I'm new here

[JRose]

I am part of a very large family, five brothers and five sisters (the same mother and father).  I am one of the younger ones and grew up with two strong impressions about our family: pride of being a part of a large family, and a deep aching emptiness due to my early years of serious neglect.  The neglect could be seen as a result of the needs of so many children, because both my parents worked, and because of the financial crisis we were in during my early years.  But I can see now that it went beyond that, that I experienced no love, care or guidance from my parents, and grew up with a sense of being a burden for my older siblings who were put in charge of me and my younger sisters and two older brothers.

[/b]Trigger Warning!

(The neglect fit in with the broader purpose of the various forms of abuse pursued by my father.  At least some of my siblings, if not all, were victims along with myself of the repeated sexual abuse by my father.  The abuse came also from outside our home in what I suspect was organized ritual abuse and/or child sex trade.)

My personal memories of these things have only been uncovered by me in the past six years.  Before that I had and still have very few memories of my childhood.  I continue to struggle with accepting and believing these things, though two of my still surviving siblings have talked of these awful facts for many years.  But even though I have much evidence in my own life to substantiate this terrible history (as well as witnessing the brokenness in their lives of my brothers and sisters: psychological instability, serious illnesses, deaths and suicides) I still doubt myself even as I am writing this.

  It was my struggle with health problems that finally led me six years ago to begin to look into my childhood and reach out for trauma therapy.  In this time my husband and I went through very rocky times and only the willingness on both our parts to work hard at communicating, and our commitment to honesty with ourselves and with each other, has made it possible for us to still be together.  Still, I find marriage hugely challenging, though at the same time my relationship with my husband is the deepest bond I have ever experienced with anyone.  My relationship with my daughters is wonderful in many ways, but seems always to be in danger of a break-down.
Throughout my life, I feel that my greatest strength is what various therapist have observed in the past six years, that I have a personal connection with what I understand to be God. This has kept me stable and probably enabled me, together with my husband, to raise our three daughters without serious harm to any of us.

I am currently in the process of searching for a trauma therapist who can work with complex trauma at the level where I find myself now, of processing the new awareness I have about my life.  I continue to practice the methods I have learned about stabilization and leading a healthy life-style.  But I have an increasing need and desire (and hope) to build- up the parts of myself that were left behind all these years.  I am discovering more and more that there is so much more in me that wants to come alive, begin to have expression.  I the country where I live, in Germany, there is a growing crisis of a lack of well-trained trauma therapists to meet what seems to be an ever growing need here.  This means that my chances of getting good care probably depends on how much I am willing to pay for it myself.  I guess this is a crisis that many people around the world are facing, or do not even have the options that I do, to find effective therapy and be in a position to pay for it.  I guess I am pretty privileged after all.

In closing I will put in the chorus of a song that I wrote nine years ago, before I discovered the many things I know today. But it still applies for me today: 

Oh, I'm not givin' up - I'm not say'n it's over
I'm not thru, I won't STOP
I won't STOP - - no, no, no!

[Not Alone]

JRose,
Welcome to the forum. 

When I read about what you went through as a child I felt very sad. I completely understand the struggle with believing yourself. That has been a challenge for me too.

I can relate to so much of what you shared, including, relationship with God, marriage struggles, raising children.

Oh, I'm not givin' up - I'm not say'n it's over
I'm not thru, I won't STOP
I won't STOP - - no, no, no!

[Snowdrop]

Hi JRose, pleased to meet you.

[woodsgnome]

JRose, while it can be difficult being here, telling some of what occurred seems a step that might help sort out some of the emotional baggage that continues to sting even long after the original wounding.

Continuing the journey away from the awful times on a forum like this can prove beneficial. For starters, you're allowed to be yourself and unwind ... summarized so well in the song lyrics you ended your post with.

Welcome 

[JRose]

Notalone,

thanks for your encouraging words - it's so good to hear when others can relate to things I'm going through.  And it means a lot also that you take my story seriously - this doesn't happen very often when I try to relate some of my past to people that I know, except in situations like this, where there are people who know personally that these sorts of abuse really do exist.

I would be interested to know what experiences you have with talking about your relationship with God in Therapy.

[Not Alone]

JRose,

I would be interested to know what experiences you have with talking about your relationship with God in Therapy.

A very big question! I am a Christian and my therapist is also a Christian, although there have been thoughts about God that we disagree on. I haven't talked a lot about God in therapy although I have some. God is a very important part of my life. Truthfully, I've been pretty angry at him for quite awhile now. When I do talk about him, it is pretty much the same as talking about any relationship. My therapist hears me and affirms what I am feeling.

Do you have specific questions or thoughts about this? If so, I'd be happy to hear and respond as I'm able.

[JRose]

JRose,

I would be interested to know what experiences you have with talking about your relationship with God in Therapy.

A very big question! I am a Christian and my therapist is also a Christian, although there have been thoughts about God that we disagree on. I haven't talked a lot about God in therapy although I have some. God is a very important part of my life. Truthfully, I've been pretty angry at him for quite awhile now. When I do talk about him, it is pretty much the same as talking about any relationship. My therapist hears me and affirms what I am feeling.

Do you have specific questions or thoughts about this? If so, I'd be happy to hear and respond as I'm able.

notalone,

most of the time I feel like I don't know what to think about God.  I used to have lots of answers about how God helps us if we reach out to him, but after the past several years of searching and trying to understand my life, a lot of those answers seem hollow now.  Maybe in not trying to understand the hard things in my life anymore, I have let go of trying to understand God as well. 

Now I find myself trying almost from the start to decide what I believe about God.  I don't feel that I can depend on him in the same way that I used to.  But still I feel that the deeper trust I used to have in God was a great help for me and could be a great help for me now.  I just don't know if I can get back to that.

[JRose]

Hi JRose, pleased to meet you.

hi Snowdrop, it's good to get to know some of the members here!

[Not Alone]

JRose,

I would be interested to know what experiences you have with talking about your relationship with God in Therapy.

A very big question! I am a Christian and my therapist is also a Christian, although there have been thoughts about God that we disagree on. I haven't talked a lot about God in therapy although I have some. God is a very important part of my life. Truthfully, I've been pretty angry at him for quite awhile now. When I do talk about him, it is pretty much the same as talking about any relationship. My therapist hears me and affirms what I am feeling.

Do you have specific questions or thoughts about this? If so, I'd be happy to hear and respond as I'm able.

notalone,

most of the time I feel like I don't know what to think about God.  I used to have lots of answers about how God helps us if we reach out to him, but after the past several years of searching and trying to understand my life, a lot of those answers seem hollow now.  Maybe in not trying to understand the hard things in my life anymore, I have let go of trying to understand God as well. 

Now I find myself trying almost from the start to decide what I believe about God.  I don't feel that I can depend on him in the same way that I used to.  But still I feel that the deeper trust I used to have in God was a great help for me and could be a great help for me now.  I just don't know if I can get back to that.

JRose,
I completely understand what you said. I ache for God and the relationship I used to have, but now the "whys" and "where were you" are a very large barrier to my trust. The only thing that I have known to do is to tell him how I feel. For me, for the last 1 1/2 years, writing my "prayers" has worked best. I put "prayers" in parenthesis because these writings are often more like temper tantrums and sometimes just a desperate "help me." Deep down (sometimes) I believe that somehow God will meet me where I am with my questions and doubts, not necessarily by answering my questions directly, but somehow restoring the relationship.  Very vulnerable here: one of my prayers has been, "That little girl (me, abused little girl) needs to know you love her." I do believe that God wants to hear from us, where we are at.

[woodsgnome]

I feel drawn to this God-talk, but not from an orthodox formal religious viewpoint. Except -- I seem to be more spiritual, in a broad sense, than many. This is due to many influences, but suffice to say it also represents a sea change from where I used to be.

The background of my childhood cptsd was not only abuse within the FOO, but in equal and sometimes greater forms of abuse from awful people who were part of a school run by a religious denomination. For that reason alone, I developed an intense fear of what they were up to, to where I couldn't handle the religious part at all. Many words associated with religion, including God, became trigger words guaranteed to produce intense shame, guilt, grief, and tons of mostly suppressed anger that roiled my insides and can still cause me to tense up.

The most surprising part of my adult years, however, has been an incredible attitude shift in how I've come to regard this. I seem to have had a part of me (perhaps it is of everyone) that carried different notions about the divine factor in play. Split up the word divine and one could imagine it as "dive in." In other words, I wanted to (mostly subconsciously, it seems)  get behind the essence, not the disguises, of what religion is capable of saying; but it doesn't due to lots of factors (like abusers being attracted to its power).

Diving in is what I've done, and my discoveries have included the notion that I did have something that seems to have survived intense abuse  that draws me not to a prescribed religion, but rather an open philosophy that can include parts of many religious outlooks, including what God is and/or isn't.

While much of the dogma remains triggering for me, I've developed my own vocabulary in some respects (e.g. I use Great Spirit instead of God). It doesn't matter, as any divine being wouldn't need a name anyway.

I'll stop, as it's actually a long story. I just felt an impulse to try to share a tiny bit of where I was/am with the vastness of how these matters developed for me. Plus the sea change I describe happened after I started my current therapy and during my time on this forum. Being that in my case I was badly abused and traumatised by those wearing the cloak of religious authority, this surprises, even shocks me.

I guess that's all I'm really saying -- to be open to surprises one might never expect on this long and winding trail we're traveling, looking for ways past the hazards that have blocked our path to this point.

So yes, I've come to some discernment regarding these matters, with more questions than solid answers. But maybe that's the way it's supposed to work?

[JRose]

I feel drawn to this God-talk, but not from an orthodox formal religious viewpoint. Except -- I seem to be more spiritual, in a broad sense, than many. This is due to many influences, but suffice to say it also represents a sea change from where I used to be.

The background of my childhood cptsd was not only abuse within the FOO, but in equal and sometimes greater forms of abuse from awful people who were part of a school run by a religious denomination. For that reason alone, I developed an intense fear of what they were up to, to where I couldn't handle the religious part at all. Many words associated with religion, including God, became trigger words guaranteed to produce intense shame, guilt, grief, and tons of mostly suppressed anger that roiled my insides and can still cause me to tense up.

The most surprising part of my adult years, however, has been an incredible attitude shift in how I've come to regard this. I seem to have had a part of me (perhaps it is of everyone) that carried different notions about the divine factor in play. Split up the word divine and one could imagine it as "dive in." In other words, I wanted to (mostly subconsciously, it seems)  get behind the essence, not the disguises, of what religion is capable of saying; but it doesn't due to lots of factors (like abusers being attracted to its power).

Diving in is what I've done, and my discoveries have included the notion that I did have something that seems to have survived intense abuse  that draws me not to a prescribed religion, but rather an open philosophy that can include parts of many religious outlooks, including what God is and/or isn't.

While much of the dogma remains triggering for me, I've developed my own vocabulary in some respects (e.g. I use Great Spirit instead of God). It doesn't matter, as any divine being wouldn't need a name anyway.

I'll stop, as it's actually a long story. I just felt an impulse to try to share a tiny bit of where I was/am with the vastness of how these matters developed for me. Plus the sea change I describe happened after I started my current therapy and during my time on this forum. Being that in my case I was badly abused and traumatised by those wearing the cloak of religious authority, this surprises, even shocks me.

I guess that's all I'm really saying -- to be open to surprises one might never expect on this long and winding trail we're traveling, looking for ways past the hazards that have blocked our path to this point.

So yes, I've come to some discernment regarding these matters, with more questions than solid answers. But maybe that's the way it's supposed to work?

woodsgnome,
I also think it is important to find new acceptable words for topics, like "God" that are loaded with negative or hurtful feelings or experiences.  My hope is that in avoiding connections with abusive situations from my past, I will be able to find new ways to recapture the faith, hope and love that used to have fuller influence in my life.  As you say: "ways past the hazards that have blocked our path".