Posted by Tamar on October 21, 2005, at 16:02:42
In reply to Defense Mechanism? trigger, posted by wildcard on October 21, 2005, at 5:22:57
> >I cannot feel any positive emotion towards anyone IRL except my two boys. I was the most caring, compassionate and loving person before my rape (3 1/2 years now), and attempt where I was actually claimed *gone*. I feel numb and I don't understand. I have only started to communicate w/ others at all on babble as I have shut myself off from the *real world*. I feel lost and scared that I may never find myself again. I have studied psych in college and I'm thinking that this is a defense mechanism. If I do not open up or trust, I cannot be hurt. Realistically, I know that is not true. Has anyone else felt this way? Any input?
Hi Wildcard,
Yes, I’ve felt that way too. I did other things to ‘protect’ myself as well: I gained a lot of weight in the hope that I would become somehow invisible. And I avoid conflict as much as possible (except when I go the other way and start looking for fights…).
I’m starting to realise that there’s a lot of anger that I’m trying to keep inside because expressing it would be too frightening. And I also don’t like to express when I’m feeling hurt because I’m afraid people will then know they can hurt me and will deliberately try to hurt me.
Trying to admit the extent of the anger and the hurt is an ongoing challenge for me. I tend to find I get triggered and respond with anger way out of proportion to the situation I’m in… But I find that if I’m able to express some of the anger and hurt I feel about being raped (instead of about the triggers) then I usually have a few days of feeling more balanced.
The difficulty is finding people I can trust enough to talk about all that anger and pain… Whenever we talk about it we take a bit of a risk. If you can find someone you can trust with a little bit of it, perhaps you will be able to trust them with a little more, until eventually you find yourself more able to talk… That’s what is working for me, anyway.
Hope that’s of some help.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:569719
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051018/msgs/569942.html