Effects of sexual abuse for me TRIGGER WARNING

[Not Alone]

Dreams that put us back in the house of FOO can be very troubling. 

[Blueberry]

Thank you for your care and validation, notalone. 
Re-reading now because of your comment helps me understand why I'm finding self-care so difficult and why I'm so apathetic atm also why I'm finding it so difficult to move along on some small steps to achieve some business goals, e.g. translation of children's lit. There is one person and one very small company I want to contact. I've been intending to on and off for months.

The 25th wasn't that long ago so no wonder this is all so difficult atm.

[Blueberry]

Today in T I spoke about the time in the summer when I spent a weekend with my godson, his sibs and their mother, who's a good friend of mine, but I was constantly either blowing a fuse or just managing not to. Not relaxing for anybody. My T asked what the feeling was underneath the anger. Fear. And beneath that? Visceral feelings of that type of CSA. There I have my answer: no wonder things were so hard that weekend. I was trying to bottle up all of that.

Yesterday sometime after I wrote on here the above situation floated back up in more of a "Now I understand" way than anything else, i.e. I didn't feel triggered. If you've read other parts of this thread, you may have picked up that some punishments done to me were sexualised. That's the "that type of CSA" mentioned in the quote above.
I don't think it was clear to me at the time when I was talking to my T that what was really triggering was being with 3 children, one of them a girl, and they were squabbling back and forth the way children do. On that particular day certainly some of 2 boys against their sister. Although my friend, the children's mother, didn't start exploding or threatening her daughter with consequences for reacting towards her brothers as happened to me in FOO in my childhood, the situation was enough to trigger me into a visceral fear of that type of punishment. That's what was going on that weekend or that's what I was thrown back into.

It feels important to me to write about how I've had some deeper realisations about that weekend and about how difficult these types of triggers are for me. The fact that this memory came back up again yesterday is undoubtedly connected to something else going on for me in the past few days. No wonder things are so difficult atm. No wonder my favourite activity is cowering under the blanket and/or keeping warm under there.

[mojay]

Hi Blueberry,
Thank you for sharing and being so brave to share with us. I also experience intense and frightening dreams about my FOO, but I am never able to stand up for myself in them. I wish I could, though.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of very important and difficult work by coming to these realizations. I can see you are being kind to yourself by staying cozy. Will be cheering you on in all aspects 

[Blueberry]

Thank you mojay.

I used not to be able to stand up for myself in dreams about FOO either. Progress in healing has brought that ability, slowly but surely. I imagine it will for you too. 

[Blueberry]

Somebody else's post about boundaries, yesterday or earlier today I think, but I can't find it anymore, brought a realisation for me. Actually part of it was that stuff about Andrew from the RF, but I still don't remember what sentence it was. I don't suppose it really matters anyway.

TRIGGER WARNING




One aspect of the CSA in my FOO was that punishments from one parent were sexualised. I sensed that as a very small child before I had any idea what was going on. Since setting limits and having my boundaries accepted was a big no-no when I was a child, attempts to do so ended up often enough with this s_ _ _ _ _ised punishment. Not always, but often enough for me to not attempt to set limits or stick up for myself etc. It has had a terrible effect on me. Even into my late 20's / early 30's meetings at work would give me visceral memories and fear. So I couldn't and didn't stand up for myself, not even to say that I needed a break from some discussion. My counsellor at the time told me that was within my rights to do so. That was news to me. These work meetings weren't even on anything particularly controversial. Still - there was a supervisor in the room, who was a good boss actually,  I didn't have a problem with him, but it was enough that he was a supervisor.

As is often the case with me, I think back to a time when there was less or no healing on some aspect of my childhood trauma and think  No wonder I didn't survive long at work after I'd completed my degree - about 2.5 - 3 years before I got more and more ill and finally collapsed completely, ended up inpatient and have never got back in the normal workforce. I also think/feel  about having these visceral memories regularly at work. Probably not all the time, but often enough to be too much. And I hadn't really made the connection and I had no idea what to do about them. I felt embarrassed about them and kind of crazy. Undoubtedly they didn't help me concentrate on my work. They certainly made progress up the career ladder difficult.

End TRIGGER warning

Before I wrote that, I re-read my whole thread here. It is heartening for me to see the progress I have made with this topic. Not healed, but a lot less likely to be triggered in day-to-day life. Not constantly dissociating and numbing, especially not my whole body. 

[Blueberry]

One of my coping mechanisms as a child, which I had started by 8 years old at the latest, feels pretty addictive and very hard not to do when I'm triggered in a few particular ways,

I did it again ... [today 26 Aug 2023]

I've been reading around on here and commenting on other people's threads ... , [for at least two long spells today 26 Aug 2023, putting off writing about this maybe?]

Or maybe triggered by something completely different, out of my own life that is, not anything I've read on here today or written so far in response to others.

My mind was very far away from remembering that putting my hands on my lower stomach could help and does help usually.

[blue_sky]

  if that's okay.

[Blueberry]

Thank you blue_sky, it is. Helpful too, since it reminds me to comfort Little Blueberries.