Difficulty expressing negative emotions after abuse.

[jdcnow]

Greetings all, and I hope you're doing well. I thought about posting this in the venting thread over in Hot Topics, but came to the conclusion that this forum was more appropriate.

Backstory...
- I'm a 32 year old man
- Recovering from suicidal depression and PTSD.

- I have a severely hyper-abusive past, including physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse - everything from my older brother once pulling a gun on me at point-blank range in a blind rage, physical abuse as a child and teenager in school, being groomed as sort of an emotional husband by my mom (emotional-psychological, non-physical incest), multiple occurrences of physical sexual abuse (molestation as a child and teenager), being groomed by my mom to be socially isolated, gaslighting by both classmates in school, and by my family (a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity), and just a lot of abuse of all kinds.

- Currently on Wellbutrin XL-150 - 3 pills (450mg) once a day. Also doing regular audio therapy, and keeping a journal as part of my therapy. I go to a therapist once a week, and have been going for a year and a half.

One problem I ran into in recovery is expressing my inner anger, hurt, and long-penned-up rage. My therapist wants me to openly, visibly express my anger - cry, scream, punch a pillow - something. The only way I will heal from all of the psychiatric trauma is to experience all of these emotions.

The trouble is that when it comes to negative emotions, I am - some would argue, maddeningly - Vulcan. Very much logical, very much reserved. I'm the type of person who, when I'm truly mad and angry, I am still very much even-tempered and normally conversational, almost to the point of being poker-faced. Just walking up to me and talking with me, you would never know that inside my head, I am pretty much fit to be tied.

One of the things that worry me is that the difference between the level of negative emotions (anger, hurt, sadness, rage, etc.) lodged within my psyche that need to be released, and my outwardly visible mood...the difference between the two is almost to a Jekyll and Hyde degree. And that scares me. I don't know how I'll react, once those emotions are finally released.

I don't know, maybe I'm being irrational. But I'm more than a little worried to let my Hyde side out. Suggestions? All of this anger, rage, hurt, etc - How do I express these negative emotions in a healthy manner, to where I don't just snap, and suddenly become a danger to myself and everyone else?

Thanks very much.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

jdcnow, did the sexual abuse stop?

 

[KaraBulut]

...One of the things that worry me is that the difference between the level of negative emotions (anger, hurt, sadness, rage, etc.) lodged within my psyche that need to be released, and my outwardly visible mood...the difference between the two is almost to a Jekyll and Hyde degree. And that scares me. I don't know how I'll react, once those emotions are finally released.

I don't know, maybe I'm being irrational. But I'm more than a little worried to let my Hyde side out. Suggestions? All of this anger, rage, hurt, etc - How do I express these negative emotions in a healthy manner, to where I don't just snap, and suddenly become a danger to myself and everyone else?

The underlying question is whether this type of therapy is a good match for you. While the goal of therapy is to help you express and manage your emotions in present time, there's some question about the value of reliving old emotions from your past, especially if you find those emotions to be possibly the cause of regression in your progress.

If this prospect is something that is troubling you, then you need to have this discussion with your therapist. It is up to the therapist to provide a rationale and justification for why they want you to do this.

 

[kallipolis]

Nothing lived in Edward Hyde other than fear and hatred....if that is the psycho drama that you wish to revel in... self destruction becomes your choice....with the further thought that the so called release of repressed pain, and anger is never achieved for Mr. Hyde emerges into the life of Doctor Jekyll whose, genial personality becomes a memory gradually fading into history.

Self absorption is best dispensed with by gradually transferring ones attention, to another, or others when one ceases to concern oneself with the past, for the present moment is all one has to construct a life filled with meaning, and happiness harvested from ones relationships with those with whom one shares the present.

Carl Jung reminds us that

'it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'

.

- - - Updated - - -

The underlying question is whether this type of therapy is a good match for you. While the goal of therapy is to help you express and manage your emotions in present time, there's some question about the value of reliving old emotions from your past, especially if you find those emotions to be possibly the cause of regression in your progress.

If this prospect is something that is troubling you, then you need to have this discussion with your therapist. It is up to the therapist to provide a rationale and justification for why they want you to do this.

Excellent observation....

 

[ChickenGuy]

I get the sense that you're channeling whatever emotional narrative this therapist is telling you, perhaps without keeping it in some sort of context.

What I mean is, everyone is different, and everyone reacts in different ways. In your case, you are one of the kindest, warmest, gentlest guys on this forum. So I am not surprised you aren't raging and cursing and punching and shouting - it's just NOT you. Why should it *have* to be?

I'm not sure I buy this narrative of you having to undergo a release of this supposedly 'repressed' anger as if it was some sort of rite of passage. What if you simply have no anger? What if you've already fully accepted, and moved on?

I'm like you in that I logically self-analyse, introspectively. I also VERY rarely outwardly express anger in front of other people. If I ever DO get angry, it swirls around and festers inside but goes away in time, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, and only VERY rarely days.

*IF* there is supressed anger inside you, it will come out in its own way, and of its own accord, and at its own time, and I think you are insightful enough to know for yourself if it ever occurs.

And I doubt it will ever surface, even if it exists, at the behest and instigation of a therapist.

 

[DonQuixote]

Joe,

We are all different. The things I've gone through in my life weren't what you experienced, and I'm not a mental health care professional.

Having said that, I have to agree with a lot of what has been posted.

Perhaps you have dealt/are dealing with your past life experiences and are working them out of your system with your focus on the future.

Serving others through your work and in your personal life (your roommate) are also ways of channeling the negativity of your past into a positive future. When life sticks it up your ass, you turn it around and do more to help those who can't help themselves, rising above the negativity, and helping yourself in turn.

While I also want to enjoy life myself, part of what fulfills me is helping others - being here on this forum is a case in point.

I know the Manic-Depressive with a "hint" of OCD that I went through was a tough internal battle. I was fighting to maintain a "normal" mental state - meaning the trigger was the loss of a job of 12+ years with a family depending on me (and my wife). I was underemployed for a few years as I went back to school to finish my BS and become more of a "square peg in a square hole" for HR departments. I never reached the point where I felt Rx would help me - I'd been briefly put on ritalin or similar when I was very young - I was a zombie and my dad refused to allow it to continue. That's always been in the back of my mind.

My kids, on the other hand, are all subject to depression - they got it from both sides - and they are all on meds of one sort or another. As I said, we are all different people with different physical and mental issues that need to be addressed to meet the individuals' needs.

YOU are the only one who can evaluate what is and isnt' working for you in the long term.
I know it is contraindicated to use hypnotherapy for some mental issues. I used it successfully to quit smoking cold turkey w/out patches, but they wouldn't use it when I wanted to be able to cut the OCD ties that bound.

It took me a long time (YEARS) to be able to let go of that particular issue - I used to think of it almost non-stop every day.
Talking helped me. Not everyone I talked to wanted to hear what I was saying, though - and that's a fine line.

That's where this forum can be a great help - it lets you bear your soul in search of feedback without being unduly overbearing on a casual friend who isn't prepared for such things.

But you need to be the mediator for your own health - examine what everyone has to say - if it makes sense to you, try it out.
If it seems completely whacked, it may well be.

 

[Telstra]

I'm no expert,
but does gym help? Maybe becomes a gym junky and make you very fit as well is a good thing.
Gym releases a lot of energy and heal ... time heal mental wounds?

 

[bankside]

The trouble is that when it comes to negative emotions, I am - some would argue, maddeningly - Vulcan. Very much logical, very much reserved. I'm the type of person who, when I'm truly mad and angry, I am still very much even-tempered and normally conversational, almost to the point of being poker-faced. Just walking up to me and talking with me, you would never know that inside my head, I am pretty much fit to be tied.

One of the things that worry me is that the difference between the level of negative emotions (anger, hurt, sadness, rage, etc.) lodged within my psyche that need to be released, and my outwardly visible mood...the difference between the two is almost to a Jekyll and Hyde degree. And that scares me. I don't know how I'll react, once those emotions are finally released.

I don't know, maybe I'm being irrational. But I'm more than a little worried to let my Hyde side out. Suggestions? All of this anger, rage, hurt, etc - How do I express these negative emotions in a healthy manner, to where I don't just snap, and suddenly become a danger to myself and everyone else?

Thanks very much.

I'm pretty vulcan in my emotions. I think that is just a feature of being an introvert. I'm not one of those caricatures of people that has an emotional outburst and then "gets it all out." I'm not even sure that makes sense to me. I've heard again and again that introverts work out their feelings intellectually before they experience them (or even instead of experiencing them) with intense immediacy. For me at least, that is the case. It is also not something I would want a therapist to change, on some misguided assumption that all I need to do is have a big dramatic emotional tantrum about something and then I would somehow be better.

So my first piece of advice is to question whether you and your therapist are talking about the same thing, and whether that approach will even work for all people, and of course, whether it will work for you.

I do carry an emotional reaction to things that have happened to me, things that I've never cried or screamed or laughed about, and I am just as certain of the depth and breadth of my emotions on the subject. But I experience it mostly through a series of blunt certainties about my childhood, my parents, my grandparents, and so on. It feels less like an emotion and more like I'm the world's top expert in this subject, and I'm reading a report about something I did the experiment on myself, and I know my shit, and I could explain it to anyone who asks, and I could answer any reporter's question on the subject because I've already thought of them all.

In my family, I escaped most kinds of traumatic stupidities that family members can inflict on their child. I can talk about what did happen to me though, without any hesitation, without any uncertainty. I know who the heroes are. I know who the abominations are. I know who the hapless derp-derp-derps are. I know what it is to smile and feel a little ray of sunshine when one of the truly obnoxious fuckers dies, and then to let that by-now-irrelevant life history slip out of my mind for another few years before I have occasion to think about it again. I know what it means for someone who cares about family as much as I do to feel that way about an immediate relative. I know I've been fair in my judgment. And I can talk about all of that without my blood pressure even changing. To me, that's healthy Vulcanism.

I have a sibling however, your age, who went through at least half of the stuff you've listed, possibly more I haven't heard about, and who struggles more because of that. The bullshit in my family hit much later in my life, so I had a better idea of normal already. It made it much easier for me to say Woah, this is not me; you're the one who is fucked. Knowing the source of the problem was half the battle for me. For my sibling, living in "fucked-up-fuckery-fuckup-istan" for MOST of her adolescence, made it much more difficult to recognize the source of the problem, and harder to deal with for not having as much life experience.

Based on some of the past stuff you've posted, I wonder if you have a good idea of what normal was supposed to look like. And I wonder if you show too much patience to your family members who stopped that from happening.

For you to decide, of course, but my advice boils down to:
First, there is a vulcan way to do this, if that works for you.
Next, if you do this the vulcan way, have you even worked out/thought about/described exactly what went wrong, and what you were robbed of by these idiots.

 

[sixthson]

Hi JD. This is a big subject to discuss. I have to say you are getting great feedback here. I only have a few minutes to write something but will add more later.
I guess I will withhold my opinion of psycholgists/psychiatrists for the time being.

As someone who has been abused every way possible, I know where you come from. I wish I could tell you why I did not have rage inside me because of it, but I did have deep hurt and to this day, I deal with some painful things. Perhaps I am the typical stoic Scandinavian, but from an early age, I recall my spine going rigid when being verbally abused. It was like I was refusing to believe what was being said to me. Maybe this helped to save me, I don't know.
I do know that one of the most common reactions to abuse, especially sexual abuse, is the tendency to repress. I call it stuffing.
I stuffed many emotions so that no one else could see it. Also, self blame is common among abuse victims. When young, we assume we did something to deserve it, which then leads to self hatred. Bad behaviors can follow. Some people lash out at others, trying to hurt them like they have been hurt. Others become self destructive.

I honestly doubt beating up your pillow, your bed or some stuffed animal and standing on a cliff screaming your lungs out would provide anything more than temporary relief from stress and frustration. I seriously doubt it does even that much.
Even medication provides only partial relief. When someone grieves over the death of a loved one, medication is often prescribed. This only delays the grieving process. I realize you take it for depression and PTSD, however. But like the grieving person, you can't afford to mask your pain and hurt.

Do you actually feel rage-filled or has someone told you that you have the right to feel that way? It does not come across here and at least some of that would have appeared in your postings over the years.

 

[peeonme]

"One problem I ran into in recovery is expressing my inner anger, hurt, and long-penned-up rage. My therapist wants me to openly, visibly express my anger - cry, scream, punch a pillow - something. The only way I will heal from all of the psychiatric trauma is to experience all of these emotions."

I would ask you if you "feel" the emotions of anger and hurt or if you have a pent up rage.
I would never compare my life to yours, I can only tell you that I didn't "feel" these things until I realized that I never deserved any of what I experienced.

When our self esteem is low or non existent we have a hard time sorting out the things that hurt us from the things that don't hurt us,
I remember trying to decide if I deserved an insult that someone handed me, someone who is feeling well about who they are knows that they didn't deserve it.

We can know that we were wronged, but if we don't love ourselves, it's difficult to be angry about it, so, ask yourself, "do I have a right to be angry?" The answer should be a distinct YES.

 

[jdcnow]

Thank you to everyone for your replies, and keep them coming. I will reply to the questions I can give a short answer to first.

jdcnow, did the sexual abuse stop?

I can say that the physical sexual abuse happened in my childhood and teenage years. All I'm going to say on that, is that one perp was a family member, one wasn't. The emotional abuse has happened all throughout my childhood into my young adult years. Two things to note here - As I've stated before, the part of rural Texas where I'm from, there weren't really any jobs that paid anything worth writing home over. Life was lived paycheck to paycheck. And secondly, my early and mid 20s were during The Great Recession - Bush the crook's second term into Obama's first, when the economy was really in the ditch. Having or saving up the financial means to move away and be on my own was a pipe dream at best. At best. Hell, when I was an assistant store manager for Dollar Tree - that job only paid $9 bucks an hour. Part time. (Part time status despite working full time hours a week, so as to deny benefits - the only people who were allowed benefits were full time employees - store managers.)

I'll never forget the time my mom and I argued over me having to go to work. I technically had the day off, but still had to come in and help unload our weekly truck shipment. As such, I was on call, and had to stay by my cell phone. Late that morning, my store manager calls me that the truck is on its way to the store. I simply notified my mom that work had called me in for the truck. She immediately starts arguing with me about why I don't stay home, why I'm always gone, and that the dog was better company than I was. I'd just kind of looked at her as if she'd lost her damn mind - I'm not going joyriding. I'm not going out shopping frivolously. No, I'm going to go help unload an 18-wheeler truck. I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, but I never felt quite right about her from that moment on. Now that I'm in therapy, I now know better - she saw me as kind of an emotional husband.

In 2011, some friends asked me to help them move to immediate Dallas-Fort Worth, and invited me to relocate up here with them. I did, and the rest is history from there.

I'm no expert,
but does gym help? Maybe becomes a gym junky and make you very fit as well is a good thing.
Gym releases a lot of energy and heal ... time heal mental wounds?

Regular exercise is already apart of my life - I live exactly one mile from my current job that I've been with for 2 years, now. After walking to and back, daily, the rest of me might not look like much, but my legs are jacked as fuck. 30 minutes there, and 30 minutes back - twice a day, everyday. Rain, shine, snow, ice, or Tropical Storm Bill, I still go 5 days a week.

 

[jdcnow]

The underlying question is whether this type of therapy is a good match for you. While the goal of therapy is to help you express and manage your emotions in present time, there's some question about the value of reliving old emotions from your past, especially if you find those emotions to be possibly the cause of regression in your progress.

If this prospect is something that is troubling you, then you need to have this discussion with your therapist. It is up to the therapist to provide a rationale and justification for why they want you to do this.

Nothing lived in Edward Hyde other than fear and hatred....if that is the psycho drama that you wish to revel in... self destruction becomes your choice....with the further thought that the so called release of repressed pain, and anger is never achieved for Mr. Hyde emerges into the life of Doctor Jekyll whose, genial personality becomes a memory gradually fading into history.

Self absorption is best dispensed with by gradually transferring ones attention, to another, or others when one ceases to concern oneself with the past, for the present moment is all one has to construct a life filled with meaning, and happiness harvested from ones relationships with those with whom one shares the present.

Carl Jung reminds us that .

it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'

- - - Updated - - -

The underlying question is whether this type of therapy is a good match for you. While the goal of therapy is to help you express and manage your emotions in present time, there's some question about the value of reliving old emotions from your past, especially if you find those emotions to be possibly the cause of regression in your progress.

If this prospect is something that is troubling you, then you need to have this discussion with your therapist. It is up to the therapist to provide a rationale and justification for why they want you to do this.

Excellent observation....

I've been seeing the same therapist and using the same therapy for the past year and a half. To be fair, it has done me a world of good so far - namely that I am no longer actively suicidal. We're using cognitive behavioral therapy and studying the work of John Bradshaw (he's done a lot of research and therapy work on victims of childhood trauma).

The point in revisiting the old emotions, the psychiatric damage and the trauma...the point in releasing those emotions and reliving and addressing the mental and emotional damage is not...for lack of a better way to put it...it's not to wallow in those emotions or the pity from them. The point in releasing those repressed emotions is to address the damage once and for all, so that all of that repressed hurt, anger, rage, etc., doesn't further contaminate and destroy one's present and future life and relationships. Think of it like a ghost finally dealing with unfinished business before finally crossing over - that's the closest metaphor I can think of, at the moment. Except, apply that to humans, namely, me. That's basically what I'm trying to accomplish.

Joe,

We are all different. The things I've gone through in my life weren't what you experienced, and I'm not a mental health care professional.

Having said that, I have to agree with a lot of what has been posted.

Perhaps you have dealt/are dealing with your past life experiences and are working them out of your system with your focus on the future.

Serving others through your work and in your personal life (your roommate) are also ways of channeling the negativity of your past into a positive future. When life sticks it up your ass, you turn it around and do more to help those who can't help themselves, rising above the negativity, and helping yourself in turn.

While I also want to enjoy life myself, part of what fulfills me is helping others - being here on this forum is a case in point.

I know the Manic-Depressive with a "hint" of OCD that I went through was a tough internal battle. I was fighting to maintain a "normal" mental state - meaning the trigger was the loss of a job of 12+ years with a family depending on me (and my wife). I was underemployed for a few years as I went back to school to finish my BS and become more of a "square peg in a square hole" for HR departments. I never reached the point where I felt Rx would help me - I'd been briefly put on ritalin or similar when I was very young - I was a zombie and my dad refused to allow it to continue. That's always been in the back of my mind.

My kids, on the other hand, are all subject to depression - they got it from both sides - and they are all on meds of one sort or another. As I said, we are all different people with different physical and mental issues that need to be addressed to meet the individuals' needs.

YOU are the only one who can evaluate what is and isnt' working for you in the long term.
I know it is contraindicated to use hypnotherapy for some mental issues. I used it successfully to quit smoking cold turkey w/out patches, but they wouldn't use it when I wanted to be able to cut the OCD ties that bound.

It took me a long time (YEARS) to be able to let go of that particular issue - I used to think of it almost non-stop every day.
Talking helped me. Not everyone I talked to wanted to hear what I was saying, though - and that's a fine line.

That's where this forum can be a great help - it lets you bear your soul in search of feedback without being unduly overbearing on a casual friend who isn't prepared for such things.

But you need to be the mediator for your own health - examine what everyone has to say - if it makes sense to you, try it out.
If it seems completely whacked, it may well be.

I'm pretty vulcan in my emotions. I think that is just a feature of being an introvert. I'm not one of those caricatures of people that has an emotional outburst and then "gets it all out." I'm not even sure that makes sense to me. I've heard again and again that introverts work out their feelings intellectually before they experience them (or even instead of experiencing them) with intense immediacy. For me at least, that is the case. It is also not something I would want a therapist to change, on some misguided assumption that all I need to do is have a big dramatic emotional tantrum about something and then I would somehow be better.

So my first piece of advice is to question whether you and your therapist are talking about the same thing, and whether that approach will even work for all people, and of course, whether it will work for you.

I do carry an emotional reaction to things that have happened to me, things that I've never cried or screamed or laughed about, and I am just as certain of the depth and breadth of my emotions on the subject. But I experience it mostly through a series of blunt certainties about my childhood, my parents, my grandparents, and so on. It feels less like an emotion and more like I'm the world's top expert in this subject, and I'm reading a report about something I did the experiment on myself, and I know my shit, and I could explain it to anyone who asks, and I could answer any reporter's question on the subject because I've already thought of them all.

In my family, I escaped most kinds of traumatic stupidities that family members can inflict on their child. I can talk about what did happen to me though, without any hesitation, without any uncertainty. I know who the heroes are. I know who the abominations are. I know who the hapless derp-derp-derps are. I know what it is to smile and feel a little ray of sunshine when one of the truly obnoxious fuckers dies, and then to let that by-now-irrelevant life history slip out of my mind for another few years before I have occasion to think about it again. I know what it means for someone who cares about family as much as I do to feel that way about an immediate relative. I know I've been fair in my judgment. And I can talk about all of that without my blood pressure even changing. To me, that's healthy Vulcanism.

I have a sibling however, your age, who went through at least half of the stuff you've listed, possibly more I haven't heard about, and who struggles more because of that. The bullshit in my family hit much later in my life, so I had a better idea of normal already. It made it much easier for me to say Woah, this is not me; you're the one who is fucked. Knowing the source of the problem was half the battle for me. For my sibling, living in "fucked-up-fuckery-fuckup-istan" for MOST of her adolescence, made it much more difficult to recognize the source of the problem, and harder to deal with for not having as much life experience.

Based on some of the past stuff you've posted, I wonder if you have a good idea of what normal was supposed to look like. And I wonder if you show too much patience to your family members who stopped that from happening.

For you to decide, of course, but my advice boils down to:
First, there is a vulcan way to do this, if that works for you.
Next, if you do this the vulcan way, have you even worked out/thought about/described exactly what went wrong, and what you were robbed of by these idiots.

ChickenGuy, Don, and bankside, your points are well taken. And ChickenGuy, thanks for the kind words.

Hi JD. This is a big subject to discuss. I have to say you are getting great feedback here. I only have a few minutes to write something but will add more later.
I guess I will withhold my opinion of psycholgists/psychiatrists for the time being.

As someone who has been abused every way possible, I know where you come from. I wish I could tell you why I did not have rage inside me because of it, but I did have deep hurt and to this day, I deal with some painful things. Perhaps I am the typical stoic Scandinavian, but from an early age, I recall my spine going rigid when being verbally abused. It was like I was refusing to believe what was being said to me. Maybe this helped to save me, I don't know.
I do know that one of the most common reactions to abuse, especially sexual abuse, is the tendency to repress. I call it stuffing.
I stuffed many emotions so that no one else could see it. Also, self blame is common among abuse victims. When young, we assume we did something to deserve it, which then leads to self hatred. Bad behaviors can follow. Some people lash out at others, trying to hurt them like they have been hurt. Others become self destructive.

I honestly doubt beating up your pillow, your bed or some stuffed animal and standing on a cliff screaming your lungs out would provide anything more than temporary relief from stress and frustration. I seriously doubt it does even that much.
Even medication provides only partial relief. When someone grieves over the death of a loved one, medication is often prescribed. This only delays the grieving process. I realize you take it for depression and PTSD, however. But like the grieving person, you can't afford to mask your pain and hurt.

Do you actually feel rage-filled or has someone told you that you have the right to feel that way? It does not come across here and at least some of that would have appeared in your postings over the years.

It hasn't appeared here, because, as I have learned, apparently, I'm a master at hiding my emotions, even from those closest to me. And I do wonder if I'm hiding my emotions, or if I have been so abused and mistreated in my life that I've just numbed out to the point where I would have to be really and truly PUSHED to visibly feel those emotions. The rage, the anger, the hurt, the pain, the indignation...it's all there. No, I'm not being told that this is how I should feel, because any kind of abuse to any human being is a horrible thing. No. I really do feel angry, hurt, rageful, dispair, hatred all of that. Pretty much every negative emotion in the book is within me. The thinking is, I need to release those negative emotions in order to truly be able to move on with my life, and build my psychiatric well-being back up to where it should normally and rightfully be.

Also, I'm noticing that my social isolation, combined with all of the other years of abuse, has decimated my self-worth to the point where I don't really like being around people when I'm off work. I am at least somewhat timid - I don't know whether that's natural introvertedness, the fallout from the abuse, or, more likely, both together. But that is something else I need to work on, too.

Again, thank you, everyone.

 

[KaraBulut]

I've been seeing the same therapist and using the same therapy for the past year and a half. To be fair, it has done me a world of good so far - namely that I am no longer actively suicidal. We're using cognitive behavioral therapy and studying the work of John Bradshaw (he's done a lot of research and therapy work on victims of childhood trauma).

The point in revisiting the old emotions, the psychiatric damage and the trauma...the point in releasing those emotions and reliving and addressing the mental and emotional damage is not...for lack of a better way to put it...it's not to wallow in those emotions or the pity from them. The point in releasing those repressed emotions is to address the damage once and for all, so that all of that repressed hurt, anger, rage, etc., doesn't further contaminate and destroy one's present and future life and relationships. Think of it like a ghost finally dealing with unfinished business before finally crossing over - that's the closest metaphor I can think of, at the moment. Except, apply that to humans, namely, me. That's basically what I'm trying to accomplish.

The therapist can explain more of the rationale since he/she knows you better than we do. However, it's worth noting that CBT has become popular because it is more goal-oriented and focuses on relearning behavior in the present time. This contrasts with older therapy methods that spent a lot of time focusing on the past and trying to exhume possible past events that may or may not help change behavior in the present.

As a general rule, if something makes you uncomfortable or you feel that you're not ready to take on something in therapy, you should always speak up and make your therapist explain the rationale and how you would benefit from the therapy.

 

[Telstra]

Thank you to everyone for your replies, and keep them coming. I will reply to the questions I can give a short answer to first.



I can say that the physical sexual abuse happened in my childhood and teenage years. All I'm going to say on that, is that one perp was a family member, one wasn't. The emotional abuse has happened all throughout my childhood into my young adult years. Two things to note here - As I've stated before, the part of rural Texas where I'm from, there weren't really any jobs that paid anything worth writing home over. Life was lived paycheck to paycheck. And secondly, my early and mid 20s were during The Great Recession - Bush the crook's second term into Obama's first, when the economy was really in the ditch. Having or saving up the financial means to move away and be on my own was a pipe dream at best. At best. Hell, when I was an assistant store manager for Dollar Tree - that job only paid $9 bucks an hour. Part time. (Part time status despite working full time hours a week, so as to deny benefits - the only people who were allowed benefits were full time employees - store managers.)

I'll never forget the time my mom and I argued over me having to go to work. I technically had the day off, but still had to come in and help unload our weekly truck shipment. As such, I was on call, and had to stay by my cell phone. Late that morning, my store manager calls me that the truck is on its way to the store. I simply notified my mom that work had called me in for the truck. She immediately starts arguing with me about why I don't stay home, why I'm always gone, and that the dog was better company than I was. I'd just kind of looked at her as if she'd lost her damn mind - I'm not going joyriding. I'm not going out shopping frivolously. No, I'm going to go help unload an 18-wheeler truck. I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, but I never felt quite right about her from that moment on. Now that I'm in therapy, I now know better - she saw me as kind of an emotional husband.

In 2011, some friends asked me to help them move to immediate Dallas-Fort Worth, and invited me to relocate up here with them. I did, and the rest is history from there.



Regular exercise is already apart of my life - I live exactly one mile from my current job that I've been with for 2 years, now. After walking to and back, daily, the rest of me might not look like much, but my legs are jacked as fuck. 30 minutes there, and 30 minutes back - twice a day, everyday. Rain, shine, snow, ice, or Tropical Storm Bill, I still go 5 days a week.

That means you are very fit and will attract a lot of people in your life.

Off topic but a serious question,
How can a very fat person and cannot work survive in America ??
Who gave them the money ?