TW Healing physical and verbal abuse from childhood

[Eagle Ray]

Possibly distressing content.

I have an intellectual understanding of everything that has happened to me in the past. I have also completely forgiven things done to me in childhood and carry no resentment about those things. However, the impacts of early physical and verbal violence remain in my nervous system. I have successfully processed adult traumas somatically with my psychologist, removing the charge from those experiences. But the charges from early childhood remain. The worst physical violence occurred between the ages of 3 and about 7-8. While that later lessened, frequent volatile verbal rage continued to be directed at me.

In my experience things like cognitive restructuring have been useless as I've basically done that already and that doesn't shift how my nervous system innately responds. I continue to have fear triggered in daily life by situations that are not necessarily harmful, yet my nervous system will be waiting for the harm to happen. I have practised sitting in meditation in nature for extended periods. As soon as I allow my body to let go I will usually vomit, my body purging the toxic sludge it has been carrying as a lifelong thing. It seems never ending and I am profoundly exhausted. I at least feel held in nature, like it is my witness and it always feels way safer than anything to do with other humans.

The people I find I can really truly relate to are very gentle and sensitive people like myself and I usually find they have actually been through similar experiences to myself. I find people who haven't had such experiences will judge how you should manage in life with no understanding of visceral trauma and how it takes over when Complex PTSD responses take hold. The world can feel like a very alienating place of non-understanding, leading me to retract back into self-protection and isolation. With the friends I know with similar experiences, we tend not to go too deep into it, I think out of fear of not wanting to trigger one another (we are all ultra sensitive empaths so tread very carefully with one another).

I think I am writing this because I am still in this struggle and maybe wanting to know how others have processed early life verbal and physical attack? There were forms of less direct and more manipulative emotional abuse from my mother as well and this would occur when she would dissociate and split off into aspects of her own trauma, the same pattern of what her mother did to her. So this compounded the more explicit, blatant abuse I experienced. I am writing this out possibly because I minimised these experiences for so many years which was a coping mechanism. Maybe I am now trying to confront it head on. I experience flashbacks regularly, but I've been so dissociated from them I've only recently started to grasp when I am in them, if that makes any sense. Before I was just in them, so that is probably progress that some part of me can step back just enough to see I am in them now.

Do others out there relate to purely visceral trauma that comes from earliest life experiences? But please don't go there if it is triggering. I find listening to musicians/songwriters who have been through similar things helps because it is a form of empathy and resonates in the body and emotions which is where I need to heal.

[Sophie_M]

Hey Eagle Ray,

Thank you for sharing your story and experiences here. You have a beautiful way with words and can capture so well that feeling of the types of responses that can happen when we have complex PTSD. 

It sounds like you have done a lot of powerful work on your trauma which is amazing. It also sounds like you know where you feel most safe and at peace, which is a huge strength. It is great that you have that strong affinity with nature that can help soothe you. 

One of the most challenging things about recovering from trauma is just how long those physical responses can linger. You are certainly not alone in feeling that. It can be such a long process of teaching our body that it no longer has to respond to certain situations/stimuli in a way that was at one time protective but less so now. 

We wish we had the answers for you at a time when it can feel so overwhelming. What we can offer, though, is to let you know that you are not alone and encourage you to treat yourself gently during the more difficult times. 

We are here sitting with you ❤️

Kind regards
Sophie M


 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Sophie,

Thank you so much for your incredibly kind response. It nearly made me cry - in a good way. It helps me greatly to be able to come here to the BB Forum and chat with others and it definitely helps me feel less alone.

 I think recovery from what I’ve experienced so far is incremental. I think that’s why it’s important, as you’ve reminded me, to be gentle, patient and kind with myself. I’ve only understood how to be hard on myself for most of my life and it’s quite strange and challenging being kind to myself. But little by little I can feel it happening at least sometimes.

 I am grateful for nature as I can feel fully safe there, something I don’t quite achieve with humans. My whole nervous system can let go in nature and there is nothing that works better for me. Even just sitting on my back lawn amongst plants and trees has a very different effect than being indoors.

Basically nature holds me. When I was a kid a used to climb to the top of the gum tree in the front yard and I felt connected up there, is the best way I can describe it. The branches were quite flimsy at the top but that didn’t worry me, even when buffeted by the wind. It was great having a view up there too. I could distance myself from any dramas going on in the house and feel like I belonged to a different world up there.

I think people will keep getting less scary over time. I’ve come a long way from where I was as a younger adult. I actually love people despite my fear of them! I think that helps sustain me as well and helps me maintain communication with people at some level even though I have strong isolating tendencies.

Both my parents undoubtedly had Complex PTSD and I actually saw a lot of courage in them trying to reach out from their limitations, including isolating tendencies of their own. While they did a lot of harm and there is no excuse for abusive behaviour, I also learnt a lot from the parts of them that were more functional and I have gratitude for the positive things they shared. I’ve had that gratitude a long time now so I’m having to learn to acknowledge the bad stuff and the very real impact it had on me. I’m kind of having to reconcile opposites that were in them that have left me with internal confusion at times. But I am working towards healing the ancestral trauma that has been passed down on both sides of the family. It feels like it heals retrospectively if that makes sense.

Thank you so very much for being so kind and providing this forum where people can safely share and connect 🙏

Very best wishes,

Eagle Ray