Emotions After Abuse?
I told my therapist about a fear that my abuser was coming after me, and he treated it like a paranoid delusion. He has steered me away from talking about the relationship. I don’t want him to think I’m insane, so I’ve tried to stay away from the topic.
But now he tells me that I seem emotionally withdrawn in therapy. He goes back and forth between telling me I seem overly formal and overly “social”. I’m so confused. Has anyone experienced this? What is happening with my emotions?
....I don't think your emotions r the problem.
Have u tried finding a diffrent therapist?
This is a big step, I've have to do it 3 times until I found a decent one. Sounds scary but it's doesn't sound healthy for someone to be telling u that ur "paranoid" because u are expressing a legit fear from a ABUSER 😤.
The fear u have is legit, many abuse survivors like myself, and my mother for example, still have a fear of the abuser returning or finding them loonnnnggg after the threat of them finding them is gone. My mother got distraught emotionally 15 years later when I asked her about my dad. She was afraid he would turn up on her door step...15 years later😬.
Was she paranoid?
If you look at it through the eyes of a normie, someone who's not a survivor like u or me, or someone who isn't properly informed and trained in caring for abuse victims SPECIFICALY, then yeah maybe she was paranoid, yeah sure.
But who wouldn't be, after all she went through!?!!
So in summary, I'm not gonna say your therapist isn't trying to help u. It seems like they r trying to help the way they know how. And honestly alot of therapist aren't deeply trained in the EFFECTS trauma and the diffrent kinds of trauma has on them. And when I mean trained I don't mean like a few courses or chapters about abuse, and it's effects, I mean like TRAINED as a passion and mission to help abuse survivors. Abuse survivors have a diffrent trauma then someone who gets in a car wreck that's a diffrent kind of trauma.
Ur response is normal and valid. While I do hope and believe with the right help, u can get past this point of legit fear that someone who hurt u so badly could do it again.
In my mother's day, trauma informed therapist, like ppl who are educated deeply on the effects of trauma on the mind during and after the abuse and things like that were few and few and far between.
This generation now has access to soo much information its amazing what we can find on our own.
So remember it's not ur emotions that are the problem. It takes time to work through why we feel the way we feel.
I hope the best for you.
