase... I have always felt cut off from people and alone, until her. She provides long-term treatment, and I expect I will be with her until one of us dies. I've reached a place where I can accept that my situation is so complex, I will always benefit from therapy. I tell her that she's a foster parent for kids like me who should have been removed from the home.
Writing takes a major place in my life, and I frequently use it to process. I write a lot of poetry and song lyrics to help with the emotional side.
Today, I don't really know who I am, but at last I am learning!