a new level of trauma

[sanmagic7]

as i'm learning more about the relationship i had w/ my ex, i'm discovering how HUGE the trauma-fallout is.  altho i experienced emotional neglect during childhood, what i faced in adult relationships amped up the wounds to levels i'm only beginning to appreciate.

maybe appreciate is the wrong word.  understand? see? believe?

i have 2 ex hubs, and while hub #1 was bad enough (drugs, alc, sex addictions, leaving me when i was 7 1/2 mos. pregnant) hub #2, who i refer to as my ex, has done damage to me the magnitude of which i'm only beginning to comprehend.  today in session, as badly as i was working to diminish his influence over me, my mind conjured up instance after instance of repeated trying to push him out, only to have him multiply, surround me, grow larger and larger as a presence blocking any escape.

i finally felt like i was drowning in him.  i was able to summon a life buoy from both my T and my D, enabling me to keep my head above water, but i could feel the jaws of underwater creatures swimming around my legs and feet.  i ended up with continued fear of one of them someday biting off a foot. 

altho we're going to work more on this later this week, the reality of what happened to me because of him, and how i'm continually connected to to him because of my D (who continues a relationship w/ him) showed me some dark waters surrounding me.  my T named it torture, what he did to me for over 20 yrs - playing w/ my head, deceit, life-threatening addiction on his part that he finally told me after about 15 yrs., the confusion, the fear of his rage that i didn't/wouldn't/couldn't acknowledge at the time - it's all sitting on my head at this moment.

kizzie once said adult c-ptsd is different than the childhood version, and i fully agree.  as i've worked on my childhood trauma, it seemed so straightforward.  difficult, yes, yet in some ways it seemed clean compared to the trauma i've encountered because of adult relationships.  the reality of what i've endured is nearly overwhelming me now in a way it hasn't in the past, mainly, i suspect, i now have emotions attached that simply weren't there before.  i can't see how this could possibly end.

just had to let this out. 

[rainydiary]

San, I appreciate you opening this topic.  Thank you for sharing about the experience - I felt the sense of being trapped and the life buoy come to help you out.

This resonates and I have had similar thoughts that traumatic things as an adult feel different than the things experienced as a child.

For a while I felt like there was a connection between what happened to me as a child and things I've experienced as an adult - like if I had a better sense of identity and self from childhood, I wouldn't have done xyz.

I'm not sure if I still feel that way because I did not make all the decisions that have led to trauma - other people have acted and things have happened that weren't in my control. 

This is giving me a lot to think on. 

[Armee]

 

I'm here as you go through this realization. It was really bad, San, pervasive, and you are still connected to it. That makes it difficult to get through. But not impossible. Things are different now. I can see how the adult stuff would be really quite harder to process than the kid stuff too. 

[Blueberry]

san I'm sitting with you thru this too. It's huge. And I know those images in T of working to reduce some one's power over me but the images get bigger and surround me more... Many good thoughts to you as you work thru this.

'Glad' is the wrong word but my vocab is small this evening - I'm glad you were able to get all this written out and said. 

[Bach]

 

[Papa Coco]

San,

Thank you for posting your epiphany about how you are now beginning to truly grasp the damage done by your ex.  Your analogy of the shark infested waters you were drowning in really hits home.

I remember when therapists used to call therapy "peeling an onion". What you're experiencing feels like you've succeeded at dealing with a layer, and now you're being given the gift of seeing the next one. Like graduation from one classroom grade to the next. I believe that it's painful to gain a deeper understanding of how bad it really was, but at the same time it feels like positive progress to me.

One thing I've discovered about the peeling of my own onion, is that I never go backwards. Once my T and I have dealt with the last layer, it's gone forever. Good therapy gives forward motion only.

What you're now dealing with feels to me like you're becoming more vulnerable and less self-protective. When I'm in a dangerous situation, being vulnerable is dangerous. But when I'm in a healing situation, that same vulnerability works in my favor. Like I'm safe now and can take off my bullet-proof vest and I can validate that the pain was really as bad as it was. No more hiding behind my "tough guy" survival suit. I needed to when I was trying to survive. But now is the time for healing. So now I can explore the true depths of what I've been through. I'm feeling less and less responsible for my own insanity. This damage was done TO ME, not by me. That new understanding feels like something I can work with now.

Hugs, hugs, hugs.