More doubt

[Bermuda]

The hardest part about talking about my experience is coping with this huge feeling like I am lying, manipulating, or whining.

I get the urge to cover up anything that is not irrefutable fact backed with evidence, just in case someone calls me out and calls me a liar. I don't mean that I have this feeling sometimes. I ALWAYS have this feeling, every third sentence.

When I think about the past I take myself out the the picture. I try to explain the circumstances rather. Whenever I get the urge to relate what I feel now about things that happened then, I feel like it is a lie. That somehow interpreting the past in the eyes of what I know now is inherently a lie.

I am constantly shushing myself and asking it it's real or if I'm being dramatic. I asked for help on something I'm writing. I wanted an outside opinion if something sounded like coercion or rather just persuasion. (Nothing against the advice) They said just to write how it felt. That I could say that it felt coercive... but it didn't. I couldn't have recognised that at the time. I couldn't know that I was trapped. I couldn't let myself know that. I knew nothing else. I didn't know options. I couldn't recognise a set-up. I have difficulty saying no and even seeing that as a possibility.

That's just one example. I have so much distrust. It is so difficult to express myself. I struggle so much internally.

[Blueberry]

oh Bermuda, I'm sorry it's so tough!

I think I have similar, but not all the time. So just sitting with you.

[Bach]

I struggle with this too, Bermuda. It often stops me from communicating because everything I say feels false or attention-seeking or exaggerated even though it isn't.

[NarcKiddo]

When I think about the past I take myself out the the picture.

This sentence stood out for me because it resonates so much.

I wonder if what is going on could be a disconnect between adult Bermuda and child Bermuda. If child and adult are not in communication at all about these things then adult Bermuda cannot express anything on behalf of child Bermuda. You have identified one problem, in that child Bermuda could not recognise or describe or voice problems because they were Bermuda's "normal". So adult Bermuda cannot honestly say that what child Bermuda experienced was wrong or painful because adult Bermuda did not experience it. And child Bermuda is unable to make adult Bermuda understand that whilst child Bermuda could not describe the problem as adult Bermuda could, child Bermuda still suffered. All these things happened to child Bermuda. Child Bermuda is not lying about this.

I also wonder if this is a kind of protective mechanism going on. Facing up to the fact that this happened to YOU is really tough. It takes time and care to process. I am no therapist so I could be wildly off here but it seems to me that as you start peeking at the awful scene it is natural to recoil and question it. To ask "how have I lived so long without really looking at this scene? Maybe I am making it up." I'm not sure how one can get past that, but I think that maybe you just need to keep considering what happened. And each time you call the truth into question maybe you remind yourself that child Bermuda is making a big effort to communicate the truth. And that is because adult Bermuda is a safe person to tell. It is not unreasonable to question things. I mean, if your child came home from school and said "Johnny hit me today" I am sure you would not immediately say "Don't tell lies" and punish the child. But you would probably also not say "Right, that's it, we are going round to Johnny's house right now to hit him back." You would instead ask questions and find out exactly what happened and why. And then you would act as necessary. So maybe you just need to cultivate curiosity about all of this.

Although this is getting a bit long I do just want to explain why that sentence of yours resonated with me. It is because I noticed something recently in therapy sessions. If my therapist asks me to go back to the grim period of childhood and tell her about that I also take myself out of the picture. I do it by using second person to tell the story. So instead of saying "I could not ask my mother for help. I could not win. If I said x she said y or got furious with me...". I would always say "You couldn't ask for help. You couldn't win. If you said x she said y or got furious with you...". My therapist did not point this out, she waited for me to notice it and when I did she confirmed I do this a lot when dealing with that period. Now I am aware of it I try to pull myself back to first person and I have asked her to help me if I don't do so myself, because we have agreed I need to realise this is personal. This happened to me.

[Kizzie]

I couldn't have recognised that at the time. I couldn't know that I was trapped. I couldn't let myself know that.

These sentences made particular sense to me and explains why it is so incredibly hard to go back in time and see what happened to us.  To survive we really could not let ourselves see or feel what was happening. It's why I had such a hard time with writing my story, that is I had to remember and I didn't want to. Much like NK wrote about, I can't help but wonder if your doubt is part of that whole survival tactic - it can't hurt as much if you made it up.    Just my thoughts. 

[Armee]

It's so common, Bermuda. And I think NK's theory is pretty good both the protection and the separation.

I know that adult me and the different parts of my brain are completely separated, walled off. If I am truly remembering the abuse I have no access to my current self. If I am my current self I have no access to the memories.

When my memories are witnessed either by writing them or sharing them with my therapist while I am remembering, then when I reconfront them by either hearing my therapist tell me or reading what I've written they feel fake made up or lies.

I once had a terrible assignment, when my T was learning emdr from an "expert"...it was to list the 10 most traumatic things to target for EMDR. I could not do this. I could write a list of 50 things but not 10.

When I tried to circle what might be the top 10 I could not. I would dissociate. It was not my decision to make because those things did not happen to me. They happened to some other part that I have no access to. How could I decide if it was bad enough to include because I could not feel the impact of those things. I never completed that assignment. It was a horrible thing to assign in the first place. 

[Blueberry]

imo wise words from NK and Armee, also their ability to even put this stuff in words, which was beyond me.

On a side note just in case it helps, this quote resonates a ton with me.

I get the urge to cover up anything that is not irrefutable fact backed with evidence, just in case someone calls me out and calls me a liar. I don't mean that I have this feeling sometimes. I ALWAYS have this feeling, every third sentence.

In my case I know who the 'someones' were. Maybe you do too. My long-term trauma T helped me by saying undoubtedly repeatedly that what I'm saying in therapy and in recovery does NOT have to stand up in a court of law. That is, I no longer have to 'prove it' to the extent that those FOO mbrs demanded in my childhood/teenage years, or even would still now demand. This has relieved me of the feeling that I have to carry a large burden of 'proof' around forever in my memories, though a few inpatient therapists and other staff who didn't know me well were shocked at the amount of justifying and explaining and detailing I still thought I had to do... What they don't know is that it has got a lot better. I'm thinking that all that justifying and explaining and detailing comes from a similar place or injury as your always having the feeling that you will be called out. Idk if my T's words can reach you via me but if they can then I hope that they can help you reduce that 'always' by even a tiny little bit - one in four sentences instead of one in three

Otherwise trying to send comfort

[Bermuda]

It's not fair that you all seem relate, but it does comfort me a bit. I just want to exhale a big sigh. All of your words have been so remarkably helpful. I tried to type this reply but I also felt dramatic. So, I am trying for a third time. Even that sounds dramatic, ugh.

I have read your replies and pondered a bit. It is probably a lot of things at play here.

1. Embellishing the truth to make it look like something else was her specialty.
2. I am not self-referencing and wasn't at the time of most of my traumas.
3. As much as I want to talk about it, I am careful about the language I use to avoid "getting sucked in" and lost in space time.
4. I don't want to speak over my inner child. I guess it feels in a way that if the adult me filled in context that I didn't understand then, that I am rewriting what happened and dishonouring the experience. In reality, both perceptions can be accurate. (That's difficult to tell myself.)
5. I have been accused of lying.

I do remember how I felt and how I interpreted those experiences. Those feelings were valid and stemmed from the situation I was in and that formed all of my perceptions. Looking back I know how serious some things are, and I can't say that I was entirely unaware in past, but I just thought that was how the world worked. That thinking lessens the seriousness, and removes myself [the victim].

Even the language I am using here feels quite telling. Those things, those experiences, the past. There is a disconnect, and the thought of filling in that disconnect feels unsettling. I guess I will work on just reassuring myself that I am honouring the truth as I know to be true as a collective of me. We have to work together.

I'm just going to organise all the little glass Bermuda slides back into the case next to the microscope and let them rest for now.

[Kizzie]

That's good self-care Bermuda.  Let things sit until you are ready to deal with them