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16sundayzContributor
I suggested to my psychologist that we try exposure therapy for my anxiety and dissociating and he replied back with inducing a scenario that will bring it. I'm not sure exactly what he means but was wondering if anyone here has tried exposure therapy? If you have what's involved? What happened? How did you find it? Did you think it helped/worked?
In response to: exposure therapy
RazzleSenior Contributor
@16sundayz I hadn’t really heard of exposure therapy until earlier this year.
I have a history with CSA starting when I was 8 (group assault), one of the group members assaulted me again a couple of weeks later. I was sexually assaulted by my mums best friends son when I was 10, and then endured 2years of sexual abuse by another friend of the family.
Each of these assaults happened in different places around the town I live in. I have avoided these places for 40years.
Earlier this year my husband and I drove past the house where the last lot of abuse happened, and out of the blue I asked my husband if he wanted to know where all the other assaults happened. We drove around town and I showed him where they were. I didn’t go into any of the places, but I was able to go very near to them, something I could never have contemplated doing these last 40 years.
At my next councillor’s appointment I told my councillor about that drive around town. He was surprised I’d done it, he told me that I had actually done exposure therapy to myself - I’d never really even heard of it before then.
I don’t feel like I’ve had any adverse reactions since that day regarding those places, I think I was ready to confront it. I’m not sure how well exposure therapy would have gone if I wasn’t ready to do it though. I’ve lived in this town all my life and I haven’t been able to go anywhere near those places for 40 years, but all of a sudden I was ready. It’s a different story wanting to actually go inside those places, I am a long way off being ready to do that.
I don’t know your circumstances so not sure what to advise. For me personally, I was ready up to a point and I don’t think it has done any harm. Would I consider exposure therapy to get myself from the outside to the inside of those places?? Right now, as of this moment, not in a million years.
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