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Amelie

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  • in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #41010
    Amelie
    Participant

    JD,

    You are already brave. Anyone who have the courage to think about what happened is brave – and you not only thought about it, but also wrote about it. I congratulate your courage! I’m empathic with your pain and suffering… feel embraced!

    I liked a lot of what Zenhen wrote… that healing is not sunshine and flowers, and her examples. Last year, when my memories came back for the first time, I thought that was some kind of challenge from the Universo to make me stronger, better, whatever… that I would “fight” this, win and then everything would be flowers and rainbows.

    And so I did… I thought all I had to do was to forgive the abusers… So I put all my strenght in this. And I thought I had forgive them… But the pain was so unberable that I actually never let all the memories return. And I didn’t want to face the worst aspect of the abuse: that I felt pleasure and extreme guilt for feeling this.

    Then… this forum thread made me realize I have a long way to go.

    Anger came back. Fear. More than once, when I was coming back from work, I suddenly started crying in the street – and I knew that who was crying was that 5 year old child girl that lost her trust and faith in her parents at such a young age.

    I know I am sabotaging myself. I know I must stop. I see I have been judging me so severely that this has become a way of self-punishment. I understand now that this healing is a process that may take a long, long time… I have accepted that it can be long.

    I believe love heals. Love yourself… Please. Don’t give up on you. You’re here for a reason… Don’t ever give up on you! But be patient too. Don’t push yourself too hard… I’ve found recently that push yourself too hard on this things is one of the worse things you can do to yourself.

    I believe the best we can do is go on living our lives, trying to share love, focus on the now… and then, if the bad feelings come, deal with them at the time, but no preassure.

    I totally agree with what Zenhen and Matt answered to you about this. Hope my words may be of some use!

    A loving hug,

    Amelie

    in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #40995
    Amelie
    Participant

    Hello Dear Matt,

    Sorry I couldn’t answer sooner.

    There’s a lot of wisdom and courage in your words! Thank you so much!

    Yes, guilt is making me stay so stuck… I feel like I’m skidding in the same place over and over again. Its terryfying to see I’m doing this to myself. I’ve recognized the extent of this only a few days ago… It’s a pain I cannot describe. It’s such a horrible thing for a human being to do this with him/herself… I know I need to love me, and I’m trying, I really am! I’m scared I won’t be able to do it, but I’m going forward anyway.

    I’ll do the mantras as you said; I don’t know nothing about metta-type meditation, but I’ll look for it. Do you have any website do recommend me?

    “Said differently, our root chakra was thrown out of whack and we slipped into states of craving and aversion. With the bottom half of our energy vibrating, so was the top half. The guilt is just a result… an empty feeling or residue from the out of balance root” – I couldn’t understand this part… I don’t know much about the relation between chakras and feelings. Could you explain it again?

    Namaste, Matt!

    Thank you so much for your words and love!

    A loving hug,

    Amelie

    in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #40992
    Amelie
    Participant

    Hello everybody,

    I wanna to share some of my feelings with you…

    This forum thread made me look again at the abuse and see that I’m not healed yet…

    A few days ago I started, for the first time, to read some scientific articles about sexual abuse in childhood. I didn’t wanna do this last year, when I first rememberd… but something made me go for it.

    I made some devastating discoveries about myself… the pain was so intense that sometimes my life didn’t seem like it is my life… sometimes I felt like I was disconnected from the world…

    The first thing was about self-injury. I don’t let my sores heal, I keep poking them… I do this ever since I was a child, and I never understand it, NEVER. My legs and armas have lots of white scars due to this… old scars. They don’t show very much because the are old, but they are here. I always had the feeling I did this to me as if I was trying to remove something inside my body that wasn’t supposed to be there… I never understand this feeling too. Then I read articles about how self-injury is related to sexual abuse in childhood. It’s an incredible pain to realize that this event is marked in my body until today…

    Then I made another painful discovery…

    I have never had many friends. I just can’t maintain friendship relationships. This has bothered me for years… I have always, always wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Was I a boring person?… Through out the years, I gave myself a lot of anwers: “people say I more mature than people my age, so that’s why”, “I have good grades and people envy me” and finally “I’m just like this, I’m different, there’s nothing to do about it”. But then… Then I saw that I’ve been pushing people away. My whole life… always pushing people away. People come to me, but I just don’t do what it takes to create a bound.

    Because, deep down inside, I don’t want to.

    I want to be alone. Hurting myself.

    I discovered so many hatred towards me that scares me to death.

    There’s a part of me that hates me, that is trying to destroy me… and a part that want things ending up ok.

    A few days ago, the part that hates me was winning. I realized I had been sabotaging myself in a lot of ways since my memories about the abuse got back. But the scariest thing was that even though I knew this, the part that hates me was preventing me to do something to change.

    I cried out for God. If I couldn’t love me, if I couldn’t make anything good for my own sake, who would?

    Then… I spent the weekend in a spiritual retreat. I almost didn’t go – I was feeling so bad – but it made me feel so much better…

    Ever since this thursday, the feeling I had lost some months ago of conection to the universe has come back. Stronger at some hours, in others it’s weak…My thoughts stops, my mind is empty. My past is gone, so as my future; now is everything that exists. I feel like there’s love around me. Like I’m being conducted by God. This is such a huge relief… at these moments, my past disappears and I feel a deep peace, or deep joy.

    But I’m scared this feeling will go away (like happened before) and suffering will come back. I’m afraid the part that hates me will come back.

    Zenhen, Matt, JD, Aria, Kristin… have you ever felt these things?

    in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #40981
    Amelie
    Participant

    Thank you so much for your reply! I’ll send you the blog link as soon as I start it!

    Where is the link to your post at http://www.cybermancave.com. ?

    Answering the other questions:
    6) I’m not sure… I have to think about this. I have a an intuiton that I may have this kind of thought, but at an unconscious leve… or subconscious one… I really must think more about it.

    7) I’m talking more about this in the next post that I’ll write right after this.

    8) I think we must be careful on how we think about this… yes, there are studies showing many abusers were abused. Does this mean you’ll go the same path? NO, ABSOLUTELY NO. We cannot forget that a single human behavior has many, many causes. We cannot say that an abused person will be an abuser. Of course, it’s natural to get worried when you read this kind of thing and you don’t have a study in psychology… But please, believe me that things aren’t like this.

    9) I do feel a little strange about seeing this kind of situation… but now I’m aware that it’s because of my past. About getting rid of the suspicious, I think you are already doing it: you are aware of what you feel, and you know why. Once you realize this, you can look at the situation AWARE that your mind has a bias in judging it, and then you can see the situation, interpret it and think: is this a healthy way for men to show affection for children? Yes? No? Why? When you start doing this, gradually what you feel seeing this situations will change, because you’ll interpret it in the light of awareness and not in the light of your own past.

    10) I’m talking about trust in the next post, but it’s natural that you feel the way you do due to the abuse (and other things that happened in your life – we cannot forget that there are always a lot of causes to a single behavior and feelings toward things). So, don’t judge yourself, please!

    I read the other post where you talk about your sex life, and I truly admire your courage in doing so, and so openly! I’m truly, truly happy for you being able to do this… because this means you are healing. We cannot heal what we cannot think about or even talk about. You are so, so brave! I don’t even know you, but somehow I’m proud of you!!!

    Thank you for your bravery!

    Sending hugs with love,

    Amelie

    in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #40376
    Amelie
    Participant

    Dear Zenhen,

    Thank you for your loving and emphatic words! I’m sorry I didn’t answered earlier, these last days were so difficult for me… I’ve been asking the universe to help me, to understand why so many things in my life aren’t the way I wanted (especially my professional life). And then, I run into this very forum thread and writing to you – I see now – was the first step to start looking in a now way at the abuse and how it has an impact in my life until today. I’ve been reading scientific articles and blog testimonies about sexual abuse in the last few days – something I didn’t wanna do last year. It’ve been discovering a lot about sexual abuse and about myself too… I decided to create a blog to share my feelings, emotions and conclusions – hoping it may help other people who have gone through the same situation. I’ll start the blog today in a few hours – I’ll put the link here 🙂

    About rediscovering anger and pain… When I started doing that mentalization, huge waves of anger came! I felt more angry doing the mentalization than in my normal state, just remembering what happened. I was so angry while I was doing it, so angry that I had to control myself – I wanted to punch things, break things! Looking back now I see that the words somehow made me “extract” those feelings from inside. I also re-experienced many kinesthetic memories while doing this mentalization… it was extremely hard, but as I said, I was desperate… I decided to do whatever it take to get out of that misery I was in. So I did it… Today, now, I don’t feel anger anymore. But I can’t say that it’s all over – I know that there are memories I didn’t allowed to come up at the first time they began to emerge. But, please, don’t criticize or judge yourself for feeling angry, for not being able to forgive. Don’t judge and criticize yourself for nothing at all, please! Be gentle and kind to you.

    “I did however see it as a form of love since it was the only type of affection and attention I received. So because of this I have made the ill interpretation that if a guy doesn’t want to sex me up 24/7 he doesn’t love me. However, when I am with men who physically want me all the time I just feel used and kinda disgusted.” I understand this. It’s a very positive thing that you are aware of the link between sex and affection. Any other person in your position would have made the same interpretation and “learned” in the same way you did… Same about the other feelings you reported. So, again, no judge on you please!

    About your questions:
    1) I’ve been feeling this about not being real in the last days… it’s weird, it’s painful like if I was screaming but no sound could get out… don’t know how to describe this otherwise… I haven’t really thought about how to deal with this. I’ll think about it and tell you.

    2) I have already felt this tingling without being aroused… I believe it has something to do with chakra energy because I’ve had this feeling also in other parts of my body that I know are points of energy (like the palm of my hands and fingertips). I interpret sexual arousal more like a warm sensation together with the desire for sex.

    3) I have many body sensations that are still a mistery to me – many times I cannot link them to a feeling. What our bodies feel are always reflection from the mind… So the way, I believe, is to start paying attention to your body and your emotions in a non-judgemental way. With time you’ll learn what message is your body sending you.

    4) I grew up in a catholic family, where sex wasn’t spoken about… When I came to the age to learn about these things, I got a book from my mom, not a conversation. This “sex is bad and dirty” thing from our society is one of the things that messes up our minds – its a violence to make people feel that natural things are dirty and ugly.

    5) I need to thing more about if nonsexual desires and needs make me feel guilty, but I have realized that I’ve been sabotaging myself in so many things… due to the extreme guilt of feeling pleasure during the abuse. This is so strong now that I’ve been feeling physical sensations in my body… it’s scary, but I’m facing it.

    I have to go know, I’ll answer the other questions today, later!

    See ya =)

    in reply to: How can I ever forgive my past abusers? #39938
    Amelie
    Participant

    Hello dear Zenhen,

    I don’t enter Tiny Buddha very often, but something made me come in here and then I saw what you wrote… I truly believe there are no coincidences.

    First of all, feel embraced… you’re not alone! I have a similar story. I will tell my experience in the hope it may be of some help for you.

    I’m adept from a life philosophy / religion very close to Buddhism. Last year I was in a retreat for spiritual training; in the middle of the retreat I started remembering things that happened in my childhood. I remembered I was sexually abused by my father and uncle! Memories came up as visions and physical sensations in my body… I just couldn’t believe it, because these memories were closed for almost 20 years in my mind and I had no idea until that moment. I was living in the same house where uncle who abused me was living too… I didn’t have enough money to move to somewhere else… In the retreat I sought advise from one of the spiritual leaders and she said I should forgive the abusers.

    I came back from the retreat in intense suffering… To tell my family was something I couldn’t think about at the time (haven’t told until today). I told it to my best friend – he helped me a lot. A few days later I decided to tell this to a person I trusted a lot, who I considered as a second mother to me. She didn’t believed me… she said I should think very well if these memories were real, if these memories weren’t being induced by the retreat… I had a panic attack when I read her email. It just never went through my mind that someone would doubt me, would doubt my memories were real – especially her.

    Anyway, weeks passed and I was in deep suffering, memories going over my head and body. I know I came up to a point where I didn’t know what to do, I was so desperate… Somehow I run into a mentalization to forgive, from Masaharu Taniguchi. A spiritual leader from Seicho-No-Ie recommended me to repeat this mentalization many times a day, for the abusers and for my mother. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started doing it but not with much hope… I repeated it 100 times a day for my mother, and 100 for my father (to repeat imagining the person is in front of you, as if you were talking to him/her). In the begining it was very hard – the memories came, but I decided to keep on doing the mentalization no mather what. In the eighth day, I experienced a huge relief. I continued doing it for some days… Since then, the memories from the abuse don’t bother me anymore.

    Doing this mentalization is what released me. Some people don’t believe this kind of thing can work – I didn’t believed in it when I started doing it. I was skeptic, but I was too desperate to rationalize… so I just did it. The fact is: it released me. I didn’t understand how it worked, but recently I understand (or began to understand)…

    The mentalization is this:
    “I forgive you, you forgive me, you and I are one before God
    I love you, you love me, you and I are one before God
    I thank you, you thank me, thank you, thank you, thank you”

    Today, I can meet my mother, my father and my uncle. I’ve been thinking honestly with myself if I had truly forgive them, and… I didn’t – I have other reasons to be mad at them. So I started doing the mentalization again a few days ago, for all of them. I truly want to be cleaned of all negative feelings… I’m working on it.

    A very important thing… I believe you should think honestly what are your feelings with yourself about this. I had a very hard time to admit to myself I felt pleasure in some experiences in the abuse. For many people, this is inconceivable, disgusting… but a body is a body, and we have parts of our body designed to feel pleasure. I still feel guilty about have feeling these things, and sometimes disgusted with myself – even though I know I was just a child back then… So, I’m working on forgiving myself too.

    My learning… Hate is a waste of our life. Anger, sadness… all negative feelings are. I spontaneously remembered things from past lives; I know that what happened to me as a child wasn’t by chance. It never is. I understand we are here together by major reasons. I understand I love my family and that the wrong things they did doesn’t nullifies all the other good things they gave me until today. I decided to forgive and to love, even if it’s difficult. It’s entirely up to you whether you would still meet the abusers or not… but if you forgive them, you will free yourself. To forgive them doesn’t mean to have a relationship with them… but I believe you should be in peace with them.

    I honestly hope this can help you. Feel free to answer or ask me anything. Whatever I can do to help will, I’m here.

    Amelie

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