Sexual abuse recovery chaos
January 5, 2016 9:01 PM   Subscribe

This is me. In the two weeks since writing that post, I've talked to my partner and have had my first session with a therapist who specializes in sexual assault. Right now I feel like I am going crazy. What's going on?

I feel like the ground has totally dropped out from under me; I don't know if I'm relieved or terrified. Keeping this secret for over twenty years apparently did a number on my head. I plan to see the counselor twice a week and I am not any danger to myself, but I just feel like a mess. I keep crying, sleeping too little or too much. It's hard to explain but at times I feel weirdly stuck in memories from childhood, not even of the incidents themselves but just random stuff.

I keep worrying that my memories of the abuse are false memories. My therapist and my partner assure me that they're not, considering that I never forgot about it and it's all been pretty much the same since childhood, but I keep doubting myself. Against my partner's advice, while we were still in town, I went back to the old neighborhood where I grew up; I don't know what I thought would happen, but I ended up feeling very shaken and regret doing that. I keep obsessing that if I could remember when exactly it happened, how many times it happened, the boy's last name, all the exact details like my mind was a GPS record or something, then it would all be okay, then I would know for sure. But I've tried and I can't remember those things. It bothers me. And then I start wondering if I should have told anyone about this at all. My partner is so supportive but internally I just feel all confused.

Is this normal? How long will it go on for?

How do I explain what is going on to people in my life? I am having trouble concentrating on work and social activities right now and could use some line to give everyone.

What are the best resources (books, websites, or otherwise) for support?

And what else should I be doing?

Thank you!
posted by fair isle sock to Human Relations (16 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's normal but talk to your therapist about it. It totally can and will get better. There's no one timeframe, but not generally forever.

I would just tell people you're dealing with family things (you are family) you don't feel comfortable talking about. Or similar. Take you time deciding who to bring into your inner circle.

On the issue of truth...there is this view that individuals need to be fair and apply pseudo legal standards to memory around abuse, but it's not true. As long as you are not trying to get police to lay charges or walking around slandering the guy, it does really no harm to believe your memories. You are permitted to explore that and see what you think later. FWIW I did not believe my memories, and my abuser admitted to the abuse and named several specific incidents before he died, even a few in writing. I *still* sat in therapy doubting it. But believing it out me in a position to heal better.

My resources were never standard and I don't know how it's held up but lots of ppl found The Courage to Heal helpful when I was more into groups, and The Body Remembers.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:30 PM on January 5, 2016


P.S. "Slandering." It isn't if you believe it,one, but also like I said...I believe you.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:32 PM on January 5, 2016


Yup. Contents are under pressure, and taking the lid off abruptly can result in fizzing and foaming. Feeling off-rails is normal, second-guessing is normal. These feelings are not signs and portents that you're doing the wrong thing, they are what happen when you poke a beehive, and just like that they will settle back down again. (Which is not to say there won't be multiple rounds, but with each successive flare-up you'll have more skills for coping with them.)

The temptation to hide or ostrich is completely normal.

Normal doesn't mean fun, though. This is hard and you should ask your therapist for some tools for dealing with it (really that should be the goal of this work - the coping and processing of the thing that happened and all the shrapnel it's left in your life since - and you need to be providing feedback on these feelings to your therapist).

You might also try keeping just a daily mood log and also checklist of your basic self-care steps (hygiene, food, sleep, non-work time, entertainment) to make sure you're still getting those things.

It's up to you whether you want to talk to your therapist about talking to a prescribing physician about medication. This is a lot of anxiety for a mere mortal to shoulder, and short- and medium-term medical treatment as a support to your therapy can make it easier to deal with work and obligations and other day-to-day stuff.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:32 PM on January 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Your therapist ought to help you develop some packing/unpacking skills, so that your sessions don't leave you devastated and so you can help right the metaphorical ship at times when the therapist isn't there. It's a (very) common issue for trauma patients to have - the early part of therapy is like taking moldy bandages off of a badly infected wound, in that the pain is almost unbearable and yet the procedure is utterly necessary for healing to begin.

Anyway, "coping with current symptoms of distress" should be something you work on (in session) a whole bunch.
posted by SMPA at 9:43 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hello. I know what you are going through. You're doing great.

Right now you're trying to put together a coherent picture/story of everything. Your mind will flit to different parts of your life, trying to make all the pieces fit together. It isn't important that you remember all the details. When it happened, it was impossible to articulate what was happening. It is so easy to lose these memories because you had no idea what was going on and you didn't know it was important to remember. At the time, it was like remembering where you put the bottle of ketchup.

I see that you are prone to PTSD symptoms. I have experienced moments of dissociation. Your brain shuts down when the stress gets too much, as a protective measure. So don't overload yourself. Baby steps.
Routine is great. Minimize stress right now. Say no to things that will unsettle you. What's important is integrating everything within you, and you can choose to reveal them to your circle at any point in the future if you so wish. What's unsettled right now is your relationship with your self. This might sound woo, but nurture your inner child. Feed it positivity, tell yourself that you're strong for coping with this, start looking forward to the next great chapter of your life (like going traveling, because you deserve it). If you have a rainy day fund, use some for your self care - anything that makes you feel good. Write in your journal, cry, feel the emotions, ride out the numbness, look up songs of surviving. Anything you feel inclined like doing that will get you closer to the overcoming part.


For a line for your friends, you could go with: I'm wrapped up with family issues/intense work/doing a 30 day meditation thing etc. and may be incommunicado. Can't wait to meet up after things settle down etc.

I'm really sorry you're doubting yourself. I too had a memory that popped up randomly after not remembering it for like 5 years, and when I asked for confirmation from those who knew of it, they just made things so much worse. But the only reason I ever doubted it happened was because I hadn't recalled it in so long. But the way I had the memory framed - no commentary on the situation the way only a child would not comment on such a bizarre situation - was such that I trusted myself in knowing whether it happened or not. But it's hard to be the judge when you don't have that language yet, because you're only just coming to terms with that category of your life on a raw, facts-wise, emotions-wise basis.

It's going to take some time. How much depends on your emotional makeup, what else is going on in your life and such. But there's no rush. This is your journey, and you don't have to rush for anyone. You're doing hard work here. The final step is when you cement your identity based on what happened, and become okay with who you are today, because of that day. The past will become normal, you will feel stronger, and more human.

In terms of books, generally, self help books on child trauma would be good. They should have bibliographies at the end (so should good internet articles that you find helpful) that you can use, to look into books with more depth.

Also, please look up the statistics. Sexual abuse is more common than most people know (and very much underreported), and the way it happened to you is also pretty common. It helps knowing that one out of five or six women (I can't recall) have experienced some form of what you've been through.

You're built to survive. You're human. Evolutionarily, you were made to handle so much more. You have all the tools you need.
posted by kinoeye at 10:34 PM on January 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


Oh and for a book that I find soothing for any kind of emotional hurt, I like Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild (there is a movie adaptation if you'd prefer). Her books are about trauma, but are accessible to any reader.
posted by kinoeye at 10:41 PM on January 5, 2016


I think this is normal. You might even start remembering all sorts of new things that you haven't even thought of since they happened. It's kind of terrible, it might seem like it's all you think and talk about for awhile, and you might feel like an unstable, unhinged, emotional mess. All I can say is that you will get through it and you won't always feel this way. It's really difficult and really painful but you will get unstuck if you work through it. The difficulty is that it's so painful to be stuck this way that it makes it so hard to work through it. And things might get worse before they get better as you work through it all and grieve and heal but try to remember that you'll be okay. I'm sorry this isn't more helpful but I get what you're going through so wanted to add some reassurance.
posted by Polychrome at 2:24 AM on January 6, 2016


You're doing great. In addition to the great advice you've received, a positive way to deal with the flooding of feelings and memories can be to write everything down in words or drawings. IANATherapist, etc., but I've worked with many young adults dealing with similar issues.

Keeping your journal handy and knowing you can info dump the flood of memories and feelings can be healthy. You know you have a plan to deal with the flooding, that you can write it out and the book can remember for you, and you can get out of your head for a bit. Don't try to create coherent narratives (you can do that with the therapist), simply record your thoughts. Tell yourself, "The memories are safely kept in the journal, I don't need to check them again right now."

Also, it can be really helpful during this time to take up a new hobby that can give you some new focus. A month of yoga classes, maybe crochet, training for a 5k, volunteering at an animal shelter, painting watercolors, cooking or a pottery class. Giving yourself a new outlet can help remind you that you are capable of change and doing new things of which you can feel really, really good. When my kids started unpacking issues, we had them join the dance team, where for 20 minutes daily they learned a routine to a mashup of GRRRL POWER songs. Using muscles, creating muscle memory and having an outlet for dancing like nobody's watching was a very good thing.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:03 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yes, it is normal, even though it is so distressing and feels like everything has been turned upside down. You can tell people something vague, to the level you feel comfortable with -- I'm not feeling like myself lately, I'm going through some personal stuff, I'm dealing with some issues (pick one or something similar), and I'll need some time to get back to normal. If pressed about what the issues are, you can say you don't want to discuss it, but you appreciate their concern.

At work, if it's actually affecting your work, you can explain to your boss (if you have one) that you're dealing with a family issue and explain how you may be affected or need to be accommodated. For example, "I'm dealing with a family issue right now, which I'd rather not discuss, but I wanted to let you know because I may need some extra time to complete my current assignments / need to take a day or two off in the near future." If it's not affecting your work in a noticeable way -- maybe you're distracted or less productive, but at around the same level you would be if you had a bad cold -- I wouldn't say anything unless someone comes to you and expresses concern. (Also, I know it's not necessarily a "family issue" but that's easy for someone to understand without details, and you and your partner are a family, anyway.)

Be kind to yourself, and give yourself time. Eventually you will feel like yourself again. Maybe even better than before. Take care.
posted by chickenmagazine at 6:08 AM on January 6, 2016


This is normal, I believe you, and I'm proud of you for doing this - it's hard work.

This is something you might find helpful or relatable but if not, please disregard: I think that some (certainly not all, but some) suffering people experience after abuse or trauma involves coming to terms with the conflict between our perceptions vs. the reality of the nature of their experience. For example, in pop culture, rape means being jumped by a guy in the bushes. You mentioned in your previous ask that classmates said you were too ugly to rape (what a hideous thing to say, by the way, and I'm sorry you had to hear that).

These perceptions can be very harmful to survivors because then when someone is raped but it wasn't by a guy in the bushes, they understandably wonder whether what happened to them was really rape. Male sexual assault survivors also frequently have to deal with the perception that men can't be sexually assaulted. This probably sounds obvious but in case you need to hear it, rape isn't carried out only by guys hanging out in bushes. Rape isn't something that only happens to pretty people. Perpetrators and survivors of rape and sexual assault are young, old, male, female, all races, all religions, etc.

One thing that I think is particularly damaging is how people expect survivors to behave. This is something that has had a significant impact on your life but it doesn't define you, just like how survivors of other kinds of trauma are not defined by their experiences. It's understandable if you feel sad and want to cry and mourn. You're just dealing with this. It's almost like you broke a bone and since you couldn't deal with it at the time, it didn't heal properly so now you have to re-break it and start healing the right way. It takes time. I'm afraid that I can't say how much time but this is the hard part because you're just starting.

It's also okay if, at some point someday, you come to the conclusion that this is a thing that happened to you, it was wrong and shitty, but it's in the past and you're moving forward. No one gets to tell you when that happens but, to use yet another metaphor, I think it's like dealing with a death in the family - it hurts a lot at first and it's sad that you experienced such a loss but at one point, you become more used to the idea and it hurts less and you stop thinking about it every day and it fades into the background. That time might be a long time from now but by working with a counselor now, you're making it more likely that it will happen sooner rather than later.

And as for what to tell people, I believe in covering a lot of things with "sorry, I haven't been feeling well lately." It's true and easy. Good luck.
posted by kat518 at 6:48 AM on January 6, 2016


This is totally normal. I was a weeping mess for a couple of weeks after my trauma first resurfaced. The intense disregulation subsided fairly quickly, though.

Like you I doubted everything super hard for a long time. I felt like I needed to know exactly what happened in order to validate these feelings and if I didn't, then I couldn't trust them. Today I believe the reason for this is because there was powerful pressure put on me to pretend it didn't happen -- because the perpetrator acted as if it hadn't. Also everyone made it out to be such a super terrible thing that for it to be true would surely blow me apart, so how could I take that chance if I was unsure, my memories were foggy or missing, etc? As if I had a choice, I could just decide that nope, it hadn't happened. But really, there is a choice -- to face it or to run away from it. Facing it is one of the hardest things anyone can do. Of course you want to be sure before you decide that this is what you need to do.

One thing I learned on this journey was to focus less on the details you remember, and more on the emotions you carry with you today. Regardless of what you can remember your emotions are real and valid -- all emotions always are -- and they hold the information you seek. Your present sadness is a record of what your rapist did to you. As you gain the skills to connect with your emotions and follow the thread back inside yourself, I expect you will gradually gain more and more clarity. I can't say how long this will go on for in your case, but for me, breakthroughs tend to come in chunks after a few months of work. I've had several such cycles over the past couple of years and there is always more to do. But I expect if your therapy goes well you'll start to see progress pretty quickly.

The one thing that helped me the most with this was joining a support group for survivors. As I heard the stories of people around the room and the way their traumas had affected them, I saw the obvious echoes in my own life. I identified so strongly with some of the men in my group that it felt like we were brothers. After a lifetime of feeling broken and strange this was incredibly healing. It also led me further toward the inevitable conclusion that my emotions and feelings were real and so was my abuse, and I have to say I would have preferred at the time to find out that nope, nothing happened after all, I'm all fine thank you ... but that was not the truth, and the pathway to healing goes through truth.

This book is highly recommended by someone who has been through something similar.
posted by PercussivePaul at 7:03 AM on January 6, 2016


Hi! Survivor here - and I survived what you are going through now. It's awful but normal. I felt sometimes like I was going insane and had nowhere to scream or run. Here are some grounding techniques I used that helped a lot.

1. Sit in a chair
2. Put both feet on the ground
3. Put both hands on the chair
4. Feel your feet on the ground and say (out loud or in your head) "My feet are on the ground."
5. Feel your hands on the chair. Notice what they feel like. Say, "I feel my hands on the chair."
6. Look around the room. Name and describe three things that you see, for instance, "I see my cat, Donnie, she is white and she is curled up on a blanket and she is purring. I see my book shelf. It is colorful and has a lot of books and is brown and tall. I see the rug. It is grey and white and there is a worn spot in the corner where I walk all the time and the stain where I spilled my wine last year."

Do this as often as you need to in order to get you back into your headspace. I did it a lot. Sometimes, I just went to another room and did it again.

I believe you. You are doing everything right.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:27 AM on January 6, 2016


It's hard to explain but at times I feel weirdly stuck in memories from childhood, not even of the incidents themselves but just random stuff.

Yup. I did the same thing once I acknowledged the abuse and received validation and therapy. It's like my brain was rebooting every day for about 5 months to the time before the abuse (that is, my last physical memory of being, well, not traumatized). Also woke up some days feeling like I wanted to vomit and cry or both during this time.

With productive therapy and a solid support network, you will begin to feel a LOT better...IN TIME. Just be patient and productive. And be kind to yourself. It's rough but you'll make it.
posted by Young Kullervo at 12:41 PM on January 6, 2016


Just wanted to say I also felt some of what you're feeling now. Things I did - made a list of small good things that happened that day or week to look at later, drew pictures with captions that I could go over in therapy, forgave myself for lying in bed and crying a lot.

Recovery was two steps forward and one step back for me even though I really wanted to be better steadily and all at once.

I believe you, and I'm so sorry.
posted by mgrrl at 2:55 PM on January 6, 2016


What you're experiencing is normal. I'm so sorry.

You might find the book "The Courage to Heal" helpful. And your partner and any close friends might find its companion "Allies in Healing" supportive. It's a super hard journey for you and your close supporters. Be kind and gentle with yourself as much as you can.
posted by spindrifter at 5:25 AM on January 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thank you so much for your answers. I am not marking any as best because they all helped me. I will be working on strategies for managing this with my therapist but it's good to hear from people who have been there.
posted by fair isle sock at 7:08 PM on January 7, 2016


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