July 16, 2009
Posted in Depression, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Therapy and Counseling, Trauma, trauma therapist tagged Abuse, AbuseConsultants, AbuseConsultants.com, abused children, Abusive Parents, Boundaries, Burning, Compassion, cutting, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dysfunctional Family, emotional pain, Feeling special, Feeling Suicidal, Hate Crimes, Hated by Others, Hatred, Hatred of Self, Healthy Boundaries, I hate myself, Kathy Broady, Kindness, Loneliness, Neglected Children, Sadness, Self Harm, self hate, Self Injury, Self-hatred, Self-loathing, sexual abuse, Sexually Abused, Sexually Abused Children, Social Isolation, Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Thinking, Trauma Survivors, Trauma Therapy, Worthlessness at 4:45 pm by Kathy Broady
Practically every dissociative trauma survivor that I have ever spoke to has said to me at some point in time or another, that they have felt hated, truly hated. What’s worse, they didn’t feel hated by strangers — they felt hated by their loved ones. They felt hated by their mothers, their fathers, their siblings, their spouses, their children, their friends. They felt hatred from the very people they cared the most about.
What effect does feeling hated have on someone?
How does this experience change someone’s life?
It’s a natural human response to want to feel liked, loved, cherished, treasured. Children very much want to be the in the spotlight for their parents, the apples of their eyes. They each want to feel special, and to be treated like they are the most important person on earth. This is normal for children. It is part of a natural, normal, healthy development.
What happens if a child does not experience a positive sense of self in early childhood?
What happens if that child feels hated instead of loved?
What if the only time the child feels loved, accepted, appreciated, wanted is during times of sexual abuse?
What happens when abusive parents treat their children in such consistently abusive and neglectful ways that the children are left with feelings of self-hatred instead of self-love and self-acceptance?
What are some of the effects of being hated?
- Inherent sense of badness and worthlessness
- Long-term self-hatred and self-loathing
- Loneliness and Isolation
- Sadness, emotional pain, emotional scars
- Self-injury, self-destruction, and suicidal behaviors
Children that are treated with hatred internalize that hatred. Children find it difficult, if not impossible, to blame their parents for their hateful behavior. Instead, children will blame themselves. Children decide it must be their own badness, their own poor behaviors, and their own inadequacies that forced their parents to not love them.
With each violent assault, abusive parents spoke hatred to their children. Even if the words “I hate you” were never said, it was understood clearly enough by the children. In order for their loved ones to purposefully cause so much hurt and harm to them, their parents must have hated them. It is not hard for children to figure out that people causing physical injuries and emotional wounds are acting in hateful ways. Children will feel that hatred to the very core of their being.
Children tend to internalize that hatred as if they deserved it. They decide that they must be bad, they must be worthless, they must “need to be punished”, they must “need to be abused” because of their badness. Children cannot blame their parents — so they blame themselves.
The more the children are treated with hatred, the more the children hate themselves.
They may learn to hate the parents / abusers eventually, but their first response was learning to hate and despise themselves. And the self-hatred isn’t something they just grow out of or leave behind the way they might leave the actual abuse. Self-hatred can continue to affect them for all the years of their life. It is a fundamental part of self-injury behaviors. Without intense self-hatred, survivors would not be nearly so prone to cutting, burning, overdosing, or any other number of self-destructive and suicidal behaviors. It’s not uncommon for trauma survivors to carve or burn “I hate myself” messages into their body, sometimes scarring it for life. I dare say, most survivors that commit suicide were able to do so because of their incredibly deep sense of self-hatred and self-loathing.
People that truly hate themselves don’t want to live with themselves.
It’s equally difficult for people that hate themselves to be in long-term positive relationships. Trauma survivors often find it easier to love someone else more than themselves, but part of being in a positive loving relationship is comfortably accepting the reciprocal love-caring-compassion-support from others. People that inherently hate themselves find it very difficult to believe that they could be loved / lovable. This belief will ultimately (and repeatedly) be noticeable. It will cause problems in those relationships, and it will absolutely undermine the strength of those relationships.
The emotional pain connected to feeling hated digs very deep within the core of the person. It is hard to battle on an intellectual level, and it penetrates into the deepest layers of the person’s being. The emotional wounding caused from feeling hatred is one of the most difficult traumas to heal. Layer upon layer of years of blame, guilt, shame make the self-hatred feel locked into place. It’s just soooo hard to feel differently.
But part of healing from trauma involves healing from that self-hatred. Survivors may not be able to change the behaviors and actions of their perpetrator parents or any other abusers that have acted criminally towards them, but survivors can learn to separate themselves from such hateful people. It will take working with all the parts of the internal system, but then again, remember that healing for all the inside parts is important.
Learn to separate who did what, and what belongs to whom. The person that committed the hateful acts is the creator of the hate. That negativity belongs to them. Hateful people can project their own feelings of hate onto anyone around them. As survivors become old enough to think through the emotional process of their abuse, they can begin to build emotional protection around those kinds of hateful attacks.
Let the hate belong to the ones that sent it. Don’t take it in, don’t claim it as yours, and don’t let it apply to yourself. Picture a strong emotional, spiritual shield around you, and let that protect you from the barbs of the haters. Hold tight to your own feelings of kindness, compassion, caring, gentleness, and know that your own ability to love and to connect are coming from a different place than hatred. Recognize that your ability to genuinely care for your loved ones is proof in itself that you are not to be hated or considered worthless. Your ability to feel genuine kindness, gentleness, patience, and compassion prove that you are a good person, completely different and separate from the haters.
The haters will always be haters. Unless they work on their own deep-seated self-hatred, they will always project hatred onto others.
But you don’t have to accept yourself as a rightful target of their hatred. You don’t have to be one of them. You don’t have to shove hatred in the face of everyone else, and you don’t have to internalize it within yourself. You can be different from that. Let the hatred belong to the ones that it came from. Give it back to the abusers and let them own it for themselves. Don’t contain that for them. You don’t have to accept their hatred as yours when it came from them.
Spend your time in life doing things that you enjoy and let you genuinely feel better about yourself. Connect with the people and animals that you care about, and build bigger boundaries and stronger separations from the people that treat you with hatred. Give positive time and pleasant experiences to the people around you, and let your own behaviors define who you are.
Be a good person, and let the very fact that you are choosing good, positive behaviors define to you that you are not that hated person you once felt you were.
If you want to be a good person, you can be. You are not who your haters say that you are. Let their nasty ways belong to them. You can be someone very different from them.
You can be as good of a person as you want to be. No one else gets to define you — the final word on who you are belong to you, and only you.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
July 4, 2009
Posted in Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mental health, Self Injury, therapy, Trauma tagged AbuseConsultants, AbuseConsultants.com, Addictions, Anorexia, Anxiety, Attachment Issues, Black and white thinking, Body Memories, Bulimia, Conflict, CSA Symptoms, Depression, DID/MPD, dissociative disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eating Disorders, emotional pain, Fear, Flashbacks, Kathy Broady, Lost Time, Missing Time, pain, Panic Attacks, Perpetrators, Rescuer role, Self Destruction, Self Harm, Self Injury, Self-hatred, sexual abuse, Suicidal Behavior, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Unresolved Trauma, Victim role at 8:14 pm by Kathy Broady
Many people enter the therapy process with minimal awareness of their trauma history. When the trauma survivors are dissociative, they have the ability to block out an awareness of their trauma. They may know that their family had problems, or that their family was dysfunctional, etc, but they may believe they were never abused.
However, blocking out conscious awareness of trauma does not mean that the survivors have no effects of that trauma. Using denial and dissociative skills does not mean that the abuse did not happen. Denial means that the person simply is refusing to acknowledge or accept the fact that they were traumatized. They are pretending they were not hurt, when they were actually hurt very badly.
Even if the memories of abuse are hidden from the survivor’s awareness, blocked trauma / unresolved trauma creates very noticeable and obvious symptoms that can be easily seen in their every day lives.
People will enter therapy aware of some of the following symptoms, but they may not realize these complications are suggestive of unresolved trauma issues:
.
1. Addictive behaviors – excessively turning to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling as a way to push difficult emotions and upsetting trauma content further away.
2. An inability to tolerate conflicts with others – having a fear of conflict, running from conflict, avoiding conflict, maintaining skewed perceptions of conflict
3. An inability to tolerate intense feelings, preferring to avoid feeling by any number of ways
4. An innate belief that they are bad, worthless, without value or importance
5. Black and white thinking, all or nothing thinking, even if this approach ends up harming themselves
6. Chronic and repeated suicidal thoughts and feelings
7. Disorganized attachment patterns – having a variety of short but intense relationships, refusing to have any relationships, dysfunctional relationships, frequent love/hate relationships
8. Dissociation, spacing out, losing time, missing time, feeling like you are two completely different people (or more than two)
9. Eating disorders – anorexia, bulimia, obesity, etc
10. Excessive sense of self-blame – taking on inappropriate responsibility as if everything is their fault, making excessive apologies
11. Inappropriate attachments to mother figures or father figures, even with dysfunctional or unhealthy people
12. Intense anxiety and repeated panic attacks
13. Intrusive thoughts, upsetting visual images, flashbacks, body memories / unexplained body pain, or distressing nightmares
14. Ongoing, chronic depression
15. Repeatedly acting from a victim role in current day relationships
16. Repeatedly taking on the rescuer role, even when inappropriate to do so
17. Self-harm, self-mutilation, self-injury, self-destruction
18. Suicidal actions and behaviors, failed attempts to suicide
19. Taking the perpetrator role / angry aggressor in relationships
20. Unexplained but intense fears of people, places, things
.
These same symptoms can be applied for survivors already working in therapy. Attending regular therapy does not mean the clients have resolved their trauma issues or that they are even working in that general direction. Many therapy clients will continue to deny, dissociate, and refuse to look at their trauma even if they are aware of their daily struggles.
If you are experiencing a number of the symptoms listed above, ask yourself if you are truly ready to address your trauma issues, or if you find it more comfortable to continue living with these struggles.
Is it harder to face how you were abused and who abused you? Or is it harder to live a life full of depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, troubled relationships, extreme fears, physical pain, and addictions?
Running from your trauma history will not help you feel better. In the short-run, you might not have to face the issues, but the cost in the long-run of unresolved trauma weighs more heavily than you might suspect.
Your life can be better than it is.
Be brave – face your trauma issues!
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
June 25, 2009
Posted in DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Self Injury, Trauma tagged Abuse, Abuse Victims, Attachment to the Perpetrator, Bonds, Child Parts, Death, Death of a Celebrity, Death of a family member, Denial, DID/MPD, Dissociation Identity Disorder, dissociative disorders, Dissociative Walls, Emotional Earthquake, emotional pain, Emotional Recovery, Emotional Relief, Farrah Fawcett, Flooding of memories, Grief, Healing, Host Personality, Internal Introjects, Internal System, Kathy Broady, King of Pop, Loss, Memories of Abuse, Michael Jackson, New Alters, pain, Perpetrators, Sadness, Self Harm, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Sexual Perpetrators, Sexually Abused, Suicidal Behavior, Suicidal Feelings, Survivors with DID, Trauma Bonds, Trauma Survivors at 8:26 pm by Kathy Broady
Did you experience the social earthquake today?
The sudden death of Michael Jackson today has caught everyone by surprise.
Will he be more remembered as the King of Pop? Or will he be forever remembered as a suspected child molester?
Everyone will have strong views about it, I’m sure. I can’t even begin to imagine all the controversies that are going to be brought back to the surface.
The death of a famous celebrity icon affects so many people. Early unexpected deaths of the rich and famous create a public stir for months and years to come. Everyone talks about it. Even twitter was overloaded with the breaking news. Anyone that sang and danced along with some of his songs will feel the loss. Every choreographer will feel a sting and sadness. We’ll see new books, new articles, new blog posts. His face will be on magazine covers and newspaper headlines and in every version of media that we have.
In fact, it’s already on the news, online, in twitter, in chatrooms, on the radio, on television, in blogs – the news is everywhere! Everyone is talking about it, and everyone is asking everyone else if they have heard about it.
Even Farrah Fawcett’s death today will be overshadowed by the controversial Jackson’s death.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of people will feel the reverberations of the news. It’s like a social earthquake.
While maybe not as public or as clearly visible, the death of a perpetrator can wreak havoc on a survivor’s life, also for days and months and years to come. For trauma survivors with dissociative identity disorder, all the different parts within the internal system will feel the news with just as much shock.
Sometimes, abuse victims feel safer talking and telling about their trauma after their perpetrator dies. I don’t know if or how that will apply to the children near the Michael Jackson situation, but it is very common with other survivors of sexual abuse.
When survivors feel intimidated by, scared of, threatened by their perpetrators, it is not unusual for those survivors to keep the secrets of their abuse tucked inside them until after their perpetrators pass away.
Survivors may do this purposefully, or their dissociative walls may simply have been strong enough to hold all that information back even without the survivor’s awareness.
Survivors with DID systems will often feel all kinds of internal changes taking place with the death of a major perpetrator. There will be all kinds of internal movement, and shifting. There will be an internal earthquake.
How do survivors with dissociative identity disorder experience this earthquake?
A. Noticeable Decrease in Dissociation
Deaths of perpetrators can make dissociative walls crumble, emphasizing the point that those dissociative walls were there for safety and survival reasons in the first place.
When there is less likelihood of ongoing abuse, the need for dissociative walls is decreased significantly. When the walls come down, the now-unblocked information reconnects back to the parts that initially dissociated it away. Different parts of the system will be learning all kinds of new information, and experiencing new feelings.
B. Memories of abuse, incident after incident, can come crashing through. PTSD flashbacks and other PTSD symptoms will increase.
Why does this happen?
After the fear of dealing with their perpetrator in current day life subsides, and once the survivor feels safer, all kinds of memories can come flooding back. Child parts or even older parts with trauma memories will come to the surface, each wanting, hoping for, needing time to talk about what happened to them. The host of the system may feel overwhelmed by the sudden need of so many trauma-holding parts to have time to talk, and needing time to heal. The pain attached to these parts will be intense.
C. Increased Activity by Internal Introjects
Internal introjects may be kicked into greater action, feeling the need to replace the external perpetrator by taking a more vigorous role in the daily life of the dissociative survivor. Some internal introjects were taught and trained to respond when the external perpetrator was no longer visible. The internal perpetrator introject will try to carry on in the same manner, just to keep the status quo.
D. The Emergence of New Alter Personalities
New alters may finally feel brave enough to step forward and speak about their life story, including trauma memories. They may not have felt comfortable appearing until the perpetrator was dead and gone.
E. Increased Denial
While some parts may be happy and thrilled about the death of the perpetrator, other parts will fight that reality with all their being. These parts with an attachment to the perpetrator will need time to explore and process their feelings, and to explain why they were so connected to the perpetrators. Oftentimes, these are the parts that were treated kindly, and any abuse would have been framed in a more positive connotation. These parts simply will not want to accept or believe that the external perpetrator is dead. They will see the internal introject of the perpetrator and transfer much of their loyalty to this part.
F. Increased Pull for Self-Harm and Suicidal Activity
Many survivors will react to the death of a perpetrator with increased self-harm or suicidal activity. The self-harm could be a physical effort of shoving back all the memories and feelings, to regain control. It could also be an acting out of the trauma memories they are experiencing. Sometimes survivors feel pulled to commit suicide from the need to be with their dead perpetrator. When a survivor is experiencing these symptoms, it is imperative to work through the historical causes and beliefs that are supporting such extreme behaviors.
G. Emotional Relief
While experiencing safety from ongoing abuse of this perpetrator, the healthiest goal is for survivors to feel their sadness, their pain, their fear, their anger, etc. So many feelings get contained away, but once it becomes ok to feel, there is a big release when those feelings can surface. When survivors can truly allow themselves to address their fear, their anger, and grieve the loss of their perpetrator, they will be much further down the road in their emotional recovery.
All these internal events certainly cause emotional earthquakes in the lives of dissociative trauma survivors. All of these issues can be addressed effectively in therapy, and many of these issues can be avoided by preparing ahead of time.
If you haven’t worked on breaking the bonds with your perpetrators until after they die, you will have a harder time after their death. If you have worked on these issues ahead of time, the emotional earthquake won’t be as devastating.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
May 10, 2009
Posted in Depression, DID Education, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, mental health, Prevention of Sexual Abuse, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Therapy and Counseling, Trauma, trauma therapist tagged Abuse, AbuseConsultants, AbuseConsultants.com, Addictions, Anxiety, Childhood Sexual Abuse, CSA, Depression, Destructive Behavior, DID/MPD, dissociative disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotional pain, Healing, Kathy Broady, Kathy_B_from_AC, mental health, Mother's Day, Mothers, Mothers of Abused Children, Non-offending Mothers, pain, Protective mothers, Protective Parents, PTSD, Self Harm, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Sexually Abused, Support for Mothers, Support for Non-Offending Mothers, therapy, Trauma, Trauma Survivors, trauma therapist, Violent Behavior, Violent Relationships at 3:00 pm by Kathy Broady
This blog article is a tribute to the mothers out there in the world that have spent huge chunks of their lives fighting for the safety / healing of their children. These women are incredible spirits and are an inspiration to us all.
I know mothers who have absolutely gone the distance for their children. These women don’t get thanked often, but I do want to let them know that they are appreciated, recognized and deeply valued.
These mothers do a lot of things right.
- They listen attentively to their children, even if hearing the horror stories of abuse breaks their heart. They want to know what happened, and no matter how hard it is to hear, they listen to every single word.
- These mothers have clearly done a good job building communication with their children even before this point. Children have to know that it is ok to tell – “telling the secret” is often one of the biggest barriers in children getting help from their abuse. The children have to have someone safe to tell, someone they trust, someone that they can rely on to help them. If the mother hasn’t already built that kind of relationship with her children, she has drastically lowered the chances that her children will ever tell her their deepest secrets of abuse. Mothers that are approachable will
- These inspirational mothers do what it takes to protect their children from abusers, including leaving the perpetrator in whatever way is necessary – divorce, moving to another area of the country, going into a shelter, etc.
- They take assertive strong legal action against the perpetrator such as filing a report with child protective services, filing protective orders, pressing charges against the offender.
- They withstand the pressure from other friends and family members who may, for whatever reasons, oppose taking a strong stance against the perpetrator. These mothers know that protecting their children is more important than the approval of family members who want to hide embarrassing issues in the closet.
- These mothers are dedicated to finding helpful resources for their children’s therapy and treatment for sexual abuse. This is not always an easy task, and it might require a great deal of persistence, but these mothers will persist, for as long as it takes.
- These mothers sit with their children as they cry, they comfort their children after nightmares, they let their children cling to them when “being away from mommy” feels too scary. These mothers recognize that their children have been crime victims, that they have PTSD from their abuse, and that their neediness has skyrocketed. Good mothers let it be ok that their children need this extra time and attention to rebuild their emotional security again.
- These mothers are strong for their children, even when their heart is breaking. They get their own personal support system to help with their intense emotions (believe me, being the mother of an abused child is a highly emotional situation), and they find a way, place, and time to talk about their own grief and anger so that they can be present and available for their children.
- These mothers are brave enough to honestly assess the situation, and to look closely at how their children got tangled in an abusive situation. They learn from whatever mistakes were made, and correct them. They think back to see if there were any warning signs or high-risk factors that they missed, and learn how to handle things differently now that they are aware of the abuse. They figure out what to do in the future to keep their children safe from being abused in that particular way ever again.
- These mothers spend hours and hours of time with their children, even if they are acting-out and emotionally distraught from the abuse they suffered. The mothers temper their discipline with deep understanding that their children are acting out of their hurt, fear, pain, anger, etc. These moms realize that their children’s behavioral issues are not about the children being “bad”.
- These mothers provide new and positive activities for their children to help boost their tattered self-esteem and body image. They find recreational activities, or artistic activities, etc that give their children healthy feelings of acceptance, accomplishment, mastery, positive self-worth, creativity, growth, etc.
- Protective mothers will do everything in their power to help their children overcome the long-term negative effects of childhood sexual abuse. They are determined to not leave their children to suffer in silence and isolation. These mothers actively attend their needs, provide comfort, and help their children move forward as healthy, productive members of society.
.
Helping children recover from sexual abuse can be a long, difficult process, but if non-offending mothers are not willing to be protective and helpful for their children, the negative affects of the abuse can multiply and worsen through the years. Untreated sexual abuse issues lead to all kinds of additional complicating factors such as addictions, promiscuity, self harm, depression, anxiety, mental health issues, repeated involvement in destructive relationships, angry behavior, destructive behavior, sexual acting out, hospitalizations, additional abuse, dissociative disorders, etc. The cost of untreated sexual abuse truly multiplies exponentially over time.
Mothers that are willing to help and protect their children as close to the injury-point as possible are helping their children in the here-and-now, and creating a permanent and positive effect on their children’s lives. These mothers are also making a positive difference that can have a positive influence on society for years to come.
For those mothers that are willing to protect their children, here are my very best wishes that today is the most wonderful Mother’s Day for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping your children. You truly deserve a good day today!
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
May 3, 2009
Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Online Therapy, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Therapy Homework Ideas, Trauma, trauma therapist tagged Abandoned, Abandonment, AbuseConsultants, AbuseConsultants.com, Abusive Parents, Alone, Aloneness, Anger, Anxiety, Attachment Issues, Borderline Personality Disorder, BPD, Building Relationships, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Crisis, CSA, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Crisis, emotional pain, Facebook, Healing, Isolation, Kathy Broady, Low Self-Esteem, Maintaining Relationships, Online Support, Online Therapist, pain, Physical Abuse, Safety, Self Esteem, Self Harm, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Support Group, therapy, Treatment Goals for DID, Trust, Twitter, Worthlessness at 3:30 pm by Kathy Broady
Abandonment is such a tender issue for trauma survivors. Most survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have had more than their fair share of genuine abandonment instances.
For severe trauma survivors, abandonment would have been experienced over and over in various situations:
- Each time your parents or caregivers turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse or physical abuse that was occurring to you right there in your own household
- Each time your parents or caregivers abandoned their role of safety and became the perpetrator of your abuse
- Each time your parents or caregivers ignored your physical needs, leaving you to be hungry, cold, unkempt, improperly dressed, neglected in any way
- Each time your parents or caregivers handed you over to someone else that was physically or sexually abusing you
- Each time your parents or caregivers left you alone for extended periods of time, leaving you to tend to your own care when you were too young to be taking care of yourself by yourself
- Each time your parents or caregivers refused to give you proper medical attention or medical treatment
- Each time your parents or caregivers ignored your pleas or cries for help, turning a deaf ear, and leaving you to deal with your crisis without their assistance
For survivors with DID, these kinds of instances of abandonment happened on a frequent basis. All too many survivors were abandoned on a weekly basis, and for some people, on a daily basis.
How does this kind of abandonment affect people?
Excessive, repeated, severe abandonment teaches survivors to not trust. It teaches that other people cannot be counted on. It teaches them that they are alone in the world. It makes them believe that no one will help, or no one will be there for them.
What’s worse, it gives deeper emotional messages to the survivors, drilling in feelings about worthlessness, unworthiness, unimportance, having no value, being bad, being stupid, being invisible. It eliminates and destroys any self-esteem the survivor could develop.
It creates a deep-seated anger, an ongoing emptiness, a constant sense of isolation.
It scars the heart and pierces the soul.
.
How can survivors of extreme abandonment recover from such emotional wounding?
First of all, to heal from extreme abandonment, it is important to realize and understand that your parents and caregivers were truly in the wrong for neglecting your needs. When parents and caregivers make such huge mistake in their roles of tending to children, the mistake belongs to them. It is not a message about the child, it is a message about the parent.
Parents are wrong, sometimes criminally wrong, legally wrong, in some of their abandoning behaviors. Do not assume that your parents were “right” in their abandoning behaviors. They were very likely doing something wrong.
Once a survivor truly hears and understands the fact that their parents and caregivers are responsible for the improper treatment of a child, then that survivor can begin their own path for healing.
But healing from abandonment is not easy. The wounds went deep into your core existence, and overcoming that level of emotional wounding takes a lot of time and repeated effort.
Some of the steps involved in healing from abandonment are:
- Remembering again and again that the abandonment was not your fault
- Remembering again and again that you are not a bad person because your parents or caregivers committed crimes against you
- Learning that while some people are criminals, not all people are criminals, meaning, while your parents were willing to abandon you to such a huge degree, not all people will act in the same manner
- Learning to trust again, ever so slowly, little bit by bit. Dare to try. Dare to reach out. Dare to build relationships.
- Finding people, even if only one or two, that you can build meaningful relationships with
- Being a trustworthy, reliable person so that other people will develop trust in you
- Addressing your anger issues at the true offenders of your pain. If you go “on the attack” to people that make small errors in your relationship (while refusing to address your feeling at your parents or caregivers who committed grave errors), then you will find yourself alone time and time again. Work hard at showing the appropriate amount of anger equal to the level of the mistake. Going overboard at people in the current day will not be helpful.
- Working really really hard at separating the issues that belong to people in your past versus attributing your pain to people in your current day world
- Develop relationships with pets or animals if you are too scared to trust people. Building connections with another living being, where you each rely on each other, is a great starting place
- Remembering and realizing that safe people will come back to you time and time again, unless you do something to push them away over and over again. You can keep good people in your life if you want to.
- Finding little treasures / trinkets / small reminders of people to help you maintain that sense of object permanence. Out of sight does not mean that they are gone from your life.
- Working on extended your comfort zone in terms of how often you need to hear from someone in order to feel secure in that relationship. Repeated contact, vs. excessive contact, is an acceptable way to maintain relationships.
- Finding safe but creative ways of building relationships. For example, if you are afraid to meet with people face-to-face, build online relationships. Use an online therapist or an online support group as a starting place. Connect through blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.
.
Abandonment is painful, but it is still possible to build positive and healthy relationships with other people. It will take consistent work on your part to overcome the negative, damaging teachings given to you by neglectful parents and poor caregivers, but you can do it.
Unless you really want to be alone, you don’t have to be left alone anymore.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
April 15, 2009
Posted in Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Friends of Multiples, mental health, Prevention of Sexual Abuse, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Supportive Spouses, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Therapy Homework Ideas, Trauma tagged Abuse, AbuseConsultants.com, Anxiety, Bipolar, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, CSA, Depression, Detachment, DID, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Eating Disorders, Fear, Kathy Broady, mental health, Mental Torment, Ongoing Violence, Prevention of Abuse, Psychiatric Disability, Self Harm, Self Injury, Self-Multilation, sexual abuse, Sexual Deviations, SI, Sleep Complications, Suicidal Behavior, Therapeutic Relationship, therapy, Therapy for DID, Trauma, Trauma Survivors at 5:01 pm by Kathy Broady
April is Child Abuse Prevention month.
Education is one of the biggest factors in the prevention of child abuse. Those of you that have been sexually abused or physically abused know the effects of that abuse all too well. Child abuse can affect the entire life of the survivor, and the seriousness of its effects cannot be ignored.
If you are a trauma survivor, you can help to inform others about the seriousness of sexual abuse.
Are you the supportive loved one of a trauma survivor?
Are you the parent of an abused child?
Are you the spouse / partner of a trauma survivor?
Have you completed a Negative Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse Survey?
To help further understand the implications of treatment for childhood sexual abuse, AbuseConsultants.com would appreciate your participation in an educational survey, NICSA Survey. Your responses can be completely anonymous, and additional comments are welcomed.
Please go to AbuseConsultants.com and follow the links provided on the home page.
The following areas of impact are questioned on the NICSA Survey:
- Addictions
- Anger Issues
- Anxiety and Panic
- Bipolar Disorder
- Criminal Histories
- Damaged Relationships
- Depression
- Destroyed Career
- Detachment from Self or Others
- DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)
- Eating Disorders
- Experienced Losses in Life
- Fear
- Increased Medical Complications
- Lack Parenting Skills
- Long Term Disability
- Loss of Education
- Mental Health Problems
- Mental Torment
- Mistrust
- Numbness or lack of feeling in the body
- Ongoing Violence and Abuse
- Poor Coping Skills
- Poor Medical Assistance
- Poor Self Care
- Poor Therapeutic Relationships
- Poverty / Financial Devastation
- Self Destruction and Self Mutilation
- Self Esteem Issues
- Sexual Deviations
- Sexual Problems
- Sleep Complications
- Suicidal Ideation and Behavior
- Suicide / Death
Do you relate to any of these areas of impact?
Has your childhood sexual abuse complicated your life in any of these ways?
How severely has your abuse affected your life?
.
If only someone had been able to prevent the abuse from happening in your life…..
.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
April 13, 2009
Posted in Dissociative Identity Disorder tagged AbuseConsultants, Anxiety, Being heard, Communication, Denial, Depression, Dianne Wiest, DID, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dr. Gina Toll, Dr. Paul Weston, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Symptoms, Emotional Conflict, Family Communication, Gabriel Bryne, Grief, HBO Series In Treatment, Healing, In Treatment, John Mahoney, Kathy Broady, Listen, Listening, Loss, mental health, Panic, Panic Attacks, Passive Suicide, PTSD, Self Harm, Suicidal, Suicidal Behavior, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapist, therapy, Therapy Process, TV Drama, United States of Tara at 10:51 am by Kathy Broady
How many of you have been watching the award-winning HBO Series, “In Treatment” with Gabriel Byrne, Dianne Wiest, and John Mahoney? This HBO series is currently near the beginning of its second season, centered around how Dr. Paul Weston (Byrne) conducts therapy sessions with four different clients, and then his own individual therapy process with his own therapist, Dr. Gina Toll (Wiest).
In my opinion, the “In Treatment” series is more accurate about the layered complications of the therapy process than the brief bits of therapy shown in Showtime’s “United States of Tara”. The snippets shown of Tara’s therapy were with an overwhelmed, under-trained, uneducated wimp of a therapist. I suppose it is true that all too many therapists are overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with the healing process for trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Hopefully a referral to a more specialized trauma therapist in season two of Tara will lead to deeper, more meaningful presentations of her therapy process.
With the “In Treatment” series, the clients present with relateable issues, and the therapists become real people – likeable, emotional, genuine, flaws and all.
“In Treatment” shows how therapy is different from person to person. While staying the same, the room “changes” and feels different and unique to each client. The therapists and their rooms are the same from session to session and client to client, and yet they become totally different places as each individual client comes in, exposing his or her own life, pain, feelings, energy, thoughts, and emotion.
It shows how the therapy process challenges therapists to be their best selves at all times, as impossible as that might be.
It shows how much people actually say about themselves when someone is listening closely to what is being said. And it shows how much people do not listen to their own selves, and how they don’t hear the words that come out of their own mouths.
It shows how families speak to each other – or not. And how helpful family members can be to each other – or not. And how loving, kind, supportive, and caring family members can be to each other – or not.
It shows how people wrestle with their emotions, their feelings, their realities, and the denial of those realities. It shows their emotional conflict, turmoil, grief, depression, anxiety, suicidal actions, passive suicidal feelings, anger, panic, fear, dismay, agony, self-harm motives, struggles with life and death.
It shows how the therapy process, while focused around the expression of words and feelings, can be enhanced by paying close attention to the communication from the physical body itself, which sometimes says more than clients can put into words.
It shows how therapists get invested in their clients, and how they build connections and bonds with their clients. The caring can be a real thing.
It shows how important it is for clients to make their own life-decisions, how much people wrestle with their own life decisions, and how quickly therapists get blamed when these decisions do not work out as hoped.
It shows how tender and fragile people can be, even when they outwardly appear to be strong, powerful, and in control.
It shows the importance of being heard, understood, listened to, and recognized as a worthwhile person, first by others, and then by yourself.
These television shows can lead to a lot of personal thinking and reassessment about your own therapy process, your relationship with your therapist, and how your life is changing and progressing. How do you relate to what you are seeing “In Treatment”?
* What is your therapy process like?
* How is your therapy impacting your life?
* Do you see your therapist as human as Dr. Weston presents in “In Treatment”?
* Do you blame your therapist when your life plans do not work out as hoped?
* Is your therapist as central to your life as presented in these series?
* Are you more attached to your therapist or to your therapy process?
* What would you do if you realized how human and flawed your therapist is?
* Do you expect your therapist to be something more than a real person?
.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
April 10, 2009
Posted in Dissociative Identity Disorder tagged Abuse, AbuseConsultants, AbuseConsultants.com, Amnesia, Amnesiac Walls, Anxiety, Depression, DID, DID/MPD, dissociative disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Walls, Dysfunctional Symptoms, Easter, Emotional Chaos, Fear, Flashbacks, GAD, Good Friday, Headaches, Host Alters, Internal Communication, Internal System, Kathy Broady, Lost Time, Memories, Missing Time, Multiplicity, Panic, Panic Attacks, Passover, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Self Destruction, Self Harm, Self Injury, SI, split personality, Splits, splitting, Suicidal, Suicidal Behavior, Suicidal Feelings, Suicidal Thoughts, Symptoms, System Communication, Talking Inside, Therapist, therapy, Time Distortion, Time Loss, Trauma, Trauma memories, Trauma Survivors, trauma therapist, Unprocessed Memories at 11:45 am by Kathy Broady
.
For many dissociative trauma survivors, various holidays and times of year are more difficult than other days. Some survivors may know they typically have a difficult time at the change of seasons, or when Easter-time comes, for example, but they may not have the memories or internal information to understand why they consistently have a difficult time at that time of year.
- Are you struggling more now that Easter is here?
- Does Good Friday have any specific meaning for you?
- Does Passover have specific meaning for you?
- Do you consistently have trouble with functioning at this time of year?
- Do you remember anything that would make this hard time make sense?
When survivors with DID/MPD are sitting on unprocessed memories and their system is separated by strong dissociative walls, the host of the system may have absolutely no awareness of why certain times of year are more difficult than others. The host might know that there are consistently difficult times. They might have an acute awareness that they “hate this time of year” but they still might not have an answer for “why” certain times of year are more difficult than others. Host alters, fronts of the dissociative system, can be aware of the side effects of having a hard time, but still not have any explanation for what it’s about.
- Do you find yourself switching more than usual?
- Are you missing more time, even in small chunks? What about in big chunks?
- Are you experiencing more headaches, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, flashbacks?
- Are you seeing flashes of images, or fleeting snippets of pictures that don’t quite make sense?
- Do you feel unsettled or jittery?
- Do you feel confusion and time distortion, as if it is another time than 2009?
- Are you extra sensitive to certain smells, sounds, lights, and movements?
- Is there more noise, commotion, chaos, and activity coming from deep within your system?
- Do you feel not quite like yourself, as if there are others standing nearby to you, affecting you?
- Do you feel more suicidal or more vulnerable to self-injury, self-harm, and self-destruction?
If you are experiencing these type of symptoms, and yet have no answer for why these things are happening, you really can do something to help solve the mystery.
Any guesses for what to do?
Do you want to know why you are having such a difficult time?
My answer to that is to ask inside. Listen to what your insiders are telling you. There will be someone inside your system that knows why this time of year is so difficult. You might have insiders that have been particularly split off to handle situations from this time of year, so if you can find who that is, you will get some answers for what is going on.
Frequently, my interpretation of the above listed symptoms is that the dissociative walls – amnesiac walls — that previously blocked you completely from an awareness of what happened, is now starting to crumble. What was once kept from you, is now starting to seep into your awareness. For whatever reason, the dissociative wall is starting to weaken, and you are getting bits of information passed to you from others deeper within your system. Maybe they want you to know? Maybe they need your help? Maybe they are ready to begin sharing their story with you?
- Are you willing to help the others in your system that have experienced such difficult times?
- Are you going to turn your back on those ones in your system that are hurting and struggling?
- Are you going to continue to deny their existence because their life story is so completely different than yours?
- Are you determined to strengthen your dissociative walls? Or are you willing to lower those dissociative walls?
Understanding your life, your symptoms, your history, your struggles, etc all go back to having good internal communication. As you talk to your inside people, and ask them what THEY know about what is going on, you will get the answers you are looking for.
Someone inside will know why this time of year is difficult.
Someone inside will be able to explain what those flashbacks and picture flashes are about.
Someone inside will know why you are so sensitive to certain smells, sounds, movements, voices, etc.
The majority of the answers for why you are struggling are contained within yourself, within your internal system. Talking to the people in your system that are on the other side of the dissociative wall will give you a ton of answers to what is happening. Whether you are willing to listen to them or not, or believe them or not, is a totally different issue, but if you want to know why you are struggling, you can find out.
Lots of times, it will be because certain insiders are struggling, and their depression, or their fear, or their anxiety, or their panic, or their PTSD flashbacks will be overflowing onto you.
If you are not sure why you are having a hard time at this holiday season, look inside to find the part / parts of you that have direct knowledge of those hard times, and go from there.
You can do it.
If your insiders are brave enough to start telling you about their struggles, be brave enough to listen to them.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
March 15, 2009
Posted in Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mental health, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Trauma tagged Abuse, Abused, Anxiety, Depressed, Depression, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Walls, Eye of the Hurricane, Generalized Depression, Grief, Guilt, Hospitalization, Hurricane, Inside parts, Insiders, Intense Depression, Internal Landscape, Internal World, Kathy Broady, Loss, Loss of a child, Loss of a close friend, Loss of a loved one, Patterns of Depression, Repeated Depression, Self Destructive Behavior, Self Harm, Self Injury, Significant Losses, Suicidal, Suicidal Behavior, Suicide, Suicide Attempts, Symptoms of Depression, System Communication, Trauma, Trauma Disorder, Trauma Survivors, trauma therapist, Treatment Goal, Treatment Goals for DID at 11:53 am by Kathy Broady
It is no secret that trauma survivors get depressed, and depression is the most commonly known and experienced mental health disorder.
Typical depression symptoms include:
- Suicidal thoughts, recurring death thoughts, death wishes
- Suicidal behavior and suicide attempts
- Self destructive behavior, self injury, self harm
- Feelings of worthlessness, guilt, self hatred, or not deserving to live
- Loss of energy, fatigue, excessive sleeping
- Little or no interest or pleasure in anything or anybody
- Inability to think, or to concentrate, or to make decisions
- Significant but unintentional changes in weight loss or weight gain
- Significant but unintentional changes in appetite
- For children, not making normal and expected weight gains and physical growth
For trauma survivors, depression can have layered meanings beyond the typical medical symptoms.
Repeated patterned depressions can be very much related to a specific or recurring trauma, or to a significant loss. For dissociative survivors with DID/MPD, the information detailing the specific loss or trauma may be hidden away or blocked off by dissociative walls. Someone in your system might know why you are feeling depressed, and they might know what the loss is, but the host / front personalities might not have a clue.
Do you have a pattern of depression occurring at the same time of year each year?
Think back through all the years. Do you have any hints that tell you how far back this pattern goes? Do you repeatedly feel the need for hospitalization at the same time each year? Do you find yourself struggling more than usual at the same time each year? Do you find yourself having thoughts of suicide or self-injury more often at a specific time of year? Do you know how long this pattern of depression been happening?
If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, be sure to check inside and to ask your various inside parts what they have noticed as well. Some of your insiders might have a different awareness of patterns and events than you do.
For repeated patterned depressions, it is important to find the original starting point of this depression pattern. Once you do, you will get more clues as to what it is about.
My general approach to repeated depressions that follow a pattern is to “assume” that there is a trauma-based reason for it. Unless you have a better explanation, in terms of a bipolar type depression pattern, or a seasonal depression pattern, then quite possibly it is a trauma-based pattern.
Look around inside, ask around inside, to see if there is anyone that knows the depressed time of year to be a particularly bad time for them. While you are talking with your system, be sure to pay attention to the following ideas:
- Who inside feels the depression the most?
- Do you see anyone inside who is showing the depression in the way that they are sitting, standing, laying, not communicating, not being “their usual self”, etc?
- When you look at your internal system, who is showing / feeling the biggest list of depression symptoms?
- If you can’t automatically see an internal someone who is depressed, take a broader look at your internal world. When you walk around your internal landscape, can you find-feel-sense the center of it?
- Is there a place inside where the depression feels the most intense vs. the generalized depression of everyone (similar to finding the eye of a hurricane).
.
Other trauma-related questions you can ask your insiders include:
- Were there any significant losses that happened at this time of year?
- Who in your system has experienced these losses? (Do not assume that everyone in your system is aware of the same losses!)
- Did you or anyone inside lose a child /children, or a close friend, or a loved one at this time of year?
- Are your feelings of grief and loss repeatedly surfacing as a type of depression?
- Was anyone inside specifically traumatized or abused at this point in time each year?
- What happened? What do you know about that trauma?
.
For dissociative trauma survivors, a significant period of depression can be a very important clue that there is an unresolved trauma waiting to be addressed. If you have the room in your life to explore its foundations, and to address how the trauma issues are related to that recurring depression, you will be able to interrupt and resolve the depression itself.
———–
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
February 15, 2009
Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mental health, Self Injury, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Trauma tagged Abandonment, Abuse, Acceptance, Child Alters, Child Parts, DID Survivor, DID/MPD, dissociative, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Entitlement, Flashbacks, Friends with DID, Getting more support, Getting Support from others, Healing, Healing Process, Isolation, Kathy Broady, Kindness, mental health, Multiplicity, Perpetrator, Professional Support, Rejection, Self Harm, Self Injury, Spouses of DID survivors, Suicidal, Support, Supportive Family Members, Supportive Spouses, Switching, therapy, Trauma, Trauma Survivors, Treatment Goal, Treatment Goal for DID, United States of Tara at 2:31 pm by Kathy Broady
As the show, “United States of Tara” is gradually starting to demonstrate, survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder have friends and family members that offer varying levels of support:
- Those that find dissociative trauma survivors to be really good, kind, decent, and wonderful people, and will stand by them faithfully.
- Those that genuinely love and support and accept them even though the DID survivors can be all kinds of weird and “nutty” and difficult.
- Those that get angry and upset with them because DID survivors can be all kinds of weird and “nutty” and difficult.
- Those that believe and support the trauma and abuse history of the DID survivor.
- Those that do not believe that the DID survivor was abused at all.
- Those that believe the multiplicity, are comfortable with a variety of alter parts presenting, acknowledge the switching as a very real thing and a natural part of DIDer’s life.
- Those that don’t believe the multiplicity is real, accuse the DIDers of just play-acting, and don’t recognize the other parts even when they are there.
- Those that initially say they will be a friend, only to totally reject, leave, or abandon the dissociative person when things get complicated or difficult.
.
So far, the Showtime Series has not adequately addressed the issues involving trauma and abuse. It also has not shown any young child parts (teenage parts are very different than child parts). Have you met a multiple that didn’t have child parts? I most certainly have not. I don’t know if the series will get into those serious elements of dissociation or not, but it is a critical element in normal life with DID. How the friends and family members treat the DIDer’s child parts is often an extremely accurate barometer of how supportive and accepting that person will be for the DIDer over all.
It is, of course, the most helpful if the friends and family members of the dissociative survivors are gentle, accepting, kind, and understanding. And sometimes, that is the case. There are some wonderfully supportive spouses, parents, and children out there. They make the healing process so much easier by contributing with their comfort, faithful assistance, gentle patience, and reassurance.
Unfortunately, all too often dissociative survivors continue to be alone and isolated, even abused and neglected within their own families.
Spouses often feel angry, ripped off, frustrated with all the added relationship complications. They might feel like they are left picking up the pieces, and overloaded with more than their fair share of the household work and parenting. It’s often hard for spouses to have patience for all the complications caused by the dissociative disorder and the survivor’s trauma history because of the heavy load it creates for them.
Extended family members are all too often filled with the perpetrators and original abusers. Most perpetrators that engaged in violence so extreme as to split a child are not ever going to become a positive support for the DIDer.
Children of dissociative people can certainly be loving and accepting of the different sides of the DIDer, but the external children cannot be the main source of emotional support or the emotional care-taker for the trauma survivor. If dissociative parents put too much emphasis on their own needs, hurts, and wants, and keep their own struggles as the bigger focus in front of the external children, those external children will be left emotionally neglected and will most likely become angry, resentful, spiteful, and hateful towards their dissociative parent.
And as much as dissociative survivors may not want to admit that they can be more difficult than average to live with, it is generally true.
What can a DID person do to facilitate their getting more support from others?
- Be genuinely appreciative – recognize even the smallest of kindness from someone and thank them. Thank them each time they give something of value to you. Nobody likes to be taken for granted, and if you have the attitude that these favors are “owed” to you, you will soon find yourself alone.
- Communicate what is going on for you. Often, others will be more willing to give if they understand why it is necessary or important. Don’t assume that they will automatically understand why you need certain things. Tell them, and explain it in a way that they can understand.
- Be determined to do as much as possible for yourself on your own. Yes, your trauma history has left big gaping wounds, but the more you meet your own needs and find ways to resolve those issues without “taking from” or “pulling on” others, the more genuine your friendships can be.
- Reciprocate kindness. When someone takes the time and effort to be supportive of you, be sure to return the favor by doing supportive things for them as well. If you are taking, taking, taking more than you are giving, the relationship will either die or explode in your face.
- Get professional support when your emotional needs become too heavy for your friends and family members. For example, friends and family members may very well pull away from you if you lean on them too heavily during intense times – ie: during extended or repeated times of suicidal feelings, episodes involving self-injury, or flashbacks. These heavy, intense issues belong in the therapeutic context and not between you and your support people.
- Build your support options so you are not putting too much pressure on one or two people to support you through the hard times. The more support options you have, the less likely any one individual support person will feel burnt out or overloaded by how much you lean on them.
- Remember that is it more important for you to learn how to emotionally support yourself and your internal system than it is to teach (force) someone else to support you.
- Take time to enjoy everyday “normal” experiences with your support people. Put your trauma issues aside, and do something that is pleasant and enjoyable to everyone.
.
Remember the old adage: To have a friend, be a friend.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
Like this:
Like Loading...
Permalink
Previous page · Next page
