Hi,
Something has been bothering for quite some time. I'm getting more and more tired. Perhaps its just me being preoccupied with it but if some events has never happened before, then perhaps I would have been more at peace.
Bipolar and borderline personality feels like a pain in the neck. Often, I despair because I know that the journey towards recovery is long - even if I can recover. On top of that,sometimes I fear what the future holds because of events that happened in the past and the current status. Maybe I have walked out of it, maybe not.
I was molested when I was 9 years old by a classmate. It is incredulous that a guy who is also 9 years old touched me under my skirts. It is something which I will never forget. I can still remember the exact event and my bafflement then - I was rather confused as to what had happened as it happened so fast and it was so sudden when it happened in school.
Molestation is supposedly less physically traumatic as compared to rape and for a long time, I thought I was never bothered by it. It came back to haunt me when I was 17, when I was going through the worst of my borderline symptoms and feeling very very stressed out by studies for A levels. It came back in the form of flashbacks and dissociation when pastor was talking about sexual intimacy in church. While I had sometimes shut down (by not responding to environment) or experienced derealization/depersonalizations episodes in school and church/cell group settings due to stress and emotional distress, that particular episode was a first.
I started to stop 'feeling' what was happening and my body stopped being my own. Thoughts of me being impure and dirty overwhelmed me and I could not stop trying to get rid of my skin. I was out of control and it was scary. By the time my friends had noticed, my hand was bleeding because of my frantic efforts to peel off my 'dirty skin'. It was only an hour later (after church service had ended) that I stopped feeling this way and it was hours before I felt any pain even though my right hand was bleeding due to a thin layer of skin being scratched off.
In more ways than one, that incident haunted me more than any other incidences of 'losing control' did (I had a few even when I was young, due to other issues). I began to fear going to church (and the abandonment issues with my cell group then made things worse). I would often be found crying or clinging a lot to people who I feel safe with. I was 17 then and I have stopped going to church now when I start having panic attacks because of agarophobia and often resorted to overdosing on tranquilizers in a desperate attempt to lower my anxiety and distress.
Often times, I find myself understanding what other victims of rape felt like - the sense of despair and violation - though I was never raped. I sometimes think I have overreacted but my psychologist never commented much when I told her about it, though she did ask me whether I was ever raped (which is NO).
While I am able to function relatively well, I can't see much hope in being able to be a wife or a mother in future. I can't tolerate seeing guy doctors ( not just normal dislike) because I either dislike guys or have panic attacks (I had one such attack when I ended up seeing a male O&G MO at KKH. I was so distressed, I could not breathe and was gasping and the doctor was confused by my behaviour). I can't tolerate guys being intimate with me. Encountering rape scenes in shows upset me and triggered desire to self-harm (overdose) so that I can forget.
I am 20 going on to 21 this year. I told my psychologist that I can't see myself in a relationship even though it has been my wish since very young to have a family.
Am I over-reacting? Why do I behave this way? Can this ever go away? Can I ever forget what happened (the molestation and the subsequent flashback when I was 17)?
Dear “Is forgetting ever possible?”
Thank you for writing to Depnet.
Fatigue can set in when the same things keep surfacing to disturb us over and over again, and ways of trying to get rid of those thoughts have not yielded much progress. You may want to work with your psychologist on identifying the triggers, understanding your current coping mechanisms and developing more useful ways of managing those unpleasant thoughts and feelings that are evoked.
What seems to trouble you is how the manifestations of the trauma hinder you in fulfilling your wishes in life. If this is so, then forgetting or not forgetting is not as crucial an issue as learning to manage the reactions to unpleasant memories (if/when they do surface) and reducing their effect on your efforts to reach your desired goal. You mentioned that you’re preoccupied with what bothers you, so how about trying to be more preoccupied with neutral or pleasant things. As you fill your mind with more of the pleasant, you may begin to displace the unpleasant bit by bit.
Like any new skill, replacing the unpleasant thoughts with more positive ones takes time and lots of practice. You are clearly an insightful person and are aware of the power that your current thoughts are having in your ability to achieve the things you want from life. When you are able to work towards displacing those thoughts, imagine how things might change for you. While we can’t change or forget past events, we do have the ability to learn to view it differently & limit the impact that such events have on our life.
Regards,
Depnet