Soul Pain of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Hi @Maggie

I hope that you feel safe and warm today, or at least comfortable in your own home and are able to get some sleep.

Try and not put any pressure on yourself to achieve. I know it's easy for me to say that.

I know how judgmental we become and how ashamed we feel at times for achieving so little.

Big hugs,

Corny xx

Hi @outlander,

My symptoms can be hard to cope with. Every day is different isn't it.

I think that you are doing an amazing job @outlander caring for your Pop and even if you aren't estranged from your family physically, you still feel like a part of you is.

I think there's a good chance we will always feel incomplete to a certain degree. Sure, we may have a lover, or a partner and intimacy & connection in our lives, but I think for me, I have to somehow find a way to cope with this void I have inside. An emptiness that is hard to explain. It's almost like when we were little and every time our mind entertained the idea that maybe we should say something, or, other times when we fantasised that an adult would realise that something was terribly wrong and leap to our defence to protect us, but neither of this happened, this dark space was created. All the while the silence was actually creating something, an inner, felt sense of abandonment that was just soul destroying. For years and years an years and years. And in the silence and the perpetual parental neglect the hole just got bigger, until it became a cell.

That's kinda how it felt to me.

I would like to respond to your post about 'boundaries' @outlander but I have an appointment I have to dash to this morning.

I hope that you can sit in the sun somewhere today.

Big hugs, you're amazing just to survive

Corny xxx

Hey @outlander,

You never have to feel pressured to reply whatsoever. I get so muddled with that sort of stuff. I'm not too bad. Was a little taken aback and worried about a friend yesterday. She's studying, and I turned up for our weekly catch-up and she was an absolute mess. Her and her partner broke up. I was quite shocked. They seemed so solid. When other friends have confided in me about their relationship problems I haven't been surprised at all, I could see cracks at a distance and picked up on behavioural queues that pointed to unhappiness or contentedly-miserable-but-its-too-hard-to-end-it. But this one I was really quite shocked. Just goes to show how much people hide, and appearances are just appearances. I think she still really loves him, he is a wonderful man, a total keeper, but it sounds like one of those situations where you're really in love with someone, and yet they are unable to fulfill you, and I think that sometimes the 'in-love/but still unfulfilled/my needs aren't met friction' has caused a lot of fights. I think unmet needs builds resentment long term. His got a lot of issues he needs to sort out but has been avoiding.

I felt a little anxious walking home, that maybe I hadn't done my due diligence in 'mental health first aid', and I probably should have waited for her to finish class, but I contacted her in the evening to make sure she's OK, and I will text her later today.

My sleep is all over the shop at the moment, so that naturally spikes my anxiety....but I'm going to get out into nature and go for a long walk by myself today in the fresh air.

Hope you are well @outlander, @Former-Member, @Maggie, @BlueBay, @oceangirl

Corn Cakes

xxxxxx

Sorry to read about you friend @Corny, relationships are tricky at their best. You sound like you care deeply for both of them.

i hope you managed your long walk in the fresh air. I love nature.

I've crashed in bed. Good to have the luxury of being able to do that. Hope you are travelling okish. Chat more when I find a bit of togetherness. Warm thoughts.

Hi @Corny just wanted to say hi. Sorry haven’t any posts lately. Been struggling myself. Dark depression. Hope you’re ok. ❤️

Hi @Corny@Maggie@outlander snd others

today I had a psychologist session. A lot was about my childhood abuse. It’s so traumatic. I find it extremely exhausting snd emotional. It’s the most difficult thing to go through with having to tslk about. And she told me today that it’s going to be a long time before I will heal.

Im already over it.

Its heartbrraking and destroys your soul

😥😥

Hey @BlueBay,

My insomnia is back and I have had some depression so I kinda fall away when that happens, so sorry I'm not consistent with checking the website.

I completely understand. I am sorry that the memories are so disruptive that you are forced to retell it and relive it. Some people are incredible the way they can compartmentalise and lock it away, or create some deluded story about the perpetrator to ease the pain, but for me, my brain had a will of its own and they came back if I wanted them to or not. Therapy is absolutely exhausting and as you say the whole process, soul destroying. Don't be afraid to take pauses from it @BlueBay, or a total break all together. Talking has its limits and it can be re-traumatising. Especially when you are feeling depressed, so just remember that you are in charge of the process and the driver of it.

Sometimes you just can't avoid it. Like me posting this thread. I was like god, am I here again, over and over and over again.......but sometimes you just need to get it out with people that truly understand. I don't really have anyone in my offline life that really gets it. Of course I have friends who have been sexually abused, but their chosen way to cope or the way they rationalise it just doesn't work for me, and they have loving supportive partners/wives/husbands they lean on.

You're right @BlueBay it is a long long journey. I know that health professionals mean well, but when 'healing' and 'forgiveness' start getting thrown around I become very very uncomfortable. Simply becuase it doesnt work for me. It is more pressure. And I am sorry but sexual abuse is not an opportunity for inner growth, trust me I have tried! And it simply doesn't work. Sure, I have definitely come a ways......but I am not healed. I have been in therapy literally non stop for a decade and spent god knows how much money. And it is such a relief when you read other peoples take on it and they agree. Have you read Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman? I was rereading the last section recently and it is such a sigh of relief when people just say, "you don't have to forigve. How could you possibly be expected to forgive that"....something along those lines....

It will just always be my open soul wound.

I hope you are able to sleep tonight.

Corny xxx

Hey @Maggie I am sorry that you are symptomatic at the moment. I hope that the worst of it passes soon, but I know that we have to just ride our 'episodic' conditions out without sinking. It feels easier said than done at times doesn't it. It's pretty hard not to be scared of rock bottom when you've already been there before.

Warm hugs

Corny xxx