If you faced unimaginable trauma as a child, do you ever really move on?

[Anonymous]

If you faced unimaginable trauma as a child (parent murdered, sibling death, extreme physical or emotional abuse, victim of a sexual crime) do you think it’s actually possible to move past that?

I’m someone who experienced this and have been in counseling for most of my life. I am happily married with 2 wonderful children, many close friends, an active life, beautiful homes, well off.. and I am still just overtaken by the feelings of shame and sadness of my own childhood. It just lives inside of me and no amount of counseling or ssri seems to touch it. I obviously go about with my life and don’t discuss it with others aside from professionals but I just wonder if anyone has managed to truly let the past go. Still to this day, I just don’t feel comfortable or like I quite fit in or am understood by anyone. I feel like a fish out of water in every situation, even with my own family.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I’m living proof.

What’s helped? EMDR therapy. Removing dangerous/toxic/abusive people from my life.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, the feelings never completely dissipate. I've had a very hard time with past traumas.

I've done counseling on and off, as needed, and that did give me the tools and resources I needed. In retrospect, I'm glad I saw three or so counselors over the course of many years because I learned different strategies from each of them.

Meditation, regular exercise, and a time-consuming hobby has helped me a lot.

In my case, the trauma created a mentally unwell sister who can start screaming and who will lie about me to other people. In a way, I still can't escape the emotional and verbal abuse. Anytime I'm around my sister, I feel sort of sick afterwards. She does whatever damage she wants and never apologizes. In fact, she'll just blame me. DARVO all over.

[Anonymous]

I think we can move on while not being fully healed. I am so grateful for my present life with my wonderful husband and kids but sometimes I can still kind of go off on a tangent thinking about the past, sometimes in a ptsd way. One thing that helps me rationally is the knowledge that in the slightly deeper human past —before 1950 or so— pretty much everyone endured these traumas of siblings, parents and others dying young in awful ways. Emotionally humans are built to handle it. Although sometimes that way of thinking has the opposite effect, precisely because in modern America it feels so unusual/unfair when our peers seems insulated and protected somehow. Mine was a public tragedy/scandal that made my grieving family a pariah state and I still struggle with that — being so hurt and destroyed and getting laughed at and shunned at the same time. I remind myself that it motivated me to kick a$$ in school, attend HYP and give myself another shot at happiness. Otherwise I might have been all too content with mediocrity. My kids might not get into Harvard but it is soooo not worth having my kind of, um, “narrative.”

[Anonymous]

OP, EMDR and NARM therapy were more helpful to me than talk therapy. I also found somatic experiencing work to be beneficial.

[Anonymous]

It’s a memory. We store memories in our brain. Our brain does not decipher bad memories from good ones. It will always be there and the more you think and talk about it (therapy), the more that memory comes to life and gets revisited in our thoughts. You don’t get past the bad stuff. You learn to live with it.

[Anonymous]

This was very helpful to me in replacing the shame and sadness I had carried since childhood, OP.

https://www.amazon.com/Loving-Parent-Guidebook-Solution-Become-ebook/dp/B09D9VLVVH

There are groups that work through it together, not required, but also helpful to me.

https://adultchildren.org/meeting-search/#mtslresult

It helped me get at the feelings in a way talking did not and to develop a sense of wholeness.

Best to you.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is possible. One of the biggest problems is that different modalities work for different people, but treatments go in and out of fashion. I was lucky that I began serious therapy in my mid twenties when accessing quality psychiatry was much easier. Talk therapy helped me tremendously, as have medication and meditation. It took a long time to find the right medications for me, and they’re not in fashion now. If I didn’t have the right treatment for my PTSD, I’d still be a hostage to it.

EMDR didn’t help me, but I’ve seen it work with amazing speed and efficacy for others.

What does moving on mean to you? For me, it’s not having flashbacks, not having anxiety and hyper vigilance, sleeping. I don’t know quite how to articulate the final piece, but it’s something to do with self knowledge, with feeling like a person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you faced unimaginable trauma as a child (parent murdered, sibling death, extreme physical or emotional abuse, victim of a sexual crime) do you think it’s actually possible to move past that?

I’m someone who experienced this and have been in counseling for most of my life. I am happily married with 2 wonderful children, many close friends, an active life, beautiful homes, well off.. and I am still just overtaken by the feelings of shame and sadness of my own childhood. It just lives inside of me and no amount of counseling or ssri seems to touch it. I obviously go about with my life and don’t discuss it with others aside from professionals but I just wonder if anyone has managed to truly let the past go. Still to this day, I just don’t feel comfortable or like I quite fit in or am understood by anyone. I feel like a fish out of water in every situation, even with my own family.

Please consider changing your therapist! I’ve had many therapists, and it wasn’t until my fifth one that I finally found someone who helped me build a healthier life. With a good therapist, you’ll start noticing changes within the first couple of months, and you’ll feel challenged in your thoughts, behaviors, and actions.

It is possible to manage your trauma. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many people stay with the same therapist for a decade, still struggling with the same issues. They usually love their therapist, but they are not helpful, it’s time to find someone who is.

[Anonymous]

It never goes away but some people learn/are able to cope with it more than others. Katie Beers has a good book about this.

[Anonymous]

+1 for EMDR

[Anonymous]

I think if it is one thing, one time, it is probably possible to move on eventually. But things that are long term, that went on for years or even longer, can be hard to move past. I can't. It feels like it's become a part of me, and I can't move past it anymore than I can move past being me.

[Anonymous]

My mom did. She was the best at living in the moment and not worrying about something until it actually happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you faced unimaginable trauma as a child (parent murdered, sibling death, extreme physical or emotional abuse, victim of a sexual crime) do you think it’s actually possible to move past that?

I’m someone who experienced this and have been in counseling for most of my life. I am happily married with 2 wonderful children, many close friends, an active life, beautiful homes, well off.. and I am still just overtaken by the feelings of shame and sadness of my own childhood. It just lives inside of me and no amount of counseling or ssri seems to touch it. I obviously go about with my life and don’t discuss it with others aside from professionals but I just wonder if anyone has managed to truly let the past go. Still to this day, I just don’t feel comfortable or like I quite fit in or am understood by anyone. I feel like a fish out of water in every situation, even with my own family.

Please consider changing your therapist! I’ve had many therapists, and it wasn’t until my fifth one that I finally found someone who helped me build a healthier life. With a good therapist, you’ll start noticing changes within the first couple of months, and you’ll feel challenged in your thoughts, behaviors, and actions.

It is possible to manage your trauma. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many people stay with the same therapist for a decade, still struggling with the same issues. They usually love their therapist, but they are not helpful, it’s time to find someone who is.

Also a lot of time people believe that expensive out of network therapist are better. The best I found was in network and very cheap.

[Anonymous]

Any suggestions for a EMDR therapist?