Submission - Repression
Urgent or time sensitive or maybe both.
So since I was 13 and have been in the NHS services, at least 15 times, regression therapy has been mentioned.
I thought this was all stupid because all therapists ask if you’ve been abused and my friends all tell me that they kept getting harassed about it. But none of them have been offered this. I recently started seeing a private therapist and after telling him some abuse (very mild) that did happen as a child he wants me to list some of my worst memories and some of my best. I don’t really know what to put apart from this and maybe one panic attack but nothing that I deem too bad.
I’ve started to worry though because, as a child who spent a lot of their child years in a foreign country (I say this as I was only 8 months old at the point of leaving), I do not remember anything up to when I stopped visiting my home country so much, which was about 4-5 years old. My earliest memory however is at about 3 years old which was when this abuse took place. I was locked in a cupboard with a light switch I couldn’t reach. But all I remember is going in. I can’t remember leaving but I have been scared of bathrooms since and until they moved away I could not use that bathroom.
I thought this was the only abuse I have ever experienced but I have a friend who is exactly like me. Who had the same first signs of depression, same signs of anxiety, same demeanour, we even both have horrible lucid dreams and nightmares from time to time. But I recently found out these were left over from trauma in his past. I’ve had these feelings for years that something happened to me that I can’t remember ever since those therapists told me that I need regression therapy but never did anything.
I’m just very confused and worried about who I am. I realise that I’ve never formed my own person and can only feel what others feel and think what others think. It may be anxiety but anxiety isn’t usually like this is it?
I have an appointment with the therapist very soon and want to tell him these things but I can’t because he’s just a children’s therapist. I can’t tell him about all the bad things in my life and I can’t tell him that I think something bad may have happened to me. I don’t know what to do.
I just feel hopeless and feel there’s nothing else for me but just fucking dying. I don’t know what to do.
Please post this anonymously. I don’t want anyone know who I am I don’t want wanyone to see this I just want someone to say it ok. Please don’t post this with my blog name. Tag as Simon Paul, please.
Hey dear,
The thing about anxiety and depression is that it’s a beast of its own. It can be anything it want to be and it will vary from people to people. Some people cope with things differently.
So here’s what I think would be beneficial to you. Do the homework assigned to you. List your worst memories and your good ones. It doesn’t have to be something you remember completely. You said you had a fear of bathrooms. Talk about that fear. Talk about what happened that sparked that fear. Talk about any bad episodes you may have had in dealing with your emotions. It’s okay to not list twenty things at first. You can talk through it one at a time and you may remember another incident as you begin to talk more to your therapist.
It’s actually not uncommon for you to not remember trauma. When a trauma happens, your brain sometimes can choose to repress those memories but you could still be affected by them. Through therapy, these repressed memories can resurface later on in life or sometimes it can resurface when faced with a certain stressor as well. I don’t think it’s uncommon for you to feel confused. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We feel weak in moments like these when we really shouldn’t. It’s not something that you have control over and you can’t help that these thoughts occur in your brain or that traumas happened to you.
I highly encourage you to talk to your therapist about this even if he only specialised in children. If he feel that he can’t be helpful, he can refer you to someone else who can help. Please continue to get help. Please continue to talk to someone about what happened to you. Even if you can’t remember it in perfect detail, it will help to talk about your fears. You don’t have to succumb to those thoughts forever. You can learn to fight them, to manage them, and to understand them better. Your life doesn't have to be stuck in this single moment of confusion. You’ll learn to find yourself. You’ll learn to discover yourself with time. It’s like people with depression from childhood always say. You never really know how you are without depression. It’s something you’ve always known and a statement of mind you’ve always lived with. it’s a scary process but it can be very thrilling at the same time. It’s worth the effort. It’ll be hard and you’ll probably have to remember and talk about things you don’t want to remember or take about. But in the end, you will be able to live a more free life.
Always by your side,
Kelly