Posted by:
worndown
(
)
Date: February 14, 2016 01:34PM
I'm female, 50s, and my shelf also held all of the abuse. It crashed down on top of me about 15 years ago, when a kind person persisted in explaining how I had misread/filtered/filled their words/statements, substituting my own distorted version for their actual side of the conversation. Up to that point in my life, I had no awareness of the mind games going on inside of my head, used to avoid/cope with the beatings, sexual abuse, mental/emotional/physical abuse and neglect I suffered as a child/young adult.
After escaping the abuse, I was numb for many years. It allowed me to function, but I had no focus on my own best self-interests. I worked to the benefit of everyone but myself. I couldn't actually feel the empathy that seemed to be the driving factor of my efforts.
I emotionally isolated from/rejected personal relationships from everyone, except gay men. Their suffering, their isolation, their fear, were things I could feel - not my own, but theirs. There was no fear of sexual advance, but we could share real hugs. I never shared "my story," but could feel theirs. They were real men, powerful and gentle, alive with curiosity, opinion and passion. I felt so safe and honored that each would be so emotionally generous to call me a friend.
So a loving person crashed my shelf, but neither of us suspected/expected the latent toxic fallout that was to come. Flashbacks, supressed memories, triggers, dissociation, the whole PTSD emergency phase bag of garbage. Two-three months of my life disappeared, and still, I can recall only snippets.
I had some treatment, but it wasn't very specialized then, not even widely understood. About 1.5 years after that, still processing "new" memories, feelings, rage, deep sorrow, my spine decided to exhibit symptoms of all it had suffered. Having had lost all my girlie parts at a young age (abuse trauma), no HRT, I had started losing bone mass. To be brief, I'm now 2.5" shorter now than I was, all spinal decay. That's a lot of "ow."
Even though my father was dead when my shelf crashed, his death probably being the safety my mind required for the crash to occur, the injuries he inflicted continue to tear my body apart. GI disease, kidney stones, hair loss, premature aging galore.
The p-docs helping me to cope with the physical pain, as a permanent part of my life, tell me that CBT, basically ignoring/redirecting the negative thoughts about it, is the way to go.
Remembering/honoring and processing the long-denied emotions of the long-term abuse is how to move through and discard them.
I'm so freaking confused most of the time. I think I'm a godamned miracle for the ability to get out of bed, get some clean manner of clothing on my broken body, and make it to my job, sit there in pain and function in a productive and friendly way. I hang on to the ability to support myself by the thinnest of threads.
I still can't relate to most of the women I know. I simply have no interest in their pursuit of the immediate. Please note the "I know" part. I now live in a red state, never knew that cammo was a color or basketball a religion. I moved here in flight of my family, and now don't have the means to move again. I still reject anything that reminds me of my mother, Mrs. It's-All-About-Keeping-My-Marriage. Even being my true feminine self in public is difficult. At home alone, I'm all girl.
So yeah, the so-called parents should have never birthed me in the first place, but they did, and here I am, every authentic inch of me. For me, the pain is permanent.
Oh, and, pets rule. Coffee should be its own food group. This board helps me to breathe. I tend to put too much cheese on my burritos. There are positives on which to focus. :)