u/Silent_Yesterday_874

During a time I was assaulted by my abuser he got mad and choked me. I was 5 so it’s fuzzy and I didn’t fully understand. I know I was scared I was going to die. I dissociated and looked out the window and then all I can remember is it being black and I felt like I was going deep into myself like floating backwards and into myself and it’s dark. I was describing this to my therapist (we’ve talked through this memory many times) and she asked if this happened while he was choking me and I said yes and she asked if that was me losing consciousness and I didn’t know and then I got this icky feeling and now I’m like holy shit could that be? I’m trying to find people who have experienced loss of consciousness from strangulation if you’d be willing to share what the experience was like or if my experience sounds like that. Thank you and I’m sorry if this is triggering.

Sometimes when a new memory resurfaces it starts with some sensation that feels familiar but also that I’ve never remembered experiencing. Like sexual acts that I have somatic memories of but never remember doing consensually and then it turns out it was because it was from abuse as a young child. Most recently I have these certain sensations and pain around an area of my body that I have a lot of shame about and I have tried googling or something because what I want to know is if the sensation I’m experiencing aligns with the sexual act that I think it does. But it’s graphic and I don’t know where to find this out? It’s gross

Sometimes when I feel like I’m getting too close to someone or too intimate (and not even in a sexual way usually) I start to get really uneasy and sick to my stomach feeling like I’ve gone too far or we are too close or intimate in a bad way with someone I shouldn’t be with in that way. Idk if this makes sense. I used to do it with friends growing up if I didn’t have romantic feelings for them but I felt like we were getting too close (too many inside jokes, being in sync in certain ways) I’d get a really icky feeling and I still get that now. Idk if this makes any sense. I was talking to my therapist today about it and couldn’t fully articulate the feeling or what triggers it. Idk

Anybody that should have protected me didn’t. And still doesn’t. Anyone who has had a chance to make it right and finally choose me hasn’t. I am so fucking mad. I’m so hurt. I have to choose me and have to do all this fucking shit for myself that should have been done for me when I was a child. Everyone in my life is self serving, self centered and has never put me first.

I have experienced abuse orally as well as strangulation. I have also always struggled with eating. I can be very picky sometimes. Certain textures I am very sensitive to. And when it’s really bad I can really only find very few types of food “safe” to eat. It’s usually unhealthy stuff like fast food meals or top ramen or something idk. It sucks. I’m trying to eat healthy and I was doing a really good job but I had like probably two or three months ago some big triggers and just a lot of stressors over that time period until now that trigger my abuse stuff and I’ve had the worst time eating. I don’t know what to do. Can anyone relate? What has helped you?

She told him she knew something but wouldn’t tell him anything more. She told him to go dig up my grandpa and ask him instead of her. She helped him abuse me, cleaned me up, bribed me to shut me up. My dad visits her every fucking week. I’ve told him. He hasn’t changed. He says he will but he doesn’t. Now he’s “giving me space” but I know she still sees him.

Fuck him. I feel so betrayed.

It was a bunch of poetry I wrote when I was like 14 and it’s all about death. I think I was pretty suicidal at the time or maybe just thinking a lot about death. At that point in my life I had kind of repressed the memories of abuse as a young child and during at least one instance I had a near death experience that involved being choked at a very young age. Anyways one of my poems was about how I imagined dying by drowning to be and I have a few descriptions in there that I’ve also used word for word in therapy as an adult to describe what happened as a young child. When I read the poem from when I was 14, I just kind of paused and felt like it was connected somehow. But I might just be reading into it. Does anyone have anything similar in terms of finding old journals or writings that might not have been directly about the trauma but feels thematically related somehow?

Just for a night. Just not be here. I I don’t know how to deal with this. It’s so so bad and so. Much worse than I thought it could ever be or would ever even guess or fathom how bad it was. How they all covered for him. I HATE THEM ALL. It’s a nightmare. Truly truly.

I feel so sick to my stomach that I might puke and I have all night since therapy. I fucking hate this.

I want it to be finale. That this was the final layer.

I remembered how he so violently punished me for running. I feel it in my throat every day, all day. I’ve felt it all my life. How I thought I was going to die. Something died in me that day. In my 5 year old brain and body, I fundamentally shifted and stopped fighting. To face the point of defeat. I can feel what that felt like to 5 year old me.

I need this to be over. I really do. The floodgates have opened. And I guess I’m not crazy, it just really was that bad and unbelievable.

And I want this to be over. I’m ready to be done now and have this be my final chapter. I did talk about this with my therapist. She suggested looking at the part that wants to end it all as a protector of some sorts. I am home now thinking on it and it’s come pretty easily. I am scared if I stay, if I see this through and get myself back to a place of semi stability…. more will come. More. And more. More what? Violence? Abusers? What more could there be? I cannot and will not accept that. And I honestly don’t think I could bear it. I want this to be the last thing. I want this to be it.

How did the other abusers come back to you? I have one main abuser- my grandfather. I have other instances of abuse like flashing from a sibling but I have wondered if anyone else abused me like my grandpa did? And when I’ve gone down that rabbit hole it usually results in nothing or new memories about my grandpas abuse. But still there’s been this lingering question. And it’s like recently the flood gates have opened and I’m having a lot more memories come back more frequently and more detailed and more violent with my grandpa. And last night I was in this like twilight sleep and had all these images and sensations blurring throughout and I can’t remember most of it but I do remember this random image of a penis out and it looks different than my grandpas or any other penis I’ve seen. And idk it’s just stuck with me and now it’s got me wondering. Was there someone else? And if so, how can I figure out who? Can anyone relate or share how it came out that it was more than one abuser?

It just gets worse and worse the more I remember the more I remember. My grandma knew something was up. Why didn’t she protect me? And the memories get worse. I really didn’t think my doubt was there to protect me from anything. Now, 4 years into my memories coming back, I know what I needed to protect myself from. And my whole body is SICK. I can’t talk about it with anyone other than my therapist because it’s so bad. It’s disgusting. It’s so violent. I wonder what would have happened if I had just died. If my life ended then. No, he didn’t want to kill me. Just wanted my submission. My life was a nightmare. I am trying to wake up from it but it pulls me back in with new and worse information every time.

Fucking AND I had like the worst panic attack last night during a flashback and I tensed so bad and shook so bad I threw out my fucking/back super bad and im in so much pain. AGGHHKAKAHSHDNND

It’s so far away today. Memories are flooding back now. More full ones. More detail. More violence. I don’t understand what I did. I’ve been having panic attacks multiple times a day but today I just don’t feel real. None of it does. I’m sick. Sick to my stomach. I reject it. It didn’t happen. I don’t understand. I want to scream.

I don’t know what to do or who to talk to about this and I know if I post here it probably seems like I just want people to tell me I didn’t make it up. I just know I’m spiraling.

Last night I spent hours watching old home videos and I really really am convinced that I made the abuse up. There’s no overt signs. I was a hyper and happy kid. I wasn’t overly sexual in the home videos at the ages it was happening. I seemed to be acting age appropriately. My abuser wasn’t particularly creepy toward me.

The only thing that stood out to me was when I was about 3 in a video I told my mom that I didn’t like most men and that’s not even that weird. I think a lot of little girls would say something like that probably. It feels like im just fishing for something that’s not there because I want it to be true.

I keep thinking that the best course of action is to move forward as if this didn’t happen and quit therapy and see if that works.

I used to have really bad arachnophobia. I’d get these horrible panic attacks and just be laying in the fetal position shaking and crying and feeling spiders crawl on me and I’d imagine being forced to have spiders crawl on me and I’d feel them on my skin and try to bat them off of me even though they weren’t real. It started right after my abuser died and lasted through college and once my memories of abuse started to return in my late twenties it’s stopped entirely and when I have flashbacks of the abuse it feels so similar and I get the feeling of stuff crawling on me but it feels more like I’m being touched or forced or held down or whatever. I have stuff that’s more directly related like anxieties about triggers that I didn’t know were related to the abuse but this one feels like the trauma came out in a way that was somewhat unrelated to the abuse (fear of spiders).

Can anyone relate?

I’ve asked my parents some questions about times they went on vacation and who watched me and things like that. To confirm some memories I have. All memories that I asked about were confirmed. My dad asked my aunt about it as well because she’s the one who watched me for one of the times and he asked her if she ever left me alone with my grandpa and her response was “why would I do that? What happened? Did he do something to her (me)?” And my dad said no I’m just asking and then she said that she remembers a time my mom left me alone with my grandpa and when my aunt came in I was eating icecream with him. And according to my dad it was almost like directed toward my mom like defensive and wanting to place blame on my mom. But why would she be defensive in the first place? It just seems odd. I feel validated that my memories were correct but also now I’m like wondering if my aunt knows more? Ugh

And also somehow it’s kicked up my doubt and now I’m feeling like I’ve made everything up. Ugh.