How do you recover from child abuse?

[Becoming]

Whoa, Otter, seizures, huh? After a few months, Wellbutrin, which I could only take 1/2 dose of, had me hyper-emotional. That stuff's great for sexual side effects but I was so nutso I took myself off everything except nutritional things. I'm doing about the same without the hyperemotionality. Hormones are definitely part of the package, too, but it doesn't look like anyone knows how. And I agree about the sugar/bad carbs connection. Pills don't fix everything, and I agree: these drugs are stronger than they lead you to believe. I do much better on a hypoglycemic diet, but it's all but impossible to eat 6 small meals/snacks a day in a busy lifestyle. But I'm slowly learning . . . My I do have a hard head!

 

Part of the effects of abuse, in my case, has been a disconnect with my body. It's like I don't know what it needs; it's just a carrying case for all my emotions so they don't leak out too much! And that little child in me wants candy and junk food she was denied as a child so I overindulged her to my detriment. I ate to keep the panic down, so food has been my drug of choice. I didn't want alcohol and drugs because I saw the damage that did as a child, so I wanted no part of that. But work and food are socially sanctioned. Problem is, they don't work either.

[Becoming]

I would love to go the natural way. Tried Sam-e once and it messed with my stomach. On top of everything else I have IBS!

 

I think the HRT patch is helping a bit. I sure wish they would call me back about my levels so I can see if this dose is too high or too low. Yesterday and today I have felt a bit better than I did for the last several months.

 

I'm reading Joyce Meyer- Battlefield of the Mind as well. Has some interesting things in there.

 

I also wanted to comment on your comments about judgement? Since my mother denied that the molestation and the abuse happened, I've often thought about what it was like for her when she finally got to Heaven? They say that all things will be revealed so I'm wondering- you know you always think of watching your life flash before your eyes?? I'm wondering if the things that she did to me, and knowingly let him do and get away with, had to flash before hers?? I like to joke that about 10 minutes after she died, she got a real rude awakening, because she always said, "I'm not going to have to go through judgement like everyone else, because I've suffered so much here on Earth" Just thinking about it gives me a giggle. Its sad to say that I've not missed her once since she died, it has been too peaceful!

 

 

I like Joyce Meyer, but I haven't read that book. I'll check it out. Folks who've died and come back tell us about reviewing their whole life with a judge who judges them with love, but who makes them see everything from a more divine perspective so that they see the shortcomings and have to deal with them. The judge is a judge of love for all. This is certainly in keeping with Christian beliefs. So yes, I do believe she probably went through such a process and now knows in ways she didn't while here.

 

I used to wallow in guilt about wishing my parents would just die and leave me alone. Not a normal emotion, I don't think, until I actually said this to someone one day. He had grown up in an abusive household and knew exactly how I felt, relieved that he wasn't alone with these awful feelings.

 

I say that and continue to have contact with my parents. I actually enjoy my mother in ways I never could have imagined. That doesn't mean everything's hunky dory but it's ok.

 

Maybe you're feeling better because a part of you knows you're going to get some help now? Did you make that appt.?

[blind_otter]

I say that and continue to have contact with my parents. I actually enjoy my mother in ways I never could have imagined. That doesn't mean everything's hunky dory but it's ok.

 

 

I was thinking this yesterday when I was at my Mom's. I was filled with this weird serenity. She needles me trying to start arguments and I've learned to handle her with a zen-like patience that involves rolling my eyes behind her back and nodding and smiling a lot. It's weird. I win. She can't mess with my head any more. But I still have to clean up after the mess she made 20+years ago....hahaha.

[Mz. Pixie]

I was thinking this yesterday when I was at my Mom's. I was filled with this weird serenity. She needles me trying to start arguments and I've learned to handle her with a zen-like patience that involves rolling my eyes behind her back and nodding and smiling a lot. It's weird. I win. She can't mess with my head any more. But I still have to clean up after the mess she made 20+years ago....hahaha.

 

Well, I can relate to what you're both saying. In the end, I felt sorry for my mother and she was not raging and abusive like she'd been before. My first therapist said I might have to come to terms that she was never going to ask for my forgiveness but still be able to go on and I did. I felt bad for her in a way but in another way thought that she was reaping a bit of the abuse she inflicted on me in her illness. I learned how to handle her and then refused to be manipulated. Nothing was so much of a high as that!

 

Alot of what i did for her I did out of trying to be a good Christian and guilt. She was once upset with me and raging on about how I didn't come and keep her house clean etc. Let me preface that by including that my stepfather lived there and my brother- who didn't work and was suposedly staying at home and not working to help take care of her- yet he didn't. She made his car payments and he had two brand new cars. So she was heaping on the guilt and she said, "And your mother is sick and you don't even come and clean her house for her- and you're such a big Christian". I said, "Mother the fact that I'm a Christian is the only thing that has kept me speaking to you for the last 15 years" So, I fed her while she paid his car notes and kept up his drug habit. One thing that kept me buying groceries was that my grandmother lived there and she was the only person who ever loved me unselfishly. I didn't want to see her hungry.

 

I made the appt! Can't get in until the end of February but that's okay.

They are going to put me on the will call list for cancellations if something comes up before then since I was referred. I'm hoping I don't have to jump through any insurance hoops to get treated.

 

Still no word on whether or not my brother is alive or dead. I'm hanging in though.

[Becoming]

Yeah, MzP! They probably will be able to get you in earlier.

 

Otter and MzP I am in awe of two amazing women who stay or have stayed in such self-control in the midst of such crap.

 

No wonder you haven't seen your brother. And that Christian guilt is a good one, isn't it? Good retort, though!

 

There are days when I think that if I were a decent Christian I should care for my father who's in a nursing home 200 miles away by having him moved here, see to his every demented whim, etc. I cry every time I see him. Neither one of my parents can control me and make me crazy like they once could. But there's still a part of me that wants to make it all better and just refuses to believe I can't. But I know I can't. I see now they are just frail human beings with serious flaws like everyone else, though they seemed to have excelled in this department. Even if I completely devoted my life to my ailing parents, it wouldn't do any good, as my H pointed out. I can only do what I can only do and choose life and refuse to become entangled in death-dealing situations. And that's a pretty tricky balance.

[Mz. Pixie]

It is a tricky balance. For the most part, I did what I could do, as far as I could- without jeopardizing my recovery. In my case that mean, short visits spaced far out, screening my calls, yet being there in a pinch. I could only take so much.

 

I know that guilt tells you that you would do all of that. Yet, they had no guilt when they did what they did. You have to stay sane for you, and moving him here would just tear up whatever progress you've spent forever trying to make. Don't fall into the trap.

 

I used to always wonder how people judged me that didn't know what I'd been through as in see, how she does her mother?? Then I just got to the point where I didn't care, because only I had to live through the pain of what I had to deal with.

[Becoming]

I've mostly given up the guilt; I limit it to my monthly visit. I used to wonder how in the world people could just leave their parents in a nursing home and not visit them that often. Now I know how. It's all so sad.

 

I can't be angry at him anymore seeing him lying there all alone so sweet and half crazed. He lost his mother when he was 8 in a tragic car accident and he was just farmed out to various family members. He never got over it, always wanted/demanded someone take care of him. Now, due to his abusive behavior, I have one sister who hasn't seen him in years. The other sister lives 7 miles away from great nursing home he's in (which is another reason why I wouldn't move him), yet she sees him less than I. She has been the one who's had to clean up all of his extensive financial mess, only to have him accuse her of stealing everything, so I understand and am grateful for what she does. He was a big man in the community, yet no one but me and my family (and 2-3x/year my sister) visits him now.

 

There was a point where he was so nuts he thought demons were eating his entrails. It was awful. That was before they got all his meds straightened out, but a part of me wondered if it wasn't real. Of course, to him it was. He's been judged, I'm sure, so after years of bitterness, it's been easy to forgive.

 

It's like after so many years on earth you begin to be able to see the complexities of life and understand how hard it is for some to cope and realize the abuse was never really about you. You just got caught in someone else's hell.

 

So I'm looking at all the things I came to believe about myself as a result of my childhood and confront those lying demons that keep trying to drown me in all the inner turmoil that is me.

[blind_otter]

Last night was really difficult for me. I had one conversation with a friend and he wasn't being mean or anything, I don't even know what exactly it was that he said that set me off....but I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach after I abruptly ended the conversation. I don't know if it was an anxiety attack or what.

 

Long story short I ended up crying almost all evening and my eyes are still swollen. I had intrusive memories of my first rape, it was a flashback...I spent my time sitting on my bathroom floor with my head in my hands trying to do breathing exercises, etc. In the past I have just smoked pot to control these episodes....

 

I finally took a shower and that helped, a long shower. I remember from one therapist that doing something physical could take my mind off of the experience.

 

I watched "Cinderella Man" - good movie - but I noticed I kept unconsciously covering up my crotch. heh. I would catch myself and move my hands but it was almost like I was either trying to hide that area, or trying to protect it. I don't know which...

[Becoming]

These flashbacks are awful to live through. I'm sorry. I know what that bathroom floor feels like. Good for you for avoiding the pot (pun intended ).

 

It sounds like you're doing what you can now to be there for that hurt child part of you. You listened to her wail. You tried cleaning her up (shower), diverting her attention (movie), and symbolically protecting her vulnerability (hands covering crotch). The more she feels heard and cared for by you, the less intense things will become.

 

But at first, it's all pretty scary.

 

It's odd how we're afraid of a little vulnerable child crying inside us, of that hurt that's so big we just leave the hurting child part of us alone, hope she'll just shut up and go away. The only way she stops crying is by knowing that you are there now to protect her and care for her instead of telling her to get over it already and try to shut her up (with drugs or other substances).

 

I know it feels like hell. But you're doing good, Otter.

 

I use active imagination exercises to "talk" to my hurt child, ask her what she wants and needs, why she's being so contrary. You can Google Jung and active imagination. I didn't quite know what I was doing, but it helped. That's when I discovered all the other parts of me--the critical, abusing mother who's also very organized and keeps things moving (note the ambiguity of all these characters!), the nurturing artistic type, the Yoda grandmother wisdom type, etc. I watched what they all did in my imagination, where they were. I discovered that the angry street-wise independent juvenile delinquent part of me was the one who was always trying to protect the little one as best she could. And over time, all these characters' harmful qualities have been put to better use. At times, I've banished some of them for awhile until they could learn to behave! I know this all sounds pretty crazy, but it's helped keep me sane through the process. Stories of various kinds (books, movies, myths, religion) have always helped me continue to have hope. I enjoyed the book Women Who Run with the Wolves for that reason, too.

[Mz. Pixie]

Last night was really difficult for me. I had one conversation with a friend and he wasn't being mean or anything, I don't even know what exactly it was that he said that set me off....but I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach after I abruptly ended the conversation. I don't know if it was an anxiety attack or what.

 

Long story short I ended up crying almost all evening and my eyes are still swollen. I had intrusive memories of my first rape, it was a flashback...I spent my time sitting on my bathroom floor with my head in my hands trying to do breathing exercises, etc. In the past I have just smoked pot to control these episodes....

 

I finally took a shower and that helped, a long shower. I remember from one therapist that doing something physical could take my mind off of the experience.

 

I watched "Cinderella Man" - good movie - but I noticed I kept unconsciously covering up my crotch. heh. I would catch myself and move my hands but it was almost like I was either trying to hide that area, or trying to protect it. I don't know which...

 

Awwwww- BO- I'm sooo sorry. I know how you feel. It's like the little things can set you off and get you to suffering!

 

Damn triggers!

[blind_otter]

It sounds like you're doing what you can now to be there for that hurt child part of you. You listened to her wail. You tried cleaning her up (shower), diverting her attention (movie), and symbolically protecting her vulnerability (hands covering crotch). The more she feels heard and cared for by you, the less intense things will become.

 

It's interesting that you mention this. I always seem to picture a little horrible looking creature locked away in an attic inside my head. I figure that must be what I really think of myself. I think in many ways this is the part of me that has taken the brunt of the abuse I've been through, and it is a scarred, stunted little thing.

[tinktronik]

I am a survivor of child abuse myself and you just have to live your life. I never went to therapy and I don't take meds but after much soul searching I have learned to take the hate and anger that were eating my alive and term it into positive energy. You can't go back and change it and it is not your fault so the only to do is learn from it and don't waste another moment letting it control you.

 

 

Woggle , I find that this has been the best course for myself as well, Ive also stopped allowing myself to get caught up in mental scenes replaying the abuse I recieved as a child .

[Becoming]

Until we befriend and liberate this part of ourselves out of the closet, attics, basements where we've stuck them in order to just go on, they'll continue to rage and disrupt our lives. They just want us to hear them and help them grow. But we try to shut them up with indulgence (drugs, alcohol, dramatic relationships, busyness, food, etc.) instead of loving guidance with discipline that really helps them. An alternative is that we end up abusing ourselves more by locking them away without any nurture whatsoever and just hope they'll go away.

 

I've lived my life in between these two poles of indulgence and stifling, so my life has been one of extremes that have left me feeling out of control with mood swings I never understood. I was caught in this internalized abusive pattern instead of seeing what was really going on and acting in accord with my inner wisdom that is a good parent.

 

When I first "found" this poor waif in me, I had no idea how to help her. I'm just now learning, and I needed therapy to help me. But a major part is acknowledging she's there and telling her you want to help her now and that you're sorry for the things you've done to her that hurt her; you were just trying to survive. She may rage at you some more, but eventually she'll cry tears of relief that you're finally there and offer you understanding and compassion and forgiveness and love for the guilt you carry.

 

During the next flashback, see if you can just let her sob but also be there as her witness to offer compassion and comfort for all she went through. It's a strange kind of thing to do, to split yourself off this way, but you already had to do this to survive the horror.

 

I think the flashbacks are our psyche's ways of trying to heal by forcing us to stop and look and deal with what happened. We fear them, but I think they're trying to help us, which could account for last night's episode without any threatening trigger.

[blind_otter]

Yes. I was trying that. Years ago another online friend advised the same thing.

 

Usually I lash out at other people in those situations. I call someone, find anyone to be angry at so that my feelings have some kind of external context that I can pin them on. I made myself sit this one out and experience it. Truely disturbing and terrifying, I'm still off kilter today.

[Becoming]

Haven't checked back here because I just needed a break, I think, but I didn't mean to leave you hanging, Otter. How's your kilter now? And MzP, did you have a dr's appt?

 

I was rereading some of these posts and wanted to express gratitutde for all you've all written. It helps to know I'm not alone and just to get some stuff out there so we can help one another along. You're amazing folks. Thanks!

 

I am surprised at how far I've come in just a month. I continue to name my demons and watch for their tricks. And they're tricky buggers. It's exhausting to always be vigilant. Only this time I'm not vigilant against other people as much as i am about myself. It's automatic to choose the road to despair by believing the old survival strategies I used and universalizing from them.

 

I took some confusing situations that were troubling me into therapy today and it led me back to one particularly awful day when my mother accused me of hurting my sister when, in fact, I was trying to keep her from hurting herself. When my mother wouldn't believe me, I refused to stand there and just be spanked for something I didn't do. I was older, about 11, and grabbed the belt as it came down, flung her down by using her own force against her, and ran. When she caught me, it was hell's fury. I thought I'd die. Afterwards, I told myself that resistance was futile. A part of my previous spunk died out that day, and I went underground, retreating into the fantasies of books, TV, stories I made up.

 

The thing is, any time I need to stand up for myself in a situation that could be remotely threatening, my heart starts pounding. My natural tendency is to back down, back away. I'm afraid of confrontation. I'm afraid of my own anger, that I'll say something over the top or inappropriately emotional or hurt someone with my anger. I assume that any time I need something from another that I will be met with a negative response. In certain anticipation of rejection, I erect a wall and start mounting evidence for defense instead of checking anything out with the other or exploring possibilities with them. And that response may just bring what I most fear--rejection and the disappointment that brings.

 

Why is the prospect of disappointment so threatening? It leads to despair: "why bother since what I want will be thwarted anyway?" And I've seen despair; I don't want to fall into that deep pit any more out of fear I'll never get out.

 

So in anticipation of certain disappointment and rejection, my fear may actually cause me to choose a response to situations that leads to despair--assuming, erecting walls, withdrawing, distancing, caving, or insisting on my way or no way. The only way to break this is to keep an eye on this dragon and choose the path of life, which involves the possibility of pain and uncertainty.

 

It's just that that takes so much work. I have to think, think, think all the time. I'm hoping that it's like driving a car, that the intense concetration of trying to do all these different things so deliberately gives way to an automatic driving response so that I can get to where I don't even have to think about it.

 

Anyway, to all of those who've read this, those who've responded, those who're fighting their own past demons, I offer these ramblings as potential hope. I'll keep writing as long as helpful and encouraging others to hang in there as together we continue to fight the good fight.

[helena abadi]

Ive also stopped allowing myself to get caught up in mental scenes replaying the abuse I recieved as a child .

 

absolutely. somebody posted a crap piece of advice that victims of abuse should replay it until they face the pain and become insensitive to it. that was the worst piece of advice i've ever read on LS.

 

maintaining a distance is essential for every day sanity. in therapy there are obviously confrontational scenes, but they are not repeated ad nauseum.

[blind_otter]

afraid of my own anger, that I'll say something over the top or inappropriately emotional or hurt someone with my anger. I assume that any time I need something from another that I will be met with a negative response. In certain anticipation of rejection, I erect a wall and start mounting evidence for defense instead of checking anything out with the other or exploring possibilities with them. And that response may just bring what I most fear--rejection and the disappointment that brings.

 

-------------------------------

So in anticipation of certain disappointment and rejection, my fear may actually cause me to choose a response to situations that leads to despair--assuming, erecting walls, withdrawing, distancing, caving, or insisting on my way or no way. The only way to break this is to keep an eye on this dragon and choose the path of life, which involves the possibility of pain and uncertainty.

 

Yeah. It does take a lot of work. I was thinking on the same track this past week. In my mind, it translated into the idea that I have lived with the people who I loved the most abusing me, so in many ways, even outside of that context, I have continued to abuse myself.

 

It's like it's not a happy or good feeling, but a comfortable one. I know how to feel badly about myself. I know how to feel chaotic, unstable, insecure, I know how to exist in dangerous or troubling situations. Without that, what am I? Like a freak without a freakshow...

 

I have as an adult consciously chosen to put myself in dangerous or unstable situations to continue the cycle of abuse. To create that external framework that I've used to give my life meaning.

 

I was so FRAGILE last week, after my flashback episode on Tuesday. It's like I have to get over it all over again.

 

Strangely enough it takes less and less time. Each time I have a flashback I remember more details about what happened, but I bounce back faster, too...

 

Maybe this is my brain's way of processing what happened. It takes years, I guess. That's the body's way. Eventually you will attain homeostasis again.

 

It has helped me tremedously to read this thread. I am grateful to everyone who has/is contributing.

 

I talked to my mother last night, the main abuser of my childhood. Now she's on lithium, she's actually a good mother. I never allowed myself to notice this before. She is like me, now that she's stable on meds. She suffered horrific abuse as a child and spent time in a Vietnamese prison when she was a teenager, for protesting the war with other VIetnamese demonstrators in Saigon.

 

I see in her, the darkness, the sadness, the self hatred that I have inside myself. And she feels guilty. In her eyes, perhaps from her culture, she believes that she gave me part of her sorrow when I was in utero. She feels like she birthed me with pain already in me. She said she saw it inside me when I was only an infant...

 

She now tries to mother in a better way, still pushy though. She wants me to got o law school. Good grief. She already paid for me to take the LSATs. At least she's trying, now. It would be easy for her to just give up because of all water under the bridge. To try to "move on"...it's harder to make amends.

[Mz. Pixie]

The thing is, any time I need to stand up for myself in a situation that could be remotely threatening, my heart starts pounding. My natural tendency is to back down, back away. I'm afraid of confrontation. I'm afraid of my own anger, that I'll say something over the top or inappropriately emotional or hurt someone with my anger. I assume that any time I need something from another that I will be met with a negative response. In certain anticipation of rejection, I erect a wall and start mounting evidence for defense instead of checking anything out with the other or exploring possibilities with them. And that response may just bring what I most fear--rejection and the disappointment that brings.

 

Why is the prospect of disappointment so threatening? It leads to despair: "why bother since what I want will be thwarted anyway?" And I've seen despair; I don't want to fall into that deep pit any more out of fear I'll never get out.

 

So in anticipation of certain disappointment and rejection, my fear may actually cause me to choose a response to situations that leads to despair--assuming, erecting walls, withdrawing, distancing, caving, or insisting on my way or no way. The only way to break this is to keep an eye on this dragon and choose the path of life, which involves the possibility of pain and uncertainty.

 

It's just that that takes so much work. I have to think, think, think all the time. I'm hoping that it's like driving a car, that the intense concetration of trying to do all these different things so deliberately gives way to an automatic driving response so that I can get to where I don't even have to think about it.

 

Oh my Gosh! I am feeling exactly the same way. I'm thinking of cutting and pasting this to my husband because it spells out exactly how I feel and why.

 

I'm in the process of going back to court with my exhusband. Now, although the situation seems less than fair to the kids- the attorneys we talked to yesterday were not very encouraging. I cried all night. He can't understand why the prospect of me undertaking all of this is so overwhelming. He says "You say you'd do anything for your children"

Well, of course I would. But am I capable?? I don't think I am.

 

When it counts, I can't defend myself.

[Becoming]

It's like it's not a happy or good feeling, but a comfortable one. I know how to feel badly about myself. I know how to feel chaotic, unstable, insecure, I know how to exist in dangerous or troubling situations. Without that, what am I? Like a freak without a freakshow...

 

Fabulous description! Like a freak without a freakshow. That's a great book title.

 

And that's the scary part, isn't it? We don't know how to really be all on our own even though we really were on our own. This is so confusing, it doesn't make sense to me.

 

It's like we're stuck in 2, wanting, yet not wanting our parents, clinging, yet wanting so desperately to be away. And unable to let go because a part of us wants so much for someone to take care of us. The internalized critical parent says, "Buck up, kid. Ain't gonna happen. Now shut up before I give you something to cry about."

 

The only person who can take care of us is the good parent part of us, the nurturing part we generally only give someone else. And that part is too often scared of the internalized abuser to stand up to it without fear of reprisal. But we are capable of doing it MzP. We just don't believe we are because the internalized abuser part of us has told us we can't do anything forever and forever, and it's a lie.

 

So that's my crazy for the day . . .

 

But what I've come to know for sure is that I will act on faith that I am capable until I really come to believe it. Fake it until I make it.

[blind_otter]

It's like we're stuck in 2, wanting, yet not wanting our parents, clinging, yet wanting so desperately to be away. And unable to let go because a part of us wants so much for someone to take care of us.

 

Anxious-Ambivalent/Avoidant personality disorder, anyone?

 

I don't know if you've read anything on attachment theory (if not, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory)....

 

When the mother departs, the child is extremely distressed. The child will be ambivalent when she returns - seeking to remain close to the mother but resentful, and also resistant when the mother initiates attention.

 

According to some psychological researchers, this style develops from a mothering style which is engaged but on the mother's own terms. That is, sometimes the child's needs are ignored until some other activity is completed and that attention is sometimes given to the child more through the needs of the parent than from the child's initiation.

 

I see this in myself as an adult. Terrified of abandonment, yet inconsolable and resentful even while I desperately want comfort. Yet comfort doesn't help....

[Becoming]

Yup. I've got attachment problems. I see-saw back and forth between firmly attached and totally detached. Need to stand in the middle of the teeter-totter and control it instead of just riding with who/whatever's on the other end, I guess.

[blind_otter]

AFAIK, the awareness of this issue has done nothing more than trouble me even more. It's not like I see myself reacting horribly, the inconsolable child takes over, and I am horrified at my own behavior. But I don't know how to control it. Like there's a part of me that needs to express itself in this way, regardless of the repurcussions. And instead of disciplining myself, I indulge myself.

[Becoming]

Yeah, I've indulged (appeased?) that child, too. It doesn't work, of course.

 

My dear husband, whom I've managed to screw up to some degree with all my issues, is finally getting it. He says I have no object permanence--like babies who think that objects really disappear when you play peek-a-boo or cover objects. Maybe two-year-olds still have a bit of that going on which is why they react like they do when Parent leaves.

 

There's a deep, tiny bit of me that thinks that, I think, with people. I think it's pretty miniscule now. After all these years I finally get it that my husband's really not going anywhere; he's here for the distance.

[blind_otter]

If pressed I would admit that I am terrified of adandonment, and I do a lot of crazy things because of that. I admire your husband. He seems like he must truely love YOU.

[Mz. Pixie]

Yeah, mine said to me yesterday "There is nothing that you could do, except cheat on me, that would cause me to leave you"

 

But I just don't get it because love has always been conditional to me.

 

I printed out some stuff for him last night on depression, anxiety and PTSD. I highlighted all the areas that apply to me. That's just to give him some info until he can get to the counselor with me. I keep telling him that you cannot force someone like me to just "think positive" and get better. He just doesn't understand.

 

He made the mistake of insinuating yesterday that perhaps I use this as a crutch. I won't even go into the drama that happened after that but I can tell you I said, "How dare you- Mr. I have had everything handed to me on a silver platter". He apologized profusely afterwards but actually the damage has been done. I don't feel safe right now to even tell him how I feel. He said he cannot believe that one comment out of everything he's said can cause me to feel that way- which is yet another indicator that he has no clue about how I feel.

 

I tried to explain to him that it's not the abuse- it's the fact that when I experience stress it;s like experiencing the abuse all over again. It's not that I feel sorry for myself, it's not that I dwell on what happened, it's what it CAUSED me to become to be able to adapt.

 

Therefore, I will avoid any situation which I feel will bring about a high level of stress for me. A good example of this is how I left my first husband rather than try and work through the affair and our issues in counseling. It was just too much effort. I will go to great lengths to keep my personal peace- which includes running from any situation which brings about stress.

 

It's not actually confrontation that I don't like, because I will defend myself. It's the actual situations which bring on a high level of stress. If I don't care about what you think personally, then I have no problem ripping you a new one!