Forgetting The Past Options

[Sakura]

my past seems to be stuck in my head and returning to haunt me as of late no matter what i do or were i go its been in my mind like some one dumping acid in my brain i have alot of junk kicking a round in my tormented mind what i should of done maybe i should have stood up for my self and told some one was it my fault did i ask for it and i cant seem to get around the pain

it stopped for a while when i got with my current boy friend but the comfort he used to give me seems gone and when he slides up behind me at night to cuddle with me i freak out and flash back

ppl tell me to let go and forget the past because its simply that just the past but it still feels like it all happened just yesterday is it ever possible to let go i hear of so many ppl that can and move on but i cant i dont even know were to begin and it seems like when i drop my guard and start to feel alright it happens again and it scares me because its usally the ppl i trust the most that do it to me be it mental or phyisical

it will probly pass again it always does but i just needed to vent a little bit i dont tell many ppl alot about what has happened to me its just to incredably hard to mouth it out or type it and the details of it will give you night mares ...... it still does me ) so how do i forget the past when i cant even stand up and face it or tell any one about it its a question i have posed to many a few friends my boy friend and two therapist no one seems to have practical advice or answers i think this maybe my cross to bare by my self

i dont mean to be another poor me story just need to get some out and sorry if this is exstreamly vauge i intended it to be i dont like coming across as a weak person and its not offten i reach out for help iether ppl cant help me or dont want to so i dont burden them with asking

but you know the saying what dosnt kill you makes you stronger




Sakura

[jantonio]

Hi Sakura:

I know that experience must've been extremely hard for you. We all somehow in the past have had something painful happened to us that we don't even dare to talk about it. One thing that has helped me with anything that's very painful to me is like going to the beach, the mountains or anywhere that there's mother nature and where you can be comfortable. Close your eyes for a few minutes, and try to forgive that person who hurt you. Try to release that pain, as well as saying positive reafirmations. I know is not a simple thing to do, but in order for us to move on we need to try to release and let go of those painful feelings.

I wish there was more that I could say to you to make it all go away but I can't. Hope this can be of help to you.

Jose Antonio...

[skyy]

i'm so sorry you have to carry around such pain. unfortunatly, there is no definite answer, because it differs for everyone. its like trying to do a combination lock in your brain, but if you guess wrong, it saps more of your strength. therapy helps with thats sometimes. it loosens your hold on the pain at least. but i've found just being around something bigger than my problems helps a lot. when one can see that they are just a tiny fragment of something so much grander, it sometimes helps give one the strength to fight those battles. jantonio's idea of being around nature sounds great too, i like being near large trees, of feeling a powerful breeze from the ocean. but one of my favorites is feeling that powerful gale and hearing the thunder just before the rain hits. in these places, my past often slips away. sometimes it doesnt, but each time, it gets easier. each day, we have to keep going forward.

and dont apoligize for a "poor me" post. falling down in life isnt something that is bad, so long as you remember to get up again. "poor me" only exists if you give up, and i know you havent given up. you wouldnt be here if you had. i dont know what your past may be, but i do know that you are strong enough to take back you own mind, and your life. and i wish you all the luck.

[Dutchie]

Hi Sakura,

I know you posted this 2 months ago, but I think it's still actual?

In a way, we'll never forget. During the years I have learned to put something like your experience behind me, it happened to me 27 years ago. I say "putting it behind me", because during the past 27 years it did occasionally caught me off guard.
Therapy might help you finding a way to give it a place in your history. It shouldn't have a place in your presence.

Trying to forget works only temporary, it will find a way back. Anything can trigger that, our memory works in mysterious ways and sometimes a smell, a sound, a strange reflection or a touch can bring back a long "forgotten" memory.
Some triggers (if you happen to know them) can be replaced with something positive, you can try that too with someone your really trust, but it requires lots of courage and many attempts.

All the best wishes!

Dutchie

[Jodytg]

Hi I am 51 years old and can still flash back to the nightmare. It took many years and lots of talking to get the stuff out of my every waking moment. It took me years like 14 to finally tell what happened. But as soon as I told it all. including the self blame it started to ease off. There is no way that you are weak or at fault of any kind both in going through it and in asking for help. If you feel like talking privately please feel free to contact me. Just remember that you survived the actual crime. When it starts replaying in your head treat yourself like you would if you came into that scene and saw it happening to a stranger. What would you do? Condemn the victim? Or would try to kill the perp and then try to help the injured one? What would you say it's all your fault. I somehow doubt it. Maybe more realistically you would just hold and try to comfort without saying anything that might make it worse.
If you don't get anything else out of this please BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. When the movie starts playing in your mind out shout it. Tell yourself what you want to hear.

NOT MY FAULT PLEASE BE GENTLE WITH MYSELF......................If you can short circuit the movie with the words. You take some of the power away from the perp. Don't keep doing to yourself what that low life did. It is not your fault you didn't do anything wrong.You didn't deserve it. BE GENTLE WITH MYSELF.

[Alyea]

I myself have gone through a troubled past. It is not something to easily dismiss or get over quickly. I tried to forget about it, and was successful for 17 years when I had a relapse of many years of abuse. I was fortunate to have a great psychologhist named Judy and went through a lot of therapy with her.

The past will never go away, but when we learn better of how to deal with it then we can finally start to heal. A therapist would know various different techniques but one that worked for me well was getting into a calming state and going through an event from start to finish, talking about it in detail to the therapist, and then reversing it from finish to start. The therapist would then go over key points that were most painful. It may seem rather odd, like watching some distorted sports game shuffle forward and reverse. For some reason replaying things backwards in our mind has an effect of allowing us to deal with it rationally and not emotionally (best way I can explain how it works). Once we can see it as "something that just happened" and not feel the emotions attached to it it becomes somewhat distant, almost like it was someone elses life.

I'm not saying that this works for everyone nor would I suggest doing this without a professional's guidance, for part of the process is discribing the event to the therapist in both directions, but I do know that it has helped me quite a bit. Please talk with your psychologist regarding this technique if they know it.

My best wishes and love to those who are survivors of abuse. I hope we all can someday find peace enough to let go of the past so we may live in the now.

[Nadeest]

Thank you for that thought. I, too, have had a troubled past, and this may well help me, in time.

[Lizzie McTrucker]

This is the first time I've ever posted in this forum before.

Back in college I was raped by one of my friends. I never reported it because I didn't know who to call. I knew there was a hotline for women to call, but I didn't think it applied to transwomen. It haunted me for years. I would get nightmares. Flashbacks. That really yucky gross feeling all over like it was happening again. I was depressed. I cried a lot. I kept a distance from everyone, especially men. I even attempted suicide (luckily I didn't succeed at it).
One night my girlfriend at the time suggested I listen to a song by Tori Amos. It was "Silent All These Years". I couldn't even get through the song without breaking down into a sobbing ball of tears. It was horrible. That night was when I finally decided that I needed to do something about it.

I went online and searched rape hotline and the particular area I was in. It came up with a phone number and I some how managed the courage to call them and finally talk to someone about this. A few hours later I was in a therapist office talking to someone about this. They were normally used to talking with women and I was their first transgender client, but they still treated me and talked to me like I was a woman.

Oh, and in my case and I think for the majority of rape crisis centers around the country, therapy is free.

I knew this had haunted me for a long time so I attacked this problem head on. I read books. I had this one workbook with various exercises. I was determined to rid thsi demon from my soul so I could go back to living again.

Several months later, after therapy and taking charge of this, I was on the road to recovery.
Now, I don't even think about it. Flashbacks are gone. that yucky gross feeling I used to get is gone. nightmares are gone. I've completely recovered from my experience.

..and you can too. All it takes is one phone call to get the ball rolling and you'll be on your way.

*hugs*

[capnwhoops]

I stumbled across this website and became a member because of the things that have happened to me, bad memories from the past that still haunt me to this day...Take it from me therapy does help SOME, but it doesnt help take away everything....Im 34 and im bothered on a daily basis about my past which has left me dreadfully confused, abuse comes in many forms, mental, physical and othersand it takes a long time to heal, however one thing that does help me is looking in the mirror and telling myself that im a good person

[Christine Beatty]

After my disastrous first attempt at transition from 1985-86 and two years of hardcore addiction, jail, overdoses and other bad memories, I was haunted by the past for decades. Certain things, especially songs I associated with those days, had the power to get me sobbing and throw me into deep depressions, reliving that pain. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" hurt the worst. In January 2006, at nearly nine years clean and sober (my second multi-year period of sobriety) I seriously contemplated suicide.

Then I found a video my 12 Step sponsor told me about: "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Aside from the whole quantum physics and spiritual aspect of the movie, it helped me understand how I'd become addicted to my own emotions and the memories that triggered them. It was such a revelation I watched the film twice in one day. Now I watch it at least once a year to remind me, lest I ever go back to living in the past.

I produced a short youtube video that explains what I go from it.
I hope this video helps others here. Please feel free to share and repost.

Moving Beyond the Hurt

P.S. Notice the soundtrack. That song used to kill me.

[N. Jane]

Different events have "a different character" and require different "treatment".

When I was in my mid-teens and living in a big city (en femme) I was abducted off the street one night. It all happened VERY fast and was very rough. I expected to die but by a miracle I was spared, not even sexually assaulted. I was a bit spooked but thought I dealt with it all very well until 15 years later. My husband snuck up behind me and grabbed me unexpectedly and I freaked out! I almost jumped through the roof and nearly had a heart attack. Rule #1 - no surprise attacks. I also found that I could not stand to have my hands/arms restrained behind my back, not even playfully. If I were ever arrested, I would BEG them to cuff me in front - if they didn't, they would certainly learn why I asked.

Such a traumatic event (as being grabbed off the street) somehow just changes your "wiring" and I don't think it can ever be "cured". You just learn to live with it and make sure that those close to you know what will trigger a panic response.

The other type of trauma I experienced was an emotionally abusive mother, a veritable never-ending cascade of criticisms, rebukes, and demeaning remarks that started early in childhood and went on until I walked out in my early 20's. I thought I had left all the negative programming behind but many years later I realized that I had PTSD - I couldn't even talk about my childhood without having an emotional melt-down. More than 30 years after I left the poisonous environment I went to see a shrink about something else and she very quickly zoomed in on my "subconscious voice" - the one that was always putting me down, minimizing my accomplishments, and sabotaging my relationships. She asked "Who's voice is that?" "My mother's" I replied - it was all that "childhood programming! As soon as I recognized the voice, I was able to dismiss it as the BS that it was and it has not bothered me since.

Be kind to yourself. Leave behind that which you can leave behind and, that which you can not leave behind, accept as just part of your life's experience. Very seldom are we the authors of our own victimization so don't take it as a value judgment on your self.