Journey Thread - littledaria

Hi,

Regarding fear of outing your mother... I follow "the best revenge is a life well lived"

This has many facets. For the alters who want retribution there is retribution in simply living out life to the fullest happiest way because nothing confuses abusers more than this.

But it is tough to do. Very tough.

For the alters who don't want the attention of outward retribution but want to heal it gives them freedom to heal at their own pace without a pressure of other alters who want to heal, have therapy and out the abusers.

Outing them could happen if this becomes at a point part of a "Well lived life" but for now it allows breathing space.

For alters who have no trauma it gives the freedom to be happy and live without the guilt of what the others went through and worry of living freely when others struggle to.

Retribution, outing etc however you want to describe it is more than just whatever your past abuser could bring. It's stressful in its self, the statements, the paperwork, the time. For me they deserve no time and death is too good for them so I see it like this:

They are suffering because of who they are. They have to keep up a front and a facade. This must be exhausting. They have to live with what they did and hide it more than the victim. People blame abusers not victims the shame belongs with the abuser. I learnt this wheb I experienced adult trauma by an ex. I also learnt he was relieved I had him put in prison. He said I did him a favour. He had computers and nice stuff, they housed him when he came out. I have zero interest in making my past abusers lives easier by either outing them or by allowing them to live it up in a protected prison for child abusers.

So I know they suffer in their own mind and I know the best revenge is a life well lived. And so far since I escaped them I have done my best at living a good life and making good choices and forget all the therapy and counselling I had, that one phrase has served me incredibly well.

Much luck,

Sarah.

Thank you for adding some perspective to a troubling issue. We agree with the sentiment, "a life well lived."

The desire to out her stems from a desire we have had since childhood, that the world see her for who she is.

Honestly, we are nowhere near ready to cope with the repercussions of such an action. That said, there is great inner rage.

littleDaria wrote:Thank you for adding some perspective to a troubling issue. We agree with the sentiment, "a life well lived."

The desire to out her stems from a desire we have had since childhood, that the world see her for who she is.

Honestly, we are nowhere near ready to cope with the repercussions of such an action. That said, there is great inner rage.

Perhaps they do see her for what she is. I always have this same feeling as you "nobody will see her for what she is" with my legal mother some people do.

Last July because she felt under threat of exposure she stopped my bank cards (I have since told the bank to ignore any calls from family), she was calling the hospital telling them to put me on meds when I'd been off meds for years (because to her that'd probably sedate me and make me forget what a bitch she is), she phoned the hospital and said my partner was "taking me out too much" they saw through her, she tried to loose my partner his job because she sees him as causing my trauma memory.

A friend of mine saw through her on meeting her once. My old psychologist and my old psychotherapist and a child care social worker all saw her for what she is and advised I break contact.

Still recently I thought nobody will see through her but again they did. She exposes herself. So possibly people in her life do.

As a child mothers seem like this all important life giving or life threatening force of grear power because as children we are completely reliant on them. As a child I did not realise I was mistreated. Even in July when she was doing her usual routine of slander and mess up my life as much as possible it all seemed normal to me. Because it is. It was the people arounf me who said this isn't normal behaviour of a mother and helped me.

So possibly it's a child perception that people don't see through them, maybe they do? Or at least some of them do and it looks like they don't but they do.

The other angle this could be looked from is living with the fear of exposure is much worse than being exposed. But maybe that's just me trying to avoid having to fully expose my mother. I think I'll try to explore that in my own thread... Thanks,

Sarah

"As a child mothers seem like this all important life giving or life threatening force of grear power because as children we are completely reliant on them "


We seem to understand this, but only on an intellectual level. Our littles can only see from their time of trauma so still perceive her as a great threat.

As for others seeing our mother for who she truly is it is very possible that at least some people do.

Some things she did we still can't comprehend; the family taking a post-Christmas vacation, without us, for four years in a row?! Having our clothes altered because they looked too "girly"?

To this day she denies that any such things happened.

She seems to accept our DID but if we mention the past she shuts down and immediately changes the topic.

We have so many questions we want answers to from her before she dies.

During therapy tonight, our therapist was explaining that our parts of self (we don't think she likes the word alter) exist, or are frozen, in their trauma, and when they are triggered their feelings come from their time of trauma. She said, "You're not really five years old, you're reacting emotionally as a five year old would."

Hearing these words caused an unexpected reaction in us. Instantly, we were little, and struck with feelings of rejection and abandonment. We hugged Duffy bear, and let out a pained gasping cry.

After a period of time, while still in littlespace, we managed to tell her we felt rejected, that it felt like she was saying that we weren't real.

She was quick to reassure us that she believed we exist, which was comforting.

Still, our littles are in a bit of a state. Feeling invalidated is a horrible feeling.

Therapy tonight went well, though it was hard work as usual. At the beginning we sort started where we'd left off the previous session, which was a discussion of abuse.

We have an alter who is crippled by shame and self-loathing. He comes from the time when we were being abused by our neighbor.

We talked about attachment again, and she explained how traumatized children will seek attachment, ANY attachment, for they cannot, literally, survive without it.

She also said trauma responses are hard wired, which is why they feel so automatic, so out of our control.

After this we began to address the immediate situation; that we felt cold and hollow with anxiety. After some inner communication we figured out inside parts had been triggered.

Our therapist explained how parts are frozen in the past, trapped in their time of trauma, which seems to make sense. Where we get stuck is when the emotional factor is added.

We cannot seem to understand that how we feel NOW is connected to how we felt THEN. For us, when dissociating, then IS now. Does that make sense?

Our littles became distressed when she tried to explain further. Our therapist said that we're not actually five years old, for example, when you're in a trauma state. You just feel little.

This set off a chorus of protest from our littles. Somebody become frantic, for we found ourselves trying to call out, a weak gasping cry.

After some struggle we managed to tell her that we felt she'd meant we weren't real. This was very difficult to articulate, nearly impossible in fact. We don't know how we did it.

She then immediately stopped and spent some minutes reassuring us that, yes, you are all real.

She spent the remainder of the session essentially continuing to reassure us and get us stabilized for the walk home.

At some point Aloysius came out and we lost all emotion. This alerts us to the switch, as does our sudden impassive attitude.

We feel he came out to protect us because we were still pretty frantic on the inside, despite what our therapist told us.

We are home now, relaxing and listening to music, while we write. We feel a good deal of emotional fatigue, as we often do, and need time to decompress.

We have pretty much decompressed from therapy. We did slow deep breathing to relax the body.

We're still listening to music, its the only way to muffle the inside.

At least we haven't been triggered so far tonight.

We always try to look back on our sessions after we've decompressed, with an impassive eye.

What is most distressing to us is our seeming inability to truly believe (much less retain), truly feel what our therapist tells us.

We're not explaining this well at all.

Perhaps we mean that we can't connect emotionally to the facts at hand for example when she explains that our shame around our sexual abuse is normal, that a twelve year old processes things in a far different way than an adult, especially a traumatized child, we seem to "get it", but only on a purely intellectual level.
Our feelings don't change a whit.

She explained how parts retreat to what they know, their time of trauma, and hence their feelings remain trapped in that time too.

This is why it is so freaking impossible to KEEP them in anything resembling the present. We can coax them to the surface but once we've left they return.

We are, or at least some of us are, still pretty upset by having been triggered in session. Our reaction at the time was shockingly powerful, overwhelming in fact. It struck us to our core it feels like, to the foundation

Why?

Holy S**t ! We just had the craziest flashback to our childhood bedroom, our mother looming over us. We were perhaps six, and sat on our bed, sobbing uncontrollably.

Where did that come from?!

OMG

Signing off

We haven't yet gotten over that flashback, and the littles are still in distress, having somehow been reactivated. We have been thinking...


Is it true that children can perceive a seemingly benign situation/event as traumatic without those around them noticing?

Example, a hospital stay. When we were 10 we were hospitalized for about six weeks or so for a bone infection.

Our memory of it is sketchy at best but we do remember crying ourselves to sleep frequently. Mostly we remember fear.

We were hospitalized for an eye issue shortly after being adopted as well, something we have no memory of. Our parents had made a little picture storybook we think to help us to prepare. (Side note: doesn't the ability to prepare require reasoning abilities a four year old wouldn't possess?) It has somehow been preserved and when we see it we react very strongly.

Finally, we were, because we were premature, in hospital for the first year of our life. This we DO have fragmented images from, terrifying moments. Or do we? Can you remember that far back? When the images come, thankfully rarely, we are put in state of frozen fear. We wonder if these flashes are, in actuality, from a different unknown source. Who knows?

Is it possible that your trauma before adoption was what caused the DID? And then after that other things got to you more?

I was stuck where I was born so by the time they left me to sleep on a wasps nest, till the wasps moved out, at about age 11 I just went to sleep. Any other person would literally have to hang me upside down from a tree and beat me with a stick to effect me but my so called parents trigger me big time.

I can imagine going from something terrible to something which could be perhaps less terrible would mean anything would set off past events from before adopted? I don't know, I just had the thought.

Your adopted mother lieing reminds us of my mother though. And if she's lieing about altering dresses then I doubt you'll get much else out of her.

Sarah

Also empty and cold was how I felt after I talked to my sister. And I felt like I was suddenly on a lower vibrational level. I realised she had triggered it and that it was how I used to feel before I broke contact. It was hard to break contact because feelings are addictive. This time after 7 years of no contact I felt it for one day and didn't like it. So I blocked her. There's still a hang over from it but it will pass.

This is why I'm apprehensive of therapy. It triggers stuff, old feelings and it has a hangover.

I'm glad your therapy is working well for you. Much luck with it. Sarah.

... I glanced back over your posts and felt I had to say - feelings are addictive good or bad... Could it be you're so used to feeling these feelings you don't want to give them up yet? If you let them go what will you feel instead - that is really scary but letting them go is the only way they go.

When I had a trauma at 30 I got riteously angry. I knew the shame belonged to the perpetrator. I spent 6 months on a forum for survivors telling them "that shame is the perpetrators not yours" till I got banned but it was the anger that was the only thing that stopped me from taking that guilt and shame - it's theirs not ours. Plus feelings are addictive stops the letting go.

Much luck.. again,

Sarah