This post is part of a series in which I am providing an overview of my healing process from child abuse. The story begins here.
When I first started having flashbacks, I would have them one at a time. Believe me, one memory at a time was more than I could handle most of the time. After I recovered a memory, I would deal with the punch of the emotions for days afterward.
As I continued to heal, I developed several coping strategies that helped me manage the pain. As I moved through different layers of healing, I was able to use the coping strategies that I had used to get through other layers of healing. So, as I faced my most challenging memories, I went into them “armed” with the ability to survive them. I grew more confident that I would get through the current layer of memories because I had previously survived and healed from other layers of memories.
As I continued to heal, the pace of healing picked up. Instead of dealing with one memory for days or weeks, I would sometimes have a “montage” of memories – flashes of memories released that had a similar theme.
For example, I recovered three memories in one night. In one, my mother was abusing me in our family van. We had one of those “hippie vans” with the curtains in the windows. She had pulled to the side of the road and harmed me. I never saw it coming. I had a second memory of my mother abusing me at my grandmother’s beach house in the storage unit for the beach stuff. I always remembered being phobic of one of the three doors. This memory answered the question of why. And then there was a third memory of a similar theme – being abused in a place where I thought I was safe.
All three of the memories carried the same feelings of betrayal and removal of safety in situations in which I thought I was safe. I was able to work through and heal the emotions involved in all of these situations at one time because they all had to do with the same issues.
My therapist told me that it is not necessary to remember every incident of abuse. I needed to remember enough in order to heal the resulting pain. Sometimes a cluster of memories like this is enough information to heal the pain. I did not have to relive each memory – I just needed to know enough to understand what I was healing.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
One thing im having a problem with at the moment is when i get loads of anger back. Sometimes its that intense that i dont even know im angry until i start laying in verbally into my dad – I can cope with everything else, but not when its that intense im not even aware its there!
One of my abusers had one of them bedford camper vans. They are very rare here in the uk, i bet a single number are registered on the road. 2 days after having my memory, me and my dad went for a drive. Well pulled up behind one in exactualy the same colour.
Anger was the emotion that I most deeply repressed. It was both scary and exhilarating to learn how to process it. What worked best for me was visualization. I would see the child me about to be harmed. Then, the adult me would come in and kick some major butt. It felt wonderful to give all of that rage a place to go.
– Faith
Ill have to give that a try. I have worked doing some ‘swish’ stuff with my therapist, where i swap the bad situtaion with a neutral one. Maybe i should up the ‘ante’ and change it for one where i tearing up the place ! lol. Joking aside, it is the hardest thing for me. And theres so much of it. My dads good, because we have an agreement where i can get angry at him, as long as he doesnt start to take it personal. Ive found that nothing else works!
Simon
You said it as a joke, but I am totally serious. In my visualizations, I allow the situation to get as graphic as I need it to get. At first, it used to bother me because my visualizations could get quite sadistic. However, the rush of anger leaving my spirit helped me to recognize that this was a positive healing tool. Nobody was being hurt, and I was experiencing an enormous amount of relief from repressed anger.
I would “kill” my abusers repeatedly, maim them, and do all sorts of other things to them in my head. Then, I would douse the house where the abuse happened with gasoline (again, in my head), light it on fire, and watch it burn to the ground. The release of anger was AMAZING.
– Faith
No i did believe you! I didnt say in the last post but before i brokedown ( pre awareness), i used to get to sleep at night be visualising myself as a sniper killing bad people. If it worked then, it will work now.
I guess i joked for the very reason you put above – I didnt want to come across like i was ‘mad’ ! Old beliefs are hard to shift.
Simon
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