Hi. I am torn up right now with memories. I am not sure what to do. I wrote one of them to Jill telling her some of my abuse because she has told me it is ok to do that. Still it bothered me. My mind won’t release. I am having one of those times that the vortex of dark despair is hovering me right outside me. I am trying to distract my self. Damn it! I am 61 now, my last rapes happened in my early 20s. I am safe. I am happy. I have a wonderful husband who is even now making ravioli baked in the red sauce I made. Yet the memories come over me in waves. I want to forget, I want to not feel it like I did when it happened. But … but … Oh hell, I am going to do comments to help my mind settle. But today my emotions are raw and I have memories that hurt. At what point in my life do they go away? Really I am 61. I am safe, it is water under the bridge. Yet …. OK hug. Scottie
I am struggling
Scottie's Playtime 
🫂
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Hi Janet. Thank you. I do enjoy hugs now. It took me a long time to get to let people touch me like that. I was in my 30s before I could let Ron hugs me. I craved touch but was terrified by it also. But today I love to give hugs and get them. Hugs. Scottie
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Sending you a hug 🤗
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Hi Bee. Thank you. I really enjoy hugs now. There was a time when I was just out of the control of my abusers that I couldn’t stand being touched. But now I love to give and get hugs. Hugs. Scottie
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That is wonderful. No matter what they did to us: they won’t get us down. You are not alone in your healing 🤗
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Hi Bee. Thank you. I get the feeling you also were abused. If you need to vent or work out your feelings I and my blog are here. My email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com if you need to talk privately. But I don’t check it often so you might need to tell me in the comment of a post that you sent me one. I wish you the very best. Hugs Scottie
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I was but I am currently well settled. My abuser passed away last December and something shifted in me. Thanks for your kind offer and the same the other way round. My email is thebeecreates@gmail.com. May you have a calm week and evening 🤗
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Breathe in deep, breathe out the pain.
Breathe in deep, breathe out the memories.
Breathe in deep, breathe out the past.
Breathe in deep, breathe in your happiness.
Breathe in deep, breathe in now.
Breathe in deep, breathe in your husband’s love.
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Thank you Michael. I had forgotten my breathing exercises. I had a therapist who was in to the one of the karate arts, and she was a big believer in that. After we ate I went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. Ron knew I was upset some came to bed and held me to comfort me. But my sleep was fitful and I woke around 1:30. I got up at 2 am. I am trying to not think or remember anything this morning. I am trying to keep my mind focused on YouTube video, and blogging stuff. Hugs. Scottie
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What everyone else has posted. Just keep breathing.
Ravioli sounds good, Scottie-enjoy! And breathe.
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Thank you Ali. I enjoyed the meal. Breathing is a good thing. I was telling Michael that when I was a kid I had a therapist who tried to get me to calm down by using breathing. Hugs. Scottie
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It seems to work for me, though it works even better when I get on the minitramp and run. Sometimes-hasn’t happened in a while, but sometimes-I’m like a hamster on a wheel on that thing! I get a heartrate of 180 before I realize it, but the anxiety is gone and I can think. We each have a thing that works.
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I don’t do hugs…
…unless they are really needed. And I think this is one of those times.
🫂🫂🫂🫂
Scottie, you say your emotions are raw and you have memories that hurt, then you ask if they will ever go away. I can’t answer that. I appreciate that bad memories arrive unbidden and you have no control over them, but I ask if there are good, wonderful, joyful memories that you can recall on demand to counter the bad ones. This is a technique that has helped my wife on many occasions – a form of mindfulness. It is something I have no direct experience of as I am unable to recall/relive any past experience, whether good or bad. I can experience only the present. Whether it’s the memory of the birth of our children or the memory of being violently assaulted, my recollection of the event is much like reading a short paragraph in a history book devoid of any language that might evoke an emotion in the reader.
Sometimes I wonder what it might be like to be able to recall and experience past events even knowing that many of them might be horrific. Let me ask you this:. If you were given the opportunity the have every painful memory erased, knowing that it would erase every past joyful occasion and you would never be able to recall the experience of any joyful occasion in the future, would you take it?
🙇🏼♀
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Hi Barry. Thank you. I have intrusive thoughts. Bad or humiliating memories bombard my mind with no shut off, anything and every thing triggers them. An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. They tried medication to stop them but that makes me disassociate like I did as a child, living most of the time not really in reality, but walking in a fog. To keep my mind from doing this I try to constantly keep data coming in, with videos of different things on one monitor and blogging on the other. When away from my computers I have earbuds and headphones. I can not stand being alone with my thoughts, with what is in my head.
I try to counter them, but it is so hard. One of the things I had to learn is to use support from Ron, Randy, the blog, the people here such as yourself to use as “handles” to pull myself from the dark vortex that tries to suck me in. When that doesn’t help I have to write it out. Either here or on the MS blog. That helps take the power way and dulls the emotional pain of the memories.
Barry I have huge gaps in my memories from my childhood and even teen years when I was being abused. I was not only being abused but I was also drugged with Valium. When I was young the actual daily memories are blank for most of my childhood. In my teen years it was more specific events. As a child my oldest hell spawn would take me to parties I would be drugged so I remembered nothing. I would remember the drive there, arriving, then my mind goes blank. As I got 8 to 11, my youngest female hell spawn would hold parties, get me drunk, and her guests could do what they wanted to me, use me in any way they wished. My mind has kept those years dark. I was not only being abused but I was also drugged with Valium and booze, other unknown drugs.
No I wouldn’t want to lose all memories even to spare the emotional pain. I would like to lose the emotions surrounding the memories of abuse. But I have too many good memories that would be lost who also make me the person I am. So I am stuck taking the bad so I can keep the good. Best wishes. Scottie
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Hello Barry. I know two things, I already wrote a reply and now I want to add to it as it is bothering me. Hugs bother you. I understand. I also am having more issues with my abuse and may become more needy or clingy as I process this new stage in my recovery / healing. But part of my belief system from a long time ago is do not harm to others. I suffered enough people doing me harm, that I never want to do that to others.
Barry, I know you care about me as a person. I also care about you as a person. It is clear in every comment. I want you to know you do not have to extend hugs to me, as I know that is something disturbing to you. It is wrong of me to ask you to cross that barrier as much as asking a rape victim if they enjoyed it.
Again to be clear because I really like you. I do not want to cause you harm no matter how small. While I love that you are willing to do that gesture for me, I cringe knowing you do not like that gesture. The person I deliberately made myself into after leaving my abusers control was to work to a person that wouldn’t ever ask or want someone to be uncomfortable trying to comfort me with something that they hated. So while I really love the hugs you sent, please know I don’t want to hurt you, so you don’t need to hug me anymore. The comments you write are so valuable and filled with support that is all I need. Thank you for being a grand friend. I hope I can be one for you. Best wishes. Scottie
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Hi Scottie. Thank you for your concern, but you don’t need to worry. If I offer a hug it’s because I feel deeply that it is an appropriate action – for both the recipient and myself.
Since your 2nd comment appeared in my WordPress reader, I have spent hours trying to find the right words to explain why in most circumstances a hug really, really bothers me but on rare occasions feels really appropriate. I think I have made four or five separate attempts with some attempts being longer than a typical blog post, before deleting it and starting again. I even called on the assistance of AI in the form of Copilot to explain what I wasn’t able to. In the end I realised that any explanation of why sometimes touching feels okay when usually it feels “icky” to me is going to fall short of being even remotely adequate. it is autism related, not abuse related.
So instead, please just accept my assurance that if I offer a hug it come from the heart and nowhere else, and in not offering it would feel like turning my back on someone in need. Your post exposed your vulnerability and that closely aligns with my own vulnerability, different though our experiences might be. And in that my empathy is almost overwhelming – not in the sense of pain or hurt but in the sense of a oneness between us. I couldn’t not offer a hug, and I suspect if you had appeared at my doorstep moments after I read your post, I might have had the desire to offer a real hug at that moment instead of the virtual hugs.
🙇🏼♀
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Thank you Barry. I do and will trust your judgement. I just got really worried I was hurting you. I get that way sometimes. I worry when I write about my abuse that reading my abuse will harm the people I care for. It messes with my mind sometimes. I need to write it, to get some of the poison out of my system, then I worry I am injecting that poison into my readers. And I start to obsess about that. It causes a feedback loop in my brain. I guess because I was hurt I learned I don’t like it and don’t want to hurt others.
Anyway, I thank you for your helping erase my guilty feelings, and that I did not hurt you. Best wishes. Scottie
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Scottie, find the thing that makes you happy, and get lost in doing that.
So says SD, internet MD. 😉
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Hi Shelldigger. It is hard to find anything to distract me when the vortex is that close. But I did do what you suggested. I ate, stopped for the day and went to bed where Ron cuddled me until I managed to sleep. Hugs. Scottie
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scottie…please have a doctor check your blood for cortisol levels. It is obvious that what you are experiencing is PTSD and there is a shot that drastically reduces the cortisol rush when PTSD sends those intrusive thoughts out. It is an EASY fix to assist you in gaining some peace. Please…just a simple blood test and an inexpensive shot may work wonders for you…it did for both myself and George who came home from Iraq with massive emotional issues. It is SO worth the attempt!
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Thank you Suze. One of my doctors also said I have PTSD and wanted me to go to the large VA here and ask for trauma counseling treatment. She was the first doctor I told of my abuse and showed my cutting scars to. The thing I wonder is when they tried before to put me on mood stabilizers and anxiety medications I disassociated like I did as when I was being abused. It was traumatic for me, I couldn’t deal with reality and even at work was locked into a constant loop of my abuse. One of the male nurses I really admired slowly walked up to me, reached out his hands, and taking my arms told me I was disassociating and not connected to reality and asked me if I need him to take me to the ER. That is when I realized that those drugs were not for me. I will ask my primary care doctor about it when I next see him in 6s months. But I am worried he will want to send me to a person that will cost me more money that I don’t have. Thanks for the input. Hugs. Scottie
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just ask specifically for a cortisol blood check, and tell them NO antidepressents or anti-anxiety medications as you do not do well on them. Those VA docs and rnP’s have become MUCH better at listening and finding alternatives for PTSD. Good luck sweetie.
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Hi Suze. Is my endocrinologist the one to do this? Or do I have to wait 6 months for my primary care. Hugs. Scottie
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the endo would be the best one…good luck sweetie.
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Hi Suze. After I received your reply and Ron and I talked, I asked him should it be my primary care or the Endo doctor? He agrees with you and says my endocrinologist is the one to talk to and ask. I will have to maybe make an early appointment as I don’t see him for another 4 months. Thanks for all the advice and for caring so much for my well being. Hugs. Scottie
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love you my friend.
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Hi Suze. I think you understand this is hard for me. I don’t want to be forced back into therapy but this is where this is headed if it keeps going. Ron says not so as his primary care gives him his anxiety medication (which I admit has made a huge difference in him now) but I don’t have his same doctor anymore.
But I have been down this road since childhood with my abuse. Only then no one bothered to tell me why I was being picked up by the town police officer in full uniform in school in front of everyone and taken to therapist and doctors.
Now it seems I am marching myself into that. And I don’t like it. I feel I just need time to deal with it, I can do it. I have done it before. I feel I should stop talking about my feelings on the blog, but that is my main outlet to express it.
Yet everyone I know says this time it is different, stronger, more impactful. But they don’t want to give me the time I need to deal with it.
They will want to medicate me, send me to doctors who don’t know what I experienced and will only just prescribe medication that will make me a zombie. I won’t be able to blog or do anything. I lived that from 2nd grade until 7th grade. Drugged so badly I missed life, missed schooling, and was raped at school because I was too drugged on Valium to care. After all it was happening at home so what was the problem.
Yes I know Monday I have to write the letter to the endocrinologist. Ron wants to read it before I send it and I agreed to that. I think he will give me the test, but I think it will have to be the primary care that deals with the result. I doubt the Endo doctor will. I have only seen the new primary care once, and he was very careful after I told him I was a survivor of abuse. When he touched me and I was not prepared I gasped and tensed up, he stepped back showed me his hands and said I should tell him when I was ready or if I was willing for him to continue.
Oh well, the dice have been thrown, I don’t have a choice anymore. Just like when I was a little kid. I just have to ride the storm out as best I can. Thank you for your advice, we are following it. Little Scottie is tired of being scared again, But I have no way to make this train of events stop. Hugs. Scottie
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