- Joined
- Jul 8, 2017
- Messages
- 1,428
It took me years of therapy, and finally getting a trauma informed social worker through a 2 year long outpatient drug and alcohol rehab to finally understand that during my life I wasn't being crippled by relentless panic attacks, they were shame attacks.
What it feels like:
When this happens it feels like my whole body aches. Especially my upper chest. It feels like it has been ripped apart and stamped on, hard. Numerous times until I'm left gasping on the flood trying to breathe. It hurts, like this emotional is strong, and it is so physically painful that I finally understood that my decade (or so) long love affair with every kind of opiate was self medication to dull the constant agony I felt from this feeling.
I would find myself falling to the floor in my room, hiding against the wardrobe and my bed in fear while I silently screamed out in pain trying to make it stop for an hour on end until I finally dissociated.
This shame, my social worker pointed out, is clearly a result of complex PTSD and my history of childhood abuse of every type. I most often feel this shame when I am in a situation where I am forced to talk about the abuse in some way or another in any kind of descriptive detail, or on specific days where I wake up feeling terrible and blaming myself for what was inflicted upon me as a child and want to single mindedly inflict some kind of physical or emotional harm upon myself in order to right the wrong of me going unpunished.
Shame is absolutely corrosive and toxic. It has ruined my life completely. I have no ability to date, as aside from usually being too autistic for people's tastes I do understand that no prospective partner would be willing to wait as long as I made my closest friends wait before J disclosed my entire story to them with their permission (5-10 years between different friends). And it isn't possible to just not tell a prospective partner about my childhood, because if they're not stupid they will pick up on things I can't help but do or aspects to my life like not introducing them to my parents and they will inevitably question why that is. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my childhood history to anyone without fully trusting them and it takes me years to a decade to reach that point, so I have regrettably given up on the possibility of ever having a romantic partner. It's fine though, being autistic I'm fairly disinterested in dating as it is, however I think it would be kind of nice to have someone I did fully trust and who knew me completely. But it's not to be.
One of my friends knew very early into meeting me that I experienced CSA and he suspected from a parent as well. Eventually one day when I got sober in 2017 after a 6-8 month long severe IV meth and codeine and heroin relapse he offered to help me, and we met for coffee to discuss some rules about his help. His ground rules were all totally fair, then he asked if he could ask about my childhood. I questioned why, but allowed it. He asked about emotional abuse, and I nodded and gave an example, then he asked about physical and I nodded and gave an example, then he hesitated and asked about sexual abuse. I froze up completely and I remember feeling a cold chill run up through my entire torso while my ears were ringing loudly. I managed to get out the words 'I'm not allowed to talk about that' before I ran into the bathroom to hide. I freaked out because no one, ever, had asked me that question up front like that before. They'd always insinuated that I had PTSD, which I adamantly denied, or they questioned the quality of my relationship with my father. I realised as I stood in the bathroom he already knew, and was just getting confirmation. Which he got from my response. That feeling I felt when I froze up and couldn't breathe was shame.
Now, I realise that what I said in response to that question is essentially 'tell me you experienced CSA without directly telling me you experienced CSA' and although I didn't say it in as many words, I did basically admit to it then and there.
Shame is not a good emotion to carry when it's the shame of another person. Carrying my father's shame for his crimes has reduced me to living a lifetime of misery, maladaptive coping mechanisms, self destructiveness, self hatred, low self worth, and self blame.
Disclosing my story to my friends eased my shame, because I did it for a reason (not just to trauma dump). See, the problem I was having was I had this thought pattern stuck in my head like a loop. My brain would say, loudly, that my friends all hated me and thought I was disgusting because of the sexual abuse. Then I would say to myself 'they don't, they know about it and they still want to be friends with me and don't think I'm disgusting and they believe me.' But then the issue would arise whereby my brain would cut in with 'they only know part of what happened, if they knew the full story they definitely would think you're disgusting.'
So I asked my friends if I could tell them the whole story and I explained why. I set up specific days to meet with them in a safe place and then told them once I started talking could they please not interrupt, then once I was finished they could clarify one aspect of the disclosure in particular then I wanted them to reassure me that they didn't think I was disgusting for what I told them. They all did exactly what I asked, and since then I no longer live with the same constant, crushing, overwhelming sense of shame as I used to before.
Shame multiplies in secrecy. It grows, it expands and it becomes more entrenched. By telling my story I took ownership of my experiences, and heard from unbiased second parties that it was not my job to carry this shame.
I would hazard a guess that many users of this forum, and drug users carry long held shame from early life with them, which they may be yet to resolve. I hope reading this post of mind may spark some commonality and someone, somewhere, makes the choice after seeing what worked for me to own their story as well and not let shame control their life any longer.
Shame is still a part of my life. It's ever present, but it is dulled and mostly bearable. There are some days still where I can barely function due to the wave of shame which passes over me, but then I realise that everyone I disclosed my story to held space for me, wanted to hear me, affirmed my needs, and shared their own thoughts on who was really to blame.
What it feels like:
When this happens it feels like my whole body aches. Especially my upper chest. It feels like it has been ripped apart and stamped on, hard. Numerous times until I'm left gasping on the flood trying to breathe. It hurts, like this emotional is strong, and it is so physically painful that I finally understood that my decade (or so) long love affair with every kind of opiate was self medication to dull the constant agony I felt from this feeling.
I would find myself falling to the floor in my room, hiding against the wardrobe and my bed in fear while I silently screamed out in pain trying to make it stop for an hour on end until I finally dissociated.
This shame, my social worker pointed out, is clearly a result of complex PTSD and my history of childhood abuse of every type. I most often feel this shame when I am in a situation where I am forced to talk about the abuse in some way or another in any kind of descriptive detail, or on specific days where I wake up feeling terrible and blaming myself for what was inflicted upon me as a child and want to single mindedly inflict some kind of physical or emotional harm upon myself in order to right the wrong of me going unpunished.
Shame is absolutely corrosive and toxic. It has ruined my life completely. I have no ability to date, as aside from usually being too autistic for people's tastes I do understand that no prospective partner would be willing to wait as long as I made my closest friends wait before J disclosed my entire story to them with their permission (5-10 years between different friends). And it isn't possible to just not tell a prospective partner about my childhood, because if they're not stupid they will pick up on things I can't help but do or aspects to my life like not introducing them to my parents and they will inevitably question why that is. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my childhood history to anyone without fully trusting them and it takes me years to a decade to reach that point, so I have regrettably given up on the possibility of ever having a romantic partner. It's fine though, being autistic I'm fairly disinterested in dating as it is, however I think it would be kind of nice to have someone I did fully trust and who knew me completely. But it's not to be.
One of my friends knew very early into meeting me that I experienced CSA and he suspected from a parent as well. Eventually one day when I got sober in 2017 after a 6-8 month long severe IV meth and codeine and heroin relapse he offered to help me, and we met for coffee to discuss some rules about his help. His ground rules were all totally fair, then he asked if he could ask about my childhood. I questioned why, but allowed it. He asked about emotional abuse, and I nodded and gave an example, then he asked about physical and I nodded and gave an example, then he hesitated and asked about sexual abuse. I froze up completely and I remember feeling a cold chill run up through my entire torso while my ears were ringing loudly. I managed to get out the words 'I'm not allowed to talk about that' before I ran into the bathroom to hide. I freaked out because no one, ever, had asked me that question up front like that before. They'd always insinuated that I had PTSD, which I adamantly denied, or they questioned the quality of my relationship with my father. I realised as I stood in the bathroom he already knew, and was just getting confirmation. Which he got from my response. That feeling I felt when I froze up and couldn't breathe was shame.
Now, I realise that what I said in response to that question is essentially 'tell me you experienced CSA without directly telling me you experienced CSA' and although I didn't say it in as many words, I did basically admit to it then and there.
Shame is not a good emotion to carry when it's the shame of another person. Carrying my father's shame for his crimes has reduced me to living a lifetime of misery, maladaptive coping mechanisms, self destructiveness, self hatred, low self worth, and self blame.
Disclosing my story to my friends eased my shame, because I did it for a reason (not just to trauma dump). See, the problem I was having was I had this thought pattern stuck in my head like a loop. My brain would say, loudly, that my friends all hated me and thought I was disgusting because of the sexual abuse. Then I would say to myself 'they don't, they know about it and they still want to be friends with me and don't think I'm disgusting and they believe me.' But then the issue would arise whereby my brain would cut in with 'they only know part of what happened, if they knew the full story they definitely would think you're disgusting.'
So I asked my friends if I could tell them the whole story and I explained why. I set up specific days to meet with them in a safe place and then told them once I started talking could they please not interrupt, then once I was finished they could clarify one aspect of the disclosure in particular then I wanted them to reassure me that they didn't think I was disgusting for what I told them. They all did exactly what I asked, and since then I no longer live with the same constant, crushing, overwhelming sense of shame as I used to before.
Shame multiplies in secrecy. It grows, it expands and it becomes more entrenched. By telling my story I took ownership of my experiences, and heard from unbiased second parties that it was not my job to carry this shame.
I would hazard a guess that many users of this forum, and drug users carry long held shame from early life with them, which they may be yet to resolve. I hope reading this post of mind may spark some commonality and someone, somewhere, makes the choice after seeing what worked for me to own their story as well and not let shame control their life any longer.
Shame is still a part of my life. It's ever present, but it is dulled and mostly bearable. There are some days still where I can barely function due to the wave of shame which passes over me, but then I realise that everyone I disclosed my story to held space for me, wanted to hear me, affirmed my needs, and shared their own thoughts on who was really to blame.
