Instead of complaining about what I didn’t hear… I explained what I need to hear, to help me deal with shame.

My ability to react and respond in a far more effective way, my self control, my capacity to ask for what I need, has definitely increased. I have repeated situations occurring, that demonstrate this.

I have blogged about my counsellors lack of validation for what I have been through and how it was not my fault, blame, shame etc… and how hurtful it feels to not have this validation offered. And I am increasingly okay with validating my own emotions and feelings.

So, at counselling today, the subject of shame was one that needed raising, as I have been doing a lot of processing about the depths and levels of shame I have been inflicted with. I stated that I needed to hear more – that it wasn’t my fault, my blame, my shame, or anything I did wrong. I was a child trying to survive a horrendous childhood and wanted the normal needs of love, affection and attention. And sadly that was abused further. And how the blame and shame is the abusers, not mine, even though I feel it.

I didn’t make a big deal of how hurt I feel when this validation isn’t offered. I made the decision instead to just ask for what I need. It felt uncomfortable and I struggled a bit, but I did it.

And it had the needed response. Validation was offered and comforting words (no matter how weird it was to hear them – having rarely heard them in my life and instead hearing the opposite) and I appreciated that.

Complex trauma, is profound trauma with consequences that affect a lifetime.

20 Signs of Unresolved Trauma

I definitely have unresolved trauma, as per this article.
Great info.

Discussing Dissociation

Many people enter the therapy process with minimal awareness of their trauma history.  When the trauma survivors are dissociative, they have the ability to block out an awareness of their trauma.  They may know that their family had problems, or that their family was dysfunctional, etc, but they may believe they were never abused.

child abuse (Photo credit: Southworth Sailor)

However, blocking out conscious awareness of trauma does not mean that the survivors have no effects of that trauma.  Using denial and dissociative skills does not mean that the abuse did not happen.  Denial means that the person simply is refusing to acknowledge or accept the fact that they were traumatized.  They are pretending they were not hurt, when they were actually hurt very badly.

Even if the memories of abuse are hidden from the survivor’s awareness, blocked trauma / unresolved trauma creates very noticeable and obvious symptoms that…

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