Sexual Abuse And Shame

[jades]

thanks rossie i feel like im trying to lose weight to diappear i didnt want to admit that cause i dont want anyone to stop me and i really dont i can eat now but i wont i cant let myself if i do i thriow it up sorry to throw your thread off

[hummm_mabbe]

thanks rossie i feel like im trying to lose weight to diappear i didnt want to admit that cause i dont want anyone to stop me and i really dont i can eat now but i wont i cant let myself if i do i thriow it up sorry to throw your thread off

Hi jadey, dont worry

I cant help but notice that you didnt respond to any of the sexual abuse issues... did you see my post, or maybe its something thats just too hard to face? I say this because the stuff in that post is the core of what troubles you. To a certain extent, the substance use, the ED's and so on - they are just the surface. They are the tip of the iceberg. The body of the iceberg is what was done to you, and should never have been done. Perhaps right now you are not ready for it and that is totally understandable, but this is why I keep talking about finding a therapist. AA alone is not going to take all of this away - you need something that deals with the abuse, perhaps even an adult survivors of sexual abuse group instead of a therapist? But you must do this when you are ready, there is no rush and you are doing things in the right order.

I hope that on some level it made a difference

:hug2:

[walker]

dear ross

thankyou for your respect

since i only have 6 mins left - perhaps it will stay

i cant say anything else at the moment

but things have opened up in the past week

part of why i want to go i think

[jades]

sorry i skipped the abuse part its hard for me i told my brother it was his best friends and he told me i was a whore and my mom that i was sleeping with all his friends then all it thugh iw as good for was sex so thats where i find my identity i understand what u said but its hard to break out of my theropist is worried about putting out fires right now so im using my rossie theropy i just want to waste away and disappear i dont know that i can admit this to anyone but yall i called an aa member with ed and told her i was getting addicted to losing weight and she said it was just detox and not to worry about it and to be happy im losing weight i dont know i feel like filt and i dont know how to undo it

[hummm_mabbe]

sorry i skipped the abuse part its hard for me i told my brother it was his best friends and he told me i was a whore and my mom that i was sleeping with all his friends then all it thugh iw as good for was sex so thats where i find my identity i understand what u said but its hard to break out of my theropist is worried about putting out fires right now so im using my rossie theropy i just want to waste away and disappear i dont know that i can admit this to anyone but yall i called an aa member with ed and told her i was getting addicted to losing weight and she said it was just detox and not to worry about it and to be happy im losing weight i dont know i feel like filt and i dont know how to undo it

I think I have been a wibble head

You DO have a therapist too?

:)

[jades]

yes she is more interested in my sh and drinking right now tho

[hummm_mabbe]

yes she is more interested in my sh and drinking right now tho

Which is exactly right - starting with the acute symptoms' as they call em, or the immediate shittie stuff!

Do you know what the name of your therapy is, yanno, what type? CBT? DBT? Psychodynamic? Inner child?

Really glad you have a T, I thought you didnt. Why didnt you tell me when I was blithering on the other day? Mabbe you did .... I am a silly head :hug2:

[jades]

were doing dbt again i didnt get it thick skull first time besides i value your advice hugs xxxx

[hummm_mabbe]

were doing dbt again i didnt get it thick skull first time besides i value your advice hugs xxxx

Ohh okies DBT Goooooooooooooooooood wheeee

Not thick, these are powerful emotions you are having to deal with Jadey, got nothing to do with brain power. Its all that hurtey stuff that makes it hard. Keep pluggin away, theres always a way!

:)

[jades]

it doesnt seem to help except in crisis i dont think should i start a thread about anorexia?

[hummm_mabbe]

it doesnt seem to help except in crisis i dont think should i start a thread about anorexia?

Well, then it might be a good time to find an emotions focused therapy, yanno those ones I love so much ... Mabbe give the schema people a call and see if they have one in your area - they have an approach to DID thats similar to the BPD one they do.

Start a thread? You do what you want to do Jadey poople, you know whats best for you You are the master of your DESTINYYYYYYYY :D

[jades]

thanks rossie hugs i started a thread xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Rael]

kinda typing out loud here so forgive me. if the things that were happening werent the sole cause of me feeling this way, if the bullying played a big part too, then i get sorta confused and can only see it as being my fault. why would all these people see me as an easy target. im not pretty or anything so that confuses me why the non-bullying people 'wanted' me, and because im not pretty or anything thats why the bullying people picked me. nothing has ever changed, the non bullying people still found me, uni having drinks spiked and ...um yeah, one guy taking advantage when i was very very ill and a year or so ago got attacked and bad stuff happened again. like i draw it too me. the bullying has never stopped either.

no one even notices im there unless its to do something bad to me. when anorexic i dropped weighing virtually nothing, and not a single person asked me if i was ok. i lived with my family and no one noticed even though i could hardly walk and was very ill. i had the not being noticed feeling drilled into me last night and even though i know it, having it pointed out so strongly still hurts.

it feels wrong trying to think that bad people and bullies have made me feel this way, feels more like they saw what was already in me. for so much bad to happen it has to be me, even my mum said i have the kinda face that people want to punch. wft does that mean?

only person in life who is nice to me is bf, he says im pretty and am not fat etc but even thats tainted by the accusations, the arguments and the misery. as for the abuse (ah i said it) and the bullying he wont talk about it, or listen, and he does not even know about the attack. feels like if it was anyone else people would be running around trying to help and say its not my fault, not me. but it just doesnt happen, because they know, they see and just dont want to be the ones to break it to me that its all my fault.

erm sorry this kinda got a little more than i thought and im not really sure what the point of it was. determined not to delete it though but feel free to ignore it, beginning to wonder i exist properly anyway

xxx

[Roses]

You exist to me and I love ya!! xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[profound1]

I have been reading these posts and just want to say how brave you all are abd I can relate to lots of your comments.

I have very recently disclosed to my therapist that I experienced some dodgy experiences during my childhood. Although I know without doubt these things happened I have become so good at detaching myself from it that it feels as though myself as a child was someone else. I havent truly accepted that I was abused, I feel responsible and the guilt and shame are profound. I can really feel for other people when I read their experiences but me I dunno I just cannot connect the abuse with 'me'. My therapist tried to tell me I was a victim last week, not a word I like and not one that I can accept.

I also feel extremely guilty because I am married with children and I feel as though I have deceived everyone, people don't realise just how disgusting I really am. I will never be able to tell those who supposedly love me because of the shame.

Unfortunately I now realise that starving myself for much of my life and wanting to be 'very small', feeling ugly, disgusting, freaky, you know the score.... is possibly a result of some of the things that happened and the lack of emotional care. I loathe myself and find it extremely difficult to comprehend how others might see me in any other way. I feel like I need to wear a bag over my head in public, I feel as though I have a flashing light on my head and that everyone is looking at me and recoiling in disgust. It is awful.

I wish I knew what to do. I am panicking all the time, dissociating all the time, obsessing, crying, feeling suicidal on and off, my head is thrashed, have started having bad dreams when I do sleep, not eating and when I see anyone I am just so paranoid that they can see my past in my eyes. I cannot see a way forward. It feels that I have too many problems, I just am so out of my depth that I just don't know where to start. I have had bizarre flashbacks or something, not images or sounds but overwhelming sense of fear. Sorry to blurt all this out, it is just so tough. I REALLY don't know who the hell I am anymore.

I hope you don't mind me posting but I was inspired by what you have all written and really touched.

[hummm_mabbe]

Hullo Rael

This is going to sound odd, but I didnt actually read your post, just the first line. The reason I did this is becasue I am realising that Im at a kind of crossraods, where my 'punishey voice' is starting to really lose ground - Ive got it on the back foot. The problem is that when I read things that are similar to what the punishey voice is trying to say, it adds strength to it, and I notice that my mood starts to change and I start attacking myself more. I didnt want to give my punishey voice ammunition, but I did read the first line of your post and wanted to share the thoughts I had and the fight I had with my punishey voice.

I realised that no one ever deserves shame or abuse. It is never a productive thing. But for people that have been shamed, abused or hurt when little, they tend to carry that shame around with them, inside. This changes their behaviour, and makes them act in ways that actually attract shaming responses. When we are teased, we REACT. As bullies want that reaction (bullying being a way to project shame onto others so that the bully doesnt have to feel it) we make ourselves the target.

Other people around us may engage in the exact same baheviours or traits that we are bullied for - but the fact we REACT, by being snippy, by getting defensive, by actiung on that swirl of anger and confusion that comes up when we are teased, we make it clear that we are a useful target. Because others see us as over-reacting, they may join in, or at least sympathise with the bullies.

However, our behaviour is DRIVEN by that original core shame that happened all that time ago. The bullying builds on it (schema perpetuation) and because it happens, we reason that we must deserve it by dint of who we are. We attack our behaviours, curse our inability to stop it happening. Eventually we just want to be away from all people because its the only way to avoid the pain. But in fact, if we can see that the ORIGINAL shame was completely unjustified, then we can see that our shame driven behaviour is not our fault. Some of the power goes away, and we can start to challenge those behaviours that keep us stuck in the loop.

For me I act all sycophantic. I desperately want EVERY interaction to go well, to have everyone like me. I basically kiss ass, something I am calling "snail behaviour" because I being a crawler. If someone so much as looks at me funny, I figure that my shameful core has come out again, they are punishing me. But in fact, sycophantic behaviour is pretty self-devaoluing. If you are kissing someones shoe, then they are more likely to look down on you. But most importantly - the fact that I am hyperaware of even any tiny sign - imagined or otherwise - that I am being disapproved of, means that I ALWAYS SEE IT, whether its there or not. If someone picks up on it, then my inner shame is ready and waiting to furnish them with that nice big dollop of reactive shame, and ready to make others think I am over-emotional. Vicious circle.

I have made it my goal this and next week to stop trying for a completely positive reponse. To me, the only good response is standing ovation. I am either wholly approved of, or I am scum. Instead of trying to use cognitive methods which dont work for me (because I have plenty of evidence that I AM rejected and shamed due to my own shame based behaviours) I am going to change my behavioural TENDENCY. I am going to stop wanting that 100% positive reaction, and am instead going to EXPECT disapproval. I am going to make it my aim to observe as many disapprovals - imagined or real, as I can, and instead of trying to rationalise them away or make myself feel better somehow, whch always fails, I am just gping to go "hey - a disapproval" and count it.

Because I will not have been doing my snail behaviour, then I will not have deliberately placed myself in that boot-licking position, and so my own self-hate will be less. I can see the disapproval either as the imagined event it may well be, or something to do with the other person, or just an ordinary event. I dont have to blame myself and my sycophancy, and whats more I gain exposure to what I fear - disapproval. Its always harder when you are desperately wanting approval, and you get disapproval. If you are out to actually observe disapproval, then at least the gap between what you wanted, and what you got, is closed.

This is my current approach, but I think that realising that your subsequent 'shameful self / actions' are actually driven by the original shame. You are actually trying to avoid feeling ashamed, but in fact it causes you to. This is the nature of personality disorders - we do things over and over that achieve the opposite of our aims.

Sorry for not fully reading though, its just something I need to do right now so that I can build up mo0re strength against my punishey voice :)

[daisy duck]

I hope you drown out that voice Ross....

i for one value your advice and the effort you put into replg as im sure everyone does.

ermmmmmm.......thats not me trying to please!!!!!lol...

just thought id let ya know

xxx

[Rael]

im so sorry if what i wrote could have added strength to that voice you have done so well in beating it back and i would be horrified to think i could have made things worse. i will give the snail behaviour thing some thought, what always gets targeted for me is something i have no way of changing so i did mainly give up trying to compensate but chances are i am doing something like it and i will try to work out what that is and apply what you said, changing my approach to the negative stuff.

thank you and sorry again if i made anything worse

xxx

[hummm_mabbe]

im so sorry if what i wrote could have added strength to that voice you have done so well in beating it back and i would be horrified to think i could have made things worse. i will give the snail behaviour thing some thought, what always gets targeted for me is something i have no way of changing so i did mainly give up trying to compensate but chances are i am doing something like it and i will try to work out what that is and apply what you said, changing my approach to the negative stuff.

thank you and sorry again if i made anything worse

xxx

Hi Rael

No not at all, no need to apologise. Its because everyone has that punishey voice here, and I guess when I try to take on TWO peoples punishey voices - mine and someone elses - its like mine gets backup!

Today I feel like I REALLY kicked its ass for a while when I read the book "the gaslight effect" - I could see my home life written throughout it. Now I KNOW I m not making it up and that its all real, and you know what? I feel more confident - prolly more so than I have for a year. Not being sycophantic, not grasping for approval and having to watch everyones reactions - like being 'battle ready' all the time with my snail behaviours, is like being given half my energy back. I can just 'be', without all the effort.

Wheeee

[Rael]

half of the problem i think is being led to believe that its only us who feel this way, that is wrong. hearing about others experiences and learning that its not just something we must have caused can help. it allows us to look at the situation with new eyes, we can see that although the same events occur, our opinion of it is different because we would never put the blame on others, and say the same things to them that we do to ourselves.

im so glad that reading that book helped you and that you have more confidence, you deserve to just be allowed to be yourself.

xxx