How to deal with abuse memories that occasionally come up for no reason.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I suffered quite a bit of abuse throughout my childhood. Sometimes when I go to bed at night and it’s all quiet, my mind will start heading back to memories and I can usually fend it off by thinking of something good, like my budgies playing or something funny that happened at work or anything really. Just something to take my mind off it so I can get to sleep.

Last night when the thoughts came, I decided to think about Christmas as a child because it really was a good time. We didn’t get screamed at, or beaten or sexually abused when it was Christmas and we got just a ton of toys so it’s always been a good memory for me.

So I was laying there, thinking about how much wrapping paper there was after the gifts were open and how we didn’t even have to clean it up. As I was thinking about “clean it up” I just started to cry. I couldn’t figure out why that, of all things, would make me upset but I just couldn’t stop crying.

After about 15 minutes of this I needed to get up and blow my nose and stuff and I headed down the hall to get a drink of water. On the way back I got hit with a horrible memory that I hadn’t thought of in years and it just felt like a punch in the gut.

When I was a kid my dad would trash my room and then tell me to clean it up. One day when I was 9 he really went all out trashing my room. He flipped the bed over, emptied all the clothes out of the dressers and the closet, everything off shelves, dumped my toy box, all ornaments, toys and curtains dumped into a huge pile (taller than I was) in the middle of the room.

Then he went to the kitchen and got the garbage can and dumped it on top of the pile. There was all sorts of gross things in it that day: meat trimmings, vegetable peels, egg shells, grapefruit halves…

This time he told me I wasn’t allowed to clean it and I had to live in it. Then he and my mom left and went to bible study and left my brother and me alone for the evening. As the night wore on I got tired but there wasn’t anywhere to lay down. Eventually I found a little corner in the room that didn’t have any garbage on it and I crawled into a little ball and went to sleep.

I have no memory of what happened after that.

Anyway, when I remembered that last night, I just started sobbing and sobbing. I could not stop and my body almost started convulsing and I just couldn’t calm myself for such a long time. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that I was calm enough to try to sleep. The whole thing was pretty horrible.

I’m guessing that “we didn’t have to clean the wrapping paper” triggered the “clean this mess up” memory.

I felt like hell today at work. Just exhausted and angry.

If you’ve read to the end, thanks. I wanted to vent a little but I also am wondering if anyone has any tips to stop the unwanted thoughts and how to deal with them when they creep in. I have been to therapy.

2

<hugs> You’re already in therapy, so I’m sure you’ve been told, and probably know intellectually, that none of that was your fault, and there was nothing you could have done differently to prevent it. I don’t know how old you are, or how long you’ve been dealing with this emotionally, since sometimes people take decades to admit what happened, much less seek help and try to get through it.

But it IS a ‘get through it’, not ‘get over it’ kind of thing. The memories won’t go away, and I don’t know if the emotional release that can come from them helps a little or not. I like to think it does, but everyone varies.

I spent most of my time growing up listening to my mom tell us stories of her childhood, and it was bad. Usually this was when my dad was out drinking and my mom was at home, having a couple of beers, and it was like we were the only people she could tell it all to. She had no therapy, and she had few friends. And I don’t know just when the episodes, for her, slowed down until they were just black and white memories, no more emotional colour to ruin her day. But I know it happened. And I’m glad.

I hope that happens for you, too.

p.s. As a female, my best advice for getting over emotions is to get it all out when you feel it. It’s like grief after a death or other loss: no matter how many times a day you break down completely because you just can’t imagine moving on, eventually you kind of cry it out. It still hurts, but it doesn’t destroy you anymore. I think that’s half of what a lot of talk therapy does for people: gets them to talk, and feel emotional, about things they just may not have time for during the rest of the day, if that makes sense.

You have my sympathies, but I get the feeling <correct or not> that you are on the right path, and I wish you the best.

3

Every day, usually at night but sometimes in the mornings, I have to go thru steps. I start remembering/feeling. Usually I cry. Eventually I work my way thru it, or I exhaust myself and need to sleep. Sometimes it takes a few minutes and sometimes it takes hours. I never know.
My husband is used to it. I’ve had years of therapy and enough medication to choke a horse. A lot of things have improved but there doesn’t seem to be any way around reliving it.
I wish you could have scooped up part of that garbarge and dropped it on the floor at Bible study, explaining to everybody how you came to have it. Evil hates exposure and maybe it would have stopped/lessened the abuse, or somebody would have understood what you were going thru and come into your life with help. But I couldn’t tell, either. I think lots of people knew but as long as they weren’t forced to acknowledge it they could pretend it couldn’t be so.
Maybe continued therapy is a good place to let it out, a safe place to remember, tho I got really tired of going over the same old things with no lasting relief.
I’m sorry I don’t have a method for making it stop but I do understand.

4

You can take this as a sign that you’re stong enough and safe enough to let this lot out of your subconcious and deal with it.

Cry over it by all means, it was a shitty thing to live through, then pat yourself on the back for surviving it and not ever having to put up with that behaviour ever again.

Well done.

5

Taomist posted some good advice while I was typing.

6

The things I have gone through were minor, short lived, and nothing like the tragedy you just described. And still it gets to me occasionally. Mainly I feel it as grieving for my younger self. Completely unrelated events will trigger it. So I have this thing I do. From time to time I look at house listings online, whether I am looking for a place or not. So in my head, I picture a recent place I thought was cute, and I start furnishing it with the stuff I have now- trying to get all my existing stuff to fit into the new place. I usually start with the living room furniture, then kitchen/dining, then bedrooms, bathroom(s), then outside. (Which wall will the couch go on? Maybe I’ll need a new rug…) Occasionally, I’ll even picture things like laundry detergent on the shelf above the washer, or what kind of food I want in the kitchen pantry. I try to do it room by room in order, then picture myself walking through the whole place once it is done. I usually don’t even get past the first bedroom before I am calmed down or even asleep.

Obviously ymmv. It might be more beneficial to you to go ahead and let it out as it hits you. But I agree that there’s a point where you’re sick of an emotion, sick of crying, but you’re still feeling it.

This might be the stupidest idea anyone has ever had, and if so I apologize. This is just what I do during low points or with racing thoughts. It is incredibly distracting. Plus it is a systematic yet somewhat creative thought process. It is the closest thing I have to a ‘tip’. Kudos to you for your strength and eloquence.

7

I have used two different approaches, both successful, one is less woo-woo than the other.

  1. Write it out, in a letter. Covering:
    This is what you did to me.
    This is how it made me feel.
    This is what you should have done.
    This is what I wanted from you.
    This is what I want from you now.

It helped to get to the bottom of it all, to clearly frame it as wrong, and make it feel as resolved as possible. Sometimes it takes multiple times to work it out.

  1. (this is the woo-woo one):

Start a dialogue with your inner 9 year old.
Explain that you want to help him/her with how he/she is feeling.
Ask what happened.
Explain how/why it was wrong.
Explain that you are no longer 9, that you are an adult now, and why that means you are safe from it happening again.
Ask how it made him/her feel, talk through the emotions like you would with an upset friend.
Do that repeatedly if there are multiple emotions.
Ask him/her what he/she wants now, to feel safe, then imagine it for him/her (this is the truly woo-woo part). It could be that he/she wants to imagine different parents, or living with grandparents, or throwing your parents into a black hole and living with a gaggle of kids. Whatever.

It sounds crazy, but it works. I would feel so much more peaceful after.

8

If it was me, through my tears, I’d be shouting, as loud as I could:

“Don’t worry little Gimpy! You’re going to make it! You’re going to survive! It’s going to be alright. This bully isn’t going to destroy you, just make you cry only! You’re going to be okay! He’s not going to kill your spirit, not even by being this evil! Your spirit is stronger than any bully, you’re made of tougher stuff! You will come through this! Hang in there little Gimpy!”

Give that Little Gimpy some props, loud and proud, at every opportunity, I say!

9

I’ve done the letter thing (never sent it; that wasn’t the point) and the talk-to-my-child-self thing, and both were helpful. Another thing I’ve done, in the context of a self-helpy kind of seminar (that was actually, against all odds, quite useful) is to write out My Story and then read it out loud to another, fairly disinterested party. That is, a virtual stranger with no stake in me or my emotions or my drama. I read it, and then I read it again and then I read it again and then I read it again until I was so sick of my story I couldn’t stand it. And then I read it again and read it again and read it again and about that time, it actually started to become absurd. I got the giggles. The person I was reading it to got the giggles from me. I tried reading it again, and just couldn’t get through it again because it was just so stupid.

That gave me enough distance from the truly traumatic events in my story that they’ve never come back to haunt me in the same way. I still recall them from time to time, but now they’re coded in my brain as ridiculous, and I think of that storytelling time, rather than the actual time of the events. Now when I think about being abused as a kid, it makes me giggle and wonder how that stranger that listened to my story is doing today. It’s a little strange, but I vastly prefer it to the paralyzing fear and panic I used to get.

10

I started to read these but only got through the first one before I started getting all teary and I’m leaving for a work in a few minutes and don’t want to look like I just watched Lassie or The Incredible Journey!

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for replying. I’ll read these tonight. It’s a huge help knowing other people are going through the same thing or have thoughts/advice. It makes me feel not so alone.

11

You were grieving your childhood. This is normal and healthy. Yes, it hurts like hell. But you have to go through it in order to move past it. I have had PTSD for over a decade and the thing that helped me most was working on my fear of those experiences. You can go there, you can allow yourself to hurt, you will find out you can withstand more grief and fear than you ever imagined, and then you can pick yourself up and carry on. The more you try to push out the feelings of hurt, the more they will come back to haunt you and the worse they will get (this is scientific fact… one of the core driving mechanisms behind PTSD is avoidance behavior.)

So when I’m having a flashback or thinking about some painful memory or whatever, I try to just indulge myself fully in whatever it is… I don’t mean ruminate about it for hours, I mean jump right to the core of that pain, in the physical moment. The ache in my chest, the difficulty breathing, the thoughts of hopelessness and helplessness. And yeah, I cry. And I know while I’m crying that this is a healthy response to traumatic experience. Then usually about 10 minutes later I feel a lot better and can get on with life. (Sometimes this is not possible to do right away, like if I’m at work or something, in which case soothing behaviors (meditation, a cup of tea, a piece of chocolate) are fine ways to get through the day. But at some point you have to face it.

I’ve been having a hard time this month with PTSD, and I know it’s partly because I’ve been treating my past like an irritating and intrusive inconvenience and trying to avoid the feelings that come along with it. I’ve got so much external stress right now that I’m afraid if I really let go I will fall apart. That is a very normal fear, but if I’m honest with myself I know the opposite is true. I need to make time for myself. I’ve been wanting to cry all week but haven’t.

Honestly I’m so happy for you. I’ve read your posts about your childhood in the past and I could recognize that sort of rumination/avoidance paradox that it took me so long to work through (and that I still work on… it’s a lifetime thing.) The fact that you are grieving is a very, very good thing.

12

OMG, are you me? Almost the same damn thing happened to me, only the circumstances were a little different.

When I was about 14, some band was coming to another town nearby that my sister and I wanted to go see. She had her driver’s license and we both had our own money, so I went to ask Dad if I could go. The main issue was, it was on a school night. So he agreed, under three conditions: 1) I had to have my room sparkling clean before I left, 2) All my homework had to be done before I left, and 3) No matter what time we got home, I had to get up and go to school on time the next day. I eagerly agreed to all these conditions and my sister and I bought our tickets.

Flash forward to the night of the show. I went home after school, made sure my room was ting clean (I even dusted and vacuumed), whippped through my homework and started getting ready to go. My dad did not request an inspection of either my room nor my homework before we left.

When I got home, at around 1 a.m., ears ringing, I walked into my room to see a very similar sight to what you described, minus the kitchen garbage. But he had trashed my room. Every drawer, every shelf, everything had been emptied and tossed around the room, mattress pulled off the box springs, sheets strewn all over. We stood there, mouths agape. My sister said, “What the hell did you do?” I replied, “I. have. no. idea.” I thought I had agreed to all conditions. She then offered to help me clean up. I refused, telling her that I didn’t know why, but somehow I had the idea that A) I was supposed to clean it up by myself and B) It had probably better be done before I went to bed. So I stayed up until 4 a.m. putting my room back together, and got up at 7:00 as usual to go to school.

When I got home from school that afternoon, Dad acted as if nothing had happened. The incident was never discussed. To this day, I still cannot figure out exactly what “lesson” my dad was trying to teach me. I don’t know why he did that. I don’t know what I did wrong to deserve that.

And that memory gets triggered every now and then and I react much in the same way you do. And yes, I’ve gotten metric fucktons of therapy since then. But sometimes, just when you think you’ve worked through all that crap, something comes up and triggers some trauma that you haven’t processed.

So, in addition to some other really great suggestions upthread, one thing I can suggest that helped me was role playing. I’ve done this alone, but you could probably find another person to do this with you. I had an imaginary “conversation” with my dad, where I pretty much laid it all out about how I’d done everything I’d agreed to and he was being an unreasonable ass and an extremely ineffective parent. I straight up told him (to his imaginary face in my mind) exactly what I thought of his bullshit abusive parenting tactics. In my imagination, he cried for being such a douche and apologized profusely. Should that conversation ever happen in real life, he would probably not even acknowledge what happened and would either not remember or claim to not remember. I doubt he would be able to explain the lesson that was supposed to be taught, nor would he remember why he was motivated to take such action. He’d probably still think it was “funny” to pull one over on the kid.

I find that telling the story over and over and over and giving it your own happy ending helps a lot. Many of my more horrific stories have been told so much that even I’m sick of telling them and triggering events don’t seem to trigger as much of a PTSD response anymore. But I highly recommend processing as an adult, with an eye toward being really compassionate and empathetic to your 9-year-old self. Feel the anger, the rage, the grief, the betrayal of trust, and then shout, scream, cry, smash glass in the driveway, punch pillows, tell your parents off (not with them there). That all helps to let these poison toxic experiences go. It also helps to know you are not the only one who went through something like that. So we’ve both got that going for us. :slight_smile:

13

FloatyGimpy, I hope you have a decent day at work. Later, when you read these posts, I hope they can help you deal with what you’re going through right now. One thing Sam I Am said stood out to me, in the woo-woo part: Ask him/her what he/she wants now, to feel safe… That’s where I stopped. For me, I know I can’t help the me of then but I want to help me now. Denial keeps me from meeting some of my needs because I can’t bring myself to admit I have them. (Too vulnerable.) That’s what I’m thinking about today. I hope you find many key phrases in here to put in your “tool box” of remedies.

14

Hi FG, I’m moved by your story and your courage at sharing with a group of strangers here. Its a good step you have taken. There is a lot of wisdom and good advice in the world and the posts on this thread bear that out.

One size does not fit all meaning that finding the best path for you will be a mix of peoples suggestions. Often just feeling empathy and compassion from others is a huge lift. I do like the ideas below.

15

Hello FG.

I’ve had similar experiences of a nearly-forgotten childhood incident coming back and walloping me over the head. maggenpye is right - when you were a kid, your mind protected you by shoving the memory in a box in some dusty corner of your brain, so you didn’t have to deal with it while still struggling to survive in an abusive household. Now that you’re grown and in a safer place, your mind is starting to clean out the corners and unpack some of that stuff, and it doesn’t always warn you ahead of time.

My method for dealing with resurfacing memories is a mix of what other people have said - cry it out, write angry letters or imagine a confrontation, talk to the younger you that experienced that, talk it out with a therapist or a friend, let yourself mourn. I’ve done all of the above, in varying proportions. Usually the most effective for me is letting the younger me tell her story, and express what she’s feeling. Once I can accept what she’s saying and feel compassion for the little girl that went through that and offer her my adult self’s support, it tends to fade.

It’s not fun work, but the freedom that you get afterwards is beautiful. Best wishes to you.

16

Wow, I’m sorry for what happened to you FG, that must have been horrible. I hope you put your dad in the worst and most abusive nursing home you could think of, or just kicked him out of the house and made him homeless

17

[quote=“Taomist, post:2, topic:639631”]

<hugs> people take decades to admit what happened, QUOTE]

I’m not so sure it’s really admitting, more like realising.

What happens to you at home as a child is normal for you. It’s only when you grow up you realise, hold on, that was terrifing, that wasn’t right, I’m frightened, I’m hurt.

My husband would say to me “the past cannot happen again” but bloody hell it sure feels like it sometimes.

I have a whole collection of emails I’ve sent to myself following episodes of rememberance. Some things come knocking again, some seem to have left for good.

18

[quote=“Bam_Boo_Gut, post:17, topic:639631”]

You are so right. I suspect my mom was in her mid-20s before she could come to face to fact with the recognition that what her father wasn’t doing was showing her love. So, not only was all that bad stuff happening, but she’d thought it was because he loved her, and that’s how he showed it. So she lost her father’s love, on top of everything else.

I really like the idea of refurnishing a new house, btw. It sounds like a nice way to get to sleep, plus it puts things into your control, and reminds you that there are good things about you, and you can bring them to a new place. It all doesn’t have to be the same old house.

19

This was the absolute worst part for me, and I think so few people understand. I thought he loved me. It wasn’t until after I legally emancipated that it hit me - this was not love. The father I knew and loved was effectively dead, and it was like everyone was blaming me for his death.

To this day I still miss him. And it’s so weird knowing there is someone else out there wearing his skin and clothes and face. I don’t miss that person. I miss the person who loved me.

20

Hello FloatyGimpy, I’m sending you good thoughts and virtual hugs. I survived a violent abusive father so I understand what you’re going through. I have done the letter thing (but that can make me feel worse) and self mothering. One of the many self-help books I’ve read, mentioned that abused/neglected children grow up without self-soothing techniques. So, I started building an arsenal of soothing options when the bad memories overwhelm. From taking a bath, scented candles, music, snuggling with pets, to reading a favorite book or watching a comedy.

Eventually you’ll get to a point when a horrible childhood memory surfaces, you’ll kinda examine it, think, “Wow that sucked” and “Dad [abuser] was a complete nutjob.” It takes a while to disconnect the visceral emotional reaction from the memory. I’ve been in therapy for over a decade.