I've just got back from the hospital and have had some major triggers. I could use some support if anyone has any time free for some prayer...
Basically, I was sexually abused from the age of 3 so I have some difficult memories and a lot of hard issues around men and sexual issues.
Today I had to go into hospital and have a catheter inserted and have a vaginal and rectal exam. This was done by a male doctor (chaparoned by a female nurse) and I found it really really really hard. It's left me feeling so panicked and stressed out and I'm having bad flashbacks and sweats and hallucinations. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the night.
I've been having a lot of nightmares over the last few weeks anyway. My abuser appears in my dreams and then I wake up and he's still there standing in the room as a hallucination. It really scares me. Sometimes I even wet the bed and I'm so scared that sort of stuff is going to happen tonight. I don't know how to cope.
Please, if anyone can offer support...
Basically, I was sexually abused from the age of 3 so I have some difficult memories and a lot of hard issues around men and sexual issues.
Today I had to go into hospital and have a catheter inserted and have a vaginal and rectal exam. This was done by a male doctor (chaparoned by a female nurse) and I found it really really really hard. It's left me feeling so panicked and stressed out and I'm having bad flashbacks and sweats and hallucinations. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the night.
I've been having a lot of nightmares over the last few weeks anyway. My abuser appears in my dreams and then I wake up and he's still there standing in the room as a hallucination. It really scares me. Sometimes I even wet the bed and I'm so scared that sort of stuff is going to happen tonight. I don't know how to cope.
Please, if anyone can offer support...
In some ways at least, I do kind of understand what you're going through. Today has been UNBELIEVABLY HORRIBLE for me too, and I'm going through some triggers of my own...I guess you can call them triggers anyway. My "mother" tried to both murder and molest me as a child. I was actually one of the more fortunate kids...they were only attempts, she never actually physically harmed me or molested me, but it was still hell and my life is still pretty hellish today as a result of that. On top of my past history with abuse, I have both OCD and bipolar, and I won't get into details, but my OCD's been triggered today, and I'm feeling pretty terrified of losing my salvation. ON TOP OF THAT, there's this Calvary Chapel minister in CA I found on the Internet last year, whose sermons have been really helpful, especially in a lot of the hard times that I've been going through with health issues these past couple of months or so, and I've really grown in the Lord through His use of this fine pastor. Well, on his church's web site, he's got a lot of studies he's done from most of the books of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. I'm not proud to have to admit this, but through a lot of my walk with the Lord over the years, I've been lazy about studying the Scriptures and getting closer to God. I've learned an awful lot thanks to this guy's sermons and studies and all, and I've been very grateful to God for him and his work. Anyway, as I was growing up with my abusive and neglectful "mother," my family and I were attending a Presbyterian church at the time, and a woman came to be pastor of our church. She was VERY intelligent and I greatly enjoyed all my conversations with her, but since I really didn't have a mother of my own, I deeply yearned for her to love me and accept me as one of her own children although I never came right out and asked that of her, and she rejected me and kept me at arm's length, which to say the least, REALLY hurt me beyond words. And what hurt me even worse is the fact that she always seemed to take my "mother's" side in a way, trying to get me to feel sorry for her. And for the record, YES, I KNOW we're supposed to forgive the people who hurt us, and I've done the best I could with this. And because she was clearly a woman who was totally out of her mind, I've even come to a place where I can feel at least a degree of forgiveness towards her in my heart because I feel so sorry for her. But back then as a teenage girl growing up without a real mom or female role model, when I was talking to my pastor over the phone as we so often did, I was frequently expressing my hurt over how she was never there for me and never seemed to care, and she always came back with, "What if she CAN'T be there for you?" What I DESPERATELY needed back then was to hear her, to hear SOMEBODY say, "You are a good kid and a good daughter and the way your "mom" is treating you IS NOT YOUR FAULT AND YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS, and what she is putting you through is wrong and God sees that." The way she kept trying to get me to feel sorry for her, it's almost like she was saying that the evil way she was treating me was okay. I DESPERATELY needed assurance that what she was putting me through was WRONG AND DETESTABLE in God's sight. And because I could never get that assurance from the one female role model I had, I felt like the emotional AGONY I was going through didn't matter very much. That's why, to this very day, I struggle as greatly as I do with the issue of forgiveness. I KNOW that forgiving someone does NOT mean that you're saying what they did was okay, but so much of the time in our society and culture, that's often the way forgiveness is portrayed. And because of that, I'm so afraid to completely forgive because I'm afraid that if I don't stand up for myself and say that what my "mother" did to me was wrong, nobody, not even God, will care enough about me to say it. I AM SO AFRAID that the hellish pain I've suffered down here will be completely overlooked by Him like it was by my pastor, and mean nothing to Him in the final analysis of things. And, when I was on the Calvary Chapel web site earlier today looking through some of this pastor's studies, I read through what he had to say on the fifth commandment, and TO SAY THE VERY LEAST, that made an already bad situation today A MILLION TIMES WORSE, because he practically seemed to take the attitude that honoring parents, even those who abused you, is more important than the agony they put you through, that your own agony seems to mean nothing to God, or next to it. Of course he didn't say that, but he was NOT very understanding or sensitive to people who struggle with this like I do. It is blatantly obvious that HE IS UTTERLY CLUELESS when it comes to the sheer agony of child abuse. So, I'm scared I've lost my salvation, and to make things EVEN WORSE, God doesn't care that my "mom" tried to murder and molest me. This has been so triggering for my bipolar too. I feel so afraid, so alone, and so utterly heartbroken right now. So like I said, in some ways at least, I do understand what you're going through. And if ANYBODY can say anything to help either one of us, I know I will certainly appreciate it!
