Trauma

We talked in therapy last session about identifying triggering situations and slowly exposing myself to them. This is incredibly hard to think about. One of the things that I am slowly realizing is there are so many things that cause me to have intrusive thoughts, memories and flashbacks of M.  I do not want to deal with this but I know that if I do not it will only get worse.  PTSD makes it hard to engage with others because it can make people relive the most painful experiences over and over again.  How can you explain this to someone?  It is not exactly like your friends at the coffee shop want to hear about your nightmares the night before.   It is a hard fought battle that many are scared to share.

 

 

When I try to fall asleep I can feel his arms reaching around me. He would say that the only way he could sleep was to do “play”.  I hate those words. The way he pulled me in toward him and gripped me showed me that I did not have the option of saying no.  The times I resisted he would show me that it was not good to fight.  I sometimes feel like I am watching my body walk around trying to cope in this world.  I wonder how these things could happen.   I can be ok with my weight and have good body image but feel so uncomfortable. I feel him on me. As soon as I lie down at night it feels like he is there. I am scared. I used to go to bed so early so I could be asleep when he came into the bedroom. He knew if I was pretending to be asleep. Something as simple as putting my head on my pillow brings up so many memories. Why did he have to hurt me? I feel like my skin is dirty. I feel like I need to cover up.

 

Part of the exposure work involves doing the opposite of what triggers me. This involves changing sleep habits, sleeping in new pajamas, sleep hygiene, sleeping on a different side of the bed. It involves anything that can be new and different than what occurred with M. I am working on figuring those things out. Divorce is supposed to take the person out of your life. He is not out yet. He is still in my head, home, and nightmares. I got through really tough times with the eating disorder. I got through the divorce. I know I can get through this. It is painful to work through this but it is also painful to deal with the symptoms. My grandmother always said, “This to shall Pass”