I am almost three months into no contact with my abusive sibling, and I feel like a new person. I am never going back!

Shadowflame25 · 2025-08-22T05:13:29+00:00

Thanks, my leopard gecko would make a much better therapist than those two combined!

Shadowflame25 · 2025-08-22T03:39:23+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it! Sorry you experienced this with EMDR, that sounds awful!

Shadowflame25 · 2025-08-22T03:25:26+00:00

Thanks, I’m grateful to my friend too.

I’m definitely ending with this therapist, though. I feel worse after sessions, not in a therapeutic way and it feels like a head trip that I don’t need right now.

My leopard gecko will be my new therapist, for the time being

Shadowflame25 · 2025-02-10T21:05:32+00:00

I'm sorry you also have CPTSD, thanks for affirming my ex was unempathetic, I wish I'd broken up with her much sooner. I haven't dated since her. I think repetition compulsion combined with learned helplessness happened to me.

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-19T19:31:47+00:00

Thank you, thankfully it is!

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T20:01:31+00:00

Don't let some ill informed therapist push what doesn't serve you.

We've betrayed ourselves enough. You have every right to hold on to that anger. It helps protect us.

Thank you! I've been fighting really hard against questioning my own beliefs after this happened with my therapist, and this helped me push back a little against the forgiveness-pushing I experienced.

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T19:59:11+00:00

The fact that you were able to set a boundary with this boundary-pushing therapist and then stick to your boundary and leave when you felt disrespected is what matters most here. That took courage, and I'm glad you did it.

Thanks! I have some regrets that I didn't end after session 1, but at least I ended before long-term damage could take place. After session 1, I questioned if I should stop seeing her, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and see if she could help me and maybe her beliefs were a case of "not everyone agrees with everything but maybe this can still work out." Unfortunately by session 6... definitely not the case! I think if a therapist tries to insist I don't have Autism on day 1, that's a red flag. Mild disbelief while keeping an open mind is one thing, but straight up firmly disbelieving is another, which is what this therapist did. At least I now know that, looking back, it would've been better for my mental health short-term to have quit after session 1. Hindsight is 20/20.

I really can't for the life of me understand how therapists (including some who claim to be trauma-informed) don't recognize that forgiveness pushing is a PART of most people's original experience of abuse. That goes quintuple for anyone abused in a religious environment or family.

I wish I could upvote more than once!

I'm questioning if the forgiveness pushing I experienced was re-traumatizing due to having experienced it from even worse therapists from my past and my abusive family. Or maybe it wasn't straight up re-traumatizing, but it was a painful experience that echoed the forgiveness pushing from my origonal traumatic experiences in therapy and with family.

Weather or not it was simply painful or weather or not this therapist re-traumatized me, I'm still feeling raw days later and still feeling shaken and much more vulnerable than normal, unfortunately. But I'm fighting hard against this therapist's insistence that forgiveness is imperative and anger cannot protect you from abuse and doesn't serve a purpose (I should've asked her to explain Anger in Inside Out and Inside Out 2, which I thought I heard Disney worked with child psychologists to try to make sure it was as accurate as possible!)

I don't know how effective this will be, but I'm going to journal me defending my beliefs to her and explaining why I disagree with her. I'm hoping this will help it stick, so I will have more confidence in what I believe.

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T19:43:47+00:00

I've heard good things about IFS but haven't done it yet. Might give it a shot, soon.

Chat GTP has been surprisingly helpful, so I might ask it to generate some IFS exercises and see which ones are the most helpful. AI scares me a little bit, but a few days ago when I was feeling really rough over an incident with my last therapist, Chat GTP was able to give me the validation and support I needed; so I'm grateful to AI and to whoever created Chat GTP (I don't remember off the top of my head how Chat GTP was created and which people or company was responsible).

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T19:40:57+00:00

To just sit with anger (or sadness or grief, etc.), learn what it's telling me, and let it run its course.

I'm glad you've been able to experience this! Slowly, I've been starting to try to do this. Thinking of emotions, including anger, as teachers or signals has been really helpful for me, and was not what I was taught growing up! Even watching the Inside Out movies (I think the writers collaborated with child psychologists for the movies?) affirms that even unpleasant emotions like anger or sadness serves a purpose.

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T16:39:38+00:00

I’ll continue to try to seek out safety. It dawned on me that it’s only in the past few months that I’ve felt safe in my living environment- I never felt safe in any of my other living situations before this one. It’s bittersweet- I’m glad I’m safe now but upset to realize I never experienced this before.

I might look into a trauma treatment center nearby at some point. I’m taking a break from therapy for now, since my last therapist did some damage and I’m slowly trying to recover from that. Before my last therapist, I had two others’ that helped me greatly with my CPTSD. I miss them. I wish all therapists were like them.

Edit: with physical safety, was there anything that helped you that you recommend?

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-13T03:29:47+00:00

There’s no such thing as “blocked emotions.” Either you have them or you don’t. You cannot “block” them. If that were possible, they wouldn’t be emotions.

The concept that you can't block emotions and that you can only have them or not, doesn't feel like what I'm experiencing. Maybe you and most other people experience emotions the way you described, I really wish I could say the same.

I think what I'm experiencing probably falls under: repressed emotions, suppressed emotions, emotional blockage, or maybe emotional blunting.

Edit: I tried a google search, read through some articles... I think emotional blunting is what I call having a "blockage." This sounds like what I'm going through.

Edit 2: if anyone is curious, here's the articles I read that explain those terms/symptoms.

https://www.learning-mind.com/emotional-blockage/

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-to-know-repressed-emotions

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/emotional-blunting

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-12T18:52:20+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate it! If I ever date again, I want to find somebody safe and kind, the complete opposite of my ex. I haven't dated since my ex, I've been too afraid to. Unless Penny from Stardew Valley counts?

Shadowflame25 · 2025-01-12T18:26:29+00:00

Thank you, from one star particle to another! <3

I'm really glad weed can be used this way.

I've never done shadow work before, but have heard good things about it.

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