Healing from abuse... time schedules

The time schedule. How to recover and heal from abusive and unbalanced parental units. (And others in that “family”) How am I to be grateful towards others who also abused me in the name of “helping”. How am I to be grateful towards those who made me into a “bad object” as did my parental units.

I don’t wish to give many details here of the “family” of origin. I can say they treated me far worse than they treated a piece of their furniture. And valued me for less.

As far as being “confronted” in therapy, the senior and very well paid clinician who brutally confronted me (repeatedly) was confronting and judging “coping mechanisms” which were harmless and even positive... to me and my husband. . And which did not harm anyone

Another senior and well paid clinician did the same, but in a very short time. And their words did not “agree” with each other.

Puzzled and sad
A friend of Winnie the Pooh

I'm sorry bad things happened to you Fuzzy.

The only thing you can do is process the feelings, make sense of it, and move on. I'm not sure where you're at, but moving on can be freeing when you get there. Take care.

Hang in there Fuzzy. There is no timeline.
Besides, bears don't wear wristwatches. Things will come around when they are supposed to.

So sorry you experienced abuse from those in power and your family
I don’t think there is any timeline for healing, it’s not linear!
With my own healing it’s ongoing. In fact it will probably last a lifetime. Take as long as you need, no when can tell you you how long you need to heal from this

Hugs there is no time line for healing from abuse. I don't even know if we fully recover. No one should be putting a time line on healing it's impossible. Take as long as you need. Gentle hugs

I agree... that’s where some people go wrong. Imposing their time limits.
I would say more but don’t .....
Trails off into the forest (for now)
Hugs

I wonder why you ask about how to be grateful. Did the Ts or other professionals suggest you need to work on being grateful? Or is it something you learned in your family?

I find that feeling gratitude can be positive and life-enhancing when it's a genuine feeling and genuinely applied to something good. But I'm not sure it is at all helpful when thinking about an abusive situation. That's normally something which was awful and shouldn't have happened, rather than anything to be grateful for. And the idea that you 'should be grateful ' would then just be another layer of things to be upset about.

No sure if it's a helpful reply. I hope you feel better

I agree, I don’t feel grateful for abuse.. or to abusers that isn’t helpful

I hve spent 8 years walking the internal wilderness and i am jow just finding trails leading to the things i need to talk about. How long is a piece of string or my t says as long as it akes. I still want impose limits on myself

It sounds like you have a “good” therapist

I didn’t spot some obvious red flags.. I guess they weren’t all that obvious..until ....

So still lost here

For me, I don't think it's so much a matter of time as being able to get to the core and the extent of the pain. And that has required for me, it feels like, enough of a safe-feeling social environment in the current time. A "good enough" accepting social environment, and my ability to feel that, through enough interactions to contrast with what my internal experience is set to expect.

Therapy, and therapists, did not provide that, for me. And I think Budfox has a good perspective on why that can't or doesn't happen, at least for me and perhaps others. The "relationship" isn't "real" and I knew that "deep down", even if I didn't at the surface level I was operating in.

So, I'd guess -- how much time do you need in this space, and perhaps others, in order to feel just minimally, a smidgen, "accepted" for who you are?

As for gratitude -- I can feel it, genuinely, sometimes now in the present, for people and things that happen in the present. It feels good, and I believe it's a good "start". If I feel grateful later for other things, or if I don't, that's for that time, not now, not until it's its "time".

Thanks for the thoughtful post

I would like to know the same answer. I am 65 years old and still deal with the ramifications of emotional abuse. The physical abuse was nothing compared to the emotional abuse.