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HD7970GHZ
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Default Feb 09, 2019 at 08:22 PM
  #1
Hi everyone,

Anyone ever reach out for help only to be retraumatized or revictimized? I wonder how many experience this.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

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Default Feb 10, 2019 at 01:27 PM
  #2
The first person who tried to help me was an abuser himself and I became his victim. At that time, I used to get physically and emotionally abused by sister and needed to get out of my parents’ home. I met that guy through a friend and we became friends and then he invited me to live with him. I basically jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. He beat me a lot more and was stronger than my sister. He emotionally also broke me with teasing me constantly and controlling my every move. I think the issue is some narcissit prey on victims and pretend they are helping us just to do the opposite.
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Default Feb 10, 2019 at 04:20 PM
  #3
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Originally Posted by HD7970GHZ View Post
Hi everyone,

Anyone ever reach out for help only to be retraumatized or revictimized? I wonder how many experience this.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz
Yes, I think it's fairly common from what I have read. I mostly got re-traumatized by therapists who were too much like the fakish, codependent "nice ladies" I grew up with, and that I can be like, too. Ugh. I loved my family, don't like "speaking ill" of them, some are dead. It just was what it was. I didn't have any close fellow female friends after I got an eating disorder when I was a teenager. I stayed "safely" away from other females. So I guess the "re-enactment" that some people do with other relationships in life, I ended up doing with therapists. They were the "experts" I thought, it was therapy so OK and "safe", so I thought. I was wrong and got hooked.

I think it's horribly sucky that the therapists didn't realize it when I didn't/couldn't realize it either. How one can get "in touch" with that stuff, and "over it", without therapy, I don't know. Fortunately or unfortunately the last therapist rejected me, it was horribly disorienting, destabilizing, and re-tramatizing BUT 6 months later I did connect that feeling up with some I had had as a child and forgotten/repressed/dissociated. And have managed, with great difficulty, to make it on my own, with support from this forum and some other real life support groups.

I've read that repetition and reenactment is a way the psyche has to try redo and master a situation that was hurtful in the past. Sure wish there was a more direct way that it could do that! Or a way that other people could help that process go faster -- because, for me, therapy didn't much. It just kept me going round and round, like a hamster on a wheel.
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Default Feb 10, 2019 at 07:45 PM
  #4
I think this is an important topic to talk about. I can relate to the comments above.
I met my ex at a time when I was going through a lot of changes in my life. I was feeling vulnerable and lost and she tried to help me at first; but it was only for her own interest.
I'd feel obligated to do anything she wanted because I felt like I owed her something after all that she had done.
I generally tend to feel like I don't deserve the good things that happen to me. She knew this, and she would use it to manipulate me and make me do anything she wanted.
As @Abusedbysister said, I think this might be something common between manipulative and abusive people. They idealize you, give you all sorts of positive attention and try to help you every way they can; so that you feel like you need them or owe them something and can't say no to them.

I've also felt retraumatized in therapy. I was excessively attached to my first therapist, and the whole relationship with her felt like re-living the relationship dynamics I had with my father when I was a kid.
She was too focused on being "neutral" with me, to a point where she would just be cold and distant.
I used to see her as an authority figure and I'd desperately try to gain her approval.
She would never do any kind of introspection, and every time therapy wasn't working it would just be my fault.
At that time I'd just assume that just because she was the therapist she was right and I was wrong. I was so blind... I stayed in therapy with her for too long, and it did me more harm than good.

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Default Feb 10, 2019 at 09:05 PM
  #5
Yes. Unfortunately, there are people skilled in doing this. They look for people needing help. They are truly dangerous. Then there are people who harm out of ignorance. They want to help. Don't know how...this includes some therapists I've had....or know how & for some reason don't do it right.
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Default Feb 11, 2019 at 06:02 AM
  #6
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Originally Posted by HD7970GHZ View Post
Hi everyone,

Anyone ever reach out for help only to be retraumatized or revictimized? I wonder how many experience this.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz
Can you give me an example? I do not want to trigger you I am sort of new here and have seen you reference this but havent seen any general info and I do not want to comment or be insensitive if I do not understand.

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Default Feb 11, 2019 at 08:34 AM
  #7
If you mean with professional help, that can happen. I found it better to specifically seek out a therapist who specializes in my problems. It was more helpful for me.

Is there a way for you to work on building inner defenses so you can be protected in these situations?
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Default Feb 11, 2019 at 09:09 PM
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If you mean with professional help, that can happen. I found it better to specifically seek out a therapist who specializes in my problems. It was more helpful for me.

Is there a way for you to work on building inner defenses so you can be protected in these situations?
Inner defenses? Can you give an example?
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Default Feb 12, 2019 at 06:31 PM
  #9
Yes!! I have both when I reached out for psychological challenges as well as health challenges. And then when I reached out for legal help the lawyer I had was mentally declining and in denial and I could not find any other lawyer to help me because every one I contacted knew him and did not want anything to do with helping me by having to take on my case and deal with him. It had to get real bad and I finally did find a lawyer who helped me but the damage he caused had a bad affect on my case.
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Default Feb 12, 2019 at 08:38 PM
  #10
I don't know if this counts as "retraumatizing"
But I have been "re-victimized" by someone in a position to "help" me.

Possible trigger:
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Default Feb 13, 2019 at 10:58 AM
  #11
((Esmme)), that's terrible/horrific, did you report what that man did? It's very traumatic when one is struggling so badly and they end up getting taken advantage of or somehow abused even more. And the abuser uses one's challenged state of mind against them too.
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Default Feb 13, 2019 at 04:42 PM
  #12
I did not report him...
I should have, but I was too scared.

It's probably too late now too, as I don't remember his name
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Default Feb 13, 2019 at 06:49 PM
  #13
If you remember the date they can probably look up the records of who worked that day. In all honesty, you should report it so they can get a heads up so this guy doesn't get a chance to do this to someone else.
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Default Feb 14, 2019 at 12:46 AM
  #14
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Originally Posted by HD7970GHZ View Post
Hi everyone,

Anyone ever reach out for help only to be retraumatized or revictimized? I wonder how many experience this.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz
YES. I got hooked by a narc during the most vulnerable time of my life.

But even with the non-narcs, I've noticed that there are a few folks out there who feel "entitled" to control you if they help you.

So I now I am extra cautious with asking someone for help.
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Default Feb 14, 2019 at 12:50 AM
  #15
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Originally Posted by Esmme View Post
I don't know if this counts as "retraumatizing"
But I have been "re-victimized" by someone in a position to "help" me.

Possible trigger:
What a SICK man...may the higher power vindicate you for what you had to go through.
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Default Feb 14, 2019 at 12:51 AM
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If you remember the date they can probably look up the records of who worked that day. In all honesty, you should report it so they can get a heads up so this guy doesn't get a chance to do this to someone else.
I agree. He needs to be held accountable so there will be no more victims of his!
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Default Feb 14, 2019 at 05:38 PM
  #17
Yes I have experienced this

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Default Feb 14, 2019 at 10:55 PM
  #18
Btw, being retraumatized by the same person is also possible. Like he or she hoovers you after months or years have passed, appearing to be a "changed" person. Then you eventually find out there has been no change at all.
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