Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BusynMember" data-source="post: 660061" data-attributes="member: 1550">I have found self-help groups to be just as helpful sometimes as a good therapist. Who else will understand how we feel? Even a good psychologist probably was not abused, but learned about it in a textbook. It's not the same as going through it.It is amazing, whenever I go to any group, at how similar our symptoms are. The voices talking to us, our feeling of worthlessness  (even those who have great jobs), depression, panic or eating disorders, mental health issues...and the shame from the words our parents, who were supposed to love us, drilled into our heads.My therapist told me you can tell if you were abused by the self-talk you hear. A parent who was "good enough" would not tell her child she didn't love her when she was born, would not neglect teaching her even basic life skills, would not call her names or mock her or humiliate her and would offer loving compassion, which we did not get. That's why our self-talk is so mean unless we really get down and talk back to it. And having been treated like a loser/outcast at home, we are fodder for other predators...the kids at school, boyfriends, teachers, bosses, etc. They can tell. And we keep getting put down and we believe it every time we hear it. Complex Post Traumatic Trama changes a child's developing brain and makes the child less capable of dealing with stress, less able to monitor their emotions, less able to do well in school, and we are more apt to see t he world as black and white. And we often do not feel safe.I did not feel safe for a day until I met my husband. I did  not believe I could take care of myself. I was needy and desperate and my own family didn't accept me or try to make me feel better mostly because they were the same. And they lacked compassion. Except for themselves.We need to change how we talk to ourselves. I'm working on that very hard. I think people who stay in touch with their abusers have a harder time letting go of the worthless feeling because the people themselves are a trigger.Just like I no longer listen to the news because it would make me feel sad for people and hopeless for our country and there was nothing good in it for my mental health  (and I've learned that being good to me has to come first or I'm no good for anyone else)...completely eradicating my human triggers from my life has stopped much sadness and icky trips to the past. I know it was probably not a healthy coping mechanism, but throwing away my baby pictures with fake smiling people was good for me. I have no reminders in my space of "them."Cedar and Copa: Try this exercise. My therapist told me to do it and do it fast. She told me to write three things that define me just in one word. I wrote creative, sensitive and compassionate very quickly.She told me I was getting better to describe myself that way.I feel a lot stronger and much better. But I don't believe people ever heal 100% from long term trauma and lack of mother love. That doesn't mean we can't live good lives. I hope that doesn't sound contradictory or negative.</blockquote>

Verification