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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 13:13:22
Anybody can share how they went about recovering from csa? Is it worthwhile? Can you ever fully recover?
My T thinks I did have it. She says my father's actions constituted towards it, even though he didn't intend it that way. She says cases like mine are especially hard because it is difficult to diagnose it and blame when the other party is well intentioned. She says that I is why I have all the anger and hurt and hatred turned towards my own body.
Courage to heal is one choice. If I don't want to read this book, are there any other ways?
Posted by Tamar on June 9, 2005, at 18:54:11
In reply to Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger*, posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 13:13:22
> Anybody can share how they went about recovering from csa? Is it worthwhile? Can you ever fully recover?
>
> My T thinks I did have it. She says my father's actions constituted towards it, even though he didn't intend it that way. She says cases like mine are especially hard because it is difficult to diagnose it and blame when the other party is well intentioned. She says that I is why I have all the anger and hurt and hatred turned towards my own body.
>
> Courage to heal is one choice. If I don't want to read this book, are there any other ways?I think one possibility is to (gently) suspend your disbelief and read a few things online. If you focus on the effects that you are living with now rather than on the substance of the abuse it might be more helpful to you at the moment. In other words, look at your symptoms and how people with experience of csa deal with them, without necessarily feeling you have to put any labels on yourself.
Posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 19:39:52
In reply to Re: Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger* » pinkeye, posted by Tamar on June 9, 2005, at 18:54:11
That is a good suggestion. The only thing she keeps wanting me to do is to be able to feel anger towards my dad. And blame him. She wants me to do it very much, and I find myself trying to do that (I have tried it in babble many times) but keep feeling unable to do that much. And she honestly wants me to somehow access all the anger that I have inside me - the rage and anger and hatred and guilt that I feel towards my own body and somehow let it out. I don't know how to access it. I am usually pretty good in accessing my emotions, but this one - I am not able to.
Posted by Poet on June 9, 2005, at 22:23:47
In reply to Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger*, posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 13:13:22
Hi pinkeye,
It took me over a year in therapy to admit CSA. Something triggered it and I finally admitted it and stopped denying it when my T asked me. I actually called her to tell her.
Therapy for me means going slow. Very slow when it comes to CSA. Talk about what you can. Even if it's just to acknowledge what happened. I did feel relief when I finally told her what she suspected was true.
I don't want to talk about CSA in therapy right now, and she isn't pushing me. She told me that when I want to talk again, that I should bring it up.
We did talk about anger and blame. It's okay to be angry at my family and to blame them, I should never blame myself.
((((pinkeye))))
Poet
Posted by daisym on June 10, 2005, at 1:17:23
In reply to Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger*, posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 13:13:22
I've come back to your post three times now and it finally strikes me what is bothering me about it...why is your therapist trying to convince you that you should be angry at your dad? If you don't feel angry, then you don't feel angry. There are no "shoulds" (so I'm told) but just what is.
I've said this before...
I was in therapy probably 9 months before I said anything about my childhood, besides the basic parental divorce stuff. And then one day I wanted to tell. I worried myself sick trying to figure out why I wanted to tell. And then I was really sick after I told. And I told this really small thing in very broad terms.
We spent the next few weeks trying to figure out why I needed to tell him, what was I looking for? And then we talked a lot about what going into the past might do, what I was looking to accomplish and if the current depression was connected to this in any way. My therapist didn't jump right in and say, "yup, let's drag this all up, it is the ONLY way for you to feel better." In fact, he warned me that many people feel much worse for awhile when doing deep work. That given all the other stress in my life, perhaps this wasn't the time. He felt that only if all these memories were pushing up on their own and interfering with my functioning should we undertake the examination. Having nightmares and flashbacks sort of sealed the deal. I couldn't ignore it anymore.
But...it is a spiral process, at least for me. I tell some of the stories, we talk about my feelings and we talk a lot about how I relate to other people because of what happened. I've said more than once that all the books tell me I'm supposed to be angry, but I don't feel angry, just sad. He always responds by reassuring me that whatever I'm feeling is fine, as long as I'm honest with myself about it. Anger has flared up now and again and it is a very scary thing for me. And he never makes me feel like he expects me to confront my own anger or forgive, or make peace or anything else. He doesn't lead me, at least not very often, he just sort of pushes left or right to keep me from completely falling off the path I'm on.
This is a really long way to say that I don't think this is something you recover from. I think you learn to live with whatever ripple effects it has had or is having on your life. I would ask your therapist what is the outcome we are working towards by talking about this stuff? If you have a relationship with your dad, and it is pretty OK, the focus should be on your feelings about your body and how to feel better about that, not how to feel worse about your dad. You DON'T have to accept and label whatever happened to you as csa. It might have been, I don't know the details. Only you can say that. Some people are traumatized by having seen pornography, others by being touched and others by full sexual assaults. A less sensitive person might not label the first two as csa, but a very sensitive person could be very effected by "just" pictures. And research tells us that the real factor in the long term effect of trauma is about what happens AFTER -- did a child receive comfort and care and safety from some trusted adult?
I think you do have to accept that you feel bad about certain things and are therefore causing some harm to yourself because of these feelings. But I would try to begin to focus on the feelings and the harm, instead of on the label and blame. I hope I'm saying this right. It isn't that I don't recognize the importance of admitting what happened to you or the possibility that you are defending someone because you are afraid to be angry at them. But I truly believe you have to come to this in your own time as you become open to listening to the hurt inside. Because as I said in the above thread, there are rarely (if ever) great big moments in which you will scream out, "YES< I'M ANGRY, OK?! He did a terrible thing to me and I'M ANGRY ABOUT IT!" And then sob, and then get up, say a heartfelt thanks to your therapist and feel recovered. It just doesn't work like that. Acknowledgement and discovery are the first steps on a very long path.
The thing I hardly ever see talked about is that this process might involve losing all over again. If you've rebuilt a relationship with your dad and you unravel this stuff, that relationship gets threatened. And that makes us sad in the here and now. My therapist helped me articulate this very thing today: I love my dad and inside me that love exists and is important to me. I'm in a horrible middle place of not understanding why he did what he did and wondering if he feels bad about it or if he even thinks about it. So being around him is scary and triggering and all sorts of other stressful things. And mixed in is an incredible sadness from the youngest part of me that she can't reach up to her daddy for comfort and love right now. I was glad my therapist could hold that and understand that and not tell me I should hate the guy. He said it important to talk about the good things I remember too. It is hard though.So, I guess I would say, don't feel pushed. Don't try to force understanding. Give yourself space and time to think about things.
I'm sorry this got so long.
Posted by cricket on June 10, 2005, at 9:16:08
In reply to Re: Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger* » Tamar, posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 19:39:52
Hi Pinkeye,
First of all Daisy really says it all far better than I could and she is much further along in the process than I am so I won't comment on any of that.
But I must say I don't really understand why your T wants you to cultivate anger and blame toward another person. I think it would be far better if she asked you to cultivate compassion towards yourself, both yourself as it is now and your little girl self. Perhaps that is where some of your longing for your ex-T comes from? He saw the world in terms of how we can be compassionate, not how we can blame each other.
As far as my CSA is concerned, although my T has known about it for 3 years, we really haven't gotten anywhere near it. Right now, we are working on building an alliance and until that's established there is no way I am going anywhere near that stuff.
Do you have a time limit on your therapy? Is there any reason why she seems to be wanting to rush into this when really you're just beginning to get a handle on thinking about your relationship with your father.
Posted by pinkeye on June 10, 2005, at 17:48:49
In reply to Re: Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger* » pinkeye, posted by Poet on June 9, 2005, at 22:23:47
Thanks Poet.
The funny thing is I don't really think my dad's intention was to hurt me. In all likelihood, he just over did things. But the fact that it went on for years and years every day made me feel bad. And I can see why my T wants to call it csa - many of the actions are hugely appropriate, even though it was not sexually intended. The effect was kind of the same.
I have to find out what to do. But I was crying so much in therapy and feeling so bad at my own body and hatred at myself, and I need to wokr it out.
Posted by pinkeye on June 10, 2005, at 17:59:37
In reply to Re: Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger* » pinkeye, posted by daisym on June 10, 2005, at 1:17:23
Thanks a lot Daisy for that detailed post. I think you are right.. I should do what I feel like doing now and at my own pace and focus on how to get better feelings about my body now instead of trying to be angry and blaming my father.
I have become slightly triggered now, so am not able to post further on this topic now, but I will revisit later and reply in detail. Thanks a lot.
Posted by pinkeye on June 10, 2005, at 18:00:45
In reply to Re: Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger*, posted by cricket on June 10, 2005, at 9:16:08
Yes, I am planning to move to my home country after couple of months, maybe that is why she wants to accelerate it. Plus I really have lot of anger, just that it is all inside and aimed at my body. So she is trying to get it focussed in the right person
Posted by TerraJo on June 16, 2005, at 20:26:54
In reply to Any ideas on how to work through csa *trigger*, posted by pinkeye on June 9, 2005, at 13:13:22
that book can be a difficult book to get through. i don't like it, personally. i know lots who do.
usually people with csa have split the "good" dad and the "bad" dad, which is what makes it so hard to feel one thing if you are in the other mode. that is normal. it takes time.
you can only feel what you feel when you want to feel it. take it slow. sometimes when you can't do it directly, you have to go in a back door. perhaps going at it directly trying to get you to be mad at your dad isn't going to work. perhaps you need to get at it in a 'round about way. that is often very effective. metaphor therapy works well in that situation.
t.
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