Possible history of abuse
I have many reasons to believe I might have been abused at some pointduring my life. Among other things, I freak out whenever someone touches me in any way whether it's just a hand on my shoulder. I am also generally afraid of men and have frequent nightmares about abuse. Any suggestions on how to cope with this?
This is so weird, I'm experiening kind of the same thing. I've never even explored this issue in detail before but I'm more recently noticing how much I hate being touched. I get especially weird around my dad...which worries me because I can't imagine him ever doing anything to me. But I don't like him touching me or kissing me on my forehead or hugging me or anything and I feel awkward around him and I'm starting to think...what if something did happen in my past and I just can't remember it?
For me, it's everyone, but my dad especially. I also have a lot of other reasons to believe something happened that I don't remember and my "symptoms" are getting worse. I'm scared and feel alone.
I'm really sorry you're in a similar situation.
Something you can try to help the nightmares is a mantra. For example i say "i am in my room, i am safe, nobodycan hurt me." You can say this before bed and also if you wake up from a nightmare. I hope you are doing well!
I am also very glad you brought this up in therapy! That'sthe first step!
If you cant talk to anybody else, it might be helpful to talk to yourself like you were two persons at the same time. Listen to your thoughts, speak or whisper them out to you and argue or give yourself advice. Or just comfort you like you would comfort your best friend.
There's nobody else who knows yourself as well as you know yourself. So sometimes, when others haven't seen the world through your eyes, don't know all your backgrounds, their answers to you might not be helpful or theyeven mightclose you upfrom certain ideas that might already be slumbering inside you, but need to be lured out by the right combination of questions and answers. I think you sometimes might have a feeling about which questions to ask yourself, better than a stranger :)