viola71

I feel more vulnerable that I ever have in my life and I feel like I am breaking apart. I spent the day in therapy yesterday. I come a very traumatic past with abusive parents, a stalker who raped 4 girls (not me), and an ADHD brain. I have never trusted my brain because it always misleads me but I have always trusted my gut. My intuition or my gut developed as a survival technique first with my abusive father and then with the rapist. It has always kept me safe until now. I feel like like I am sinking into quicksand and the only foundation I had was skewed and false. I learned from a very early age to be incredibly aware of my surroundings and that I was responsible for the moods, happiness and failures of all those around me. I tried to put those responsibilities down in my twenties and I was attacked, which only solidified that I was responsible for that as well. My only guiding light has been my intuition and gut and now it seems those didn't form in a healthy way either. I truly have no skills for life that aren't skewed by my past in some way. I just feel lost and broken.

SparkleKitty

When I first entered therapy I cried non-stop for three straight months. Your feelings are very familiar to me. I promise you, you may be bent, but you are not broken. The you that emerges from this work with my stronger than ever. It will take time, and it will not be pain-free, but it will be worth it. Sending hugs, strength, and patience.

Smarie78

I think it could be a good sign that therapy is working? It always seems it has to get worse before it gets better, and therapy is a great start to taking all the pieces apart and putting them back together into wholeness.

Keep going..

hopeful4

For therapy to be successful, you have to dig hard, and deep. It hurts.

Keep going. Eventually you will get to a place that you have healthy reactions.

Many hugs!

theuncertainty

I can relate, Viola71, and I agree with SparkleKitty: you're not broken. Therapy can kind of suck when you're going through it. And it's because you're doing the work to start the healing process. I'm so lucky DS and I were living with my sister, who completely understood, when I started. I'd come home after a session and crash - sometimes by crying myself to sleep or sometimes like someone just flipped a switch from awake to asleep. It's really rough work, but you will come through it stronger and with your coping skills realigned so they help and new ones added in. Sending hugs, if OK.

mylifeismine

You will be OK.
For me, dysfunction was a comfortable, predictable place,
but still dysfunctional, unhealthy, and not for my greatest good.

Getting healthy is a foreign, uncomfortable feeling for sure.
But I know there has to be an ending for a great new beginning
to start. Have to let go of the riverbank and flow in the stream
for a while to grow and arrive in a new place.

With my HP I was able to get comfort and peace, and alanon is
a great support as is SR. We've got your back, V. Keep going
and give yourself all the support you need right now!

Hugs

LifeRecovery

I had a similar experience to SparkleKitty.

One thing that helped me (after the fact) was being educated about recovery from my therapist. That the process of recovery is about breaking down the old stuff that does not work, and supporting and rebuilding what does.

I cried, I slept during pieces of it (a lot). I actually had some significant (like 4 hours plus) of burping on multiple occasions.

I was wrecked during pieces of it. I am so glad I experienced it and stuck with it.

Please be gentle with you right now. Beating myself up for how I was feeling never helped me.

SoloMio

I read something once by an old New Age writer, Catherine Ponder, that made a lot of sense to me, even though it seems a little woo-woo. She called the process of things getting worse before it gets better "chemicalization."
I think this is a good way to think about the whole process of recovery. Moving out of our comfort zone is not easy, but it's growth.

PuzzledHeart

Maybe your intuition and gut are perfectly fine, but overdeveloped.

I'm a runner and prone to injury. One thing I've learned is that I need to balance out the muscular load. I can run every single day, but it means that I overdevelop my running muscles and ignore the muscles needed to avoid injury.

I came from an abusive household and the way I coped with things was to be busy. Really REALLY busy. Well obviously this is an unsustainable way of doing things and my health suffered as a result. Everything just fell apart, and even now I just go to my therapist and I have a good cry. Every single week. But the one thing he told me was that I needed to learn how to cope with life without having 3000 activities as a shield for the chaos I felt inside me. And it was OK to say, screw this, I'm overwhelmed, and today I'm going to take a nap.

So back to you. I suspect your intuition is just fine. However, you need to develop the other "muscles". It will suck. It will hurt. But then you'll be able to use all the muscles, not just one. Which means you won't wear your intuition out.

I just happened to land on this article at my therapist's waiting room today and it might be appropriate for both of us....

https://www.psychologytoday.com/arti...ough-childhood

viola71

[QUOTE=PuzzledHeart;6534434]Maybe your intuition and gut are perfectly fine, but overdeveloped.

Wow that article hit spot on. I too have such overdeveloped skills I could work for the CIA. The description of growing up in an unstable home and having the feeling of being trapped even during calmer times really hit home. Thank you so much for this share I really needed this.

SimplyE

Just wanted to send you an understanding hug. Dealing with much of what you and everyone in this thread is dealing with. Hugs to you all.

AlcSis

Just sending soft hugs.

You might let your therapist know how rough this is for you.

Remember, One Step at a Time!

Soft hugs, again!

dandylion

PuzzledHeart....thanks for the article! Very thought provoking.......

LifeRecovery

I love this article.

Part of my healing has been a new perspective. Prior to recovery I was living with a pair of dirty glasses that were the wrong prescription.

Part of getting glasses that work and seeing clearly is re-evaluation what is a strength and weakness. I was trying so hard to be "normal," which in my family meant numb that I was trying to not have emotions.

It was hard unwinding this all but it has helped me to see things I thought as weaknesses as strengths and things I thought were working for me for so long as sometime I can let go of. That article did a great job of covering those pieces.

Thanks so much.