Accepting trauma

[sigiriuk]

Dear All
I need to share with you. I have always denied to myself that I was abused physically. However my behaviour says otherwise, as do my memories.
My Psychiatrist has been a catalyst when i spoke to her on Wednesday, I have started to accept that i withstood a lot of physical abuse. Even remember telling my school when I was 14.
I have always focused on sexual abuse, and am a little lost here with this physical stuff.
I feel deeply  ashamed and weak that I have been physically attacked: like I am some sort of bad person. Do any of you have these feelings too?

I remain terrified that I will be assaulted again. I feel a constant sense of threat that I will be attacked especially if i do good things for myself. I am terrified of helping myself. Any thoughts?

Feeling a bit off colour
Slim 

[Sceal]

 

Dear Slim.
I am sorry to hear what you've experienced in your life. I do hope that being able to finally admit it to yourself that you are on your path towards healing.
It is natural for people who has gone through traumatic events to fear that similar things will happen again. Sadly statistics say that those who survive physical and/or sexual abuse will be victims of such again later - and this is terrifying. But! (and it's a big but!) there are ways to prevent this from happening again, and I hope your psychiatrist will help you towards that. And that this page here will be helpfull too of course.
There is hope.

*big hug*

[Three Roses]

I feel deeply ashamed and weak that I have been physically attacked: like I am some sort of bad person. Do any of you have these feelings too?

Yes, I do. My IC feels ashamed that she misbehaved and forced people to punish her physically. ("Look what you've made me do!" was said to me a lot.) I can't say that *I* feel that way, I think I've overcome the shame, but I do recognize that feeling.

However, the other part of your question:

I remain terrified that I will be assaulted again. I feel a constant sense of threat that I will be attacked especially if i do good things for myself. I am terrified of helping myself. 

I relate to this very strongly. This is something I am working on. I am triggered several times a day, some triggers resulting in an EF but not always, if I can recognize the trigger in time and take steps to counteract it.

Currently I'm especially working on noticing when my core muscles are tense, and working on relaxing them. I describe it as though my body is a clenched fist. Pete Walker calls this "armoring". So you're definitely not alone.

[murfgirl2]

Dear Slim, I can relate. For yrs. I worked on accepting that I was sexually, emotionally abused as a child. But it was nothing compared to the shame I felt in admitting I was physically abused as an adult. My IC played havoc with my self esteem. Am still working on it in therapy and still find it embarrassing but getting better. It seems to be getting better with time and learning how I was set up for further abuse by my early trauma. Don't have any words of wisdom cause am still struggling too but just wanted to say you're not alone in feeling that way.

[LittleBird]

Slim,

it takes a real level of bravery to confront this. You didn't deserve to be hurt: this is a shockingly awful experience. Try and be gentle with yourself about it now - you deserve comfort, rest and peace.

I hope when you're ready, you look back on this and see how strong you were for speaking about it. What a significant step saying it loud can be. I hope you can be proud of that.

[Traveller]

It is not unusual to feel the shame about being abused & the fear of it happening again. I thinks all of us feel it to a degree & the intensity varies. It is difficult to break out of the cycle, but exposing the shame decreases it & makes it more possible to nurture the IC. At least that has helped me.

Even talking about it here is a brave thing to do.

[sigiriuk]

Dear All
Thank you. I feel better when I see posts about this subject, reassuring me that it is quite normal.
One thing I have noticed, is how physical abuse can make me (and others, as I have obseved) feel powerless in their whole life, and I seem to wait around for something to happen.
Wondered if any of you have pointers to online resources around physical abuse?
Slim