I Keep Everything Under Strict Control And Feel Like A Failure If I Show What I Really Feel.

Question: I was sexually abused from 5 years of age until I was 15. I also had the trauma of 2 major strokes when I was 7 years old. Some days I feel like everything around me falls apart, and I keep thinking to myself is this all life was suppose to be? I have problems trusting people and letting them know what is really going on in my mind, as it feels like they cannot understand and they do not know what I went through as a child. I keep everything under strict control and I feel like a failure if I show what I really feel. I'm not sure what I would do if I let myself go. So much anger and mistrust and bitterness, feels like there's a dragon inside me.

Lately I have felt really down and under. When this happens I just go into my own world, and switch off. eg I get very uptight and emotional and then in the middle of it I seem to just slip into some kind of place where I feel nothing and nothing matters. Where should I go from here? Feels like there is nowhere left to go, as I can't get away from myself no matter what I do. Bea

Response from Peter

Dear Bea

Thank you so much for your question to the good therapy site. Forgive me if this unexpected reply also invades your space and unsettles you. We haven't posted your question as yet, because the most appropriate first response is directly with you. Hence my email. I hope that it brings you a ray of sunshine that you have been heard and responded to, albeit briefly and incompletely.

The part of your life story that you share in the forum, is deeply touching. I recognized your courage and your kindness to yourself between those lines of struggle with your dragon. And I found myself cheering for your survival, wanting more than that for you - that you survive and thrive this marathon of a life with a few moments of beauty and wonder. The sweetest revenge can be just that, the heart's revival - if revenge were included in your visits with bitterness.

I began thinking about what sources of sweetness there are in your life - friends family music pets. To have hung in there with all that internal strife completely alone seems too cruel to me. It would require more than incredible control to make it through some of the worst days and I imagine thoughts of suicide are near at hand. I have a concern that those thoughts may be your only companion when you're switched off.

In posting your letter on the good therapy site you may not get exactly what you are asking for - "where do I go from here?". There's a lot of options and the trouble is we're likely to give general ideas rather than specific directions that you can apply.

So as a step toward posting your question, could I ask what directions you might want from forum responses. I can then put my email to you and yours back to me, or parts of them, in a first forum response to your question, which will shape to a degree what others will then write. I will post that to you for your approval first. How does that sound?

For example, do you carry any effects from the childhood strokes that require attention now - I imagine it must have been just about the last straw for you then. Some kids struggle with learning and movement after a stroke, and maybe these are issues for you today.

Do you want contact with a counsellor or stroke disability specialist or related support groups including survivors of sexual abuse. With Medicare funding available from November 1st, a psychologist specialist in those issues could be useful.

Childhood strokes occur in about 5 in 100,000 kids and sex assault affects a minimum of 30% of children - I know you know this but it's just that you're not alone, and if it were reaching out that you are doing can I or the good therapy site facilitate that in any way as well as the forum responses?

Again my apology if this is intrusive. If you would just prefer to have the question posted as is then we will do that.

Response from Bea

Thank You for your email, it really was a nice surprise as I was sure I would only get a reply on the webpage. As you took the time to write me I thought I would explain a little bit more about my situation. The letter I wrote was very short and incomplete and just sent away I think as a lifeline on that special day, maybe I just needed to confirm to myself that I wasn't crazy. Don't get me wrong, I know logically that I'm not, but sometimes my thoughts get the better of me.

I lived alone with everything that had happened for about 20 years. Then I told my now ex partner who continued to be a friend with the abuser. This and the fact that he was very controlling killed the relationship in the end and I moved out - sold everything I owned, gave away my pets, quit work and moved to be with a man I had met online - a brave move. We are now married and he is the most loving caring man there is. I feel free here to be myself, as I do not have to keep secrets.

I had a big health scare a couple of months ago. I was very close to killing myself, not as in suicide but I barely had any blood left in my body and was on the brink of serious organ damage. The day before they put me into hospital I worked an 8 hour day, doctors could not believe it. I could as everything is a matter of mind over matter. In hospital they gave me a lot of blood.

This health scare really pushed me around. I still struggle with the effects from it, doctors can't give me just any medication due to the history of strokes. But some words one doctor said a few weeks ago pushed me over in the deep end. She said "it's your fault," well not in those exact words, still it was very clear. Its amazing how just one sentence can send you straight back to your childhood and everything that happened there. Now the thoughts are keeping me awake at night, "you're worthless" "you should not be here" and so on... I know again by logic it is not true, and yet I end up there and it makes me angry at myself, mainly for the fact that I do not want what happened in the past to keep affecting me. My mind gives the abuser some kind of power over me still, and I do not like that. I do not like to be a victim, I have clearly chosen not to be one, and yet this keeps happening, not often but it does.

I had a lot of issues in my 20's, especially with my mother. I was so angry with her and bitter coz she didn't see nor help me, but I realized after a bit, how could she help me if she didn't know? I chose to forgive her and at the end of her life we were really close, she died from cancer a couple of years ago now. I didn't tell her, I thought she had enough on her plate without having to deal with the pain of not being able to help me.

Sometimes I play with the thought of destroying my abusers life, but then I think what's the point, it would only bring me down to his level and make me no better than him, and again I refuse it. I want to be like an eagle and fly high and free and not like a grey mouse who covers under its little grey stone. In saying that, this eagle has "back problems" at times and crashes in-between.

About Suicide yes I play with the thought sometimes but if I was going to do it I would have done it a long time ago. Its my strongest belief that we do not get more things in life than we can handle, even though sometimes I do wonder when the good time is coming. I keep waiting for tomorrow... but tomorrow never seems to come. Don't get me wrong I have a good life as such, its just ghosts of the past that play their little games with my mind from time to time. I just think life could be better without the constant downfalls and thoughts.

Regarding my stroke I do not have any problems from it except that it affects my ability to get certain medications and so forth, I was extremely lucky or rather I was extremely stubborn and refused what the doctors said. They wanted me in a wheelchair, I thought to myself I do not think so. I was also lucky in that my dad was very strict when it came to training, he was constantly on my back reminding me what to do. I hated it then and I thought he was too cruel but now I'm nothing but grateful.

I think as I wrote this email I sort of can see what I mean with my where do I go from here question, how can I get rid of the last ghosts from the past and slay them, how can I live a free life without getting pushed into the deep end by a few words from a stranger who knows nothing about me, and how can I learn to trust people as I'm very guarded and do not let people too close. This has to do with the past as I always got told after the abuse to not tell anybody and that nobody would believe me. Its amazing how good you get at playing games, and not showing your real feelings nor your thoughts, and in the end you go... hmmm I wonder who is really me, did I get lost along the way?

In school I had a really good friend and one day I got a letter in the mail from her saying she didn't want to be my friend anymore coz my temperament was too uncertain (I could go from happy to sad within seconds due to the emotions from the abuse) guess I could see her point but still it made me feel worthless so I changed, and bottled up my emotions. Then I got to hear I wasn't being true to what I really felt, so you see I wasn't good either way.

I might add that most times when faced with a challenge, I get a 'I will show you' attitude. I'm a fighter, but some days I just do not feel like fighting anymore.

Do you think therapy would be beneficial for me? Bea

Response from Peter

Dear Bea

Yours is a true and powerful testimony. It brought tears to my eyes and a big warm glow in my heart for the privilege of having met you, your courage, your forgiveness and that of a beautiful love in your life. I hear how history comes back to bite you with a doctor's thoughtless, cruel and off hand remark. It reverberates for days, weeks like a great bell sounding out you're worthless. And yet, dear eagle you continue to fly and will give hope to anyone who reads your story. You may well get directions about slaying the last of those ghosts and trusting people.

It is hard for anyone to imagine how desperately isolated and silent most child abuse survivors are. Some do read web sites like good therapy and some in the past and like you now, post a cry of despair. We hear it as if from the wilderness until we read the story of courage within and then realise how similar our stories are. How every life is a personal journey and every anguish a cousin. In that way we come to feel not so alone in the journey.

Yes, therapy with a clinical psychologist or equivalent with expertise in childhood trauma and trauma treatment will reduce the energy caught in those memories. We don't lose the memories as much as they loosen their grip on us and we are less likely to be unexpectedly thrown into turmoil by an event with which they resonate.

A couple of ways to locate a therapist:

• speak to or email Che at good therapy - she has spoken to a lot of therapists around australia
• word of mouth referral from someone you know who can recommend a therapist
• try your local women's health information and referral service
• if you have a GP you trust they also will likely know of a competent trauma therapist
• search good therapy's directory - then make a phone call to three practitioners to check them out
• good therapy has a resource on choosing a therapist and my site also has some tips on how to choose a therapist

Power to you Bea and many blessings on your path.

Peter Fox, Clinical Psychologist