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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
My T brought this up again, that I've experienced a huge amount of trauma in my life, and survived. I hate hearing that so much! I don't want to have been traumatized, I don't want to be 'a survivor,' I don't want to have all this stuff to overcome.
I don't mind doing the work. I don't mind how much it hurts. But I want to feel as though this is just something I have to do.
This isn't making sense.
Somehow, even though I know that there is Bad Stuff behind me, I want to feel as though I have put it behind me. I hate feeling as though I've been dragging it all along with me all this time. And even more, I hate not understanding why it upsets me so much to hear it from her.
I'm having a very tough time of it, and while I know that it's Good, because it's helping repair some of the damage, it's still terribly painful. It's good, in part because it means that I'm being pretty brave about getting into things that hurt like the dickens, but it's also got a lot of guilt, shame, general badness roiling around inside me. All my failures, including the failure to open up enough to get to the deeper stuff faster.
Anyone? Any comments? Especially if you've discussed why you object to hearing that you've survived trauma?
Posted by LegWarmers on January 10, 2006, at 15:01:17
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
> My T brought this up again, that I've experienced a huge amount of trauma in my life, and survived. I hate hearing that so much! I don't want to have been traumatized, I don't want to be 'a survivor,' I don't want to have all this stuff to overcome.
I feel exactly the same way
>
> I don't mind doing the work. I don't mind how much it hurts. But I want to feel as though this is just something I have to do.
>
> This isn't making sense.yes it is
>
> Somehow, even though I know that there is Bad Stuff behind me, I want to feel as though I have put it behind me. I hate feeling as though I've been dragging it all along with me all this time. And even more, I hate not understanding why it upsets me so much to hear it from her.
>because it makes us less than perfect/normal
> I'm having a very tough time of it, and while I know that it's Good, because it's helping repair some of the damage, it's still terribly painful. It's good, in part because it means that I'm being pretty brave about getting into things that hurt like the dickens, but it's also got a lot of guilt, shame, general badness roiling around inside me. All my failures, including the failure to open up enough to get to the deeper stuff faster.
I understand that, I feel similar.
> Anyone? Any comments? Especially if you've discussed why you object to hearing that you've survived trauma?
I wish I had more to say to help, but all I can say right now is that I hear you! I agree with you! and I know how you are feeling. You arent alone. I think the idea of it makes us cringe because not only does it remove us from being "like everybody else" it also reminds us of the events, and I really don't like being reminded. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!
Im sorry you are struggling with this
Posted by daisym on January 10, 2006, at 16:02:40
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
Makes sense to me. I've said often that I don't want to be one of those sign carrying "survivors" who has defined herself by the abuse.
No disrespect intended.
I don't want it to define me. I HATE pity for it. And I feel a protective impulse for the abuser to say, "it wasn't that bad. I should be over it." It makes me wince when my therapist says something along the lines of what yours said.
I refuse the label survivor. I don't want to be a victim. So what am I?
Actually, I don't mind traumatized as much as I mind abused. Trauma feels like something that will heal. Abuse sounds so powerless. Funny thing about semantics, isn't it?
Posted by happyflower on January 10, 2006, at 17:37:04
In reply to Re: {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by daisym on January 10, 2006, at 16:02:40
I don't want to be known as a survior either. It sounds too much like being damaged goods. Plus people treat you differently if they know you have a crazy past. (even if it isn't your fault)
But is is also hard to hear I am a survior because that would mean that you would have to "own" it and accept that it really did happen. It is easier to live in denial. But I can't anymore.
Posted by antigua on January 10, 2006, at 19:04:38
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
Calling me survivor makes my back go up; I'm not sure why, I should probably explore. I hate the word "victim" even more. And I don't like empty platitudes of how well I've done, given the circumstances I've grown up in. I don't like to be complimented on how far I've gone.
So what's with that? I haven't figured out the dynamics yet. I know I didn't grow up "normally," but all these words make me feel freakish--for me only, not for anyone else, as the case usually is.
antigua
Posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 20:52:52
In reply to semantics, posted by antigua on January 10, 2006, at 19:04:38
Semantics, hadn't thought of that...
The trauma I suffered included a car accident in childhood that was pretty devastating, so it's not solely "abuse" issues, I think. Of course, I was young enough that mostly I never think of it as "traumatic" -- I think of it as something that happened, and it doesn't happen to everyone. Does that convey what I mean? Not traumatic, but something that other people don't necessarily understand, really. (And we won't talk about the first time anyone sees the scars on my belly from surgery, 'K? If you ever find yourself in bed with someone who has a scar you didn't expect? The correct response is NOT to leap away yelling, "Oh, YUCK!")
And a huge amount of the "trauma" we're talking about wasn't "abuse" -- it was growing up with a crazy mother who didn't meet my needs, and didn't understand boundaries. Yes, there was actual abuse. Not from my mother. Yes, there was sexual abuse. Again, not my mother. But most of it was a woman with problems of her own doing the very best she could.
That's part of it, too. Daisy, I think you have more of a sense of protecting your abuser. I will state, definitively, that the man who abused me was a Very Bad Man, with no redeeming characteristics that I'm aware of. Period. What he did to me was HIS sickness, and NOT my fault.
But my mother? I am very protective of her, so having to recognize her part in my traumatic background is pretty damned painful. (We don't have any enmeshment issues. We're EMBEDDED.)
It's made worse by the crap from the Agency From Hell, because their whole focus on "you MUST have a personality disorder, since you have a personality, and we'll call it borderline." As a result of that, I've submerged my anger even deeper, in fear that A.) they're right, and/or B.) other people will think the same thing. So, every time I think about something that happened to me as a child or adolescent, and I start to get angry, I suck it all back as hard as I can, because of that. Because it would look like "splitting" to someone watching. And it's NOT. I don't know many people I can make any definitive statements about, beyond that one man. Everyone else is somewhere in that grey zone, of mostly as good as they can be, and sometimes not so good. But I'm afraid that if I say that someone did something to me, it will LOOK borderline, and then they'll write me off. (That was something that my T and I talked about last night. She was asking, "So what if someone thinks that?" My experience, though, is that if they do, they stop taking me seriously. And you know what? I have enough difficulty with people not listening to me anyway.)
OK. Deep breath.
No, Daisy, I do NOT want this to define me. That probably is a large part of the problem -- if we can keep it quiet, and people would stop saying anything about how amazing that I survived, maybe that would help. I think, though, that Antigua hit on something, too: I don't want congratulations on how brave I am to face up to these things, because I feel as though it's shameful that I haven't fixed it all long ago. I SHOULD be farther along, etc.
Ugh.
Thanks for your responses, and I'm sorry for not responding to all of you individually, although I think that kinda clutters the boards, so I usually answer all in one...
Posted by James K on January 10, 2006, at 23:15:37
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
> Anyone? Any comments? Especially if you've discussed why you object to hearing that you've survived trauma?
--I've always not liked that because of all the things that "didn't" happen to me. I wasn't this, I wasn't that. "There are people who have really suffered." Therapists have had to make me confront that some of what happened to me is wrong or just traumatic and it is obvious that I've been affected by it. I don't really get much further than that though.
I admire you all for sticking with therapy and working through this stuff.
James K
Posted by daisym on January 10, 2006, at 23:30:37
In reply to Re: semantics DaisyM and » antigua, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 20:52:52
It sounds like you are trying so hard to prove you aren't borderline that you are going to prove that you aren't anything -- you aren't traumatized, you aren't angry, you aren't splitting, you don't dissociate...and mostly you don't deserve any sympathy or compassion because you've taken too long to get over all of this.
Does that sound right?
I think you flinch at her direct assessment because you think perhaps you weren't supposed to be traumatized by the events of your life. Which is bs because we all are one way or another. Force of character can not stave off traumatization. Or hide it forever.
Mothers -- can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. I'm the spitting imagine, I kid you not. We dress the same, talk the same, and have a similar work ethic. She is an awesome lady. We just have very different ideas about what a mother is, what she owes her children and who I really am. She takes credit for all of my achievements, even my children. And then turns around and tells me that "someday you will be able to get a job that will lead to real success" and she is sure I will be happy once my children are gone. After all she was...
*sigh*
Posted by B2chica on January 11, 2006, at 9:10:52
In reply to Re: semantics DaisyM and » Racer, posted by daisym on January 10, 2006, at 23:30:37
just like hf said, survivor sounds like you are damaged goods. although i think that anyway, i dont like to hear it outloud.
i think a part of me also doesn't think what happened to me is bad enough to warrent the word 'trauma'.
infact when i was looking for therapists, one i interviewed said he specialized in truama victims...man, i can't tell you how fast i ran out of that one. i even told my current T about that.racer said: I don't want congratulations on how brave I am to face up to these things, because I feel as though it's shameful that I haven't fixed it all long ago.
this is yet again another statement i totally agree with.daisy, i have to agree that the first paragraph you wrote felt like it was associated toward myself as well. i dont deserve any sympathy or compassion but i think it's becuase i feel that what happened really wasnt bad. some of it i'm still feeling like all families are like that. that what happened really wasn't abuse and i'm making something out of nothing and i'm making my mother into some monster.
i HATE hearing my T say the word trauma! i want to scream out, "I'm not good enough to have the word trauma said about my experiences!"
b2c.
Posted by fairywings on January 11, 2006, at 19:27:51
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
I don't hear that I'm a survivor, but I can identify with everything else you're saying. For me I think it's holding onto the fantasy of wanting to go back and have good parents, and a nice family, and lots of love, and being "more normal", and being able to be around people, and not having anxiety, and not, and not, and not... For me, facing the fact that it will never be that way hurts, and I don't want to have to go over the past anymore, I just want to close the door on that, and be done with it, and be able to move on, and be "more normal", and feel good, and it's not happening, and I hate it.
fw
Posted by Tamar on January 13, 2006, at 18:26:12
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
> Anyone? Any comments? Especially if you've discussed why you object to hearing that you've survived trauma?
Sorry, I’m only online for 2 minutes and I haven’t read the whole thread.
But I’d agree that I object to hearing that I’ve survived trauma, for two reasons:
1. No one else really knows what I’ve been through, even if I’ve described it in detail; and
2. if I’d survived, wouldn’t I be doing better?So I still describe myself as a victim rather than a survivor. Maybe one day, when I’m doing better, I’ll be able to imagine myself as a survivor. At the moment, I still feel that the bad guys won.
I think the overcoming is the thing that happens BEFORE you become a survivor. But maybe being a survivor is about being able to overcome it.
I feel with my own situation it’s like a broken leg or something. It will never be perfectly healed; there will always be a weakness. But learning to walk again is worth doing. There, that’s my metaphor of the day.
I hope you feel better soon.
Tamar
Posted by kerria on January 19, 2006, at 6:08:59
In reply to {sigh} I don't want to have been traumatized!, posted by Racer on January 10, 2006, at 14:41:30
Hi Racer,
Identifying with the past is the thing that's so difficult. We don't do it. It feels better to have therapy as something to go to for an hour or two a week and put it down to never have anything to do with us. i don't want to be a survivor and never think i am one. Even going to therapy is weird- i look at the 'trauma disorders program' sign on my T's door and think 'why should i be here?'
Having DD - is so strange to have. i wonder and worry if therapy helps. It's so hard to know.
My T brings up the subject of trauma all the time and it's upsetting because being a survivor is something that i don't identify with. Probably it's not healthy to disown or ignore the parts that went through trauma so we go to therapy. That's not really why- i go because of the present trouble and symptoms, not the past. Is that how it is for you, also? It's upsetting though and it feels like one more overwhelming thing on top of all the rest of the present trouble to think about.
This is the end of the thread.
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