trauma and what its left me with

hey guys, going to put a trigger warning on this as it will talk about abuse/self harm/memories etc.

how do you explain to someone that although you are standing in the middle of town you are in fact being squashed by him and can feel him breathing and what he doing to you? this is a problem that I think a lot of survivors have experienced, that the body remembers. It remembers all the hurt, both physically and mentally, and I personally don't seem to have any control over when this happens and it is an extremely stressful and frightening experience. People will tell me that its not happening now, that he's not there that it was the past. but for me it is now, I am reliving every signal breath that I felt from him on top of me, crushing me.

The body does remember, as does the mind and every single sense that you have. and it is completely frightening. suddenly you can smell something that takes you straight back to the time of the trauma...and that isn't exclusively to survivors' of abuse, but any major trauma. I have also been in a fire 6 years go now, and I remember very little of it, but recently I have been smelling of burning, burning hair mainly, which is what happened. whatever the trauma it is still incredibly scary.

I was systematically abused from the age of 5 right until I was an adult in my late 20s, and my way to cope with it at the time was to learn to dissociate from the hurt that was being done to me. it doesn't mean that it didn't mess me up any less, but I coped and I survived. different people have different experiences of dissociation and even I have a couple. one of which is I am watching myself, but from a 3rd party, and the other one is just to completely loose time. for me personally this is dangerous as I don't know what I have done, and have found out when I have "come round", I can have been out and realised I have no idea where I have come from or know how I have got there, or have self harmed or a number of other scenarios. have you ever driven home and suddenly realised your there? its a bit like that but on a much bigger scale.

The dissociation started out  (when the abuse was happening) it was a useful coping strategy it got me through and somehow I am still alive today. it allowed me to completely get away from what was happening to me, at some points on a daily basis, but not to forget this is where the body memories' come in for me. Your body is amazing, and it does these things for a reason, I truly believe for me I have to begin to deal with what actually happened and the emotional side to it to.

I don't know what love is! it is such a foreign idea to me. I avoid my all emotions as much as I can, I rarely show anger, and if I do its on doors etc. rather than other people. I am scared that when I dissociate that this is when it comes out. its all around control, I have to feel in control because for so much of my life I have been out of control, I haven't been able to control my body as it has been damaged so much (mainly mentally). this is why the dissociation scares me so much cause I am not in control of it. the imprint of the abuse means that I still don't know all the triggers that lead me to either dissociate or have flashbacks. its something that is going to take a long time to realise things that make me loose control.

I have this anagram about trauma and how you respond: the trauma is an earthquake, which shakes your foundations, and over time there are aftershocks, often a lot (flashbacks/reliving it), but these become less and less over time, and eventually the ground stabilizes enough that you can start rebuilding (your life).

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rebuilding+your+life+after+abuse&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=U-sTUsyKI8ru0gW5_4DACw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=768#fp=347271752bf85449&q=hurt&tbm=isch&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=iZowUCbuJiS4AM%3A%3BYwRhu_WO77oZiM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ftrulylovable.com%252Fmedia%252F531-have-you-ever-been-hurt.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ftrulylovable.com%252Fget%252Fromantic-wallpapers%252Fbroken-hearts-wallpapers%252Fhave-you-ever-been-hurt.htm%3B1024%3B768

why i hurt myself

hey guys,

I thought that I would write a post around why I do certain behaviours, that many see as maladaptive or weird. This has come about as because the weather has been hot and I have dared to go out in a t-shirt, and people do stare. my arms in particular a mess from years and years of self harm through cutting. but people don't get it.

The first time I ever cut myself I was 12. by this point I was already deeply disturbed teenager, I had been being abused by my dad for the past 7 years and it was still going on. we had also moved again, and I started high school in the middle (Jan) of the first year, and was being systematically bullied. I wanted out, or at least that's how it felt at the time, looking back now I think I wanted someone to help. I tried cutting my wrists, and although they were only little scratches they gave me such a relief, a calmness I hadn't had in a very long time came over me.

over the next 6 years I was self harming irregularly, to get through school and home, always somewhere no one would see (usually my ankles) I didn't want the attention. I just wanted to cope till I could go to uni.

it wasn't until I just turned 18 and was put on seroxat as my eating had gotten really bad that the self harm escalated to daily, and then a couple of years later I was regularly in A&E.

One thing I want to get across that this isn't a "teenage craze" it takes some kind of need to hurt yourself.

for me its a lot of the time harm minimisation. I still have a lot of thought to take overdoses and other more risky things, and self harm helps me reduce the need. it never goes away. I mean I have only OD once in the last 18 months (a huge deal for me) but at the moment I am finding I am particularly struggling with it.

I'll try an explain it another way. I have two parts of me, one that wants to live and keep fighting to get at him but another who finds everything so scary that she thinks the only way out is to die. these two argue, but often agree to cut before thinking about taking tablets, and 9 times out of 10 this works.  its just like the angel and devil on your shoulders.

Simply I cut to stay alive. many people would find this concept weird. but to me its my life.

I am slightly abnormal within people who self harm as I am now 31, many people apparently "grow out of it" by the time that they are 25, well they find another coping mechanism that works for them. I have had years and years of behavioural therapy, but at the moment I find cutting is the best way to keep going. I'm not saying I never want to stop because I do.

I am not say thing that I am the same as I was when I was 18, a hell of a lot has gone on since then, and in the couple of years.

Cutting for me is a coping mechanism, I feel that I am evil, and this is a way to punish me, its a way to hurt myself in a way I am in control - which I feel completely out of control with, because of the sexual abuse that I suffered.

I like to think that my scars are a map of my survival, its not been easy, is been friggin hard, but I am fighting still and its helped me in this position now.