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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 9:56:15
Last weeks therapy session did affect me to the core in many ways. Some I have have written about but the biggest is, YES I was abused, and YES it has had a negative effect on my life as an adult. For some reason I still want to continue to believe I was invincible to my abusive childhood. Because if I acknowledge the truth, than that makes me a damaged person.
I am damaged and that when I see the prove that i didn't escape it, it hurts like hell. It makes me so sad.
I guess it is a process I need to go through to heal, so I am on the right track. I know it doesn't have to be my future, I can change that and make it even better than if I didn't have therapy to help.
My T gave me a book to read about boundaries. But there is so much more to the book, it talks about how abusive pasts effect how we relate in relationship in adulthood. It was like reading my diary or something but it also brought my attention to things I didn't notice. Here is a link to it, I have an older issue though. But the book is one of the best I have ever read about how an abusive past effects you.
Posted by Partlycloudy on November 1, 2008, at 16:47:22
In reply to Grieving my childhood and adulthood, posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 9:56:15
I hear you, Happyflower, about voicing your grief. I am only now and quite suddenly being forced to come to terms with the molestation that I suffered as an 11 year old child. I am struggling mightily.
I'm glad that your T has given you a tool in the form of that book to help you navigate your way through what must feel like a minefield at this moment. I've been given one of my own, one that another poster had mentioned not long ago, called "The Courage to Heal" - and I was so unprepared for the gift of this tool that I placed it, face down, on a book in my dining room, and then piled a bunch of stuff on top of it, for 3 weeks, until the most gentle of prodding from my T got me to finally unearth it and open it.
Whew. No horrible, nasty, things happened to me when I began to read. I'm trying to do some of the writing exercises that the book suggests I do as I go along.
I'm not quite at the stage of being able to grieve my lost childhood and what I've done to be able to cope with what happened to me. I've been spending a lot of the last week or so trying to stuff my monster back under the bed, but to no avail. Once that sucker was let loose, he ain't going back no way no how.
But I do think that we'll both be able to move relatively quickly through these next steps in the recovery process - you have been preparing yourself in your personal achievements for years now; and I have been doing my own inner work for some time.
I wish you peace in your soul, Happyflower, and joy for the person who survived against the odds.
pc
Posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 17:12:04
In reply to Re: Grieving my childhood and adulthood » happyflower, posted by Partlycloudy on November 1, 2008, at 16:47:22
Hi PC,
I am so glad you responded, I am feeling kind of down today, must be the cloudy weather I think. I just need a friend to talk to so thanks.
I am thinking that the grieving process must be gradual because you don't always know all that was effected. I think the book I mentioned would be a good one for you. It sounds corny and the reviews you read are about boundaries. But what is says on why we have problems, is so right on the dot. We both have had our childhood boundaries disturbed in many ways. I think my lady T is thinking I might have some SA issues too and after reading this book, it seems like I sure have some signs of it. I sure was feeling sexual feeling at an early age, maybe it was because I hit puberty at 9, I don't know. All that stuff even if we aren't aware of it, effects how we deal with people.
I like what the books says about intimate relationship, whether friendship or marriage. It talks about true emotional intimacy is when both people are whole. In this book I saw that problems I am having in my marriage and why it is working and not working.In friendships either I am too eager to create intimacy or I am too scared of it, both wrecks relationships. I either get scared off by others trying to create closeness or I say something too personal to create that closeness too soon.
I have also been very hurt by my childhood best friend in high school. We were inseparable in elementary through 9th grade, but then this other girl got in the way. I still have nightmares of her leaving me. IT was gradual, but all of sudden I was without my best friend and I felt so alone in my life. I had friends in my group, but not a close girlfriend. I am missing that now in my life. I think my past has something to do with it.
Having a women T is different, you were right. But for the first time I am talking to someone who understand my emotions because of my past. She just gets it and that is so strange for me because I don't ever feel like I am accepted anywhere because I am so weird.
She asks me so many questions and there are some I just can't answer, and that must tell her a lot. Maybe my past relationships with girls and my mom, ruined that connection that many women have.
Do you ever just get angry that because of your childhood, things are so much harder now?
Posted by Partlycloudy on November 2, 2008, at 7:22:21
In reply to Re: Grieving my childhood and adulthood » Partlycloudy, posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 17:12:04
> Do you ever just get angry that because of your childhood, things are so much harder now?I get angry at the people in my childhood - particularly my mother and my father, who simply weren't there for me. What I'm starting to see is the futility of that anger - it doesn't change what I experienced or give me back what I didn't get. What I am also starting to see is that I was able to get some of what I needed in affection and validation from other adult role models in my life, which has helped to lessen the anger a lot. I didn't think that being able to reframe in this way would make such a difference, but it is.
I do feel that at the moment, my T is giving me an enormous challenge (in reading and working my way through the book), and that I'm not always up to it. But I know that I'm able to do what right for me at this moment, and I'm becoming more comfortable with that being success on my own terms.
The women's support group is particularly valuable to me right now. It's a very small but powerful assembly. My T alternates heading the group with my old, original T, who retired from private practice, so there's a real sense of a circle being complete for me to be able to work with them both.
take care HF!
pc
Posted by rskontos on November 2, 2008, at 11:06:53
In reply to Grieving my childhood and adulthood, posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 9:56:15
HF,
I had written a long response and then deleted it.
I understand all too well what you mean and how you feel.
I understand the pain and the grief.
I am sorry you hurt.
((((((Happyflower)))))
rsk
Posted by sassyfrancesca on November 3, 2008, at 7:34:11
In reply to Grieving my childhood and adulthood, posted by happyflower on November 1, 2008, at 9:56:15
Happy, twin: I went to a seminar called: "Boundaries"; the book is the same name and the authors are Townsend and Cloud....it was excellent. They said something I never forgot.
To find out about someone: ask them: What are your issues?
I always thought that was excellent.
As for the childhood abuse ..yes it does affect us, but we as adults can now make choices. You are doing a wonderful job.
Love, Crazy-twin
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