One of my challenges in my early years of healing was feeling the need to take care of others while they were trying to take care of me. As an example, I might have just recovered a traumatizing memory involving being forced to kill an animal. I needed to talk about what happened as well as how it made me feel. However, I wasn’t always sure that the other person could handle hearing about it.
So, instead of just letting loose and unloading what I needed to share, I would dole out the information in pieces and gauge the other person’s reaction. I might begin with, “When I was seven, I was forced to do something.” I’d gauge the other person’s reaction before continuing. I would then share a little more and see if the person could handle the direction I was going.
I had one friend who could handle hearing about most of my stuff, but she is a huge dog lover, so she stopped me as soon as I said the word “dog.” She was direct about it, but not every friend would be. I wouldn’t know until I said one thing too many and saw in the reaction on the other person’s face that I had gone too far in my disclosure. I would then feel the need to shift gears to comfort the other person.
The worst part was that I was already feeling so much shame and self-loathing over what I had remembered. Seeing a strong reaction on the other person’s face would sometimes reinforce that shame, even if the other person said the “right” things. I am an expert in “reading” other people, so the body language would overshadow the words.
My therapist was the one person who never flinched face-to-face no matter how gruesome my story was. I also felt completely free to share all in the My Stories forum on isurvive, which is a message board for child abuse survivors. I would put up a trigger warning, and anyone who read my story knew to expect a graphic recounting of what happened. I didn’t do that to shock anyone – I simply felt the need to pour out what happened in graphic detail. Once it was out on the screen, it felt like I had poured the memory out of my spirit.
This is one reason that finding a qualified therapist with experience working with child abuse survivors can be so helpful. If you are only talking with your friends about what happened, you might find yourself unable to let go and share all when you feel the need to do so. I have told my friends that as difficult as it is for them to hear about my story as an adult, I assure them that it was much harder to survive as a child.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
For me the wanting to tell was really about be wanting a narrative of my life and the telling was a way for me to do it. Now I have a narrative I feel not need to discuss it with anyone other than my therapist. In a way in the telling I came to know.
I found that when sharing with people was possible their life filled the void and mine was not allowed. I do not do that anymore.
My big issue now is the wanting of others that I be part of their delusions. A person who has experienced trauma will ….. , rape is the worst thing that can happen to a person etc. .I still have a need to prove the statement incorrect. It is getting so it is OK that I know it is incorrect within the limitations that I am not always correct. I am always more correct for me than anyone else.
I pretty much now share with the person I am with what is germane to us. My childhood is not often so. Different when you have a past and therefore have had a childhood.
Body langue is very powerful and easy to misinterpret and manipulate. I am all about intuitive self. Projecting it that I know what is going on with the other person is something I avoid.
I only manipulate body language in a adversarial situation. Great fun in planning boards to have some members see this and others see that. Well it used to be it is boring now.
I still find it is easier to help others than myself and morph into that as a way to not do the work I need to do.
It is not difficult for me to hear about the horror of others lives.I have found that what happens most often is that becomes the only role I have and the person has fun with other people. Not OK.
I wonder if I will ever tell anyone about my mother….
without even knowing the depth of abuse, they tell me she is not worthy of the care I am giving her… or the ones really in the dark say I am a good daughter which makes me angry.
Mica,
I keep my story of my mom very close, hidden behind my heart.
I can SO relate to that. I do the same thing. I have a therapist though and have moved my story to a small group of friends who can hear me. Also survivours. And I am lucky in that the three of them have been doing this work for years. Their support is invaluable. One of them told me to stop trying to sound people out. It was causing me to stop talking to anyone at all about anything.
I have a question for anyone out there: What do you do when even with minimal information (eg that my father sexually abused me) your friends avoid you because all they can think about when they see you is sad things? (Even if you don’t say anything about it and are only talking about happy things.) I just feel so lonely and so confused and don’t know what to do. I am in therapy but no one can tell me anything but that this will get better as I get older. I want to know what to do NOW though.
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Hi, faith.
I have followed your blog in the past, different issues involving self harm and other topics a few years ago. I have recently returned because I feel I am at a stand still in my therapy. This particular topic caught my attention and thought it was best to post here.
I was diagnosed with DID a few years ago, and most of the time in therapy I have been learning to get some of my dissociation under control, and learning about each alter. But everytime my therapist gets close to uncovering a new memory, me and my parts go into panic mode. My therapist words it as putting out fires. Me and my parts start self harming, or doing self destructive behavior, including sex with strangers. Eventually this behavior gets out of control and I end up in the hospital.
My therapist thinks it’s time that we start on memory work, so that I can learn how to deal with the memories, and flashbacks and how I try to hide my feelings connected to them.
I am not very good with my feelings.
But my therapist believes working through the memories might lessen my chances of going back to the hospital because I will have better control over my emotions and reactions.
But my question is, how do I tell her about each memory so she can help me work through them? I am always trying to hide everything from her, knowing she will eventually find out after a crisis intervention. Mostly because I don’t want anyone including her to have a glimps of what I went through. Why should others suffer because I did? I don’t want to frighten her away, even though she has proved time and time again that she is not going anywhere.
Am I just fearful of losing the most trustful person in my life? I know I need to work on memory work, but it’s all so painful. I am not questioning her abilities, she even gets consultatiion to help her help me. Why am I so afraid to tell her? I don’t want her to have to keep putting out fires. I want her help and I know she can. I just dont understand why I am reluctant in telling her the full truth. I have been fighting with her somewhat. Do you think she will stop her work with me and pass me off to someone else? Will she think I am trying to push her away? Or do you think she is understanding enough to stick around?
[...] my blog entry entitled Worrying about Reactions to Your Child Abuse Story, a reader posted the following comment: But my question is, how do tell [my therapist] about each [...]