CPTSD, Incest, and Marriage
Dear community. I am struggling. This is my first post here, and I am scared. I am remembering parts of my childhood that I have forgotten. My body is having somatic flashbacks. My vagina throbs and burns when I think about myself as a little girl, and my body feels scared. I am most certain that it was my dad, and it happened more than once.
I have lived my life in a constant state of busyness and distraction. It has been really challenging for me to identify my feelings, to be present and not dissociate. I get irritated at the smallest thing (my dogs barking for example), and this healing journey into my past and into incest is getting really hard. I am trying to recover from my long-lived impulses of being a perfectionist and people-pleaser, practices I embraced for safety. I am trying to recover from fearing being "bad," from feeling disgusted in my body, and from feeling shame.
My wife and I have been married for 12 years, and this is the safest and most loved and most cherished I have ever felt. However, my inability to truly hear her when she speaks (when I hurt her feelings, I focus on being "bad" and don't listen to what she is saying or asking for), the shame feelings that activate, the coldness in my voice when I dissociate, and my defensiveness are all now pushing her away.
How are you all navigating healing from incest and CPTSD while protecting your relationships? I feel like I'm failing every time I repeat a pattern that hurts my wife. I feel like my past is haunting my present, and I'm fraying. We have a couple's therapist and I have a personal therapist, but I'm struggling to slow things down in the moment of activation to truly listen, be in the present moment, check-in with myself, and then respond. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading this.