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miscmarch
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Trig Jun 08, 2020 at 09:43 PM
  #1
He's been great for helping me unlearn my maladaptive coping mechanisms, but I've been feeling unheard ever since we started moving into the cause of those mechanisms.
My history, in a nutshell, is extensive abuse from my parents (sexual, physical, emotional). My childhood through teenage reaction was to hide from everyone, myself, my parents, my extended family, other children, ectertra. I had an explosion of bad mental health from 21-23, and I'm recovering from that now.

In recovering, I've started opening up to people, started talking with my extended family more. All the meanwhile, my parents started a revisionist campaign for my childhood history. They're so eager to bring up, during holiday/weekday gatherings or in public restaurants, what "great parents" they were despite their "small mistakes" and go on to list memories that I plain do not recall, or memories I do remember, but in radically different lights. Leaving the supermarket with the groceries, but without me, becomes "being left behind for just an aisle or two". Seven year old me feeding myself (else I wouldn't eat) becomes "I hated cooking, but I did it anyway just for you!"

My response, for the past year, has been, "I don't remember it like that" My parents' response is to praise my creativity and imagination because I "over-analyze everything" and that it's "such a creative talent" that they love me for.

This feels like gaslighting, but when I told this to my therapist, he agreed that I was looking into it too much, that my parents didn't mean what I think they mean. Which confused me because my mom had literally said (and I literally told him this), "You will find a hundred different meanings behind one comment."
That stance would make sense if I wasn't abused. But I was abused (he knows this too). And I'm reacting to comments like "Oh, we just forgot about you. We were just so busy with work" when I was left waiting for them past nighttime to be picked up from school. Not something like, "I like your shoes" and thinking that they mean how sexually appealing those shoes are (foot stuff was not a part of the sexual abuse).

Furthermore, his stance is that I need to move past my parents by forgiving them. Am I crazy for thinking that that's unreasonable?
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Default Jun 08, 2020 at 11:08 PM
  #2
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Am I crazy for thinking that that's unreasonable?
You are not crazy.

Forgiveness, if it happens, arises organically. If it happens, it takes however long it takes. It isn't arbitrarily imposed by a therapist.

Quote:
This feels like gaslighting
It feels like gaslighting to me too. Your parents undermine you and your memory when they give you phony praise about your creativity.

I say stick with the way you remember things.

Quote:
but when I told this to my therapist, he agreed that I was looking into it too much, that my parents didn't mean what I think they mean
You are not "looking into it too much". You are working on your recovery.

You can best tell what your parents meant by how they acted, and are acting now, not by whatever self-justifying things they said then or are saying now.

To leave a child at school until past nighttime is terrible, it is child abuse/neglect, no matter how "busy with work" a parent might be. I'm really sorry that you had to experience that.

To leave a child behind at a supermarket is child abuse/neglect. Even to leave a child behind for an aisle or two is something for a parent to apologize at great lengths for, not something to make light of. I'm sorry that you had to deal with that.

I'm surprised and disappointed to hear that your therapist would be pushing you the way he is, rather than listening to you nonjudgmentally and affirming you and how you choose to handle things. Maybe it is time to consider a changing therapists?
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Default Jun 09, 2020 at 06:14 AM
  #3
You are not crazy

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Default Jun 14, 2020 at 11:56 AM
  #4
Jees. When you wrote about the therapist thinking you need to forgive your parents... I didn't like that. Especially when there's been sexual abuse, which is pretty obvious serious abuse (you don't need more details to know this).

I'd ditch this therapist he is actually adding to the problem. ...I would even recommend that you look into reading books by Alice Miller: she details how messed up many, INCLUDING therapists, in society are when it comes to condoning abuse of children by parents. ...She calls it "poisonous pedagogy" and it can be a revelation for many family of origin abuse recoverers to read about.

...NO YOU ARE NOT NUTS. YOU ARE THE SANE ONE! ...If there is ONE thing that my experience of abuse within my family has taught me it is this: Just because "the group" says it isn't wrong, does not make this a reality!!" ...So, don't let the mob dictate to you what is sane, because the mob can ne wrong and IS shown to have been at times verifiably wrong and insane! ...A lot of the experience of being an abuse recoverer is about believing in your own voice and the value of it.

Also, I just noticed: that term "Abuse Recoverer" (I used it because I liked it better than "Abuse Survivor") and it's neat because "recovery" means both healing from something as well as bringing something to light.

Your parents are most likely trying to salvage their reputation with your extended family.
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Default Jun 14, 2020 at 04:38 PM
  #5
There are a lot of terrible therapists out there, but there are good ones too. If it feels like he’s mistreating you I’d recommend leaving.

Also you do not have to forgive them, they did terrible things to you. If you choose to forgive that is your choice and should be decided entirely by you, not anyone else.
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Default Jun 16, 2020 at 10:18 AM
  #6
The most popular type of therapy these days is CBT. I definitely believe that CBT is very valuable. That said, I have a problem with it because it can take the quick-fix route and avoid dealing with the underlying issues. Sooner or later those issues will re-emerge.

It's kind of like this...if your tooth needs a crown and a crown is placed on the tooth without thoroughly cleaning out the tooth before placing the crown, the crown won't solve the real problem.

That said, does your T use CBT without getting into trauma therapy?

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