Having very abusive parents and very difficult childhood. I had been depressed since 14 and now I am starting to have intense flashbacks about my childhood(I am 32). Is it possible to muscle through it? Professional therapists didn’t help, my country fucking sucks in this regard. I need some practical advice against it? Also I don’t abuse any substances, so that out of question.
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You should read about Edna Foa and her prolonged exposure therapy, it will give you some tools to work it out and a better understanding of what you are experiencing. Revisiting those memories I’m a control manner will help you lots .Good luck
A lot of people (myself included) find themselves having to reckon with issues they didn’t recognize or thought resolved right around 30, for whatever reason.
I’m just going to tell you that I felt very similarly. I started going through this a couple years ago after some intimate relationship stress threw me into the worst spiral of my life.
You’re already in a better place because you realize this is ultimately about yourself, not others. However, I don’t think it’s possible to “muscle through it”. You can read books, join groups, journal, go to therapy, or whatever else, but you have to learn to observe yourself and make connections between painful memories and current patterns of behavior.
The gist is that you taught yourself a bunch of strategies to cope with your shitty environment as a kid, but now those strategies are hurting you because they’re designed for a world characterized by pain, isolation, and helplessness–the world of your childhood (or at least part of it). You’re no longer in that world, so this mismatch causes problems.
If you’ve had trouble with therapists, I suggest you try reading. This book is a modern classic that many including myself have found very helpful with this kind of thing. Maybe you’ll be able to see yourself in one of his sketches and from there you’ll have some vocabulary to start looking for other resources.
Edmr therapy exist for this level of trauma.
Forgetting it, no, not in my experience but you can move past it.
Talking therapy and such were great for me. It allowed me to unpack and emotionally process alot of things I didn’t have the emotional toolbox for when I was a kid.
Good luck on your journey buddy.
There is no “muscling through it”.
I had flashbacks also. I could feel the knuckles punching my face and it was 15+ years after the fact.
I don’t have flashbacks anymore but I am still uncomfortable when people talk with their hands near my face.
The book, “The Body Keeps the Score” was a great help along with a fantastic therapist.
If you break your arm, nobody thinks twice about going to the doctor for that.
If you have had mental trauma, some people think you are weak for seeking help. You aren’t weak. It takes a special kind of strength to seek help for that.
I don’t think so. But lots of therapy and self help has gotten me to the best place I think I will ever be. Sending you hope.