Self-Compassion
As I listened for the first time to the podcast of Carolyn Spring, I began to understand yet another layer of what it means to have Complex PTSD. In one of her podcasts, she talks about the importance of self-compassion. So often, when we have been victims of abuse, we blame ourselves. This leads to a habitual monologue of self-hatred, and this perpetuates the experience of complex ptsd.
Her podcast helped me to reflect on my own lack of self-compassion and how this has manifested over the decades. At the age of 25, already the victim of multiple incidences of abuse, from birth onwards., I was the victim of a new type of abuse, one which lasted well over a year. I have only recently begun to understand that I totally dissociated from this at the time and for decades afterwards. Instead, as I now look back and realise, I became emotionally distant, seeking connections with others at a very superficial level, craving validation from any source, leaving me vulnerable to further abuse. I lacked self-respect, not least because, unbeknownst to me, this had been destroyed by the abuse I suffered.
Only very recently have I truly begun to realise how much I blamed myself for the abuse and the behaviours that followed. I simply accepted this self-hatred, telling myself I was inherently flawed and that I deserved what happened to me because I spent years seeking any attention, from any source.
This is completely untrue. I endured extended abuse from someone in a position of trust, and I did not deserve, encourage, or welcome it. The subsequent behaviour, which persisted until roughly the last five years, was caused by a chaotic and disorganised nervous system. I was unable to create safe connections with others, my self-esteem was non-existent, and I grappled for the scraps of attention to try to fill the gaping void inside me.
With the help of my ongoing therapy, I am doing somatic work and I have started to experience some deeply painful sensations, ranging from my pelvis, abdomen, chest and throat, which I have come to realise is the abject fear and shame that has been buried all these years. I have had to start learning to sit with this pain and provide self-compassion. I have realised that I did not give consent to what happened to me, that I submitted to the abuse because my nervous system was keeping me safe.
I have so much work to do, and after all these years, I am finally feeling the pain of what happened to me. I had shut it away, buried it, denied it, and dissociated from it to survive. But this deprived me of the kindness I needed to show myself. The memories have festered like an infected wound. They had to surface, and now I am dealing with the pain in the best way I can.
I have lost people close to me as a result of disclosing the abuse, and this has magnified the trauma. While I try to work through the damage, the pain and the memories, I face invalidation from people I have known all my life. The abuse I lived through has been rejected. It didn’t happen. I am lying. This has been almost as painful as the abuse. To live inside a mind of filthy, sordid images, to experience the powerful and terrifying bodily sensations, while being accused of making it all up, is the biggest heartbreak of my life. This is why I have had to dig deep for self-compassion, because I know what happened. I am learning that I am the only witness and that my voice is good enough.
