On my blog entry entitled How Do You Let Yourself Feel the Depths of Your Pain?, a reader posted the following comment:
I am not only unable to express emotions, but I can’t even find the words to express what happened to me. I constant struggle with flashbacks, relive horrible memories but unable to share them or give my memories a voice. Because of that inability I so often feel like I am a lair, that things i see in my mind have never happened. All I do in therapy is sit there unable to talk, and since I am a horrible artist I cannot even draw pictures of what I see in my mind. I feel so alone in this and completely hopelessly stuck. Am I alone? I know my abusers trained me not to talk, etc. I don’t know how to get unstuck. Have you experienced this or do you know of others who went through this and have been able to come out the other side. If I don’t talk I can’t heal. If I don’t heal my rage and anger will eat me alive and I will lose my loved ones I don’t ever want to affect those I love with my anger. I wish I can talk about my abuse so I can heal. ~ Matreshka
My abusers also frightened me into silence. I was so frightened to talk about the abuse that I actually lost my voice (quite literally) with five days of laryngitis after my first therapy appointment. My therapist said it was a wonderful metaphor for my childhood – that I had “lost my voice.” However, I would “find my voice” again through therapy and talking about what happened until I no longer felt the need to talk about it anymore.
I am an extrovert by nature and have a loud, strong voice. However, in the early years of therapy, my voice would feel so “thin” whenever I talked about the abuse. I have performed in plays on a stage in front of hundreds of people with no need for a microphone, but my therapist had to strain to hear my soft-spoken voice in those early months of therapy.
My process was to write about the memories first on Isurvive. I always received an enormous amount of support there, which gave me the courage to speak the words either in therapy or with my one trusted friend back then. I would eventually talk with both of them about the latest memory, but I sometimes felt more comfortable talking with one of them first versus the other.
I was in therapy for roughly a year before the first glimpses of the ritual abuse started to emerge. They were so scary that I would just see flashes of a bonfire way down below from the perspective of the treetops. While I got through talking about my mother’s abuse, beginning to face the ritual abuse memories triggered multiple bouts of suicidal urges and the emergence of self-injury in the form of head-banging. In 35 years, I had never self-injured, but I started doing it when I started talking about the ritual abuse memories.
Once again, I had to find the courage to talk about it. I found the courage by building upon what had already worked (talking about the other forms of abuse), taking a leap of faith that I would be okay, and pure stubbornness to allow anyone else to tell me what I could and could not talk about. It p@$$ed me off that my abusers had “programmed” me to self-destruct rather than tell, and I was not going to let them win. I pushed myself past the strong desire to kill myself several times by the sheer force of will, telling myself that I will be d@#$ed before I let my abusers force me to end my life.
Healing from child abuse is not for the faint of heart. It is one of the most difficult choices you will ever make, and you will question yourself many times about whether you can do this. You have to make a resolve that you are going to heal no matter the cost.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Matreshka, you are NOT alone. And we already know you are strong and brave because you are alive and trying/fighting. I struggle with the same things you are describing, as do many abuse survivors. I have times of being able to speak and then I sometimes sink back into fearful silence. What has helped me in the past is choosing just one thing, even if it is just a word or a single sentence, and speaking it. Pressuring yourself to tell it all is overwhelming but seeing you didn’t die from the one little piece you let out, will be freeing. It may even give you strength to do more, but you don’t need to think ahead – just one word or sentence. It has also helped me to write down what I need to say and let my therapist read it.
Praying for you. Be kind to yourself:)
Your journey is a constant source of regeneration and resolve for healing. You rock Faith.
Good luck to everyone on their own journeys.
Peace,
mia
I feel so much gratitude for Faith and all of you who so bravely bear witness in service of others who struggle. This is a rare place where we can be empowered both by helping and bei g hel
(Oops)
…being helped.
I’m in the same spot… Feeling silenced and afraid of the words I know I have to say out loud. Even though I can see the wreck the abuse has made of my life, and knowing that talking about it is the way toward healing, it still seems so impossible. I get paralyzed and mute even when I am determined to talk. So much depends on it. I like the idea of just taking one small thing at a time. I am going to try that today when I see my T. Thanks.
I have lost my voice. I once had to write someone to call my therapist to get me into a hospital.
Expressive therapy is not always art for me. Stick figures work. Crayons work best.
I have had the feeling that what happened was not real. I have found two things. Say I am dealing with events of when I was 3 all other events seem unreal as to those that are out and about those have not happened yet. I have also found that when the memory is in my consciousness and I can no longer “re-live it” that it feels unreal for a while.
I one broke my leg playing basketball. None of it was stored in my unconscious. I could not re-live it. I know it hurt and such I know it happened it has the same quality of unreal as when any memory is in my consciousness.
When a memory is in my consciousness I do not associate things in the now with it happening. This is different and can lead to a unreal feeling. Using the broken leg as an example I did not associate playing basketball with the pain as it was always in my consciousness.
Memories of trauma are stored different in my opinion and they are retrieved differently so they are not like other memories so the difference can make them feel unreal.
A life time on not being believed does not help.
Many times it is hard for me to talk because I feel I don’t communicate well. It took me a long time to actually be able to describe what I was feeling out loud. Mainly because I didn’t know what emotion I was feeling…..I didn’t know how to describe how I was feeling. As a child, being unable to express emotion, I didn’t know what the different emotions meant. Such as irritable, frustrated, anger, fury, explosive, fear, worry, etc….These are all different levels of emotion and I couldn’t tell them apart. I had to retrain my mind, first to allow and encourage myself to feel, then to put words to the feeling. To this day, I struggle with communicating how I feel…because I have to weed through a lot layers to determine what I’m feeling….what is really at my core. When I’m irritable, it may come across as me being mad or fearful as I am describing a memory to my therapist and trying communicate my feelings, by the end of twenty minutes I realize I’m actually sad or insecure about something. Really confusing.
“If I don’t talk I can’t heal. If I don’t heal my rage and anger will eat me alive and I will lose my loved ones I don’t ever want to affect those I love with my anger.”
My husband and I just suffered through a very tough weekend because I had emotionally shut down and stopped talking to him over the last few weeks. We’ve been under a strain financially and I blamed myself for it (I blame myself for everything) so I didn’t want to “burden” him more with my “crazy” thoughts and emotions. I mentally chastised myself for being so needy and selfish, and shoved it out of my mind. Like thousands of times before, I convinced myself I could handle it on my own. I didn’t need his help, or anyone else’s for that matter. And, like thousands of times before, I was proven wrong. The unvoiced emotions built inside of me like a pressure cooker, and exploded without warning.
My husband posted his thoughts about this on our blog early this morning (Behind the Mask…asaandabbystone5.wordpress.com) It’s a wonderful view from a loved one’s stand point. God has blessed me with a man who loves me NO MATTER WHAT.
this journey has taken more strength and been harder than I could have ever imagined. but in saying that I can look back now and see how far I have come, and i could never go back to the place I was before. Im not fully sure who i am yet, but even though it is hard i can it is getting easier all the time. It is not fast, or painless but it is worth it. I cant say im there, but i know i am getting there. Hang in there, because you will make it if you do, no matter what you have been through. I have been through some really horrible things.
Everyone,
Zoechristine and I have known each other for years through Isurvive and through email. To see here write this is unbelievably powerful. She has been through some really painful experiences and has really had to fight her way to where she is now. I am in awe of the strength she shows in her message. If you view me as having glided through my healing too easily (even though it hasn’t felt that way to me), find your strength in her words because her battle has seemed much more uphill from my perspective, and yet she is here telling everyone that the battle is worth it.
Zoechristine — Thank you for the honor of watching you transform from the grounded caterpillar to the butterfly finding her wings. :0)
- Faith
I’ve spent so many years not being able to talk about what happen to me, that I feel like I don’t exist. That I am a shell of the person I should be, and that shell is empty and fragile and could break at any moment. I had to reach a point where it was talk or self destruct. I’m just so thankful for blogs like Faith’s that make it ok to talk.
I now write and speak out whenever I can so that I can help others as well as my self. I’ve found that talking about it with someone else helps to fill that emptiness I feel. I think I find blogging so much easier to talk about this subject, because no one knows me and I don’t know them. So I feel less like I’m being judged.
That isn’t to say that it isn’t hard to do. Somethings I don’t even know what I want to say. Those days are the hardest because those are the times I’d like to sit in the corner, pull my hair and rock. So those are the days I read other peoples words, and somehow they get me through. I think it is the knowing that I’m not alone.
I tried again today and failed. Why can’t I talk to my therapist? He seemed so cold and vacant today. I can’t find any of the trust I thought I felt. I want badly to quit, just walk away and stop putting myself through this pain. None of my friends understand why I choose to go talk about painful things. They see my depression. I can’t talk to them about it. I feel hopeless and angry and I don’t know where to put the feelings. I can’t stand being in my own skin. I’m enraged and then in despair. I want to die, I have always wanted this, but never more than now. I thought this time it would be different, that talking to someone who knew about DID would feel safe, and that I could hope for a life that felt sane. It’s been 40 years since the abuse, 20 years in therapy and I still want to die.
Hi, blue.
I am so sorry about what happened. Please don’t give up. You are welcome to write some of your story here. We have lots of people with DID who read this blog.
Isurvive (http://www.isurvive.org/) has an “Our Stories” forum where people’s stories are welcome. That is where I used to write my story as it unfolded before I started this blog. Perhaps sharing your story online will help meet this need for now. Writing about it here or at Isurvive will only result in positive and supportive comments. :0)
- Faith
thank you for this post
Yes, it’s hard to talk about it.
When I tried to tell my therapist about a very painful flashback I had experienced, I could only get so far into the story and then I would literally go mute. I could hear the words in my head, I was trying desperately to form the words, but nothing would come out. That first attempt to tell had been so traumatic that I had actually dissociated. After the session, I could not even remember what we had discussed… all I could remember was that my therapist had been wearing a green sweater.
When we discussed in another session what it felt like for me to try to tell what happened, I realized that I was paralyzed with fear. Deep in my mind I believed that if I told, something even more horrible would happen to me. So, my mind was protecting me by making sure that I literally could not speak.
It took some time for me to realize that I could tell and no harm would come to me. It took many months of starting with “smaller” memories of abuse of a non-sexual nature before I could begin talking about those memories too.
Now I can easily talk about that memory and it has lost its hold over me. Yet, I still have so much more to say. I am so grateful that my therapist has helped me to find my voice again.
Faith
Thank you for answering my question. And thanks to everyone who answered me on my original comment and for all the comments here. I see that I am not alone in my inability to talk. It makes me sad that others suffer through this too. It makes me sad and mad that abusers not only took our childhood away, did unspeakable things to us while they had power but they also tried to take our words and expressions away from us in adulthood.
I am glad that you, Faith, talked about survive. I joined it back when you wrote about it several weeks ago. People there are wonderful and supportive. I only wrote about myself twice and 2nd time I was so terrified to write because what I wroteaboyt was horrible. I was terrified of response. But I needed to get it out andit was few daysbefore therapy and I thought I wouldn’t be able to voice that memory yelt again, and I needed not to feel alone. I got wonderful support from people there. So thank you! And I was right that when I saw my therapist I could not again voice anything. But I brought the writing, and insider made a scrabble like grid/ crossword with all the words associated with memories of that time of my life and therapist tried to guide me into directionof talking about it using the words in crossword. I was able todo it to some degree. Main thing though, I released some pent up pain by crying and screaming around someone who cared and understood.
I hope I will be able to keep moving in right direction and finding ways to break silence even if it will be a slow process. I will try to not be so scars and use isurvive as my support as well as supporting others there
Thank you, again, for your blog, Faith. Thank you for being here for all of us!
Hi, Whoweare.
I am so glad that you are finding your voice!
Yes, your experience with Isurvive is like mine. My first posts were about mother-daughter sexual abuse. I feared that nobody would believe me because “moms don’t do that.” I was overwhelmed by the support I received there. I strongly recommend that site for anyone who is in the earlier stages of healing. Everyone is so supportive, and it is a community that can offer 24/7 support since members and moderators live all over the world.
- Faith
Depression is overpowering. Switched last night and had horrible night with children.
Today I am so disdusted with myself, It feels indulgent just to keep breathing. I’m ashamed to be here.
this is me all the way. Only in the past couple months have i started speaking it in therapy. And then last week I told a friend. It is horrifying to hear my voice… it feels separate from me. After I told my friend, the next day I wanted to kill myself. But at the time when I spoke to her I felt consumed by emotion and had to tell her. The next day it felt like a drunk. I hated myself. I dont know how I feel about it now, other than I dont want to speak it again to her. I know somehow it is the path to acceptance, my voice. So I am not closing the door to doing it in therapy again. I just need to rest a bit longer. Most of what my t knows is through writings and drawings. Some I remember doing, others I dont – I find them amongst my work things at the office or on paperwork at home.
Faith gave me the courage to write on isurvive and to give my writings to my t. It was a relief when I found her.
Best wishes for you all. Peace and safety in this moment
palucci