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Trig Mar 22, 2019 at 10:34 AM
  #1
So I've been running from my past for a good 10-20 years, in an effort to escape from the pain of things I do not want to remember. It subtly affects me on a daily basis. Recently I decided it was time to stop running away. It's killing me though. A little bit every day. I am remembering more and more things I don't want that happened directly to me or indirectly. Still feeling like I have more uncovering to do. Please know that sharing this in this board is extremely difficult and at points triggering for me. I'll list below what is disturbing me.

TRIGGER WARNING:

Possible trigger:

Last edited by Findingreason; Mar 22, 2019 at 01:18 PM..
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Default Mar 22, 2019 at 11:14 AM
  #2
I am so sorry. Thank you for being brave enough and trusting enough to share that here.

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Default Mar 22, 2019 at 03:18 PM
  #3
I am sorry you are struggling so much with this right now. You probably are at a place where you can finally sit and heal. When we are younger we simply don't know how to interprit all the things we experience. A dysfunctional home environment can become what a child and even young adult "thinks" is normal. Then with more life experience and gaining more knowledge, it can stop us in our tracks where we can remember things we lived through that we now can see were very toxic, even dangerous more so than we realized.

Please make sure you are patient with yourself. Do your best to not judge yourself and realize all you were capable of was just doing your best to thrive in the environment you grew up in. Flashbacks are scary and confusing, and they can be intrusive and catch a person completely off guard, that's what I myself experienced. It's not your fault that is happening to you either, each time you experience one, always make sure you say, "yes I remember that, but it's not happening to me now, I am ok now". That significantly reduces how strong they are. Remember, this is about finally healing, finding your own personal sense of safety and gradually healing so you can finally grow as a person despite all these toxic experiences you had in your past. It's different for everyone some heal faster than others, it's not a matter of how fast you heal or how long it takes, the only thing that really matters is you are on a path to healing.

It's really brave to share, even when you do it anonymously. It's often brave in that some people have been literally brainwashed into thinking its wrong to share their feelings and hurts and personal challenges. Abusive parents give orders and don't allow you to talk back, so many people have that buried deep in their subconscious mind. Some individuals have more garbage to sort through than others. The goal is to work on sorting yourself out and learning how to gradually own your own life. It's not really a line you suddenly cross, it's alway a path towards healing, learning, gaining, growing and deciding your own life path despite what others think or say.
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Default Mar 22, 2019 at 03:39 PM
  #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by Open Eyes View Post
I am sorry you are struggling so much with this right now. You probably are at a place where you can finally sit and heal. When we are younger we simply don't know how to interprit all the things we experience. A dysfunctional home environment can become what a child and even young adult "thinks" is normal. Then with more life experience and gaining more knowledge, it can stop us in our tracks where we can remember things we lived through that we now can see were very toxic, even dangerous more so than we realized.
Quote:
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Please make sure you are patient with yourself. Do your best to not judge yourself and realize all you were capable of was just doing your best to thrive in the environment you grew up in. Flashbacks are scary and confusing, and they can be intrusive and catch a person completely off guard, that's what I myself experienced. It's not your fault that is happening to you either, each time you experience one, always make sure you say, "yes I remember that, but it's not happening to me now, I am ok now". That significantly reduces how strong they are. Remember, this is about finally healing, finding your own personal sense of safety and gradually healing so you can finally grow as a person despite all these toxic experiences you had in your past. It's different for everyone some heal faster than others, it's not a matter of how fast you heal or how long it takes, the only thing that really matters is you are on a path to healing.

It's really brave to share, even when you do it anonymously. It's often brave in that some people have been literally brainwashed into thinking its wrong to share their feelings and hurts and personal challenges. Abusive parents give orders and don't allow you to talk back, so many people have that buried deep in their subconscious mind. Some individuals have more garbage to sort through than others. The goal is to work on sorting yourself out and learning how to gradually own your own life. It's not really a line you suddenly cross, it's alway a path towards healing, learning, gaining, growing and deciding your own life path despite what others think or say.
Open Eyes, thank you so much for your reply and thoughts. This means a lot. I am indeed in an overall good state of being as of late and decided its time to uncover my past and heal. I do struggle a lot with judging myself though. I feel like I am bad talking my parents, my life, my environment, spreading false info, and am guilty of all sorts of bad things. Like trying to tackle this is a crime of sorts. It hurts a LOT. I didn’t realize it was this bad until I opened Pandora’s Box.

There’s a whole lot more I don’t feel safe about. I am trying to understand why. As mentioned in my first post, I suspect there is more going on I still need to remember and uncover. But I’d rather not share those details. Too painful for me right now. I often never feel safe in public. I watch my back all the time. I am cautious. It’s scary for me.

I am strong, I know I am. I will get through this. Again, thank you for your reply.
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Default Mar 22, 2019 at 08:25 PM
  #5
Be gentle with yourself. Don't push for more memories. You're very brave to see the T and tell him what happened to you. Please let your memories come to you slowly as not to flood you . Stay safe Hugs

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Default Mar 22, 2019 at 10:11 PM
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I feel like I am bad talking my parents, my life, my environment, spreading false info, and am guilty of all sorts of bad things. Like trying to tackle this is a crime of sorts.
Children are often taught not to speak badly of their parents. That's often where this feeling of guilt comes from when sitting and being honest about what experiences you had with them. Also, children are often drilled about behaving a certain way in public and they often see their parents behave differently in public then they do at home in private.

Quote:
I often never feel safe in public. I watch my back all the time. I am cautious. It’s scary for me.
I always was looking over my shoulder, thought that was normal but it's not. Turned out there were a lot of reasons for that I had not realized.

Being uncomfortable in public, especially noisy public places tends to be a common symptom of PTSD. I can't sit in noisey crowded restaurants, it overloads my senses. I don't like going into crowded stores either. I like outside, "space" and "nature" gives me comfort, just read recently that is common with ptsd sufferers too.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 11:08 AM
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 12:09 PM
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Children are often taught not to speak badly of their parents. That's often where this feeling of guilt comes from when sitting and being honest about what experiences you had with them. Also, children are often drilled about behaving a certain way in public and they often see their parents behave differently in public then they do at home in private.


I always was looking over my shoulder, thought that was normal but it's not. Turned out there were a lot of reasons for that I had not realized.

Being uncomfortable in public, especially noisy public places tends to be a common symptom of PTSD. I can't sit in noisey crowded restaurants, it overloads my senses. I don't like going into crowded stores either. I like outside, "space" and "nature" gives me comfort, just read recently that is common with ptsd sufferers too.

So true. My parents did not like to be "disrespected". They still are that way today. I feel like they are watching me whenever I talk about this stuff, even though I know they do not.


I'm still not fully understanding why I watch my back so much in public...yet. It's probably rooted somewhere. "Space" and "nature" help me too. I love going to my in law's summer cabin cause its in the middle of nowhere and everything is super quiet and peaceful. Noise bothers me too. Especially shrill and shouting kinds.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 01:45 PM
  #9
This guy you explained as a friend? It's important that you discover what you consider safe simply because it's "familiar". This guy was not someone you should be gravitating towards as a friend, the familiar that stands out to me is his comfort in invading boundaries and how comfortable he is with yelling etc., around you. You were still young and naive in college when that happened. Keep in mind that remembering these different experiences doesn't mean you need to feel bad or guilty, it just means you made a choice that was not healthy for you and a lot of that had to do with just not knowing at the time and thinking it was normal because of your history and it was "familiar" to you.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 06:36 PM
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This guy you explained as a friend? It's important that you discover what you consider safe simply because it's "familiar". This guy was not someone you should be gravitating towards as a friend, the familiar that stands out to me is his comfort in invading boundaries and how comfortable he is with yelling etc., around you. You were still young and naive in college when that happened. Keep in mind that remembering these different experiences doesn't mean you need to feel bad or guilty, it just means you made a choice that was not healthy for you and a lot of that had to do with just not knowing at the time and thinking it was normal because of your history and it was "familiar" to you.

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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 09:14 PM
  #11
It was nice that your wife was listening to you when you shared that and pointed that out to you.

From what you have shared of your parents, even your mother your boundaries were not respected. You are not betraying your parents when you work on understanding your history with them and realizing the bad parenting skills, lack of knowledge they had with you. Our parents teach us so much that we just don't realize. They can contribute a great deal to how we feel about ourselves, what relationships we are supposed to accept as we watch them interact with each other. It's not surprising so many don't really know how to have a realtionship tbh. Many in their early forties and thirties have parents that divorced and really don't understand "why" either.

So many think they are supposed to know about what they want and who they are when they graduate from high school. But at that age, it's not something many really know at all. That's why it's important to make sure you don't judge yourself harshly while you work through figuring out whatever is there in your history that affected you more than you realized.
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