Follow the evidence trail

Last Friday, because of my binge purge cycle returned, T dug deeper and felt that with all the years of therapy I had that cycle has never went away. He started asking more questions about things about my mother, step father. He asked about weirdness, anything unusual. I already told him lots but told him more. He said I might not see it but I am telling a story and the evidence trail needs to be followed. He says it ends right at something really bad happened and most likely was some kind of childhood sexual abuse.

I have no memory of any act but have always felt something and it does explain a lot. I just keep trying to deny this. It was 45 years ago in the 70s. My instincts tell me I was used by my stepfather to make money in child pornography but again I have no memory.

T says the first step in dealing with this is to at least acknowledge something happened and specific memories are not needed.
I started researching and this article explains a lot for me.

I dissociated so much in session that in the beginning he suggested I had DID.

http://https://www.psychologytoday.c...-dont-disclose

[I]Another reason why many question whether they were really abused is that they may not have a clear memory of what happened. They may have only vague memories or no memories at all, just a strong suspicion based on their feelings and perhaps their symptoms. It’s difficult to believe your feelings when you have no or very few actual memories. Some people will even doubt the memories they do have, fearing that “I’m just imagining” or “I’m making this up.”

One reason why someone may have no memories or only vague memories is the common practice of victims to dissociate. Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of who he or she is. This is a normal phenomenon that everyone has experienced. Examples of mild, normal dissociation include daydreaming, “highway hypnosis,” or “getting lost” in a book or movie, all of which involve “losing touch” with an awareness of one’s immediate surroundings.

During traumatic experiences such as crime, victimization, abuse, accidents or other disasters, dissociation can help a person tolerate something that might otherwise be too difficult to bear. In situations like these, the person may dissociate the memory from the place, circumstances, and feelings caused by the overwhelming event, mentally escaping from the fear, pain, and horror of the event./I]

How do you feel about the therapist suggesting this happened to you? To me, it feels like he’s ‘leading the witness’. I have also had a t suggest this. The suggestion was upsetting to me and I chose to dismiss the notion and the therapist.

I know I am struggling.

Some of the evidence:

The entire living room wall was shelves with books. The last two rows at the bottom were filled with sex books and pornography for all the the kids to look at.

On the back of the door in my stepfathers and mothers room was a black velvet zodiac post that had pink silhouettes of sexual positions for each zodiac signs.

My stepfather would take me with him on jobs in which I rarely remember what went on.

When he was beating everyone with the metal vacuum cleaner hose he did not hit me. I believe now it was because he did not want the bruises on me.

Some other vague things. I do not think my stepfather did anything sexual to me I think he pimped me out for child pornography. Maybe soft porn and not full intercourse. Not sure that would have been possible I was a small child.

Again this is all speculation and my mind has been searching the four corners of my mind and it has dragged up all sorts of emotions I am having problems sitting with.

It is so hard. I knew my uncle had physically abused me and have some specific memories some with more detail than others. Then we had a family holiday dinner and my uncles wife announced she was pregnant. My uncle spent the rest of the evening entertaining the family with detailed stories of all the ways he abused me. I didn’t remember a single one.

However, I too think it is sketchy at best for a T to be as leading as your T seems to be. My T and I have not delved into my trauma yet but the most he will lead is “I’m wondering if men have hurt you before” (because I was uneasy with him) and when looking at my genogram he will say that there is “a lot of potential for trauma in that family dynamic”.

One caution is that your mind might be hiding this memory from your for its own reasons ( your unconscious) . Dissociation is highly indicative of abuse, and there might be memories stored in boxes in the attic of your mind or cocoons spun around memories and hidden in the basement of your unconscious- two metaphors that my T uses. It's very dangerous to remember too much at once, and the memories must be titrated so you don't get retraumitized.

I have been in therapy for 7 years with a 2 year break. I think if memories are going to emerge they would have by now.

I had DID (I'm integrated now) but I always knew I was sexually abused. It was not something that could be hidden. I had emergency room visits. There are medical records. The responsible adults in my life were very aware and talked about it. No one chose to do anything about it because I was a source of revenue. These were the days when there were no mandated reporters and this "sort of thing" was considered a someone else's problem.

Whether your therapist is accurate about you being abused, there is no way to know. If it happened you need to deal with it. If it didn't happen it will mess with your head and family relationships for the rest of your life. Be cautious.

I’m no professional and I don’t want to discount your therapist, but I could also search my memory for a few ‘clues’. I could even site some of my husband’s and my own possessions and distort them into being ‘clues’, and we were definitely not abusive toward our kids. For example; we had a Joy of Sex book in the bookshelf. I doubt my kids ever even looked in that bookshelf, nor did they care to look at that book. I think I threw it out and wasn’t even interested in it myself. I don’t even remember how we got it, but I know we did have it for a while.

What you say about the sex books may indeed be something very inappropriate and a sign of something, I don’t know, only you do. But don’t let someone else mess with your mind and steer you into false memories. That can be disasterous! You are in therapy to get better from what is hurting you, not to get worse.

My Email to him:
What I know and can acknowledge.

I was neglected emotionally

I witness violence

I was exposed to pornography as a child

I remember specific events on those.

I was intact at age 12 when the neighbor took advantage of me so I can say intercourse was not forced on me as a child.

Without full specific memories I can not bring myself to say any sexual abuse happened to me. To say that makes me feel I am doing something wrong. That I am a liar and making things up.

His Reply:

You have enough information to know bad things happened, that is all you need to know. Because it is not about remembering the images, its about helping that young version of you process this information.

The reason is feels intense is because unprocessed trauma is stored in short term memory. Anything that is stored in short term memory, by the very nature of what short term memory is, makes it feel like it is happening to you in the present day.

When you say, "its time", lets start EMDR and focus on some of these situations and begin to get them out of your short term memory - they will feel much less intense.

Remember, talking about some of these things is something we just did less than a week ago and it might be the root of the situation, which has made it hard to feel the progress you want to feel. But don't forget where you started and where you are now. In retrospect, or in 6 months from now, the last 7 years may have been preparation to handle these memories, we won't know until we do it.

I am on your time table, but you can do this, it will click, it will happen for you. I am on your side.

What does he mean by ‘know bad things happened’? Am I correctly understanding that he is implying something bad did happen and you just don’t remember it? How do you feel about him doing this?

Well did I get this way from everything being wonderful? I can not imagine me being this way because my mommy did not hug me enough.

You have bad things happen that you do remember and issues you are dealing with. I’m not clear from that phrase he said as to what he meant. Maybe I am not understanding it correctly or reading too much into it.

IDK......I am not acknowledging it or searching the four corners of my mind for further memories so it does not matter anymore.

It’s can relate to so much of what you have posted, Moxie. It’s so tough! My current strategy is to work on what I know is bothering me at present- the symptoms of these things that may have happened- versus focusing on what memories are accurate and what may or may not have happened. Hang in there!

I feel like memories are not bothering me. It is a deep core hate for myself, for life, and I feel like I am in constant grieving mode and searching for something I will never have. Seeing my T always brings the grief front and center because my child part comes right out and wants so bad to have had someone like him taking care of me when I was young. I feel so incredibly dysfunctional even though I am high functioning but on a daily basis all I do is fight with my parts to get on with life. I see my grief as tar covering a little girl.

He thinks this all comes from memories I am repressing and that sometimes memories need to stay buried.

I suffer from feelings like this, too. I have total recall about my childhood. Mine was of a father who was neglectful of me because he was withdrawn and MI and died, and a mother who was loving but pretty emotionally and verbally abusive. I’ve been struggling to feel real love from those closest to me who don’t fully give it, leaving me with that feeling you describe. It’s me longing for it, because they don’t give it where other humans do give it to their loved ones. It’s just OUR families that don’t.

Of course, you have your own experience and I am not familiar with it. I just wanted to let you know you are not alone in that feeling. My recent t said it is an attachment issue that stems back from earliest childhood.

You can have dissociation from trauma without DID. You can also have dissociative amnesia without DID too. Losing time through dissociation and doing things during that time doesn't necessarily mean you've alters. Unless he saw you switch and someone else fronted or you had enough clues in your daily life to suggest DID.

I've dissociative amnesia and have external corroboration of some of the abuse (abuse that I don't remember) and also recovered some memories spontaneously, tallying with the corroboration.

About memories, I don't think it's wise to go deliberately hunting because it could retraumatise you. But I understand wanting to know.

If there are suppressed memories, the amnesiac barriers are there for good reason. What you've already shared with your T already is trauma and you are already deserving of trauma sensitive care whether or not there was CSA.

I do not have DID....Did I say that? I know he was poking around with that last year but decided no.

I misunderstood then I thought your T was suggesting currently to you that you might have DID. My apologies.