I dont know whats real anymore

[eliza1]

OK, like it says in the title, I don’t know what’s real anymore.

It all started four years ago when I was living alone and picking up the pieces after yet another failed relationship. I am in my mid forties and have no children. I had friends and a good job but my life still felt empty. Guilty, unlovable, alone in the world. I had started seeing a new therapist and during the second session, out of the blue when I was talking about my problems, she randomly asked me: Elizabeth, do you think you might have been sexually abused by your father?

It was like I had been hit by lightning. I felt sick. I felt lightheaded, I couldn’t breath. Was this the reason I’d been in and out of psyches offices for the past 20 years, trying to fix endless mood swings, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, anger, rages?

My new therapist thought we were onto something because I responded like this. She started pushing me to remember as much as I could and so I did, later at home that evening. It flooded my mind, a vivid and horrible scene and one that I don’t really want to go into detail with here for reasons I will go into later.

So I rang my therapist the next day and told her all about it.  She suggested I write letters to both my parents to vent the rage and pain I felt about what I had remembered, and to say I didn’t want to see either of them ever again. She was the expert, and I was in shock, so I did what she told me.

How did they respond?  Well my mother was shocked, frighted.  I never heard anything from my dad. She sent me an angry letter saying I shouldn’t blame my problems on her. My therapist said that attitude was more proof that my father had abused me and that she knew all about it.

So that was the start of four years of being totally alone and cut off from my family. I believed my parents were toxic, and my memories of sexual abuse gave me good reason to cut them out of my life. I kept up going to therapy. Weekly, sometimes twice a week, but nothing seemed to make a difference. I was still depressed, still suicidal. I started to think I was wasting time and just wanted to get on with my life so I decided to stop going to the therapist.  This was about two months ago.

This is where it starts to get scary for me. I started to have my doubts towards the end of the therapy, but it has only started to get worse since stopping.  I am now almost convinced that I made up these memories of abuse and that it actually never happened.

My life at the time I saw that original therapist was a mess. I had a shocking temper, relationships with men were a disaster, I would fly off the handle at any criticism, and no self esteem. I had problems at work getting on with people too.  When I think back, that simple question ‘do you think you might have been sexually abused’ seemed like the answer to all my problems.  For the last four years I was able to blame everything wrong with my life on being a victim and being abused and the sympathy would flow. But have I got better? No.

This is an awful realisation to come to and I don’t want to upset anyone who has really gone through such terrible abuse but this doesn’t make sense to me. How is it possible for me to forget something so awful for so many decades and then just have it pop up like that? I just don’t know if it’s true anymore, and if it isn’t what have I done to my family? Can I ever fix up this mess?

[Jo3]

Hi Eliza

I can totally understand what you're saying.  I am in my mid 40's and only 4 years ago I remembered being sexually abused by 3 different guys (family, neighbour) when I was a child 9-12yrs old. I told my parents but they abandoned me and wanted nothing to do with me for the 4 yrs. But in Jan this year due to my grandma passing away I made up with them, don't know why because the relationship will never be the same.

I could not believe that my mind had blocked it for so long. How can this be? My pysch said this was the way children block the abuse, they fear that they will get in trouble, blamed etc. so the child's way is to block it out and try to survive.

I am still having therapy weekly because it has caused many problems - depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal thoughts and borderline personality disorder.

 Personally I don't know how anyone can make this up - I know it definitely happened to me, i can see the abuse happen, where i was, how it happened, i know it happened.

So I think that if you are having memories of this abuse by your dad then I think you may be right.  And I am so sorry that you have gone through this horrible act.  No child should ever have to go through this. It takes away our childhood, our innocence our trust.

Believe me Eliza - I forgot the abuse for over 30 years and now I am suffering but trying to deal with this and with my weekly therapy I hope to one day be a stronger person than what I am now.

Eliza, are you still having therapy now? If not, I really think it would be a good idea to continue. I know its tough thing to deal with, to talk about but I know that it helps to talk this through with a professional that you feel comfortable with and can trust.  This is important, you need to build a "rerlationship" with your therapist.

Good luck Eliza, hope I haven't come across to hard

Hope you can come back on here and chat again

Take care Eliza

Jo

[SGde3a]

Hi Elizabeth,

You originally thought of it as abuse or distrust. Distrust and betrayal is basically abuse as well. So they basically betrayed you and saw you (at least at that time) as either a stranger or an enemy for their own reasons. So this is their own problems passed on to you.

There is an actual definition for the word family and it means a bunch of people that you are closer to than a group of friends that support you and don't betray you. Although friends can be family we are also usually part of a group of slightly more distant people as well.

Mothers' mother, and Fathers' father. That is the definition of those words. Nobody's opinion. If they don't do that then they are not Mothers and Fathers. Otherwise you may begin to think betraying people is the right thing to do and so forth, hence passing on the betrayal.

Don't even begin to think they are right in betraying you. All the best.