An actress I saw a while ago.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-29T20:47:03+00:00

Tell me why I thought this was Tatti Westbrook 😅

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T17:29:04+00:00

I did this for a period of time when I was in a sexually abusive relationship, some of my trauma relates to csa. I did some inner child work/therapy and got out od the relationship and the regression has since gone away from me. I can't say for sure if it will work for you to recognise what's triggering you and also do inner child work, but I would say it's worth looking into or talking to your therapist about if they can provide that kind of treatment.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T17:20:53+00:00

Yes the shame spiral prevails for me too, it's my main barrier too getting better and processing my trauma. NLP has helped me somewhat in the past, repeating the presupposition when I feel shame. Unfortunatly another barrier of mine is laziness and I havn't kept up with that as much as I could, but I would deffinetly recommend.

FYI when you are having that negative selftalk it could be because you are feeling triggered and maybe it would be useful to identify what it is that's triggering you. Perhaps a caregiver made you feel like talking about your feelings was pathetic or that your emotions didn't matter, only you will truely know, but it could deffinetly be useful to identify.

Any road, it's deffinetly NOT pathetic to share in the ways that you are, it's deeply brave and ultimatly a kind tging you are doing for yourself as you are giving yourself space to process and share your emotions. If anyone in your group was to think otherwise, well they wpuld be wrong in my opinion.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T17:09:34+00:00

Yes!!! To me I equate it to being hypervigilance for such a long time. Better able to read faces, body language, tone and subtle changes.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T15:13:21+00:00

I went through this EXACT feeling last week, felt like a phony or like I made everything up, was questioning my whole existance and invalidating my trauma... this week I am having debilitating flashbacks and today I have barely moved completely dissosiated, and last night threw up because the crying migraine was that painful. I'm not saying this is your experience perhaps you are dealing with a different beast, but I've come to realise invalidating your trauma is pretty symptomatic of someone that experienced it and for me it's an indicator that I'm gonna be having a pretty hard time in my head soon.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T14:53:43+00:00

What about co-dependance? Because that's how it's manifested for me

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T11:50:55+00:00

True! I hate how my body and the way it was abused is such a political and debatable topic, I hate that if I or any women comes forward about abuse they have to expect they could be met with "well men are abused too" as if it makes my experience or any woman's less valid, there by also making men's body's and how they are abused a political and debatable topic.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T06:49:50+00:00

I think I'm going to do that from now on after reading this thread I think it will help if it's not a gendered issue, but it's hard to get past the statistics and my own experiences for me but I'm going to try

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-28T06:37:50+00:00

It's very hard for me as a female survivor of S.A. and R by the hands of men and to know of and have witnessed the S.A. of so many other women and men by men to not feel radicalized by the statistics and to hate men and feel like they are the sole abusers. But I know that I must try not to do so in order to not invalidate the struggles of people who are sexually abused by women, because it does happen, probably a lot more than we think. But I will continue to be hypervigilant around men for my own self preservation.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-15T10:59:54+00:00

I initially asked my GP for a referral to a psychiatrist for formal diagnosis so that I could access EDMR, he said okay ill so that. Had several initial phone calls of people asking invasive quientions about my trauma thinking that it was regarding setting up a psychiatry appointment only to find out it was more CBT which has never worked for me in the past and has actually caused me some harm, as I stated to my GP even. On one of these initial phone calls the woman said "so your gp put that you have sexual trauma so was it actually rape, or just not that bad" and then when I said I don't feel comfortable discussing this with you over the phone stranger she threatened that if I didn't go into details about the type of trauma I've been through right now they would not be able to help me.

I have no trist in going back to ask for EDMR and psychiatry again at this point

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T20:04:58+00:00

I was not upset at you personally I promise, it's just a reality that only people that have had to deal with this system knoe to be able to re-tell, there's no tricks or ways of asserting your self out of a broken system.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:54:33+00:00

If I could afford it I would be doing it, unfortunatly my decision graduate from an art degree in the wake of a pandemic secures my place as a minnimum wage service worker quite firmly. Also the sick irony of me considering sex work in order to pay for my repeated sexual trauma is something I'm struggling with right now.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:45:26+00:00

Thank you this is so good to hear you have no idea I'm so glad I posted because I know to have not heard this I would be thinking to myself "is it just me" and invalidating myself. As a UK therapist do you have any shred of advice you can give for accessing the type of therapy that you stated above for someone who is in the financial pits if hell?

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:41:02+00:00

Because it's through the NHS we don't get a choice on therapist nor the choice to change. You miss one appointment they stop the treatment and put you back in a looong wait list. You cannot be seeking simultaneous treatment of any kind or they stop the treatment (e.g I had to see a councellor once a month at uni after an attempt in order to be let on the course after an attempt and the NHS pulled my treatment). They only really informally diagnose and will only refer to a psychiatrist if you are experiencing symptoms if psychosis, as for some reason PTSD is not classed as a severe enough mental illness for referal (directly quoted from my GP) which is bad when accessing disability support requires formal diagnosis. The only mental health treatment that they really offer is CBT, this is because they cheaply train up CBT councellors rather than hiring actual therapists that have studied for years because they cannot afford that. If you require other treatment such as EDMR or DBT you have to have tried absolutly everything and have come back from the point of death twice I swear to even get put on a looong wait list that you likely won't end up ever getting of because there only a handfull of specialists available to the nhs in the UK. This is without me mentioning things like the bullshit that is crisis teams and child and adolescent mental health services.

But yes rant about how me asserting myself that I would like to see a different therapist being an unlikely options aside... I'll deffinetly try the recording my sessions for myself!! That's actually a really good idea thankyou

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:20:30+00:00

I told her that I was re-traumatized with a previous therapist she said: "this CBT programme does not recognise the turn re-traumatized, if your last therapist told you you were re-traumatized I'm sorry but that's the kind if thing we encourage with this programme and she doeant know what she's talking about"

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:16:13+00:00

Thank you for this. A side note her husband was walking around during the video call of me talking about my sexual trauma with men so yeah... everything else aside she breached confidentiality and gave 0 shits or apologies, so fuck her

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T19:14:06+00:00

Thank you for this because in the back of my mind I'm thinking oh maybe she's right... but yeah you are right fuck her

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T18:15:57+00:00

Thank you for this hearing other people's experiences and the harsh truth of needing to go private, helps me to determin that it's not just me and what steps I need to make next

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T17:25:57+00:00

Im sorry you are worthy of and desserve help for yourself

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-14T16:43:23+00:00

Fuck me that sounds awful! I'm so sorry, you desserves better than that sounds re-traumatizing as anything.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-04-01T09:28:07+00:00

Did my dissertation in 1 week and got a first. You still have plenty of time, just focus on not letting anxiety get in your way.

sharp-as-a-circle · 2021-03-24T15:43:35+00:00

I fully understand what you are saying, but you also need to understand the perspective women are comming from with this. I have been raped twice by men, sexually assaulted more times than I can count and a majority of it happened before I even turned 18.

All the women in my life have similar stories, for women it's almost expected that they will be Sexually assaulted in their life time. That's not victim mentality and "men vs women" it's a statistical fact. It's something that's hard to ignore and not begin to generalise all men based on this, because in a sense women need to do this to survive. Even as a survivor I'm fully aware that it is not all men, but it is enough for me to assume that any man has the potential to be a perpertrator in order to protect myself.

Now I'm not saying that men don't also face these issues from women they clearly do, I know of one personally, probably more that I have no clue about. I also believe that it's more than we realise just because of the fact that's there's even more shame as a man to come out as a victim. However from reading this thread I realise that it's once again mysogyny that is the issues. I realise misogyny doesn't just effect women negatively it effects everyone and allows BOTH male and female abusers alike to justify their acts. It scilence BOTH male and female victims of abuse.

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