Just had the worst FB

[no_more_fear]

I just had a FB to a time after I moved away from home. I'd moved away with my ex-boyfriend. I remember how he kept telling me how bad my home life had been and he then tried to get me help. Soon after, I started seeing a new guy, who is now my husband. I remember my ex kept saying how the only reason I was seeing the new guy was because of the fact he was trying to get me help. I refused to believe what he was saying. This is awful. This means my relationship with my H only started because I was running from the truth. I feel so much shame. My FB's keep getting worse. Has a similar thing happened to anyone? Thanks so much for reading.

[no_more_fear]

My IC is going mad right now because I'm asking for all this support. I promise I'll offer all help I can ASAP. I'm sorry.

[schrödinger's cat]

Hey, it's alright. It's okay. If you're in trouble and need support, you can always say so. No worries. 

This means my relationship with my H only started because I was running from the truth.

Strictly speaking, it means nothing more than that your ex told you to see a therapist and your husband didn't. There could be plenty of other factors involved. Maybe your ex was urging you so much it felt like pressure, and you simply weren't ready for it yet (as happens sometimes with CPTSD), so you wanted someone who felt non-pressuring and safe. 'Running from the truth' - if you put it like that, it sounds bad. But was it really that? So many of us are talking about how CPTSD-truths need to be confronted in tiny, tiny portions. Too much truth at once can flatten us. Wanting to distract ourselves can be a very sane and healthy thing to do.

Also, CPTSD is often created by situations or people who try to control us - to take us over, more or less. And anyone who keeps on urging us, who keeps on wanting to talk us into something, who doesn't accept our no... it can feel like they, too, are trying to control us in an abusive way. It doesn't have to feel like that, but it happens, sadly. So there's yet another reason why your ex-boyfriend's urging might have made you want to run for it.

Also, I'm assuming that your husband has plenty of other good qualities except from his not-mentioning-therapists-or-crappy-families habit. Maybe you simply had good taste?

Be kind to yourself. Trust yourself. You're okay.  I wish you all the best, and I hope your flashback will stop soon.

[no_more_fear]

schrödinger's cat,

Thank you for posting that, you've really calmed me down.

You're right, I need to take a break away. This stuff is killing me, there's just too much. But I keep being triggered in whatever I do, so it seems futile.

I've remembered more with my ex. He kept saying to me, 'we need to talk about your M. She was awful to you.' I remember replying, 'She's being nicer to me now that we've moved away, please don't ruin it. I just want her to like me.' Then I started seeing the new guy, my H now, and my ex said, 'you're just seeing this new guy because I wanted you to see a therapist, isn't it?' I said no, ended it with him and then I seemed to bury everything. I was obviously living in some state of crazy denial. I remember saying to myself-it wasn't that bad-over and over again until I started believing it. Is it normal to basically repress all those memories for years? I'm so worried. Pete Walker talks about some people reaching a critical mass. Is that what happened? I've always known in my heart something was wrong, but I buried/denied it.

[Trees]

Yes, it is totally normal to repress memories for years.  It is totally normal for these memories to resurface in your brain much later in life.  It happened to me and from what I've read here it has happened to many other people. 

It can feel like a long and dreadful tidal wave.  But it lets up eventually.

In my tidal wave I learned more about myself than I ever wanted to know.  But that knowledge has become useful to me.  Of course the pain was tremendous, and the fear.

nmg, you are doing a wonderful job of asking for support!  Keep it up!   

When we give support to others, we are in effect telling ourselves and our ICh that we all deserve such support.  The giving of support is in itself deeply comforting to the giver, nmg, so please don't worry about that!    :big hug:

Please take good care of yourself as much as possible.  And your ICh.

[Jdog]

NMG-

Echoing what others have said, you really will be OK.  I thought I was losing my mind two years ago due to the many FBs (and I didn't even know that was what was happening - just many awful feelings coming from constant triggers) but now I recognize that not only did I survive but have come out stronger as a result of the insights and hard work on myself.

Breathe a little more deeply.  Drink lots of water.  Exercise.  Know that this will all be much easier in a bit.  You are worthy of your self respect and self compassion.  Hang in there.

[schrödinger's cat]

No_more_guilt, I'm glad you're feeling a little better now. And it's like everyone else said, it's absolutely run-of-the-mill normal to repress memories.

Or to have memories, but just as a collection of facts, like something you read in a newspaper that happened to someone else. So there's this detachment, like it didn't happen to the real you at all. You can't remember any details, or you don't have any sense at all of what it felt like back then. That happened to me, and when I talked about it here, someone else said their memories are like that, too.

Another thing I heard here several times is that we have all the clues, but we don't really get the full picture until much later. We've been so influenced by our abusers into thinking it's all normal, we're treated well, nothing to see here, move on ladies and gentlemen, 'abuse? what abuse? nooo, she's just being oversensitive again'. In short, we've been subtly brainwashed. So we have the clues, but we don't pay attention to them. Or we interpret them wrongly. A text I read said it like this: "We take our traumatic childhood, we bury it, we plant daisies on it, and we stick a sign on top saying 'Butterfly Fun Dream Land'". There's a therapist who wrote a very acclaimed book about narcissistic mothers, for example. One would think such an expert saw through her own mother at once, eh? But when she began to realize what her own childhood had really been like, she'd already been a therapist for twenty years. Two decades! So for the rest of us, there's really nothing to feel self-conscious about if we do take a while to really, really realize what precisely has happened to us.

This is actually a side-effect of abuse. Our own voice has been silenced. Our opinions were sidelined. We were taught to not feel, to not see, to not speak out. We were systematically weakened on all fronts. So that's why we're often so blind towards the truth: because this blindness is what the abuse did to us.

But you're still in there. You're starting to break out of all that now. You're determined to get better, to stand on your own two feet and to see things clearly - it's all in your user name, isn't it?    You were able to break through your fears and ask for support, which is an achievement in its own right. I'm amazed you were able to do that while in the middle of a flashback! I have that fear of asking for things too, and I usually just cave. So kudos to you. 

Right now, you're in so much pain. This is so overwhelming. But it will get better. Did you ever see the Shawshank Redemption? It's a bit like that. Some prisons take a long while to get out of. And the escape means we may have to patiently hack away at walls, crawl through suffocating tunnels, and wade through sewers full of sh*t. But at the end of it, there's air and freedom.

So there's really nothing to feel self-conscious about. We're all in the same boat. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself time to recover from your flashbacks. They take up a lot of energy, so if you can do things that relax you, or that are fun, or that feel rewarding and nurturing, it's an excellent idea to do those. Will you keep us posted as to how you're doing?

[no_more_fear]

Trees, Behea1thy, Jdog and schrödinger's cat, thank you so much for the support. Seeing these messages has helped me calm down a lot and I don't feel so crazy anymore. All my IC keeps saying is, you should have investigated all this yourself without having to ask other people. This IC is really tough to break 

You are all right, it's getting a little bit easier, but that really only happens for a short while every day. Then EF's hit and it gets awful again. It's like I have to read the Pete Walker book for the tools to cope, but it's triggering EF's.

schrödinger's cat, I will definitely keep posting. This is the first place I've ever felt I truly belong my whole life, so I'm never leaving. You're all stuck with me! 

I'm going to exercise for a ridiculously short time, oh no, there goes my IC again, saying I should exercise for as long as I can. I hate exercising though, or at least I used to think I did, so I'll just do a bit. I'm laughing at how ridiculous all this is!

I know I have to step away from this, but I'm so worried that if I do that I'll  somehow repress all these memories again. Is that likely? I promise I won't ask anymore questions. Ah this blooming IC is going crazy. I need to stop feeling so bad for asking for help. There goes my IC again telling me I'm pathetic for apologizing for asking for help. I can't win! This is so bad, it's quite funny.

[schrödinger's cat]

Glad to hear that you're feeling a bit better. And you're very welcome to stick around. 

Exercizing for a ridiculously short time is actually one component of a self-motivation technique. This one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique  Several published writers do it, too: you can't write all day, but you can write for ten minutes. So they put your timers on and they write for ten minutes. Then rinse and repeat, if possible. If it isn't possible - well, at least you wrote for ten minutes, which is a lot better than writing for zero minutes. I've found that method very helpful. It's nearly always possible to motivate myself to do something for ten minutes.

About repressing those memories - hm, I keep on losing sight of things sometimes. But once you've seen the truth, it's often easier to rediscover said truth than it was to discover the first time around. If you want, and if it isn't triggering, there's always the possibility of taking a few notes about what you remembered. Even just a few brief hints might later be enough to jog your memories. Or you could write a letter to yourself, and just write down what you wish to remind yourself of if you get stuck in your old headspace again.

[Trees]

And I'd like to add that that nasty ICr at least is "audible" to you.  Highly unpleasant and tiring, but you are aware of what it is saying.

There have been times when I was so overwhelmed with negative messages from my ICr that I was pretty much paralyzed bent over under the howling noise of all the crap it was throwing at me.  At times like those, just taking one step, or doing something anything for 10 minutes, is a huge triumph.     In such a situation, praising oneself would be appropriate!

[no_more_fear]

About repressing those memories - hm, I keep on losing sight of things sometimes. But once you've seen the truth, it's often easier to rediscover said truth than it was to discover the first time around.

Thank you schrodinger's cat. As always you give fantastic advise, like above, and insights that keep me going throughout this *. Thank you for always being there.

[no_more_fear]

Nope. Now that the memories are "out", they have a chance to get "reworked", "reframed" and even healed.

Thank you so much for saying that BeHea1thy. My H keep saying, 'like pandora's box...' but clique's are driving me a bit mad at the minute, so again I'm  I know he's right though. Thanks again.

[no_more_fear]

And I'd like to add that that nasty ICr at least is "audible" to you.  Highly unpleasant and tiring, but you are aware of what it is saying.

Thank you for saying that, Trees. I'm taking every compliment to heart right now, so it felt great reading that. I'm sorry I'm not writing more, I'm more-or-less emotionally drained again. I'm so looking forward to going through this again tomorrow, not! I've got you all now though, so that's keeping me going. I'm so grateful for you and everyone else. Thank you.

to you all.