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[will]

I thought I'd add my feelings on EMDR too... I have therapy once a week, and EMDR with a different therapist once a week.  We just happened to discuss how many sessions I've had so far -  twenty six...

If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said EMDR doesn't do much... I grew up being abused by my parents, and could barely function...  But as I worked on my abuse in EMDR every week, I started to realize that I could think about some of my memories without crashing and burning... They're just memories - no more emotion around them...

If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I'd ever get over my CPTSD, I would have said, "no way"... One year later, and I'm totally open about having (C)PTSD with friends and family, and I actually think some day I'll be over this...  But at this point, I get told all the time that I seem like a different person - more self-assured, and more relaxed... I'm not over it yet, but I will get over it...

So it definitely works for some of us with CPTSD... 

My parents not only didn't apologize for sexually, physically and emotionally abusing me as a kid, they cut me off completely when I confronted them.  Their first reaction was to blame someone else - who was kind and never did anything to me.... Even though it was them of course...

They cut me out of their wills, and pretended to the rest of the family everything was fine.  When my father died, I only found out through a cousin...  My  mother put an old picture of me on top of my father's coffin and told everyone I "lived too far to come".. (About a 4 hour flight away...)  I called the funeral home about 5 minutes before the funeral and let her know what I thought of them both.  Turns out that all my cousins heard both sides of the conversation.. She tried to act normally, saying, "Bye, thanks for calling!", but they all knew the truth at that point... 

When she died, my brother didn't tell me... So about 5 minutes before the funeral I called the funeral home and told him that they were all scumbags. When he started to answer, I told him I didn't care what he had to say, and hung up. 

So confronting my abusers lost me my inheritance, but I gained a lot of self-respect... I lost out on a million dollar inheritance, but It was one of the best things I ever did.

Thanks for the welcome, Kizzie... My family was definitely not a Hallmark family.. More like the Addams family...  Cutting em off wasn't easy, but in the long run, it was a good decision...

I'm definitely working on stuff whether I'm actually trying to or not... I'm basically having major flashbacks every day... Which are absolutely terrifying, but I'm learning they actually DO end... and I've never remembered dreams in my life, but the other day I woke up in the middle of a dream/nightmare that sure seemed like a flashback...

Through all of this mess, I'm actually taking care of myself... hitting the gym every other morning at 6 am before work...  and  going to my therapist weekly, and now an EMDR therapist too...  My attitude lately has been even though Morticia and Gomez are now dead, Living Well is the Best Revenge... 

Thanks for the reply, ThreeRoses... I try to look at the bright side about being disowned for being Gay... It helped me to start dealing with what the people that raised me didn't care about me... and let me start dealing with everything they did to me. 

It's nice to see there are other "mature" people on here... There are days when I get down on myself for not dealing with all of this years ago, but I try to tell myself that at least I'm dealing with it instead of running away from it like I did for such a long time.

I even went to a Sexual Abuse Survivor's group many years ago, but I wasn't ready to deal with it back then.  I felt bad for the other guys in the group, and I went through the motions, but didn't actually deal with anything.  I guess I needed to wait until I finally felt safe enough - when I was old enough to join the AARP!   

Thanks... Somehow it just seems like the right place... 

[really]

Thought I should introduce myself.  I'm a new guy on here, but have been dealing with the effects of childhood abuse for 57 years.

I won't go into too much detail on what happened to me, but you can almost run down the list - emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, along with figuring out I was Gay and being called names by mother for about 25 years after I came out.  I had finally had enough, and told her not to contact me if she was going to insult me.  I never heard from her, my father or my brother again.

When my father died, my mother couldn't be bothered to let me know.... She put a picture of me on my father's casket, and told everyone that I lived too far away to come. Luckily, the rest of my family knew some of the stuff I went through, so knew she was lying.

A few years ago, my mother died, and my brother couldn't be bothered to let me know... And they had changed her will, and my brother inherited a huge amount of money... I don't have much money, but I still have self-respect - sometimes...

Therapy -

Around 20 years ago, I started therapy for "being depressed", and after a couple of years, my therapist asked why I had never once mentioned my father.  I remember going blank.  Not being able to tell him anything I did with my father.  I had buried him so deep in my brain that it was like he no longer existed until the therapist brought him up.

I remembered pretty much nothing of my childhood, so we decided to see if hypnosis could help out... He hypnotized me, I suddenly was back to being a kid getting abused and freaked out...  I spent the next 18 years or so doing everything I could to avoid thinking about what I knew was true, but couldn't handle yet... including gaining 100 pounds....

Started with an amazing therapist a couple of years ago where I live now, and he's been amazing.  Since starting therapy with him, I've lost the 100 pounds and now go to the gym several times a week to walk 4 miles... When he said he thought I had CPTSD, I was almost relieved. My life, my strange life, suddenly made sense.

We started really dealing with my childhood a few months ago after I felt safe enough, and it's been a rollercoaster...  I even started with a second therapist doing EMDR about 3 weeks ago...  So far I don't get it, but I've heard good things, so I'm giving it a chance...  I've been having major flashbacks at least daily for weeks - terrifying, but necessary to deal with.

But somewhere inside I know all of this is needed, and it's time to finally take care of myself physically and mentally...