Posted by daisym on November 5, 2004, at 16:29:40
In reply to Struggling to talk about childhood abuse, posted by Poet on November 5, 2004, at 14:15:15
Poet,
First, I want to say I'm so sorry you are hurting. I totally understand the desire to bury all the bad stuff. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.There is no one way to do it...I think everyone has their own tricks. It felt especially hard for me because I had never talked about it...told my husband two sentences, and that was it. And it wasn't even what I went into therapy for. I think we started with really big broad phrases..."I was sexual abused," I didn't even say by whom. It took lots of tries and sometimes I would just sit in tears. But eventually more and more pieces got put together and I would write down whole events and bring them and read them. I didn't read them outloud at first, I gave them to him to read. It still isn't easy to say any of the words.
I've written about this here before, but we did an exercise where he had me tell him about my childhood homes...what did my bedroom look like, where was mom's room, etc. These descriptions brought up powerful emotions, and released lots of the memories that had been stored. Maybe if you start talking about your brother in general...what you did together, why he was mean to you, it might spark things. I'd tell you just let go and let it out, but that didn't work for me.
I would also recommend the workbook that goes with "Courage To Heal" It has really good exercises to help you through this. We did many of the exercises together, during sessions.
Don't push yourself too hard. But this is a horrible weight to be carrying around by yourself. My therapist said that to me this week, it is an impossible task for one person, but together we can get through it. Let her help you not feel so alone with it.
poster:daisym
thread:412239
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041104/msgs/412303.html