**This post was started on April 18th. It took a lot of time to dive through all of this, get it all written down, and then come back to post it. If you're reading this, thank you. I would love to do some kind of fundraising for domestic abuse and if you know where to start, I would love to chat with you!**
If you saw my post about having a 2-hour counseling session to start to deal with some trauma (see related post) then you might be wondering how it went. Well it's taken some time for me to really process what happened that day. First, I want to do a quick recap of how the session flowed.
I sat down on the couch, asked if I could remove my mask (first time I ever asked that or did it), and, once comfortable, my therapist asked me if I was hydrated, well rested, and satiated. We want no distractions! The session started and I let her know that I wasn't exactly sure what memory to choose because I have a physical reaction to seeing someone that looks like this person. We determined the memory to go over and we got started. I was to go to the start of the memory in my mind, play it out and let her know when I was done. Then I walked her through the memory. The first time I went through the memory, this is how I remembered it.
We were playing around, I think he was trying to tickle me because I was laughing. We ended up on the couch and he was sitting on top of me. At some point I realized that his knees had my elbows pinned down with my hands above my head. His weight has shifted onto my diaphragm and I couldn't take a full breath. Then he covered my mouth and nose with his free hand and I tried to laugh but I couldn't breathe. He had a blank look on his face and when I needed to take a breath, he wouldn't move. I tried to wiggle free but I couldn't. I started to freak out because I couldn't breathe. When he finally let go I only remember him telling me that I had trust issues because if I had trusted him, I would have known that he wouldn't let me run out of oxygen but I started to freak out so I didn't trust him.
That is almost exactly how I described it the first few times. The third or forth time I went through the memory, I did it with my eyes closed and I started to cry when I saw his face. I felt nauseous. By the end (not sure how many times we went through this scenario), I still felt nauseous and if I started to tear up or cry it was out of anger because the narrative started to shift. I told my therapist that I didn't know if these changes actually happened and my mind had been repressing them or if I was adding them in because they were things that he had done before. At no point during the memory did I ever feel like I was in real danger but I'm getting ahead of myself. This is about how the final memory came through.
We were kissing and laughing, I feel like we were about to have sex which explains why we were on the couch. He was sitting on my hips but not with his full weight and he had my legs pinned together under him and possibly with his feet over them since I couldn't move them. While we were on the couch making out, he pinned my hands above my head while slowly putting his hand around my throat (something he had done before, many times). He applied a little pressure but never cut off the flow of oxygen. It was around this time that his weight shifted onto my diaphragm and I couldn't take a full deep breath. As he shifted his weight, he put his knees onto my elbows, pinning them to the couch. His hand slowly moved up my throat to cover my mouth and nose. I didn't think anything of it until I saw the look in his eyes. He had a blank, cold stare in his eyes. I tried to take a breath but the palm of his hand was directly over my mouth like a suction cup and my nose was pinched shut. I tried to tell him I couldn't breathe and needed to take a breath and he didn't move. I started to struggle but I couldn't move. He was so heavy . I don't know how long this was but when he finally let go I don't know if I asked him out loud why he did that or if I only thought it. He told me that I had trust issues. I don't know if I gave him a look of you're crazy or WTF but he then said that if I had trusted him then I would have known that he wouldn't let me run out of oxygen but since I started to freak out then I didn't trust him.
Core memory is still the same but there is an obvious shift in the narrative. We did have to pause about an hour in because I had to go to the bathroom (25oz of water and 2 cups of coffee before 10am will do that to a person) but when we were done I told her that I was feeling angry and sad. Angry that it happened and also sad because I couldn't see the signs of abuse up to this point.
**The remainder of the post was written on 6/21**
I had this appointment on a Thursday and had a follow up on Tuesday. Normally I'm seen every two weeks but because it was a 2 hour trauma session, she wanted a follow up within a couple of days to talk about how I was feeling after the session. Over the course of the weekend I found myself getting more and more angry! Every day I was in a terrible mood. This craptastic mood lasted a good week. I was snapping at my daughter, my husband and the dog (more so than usual). I felt bad after the fact but at the same time I didn't want to talk about what I was experiencing. I felt shame. I had always said that he was mentally and emotionally abusive but I never thought of him as physically abusive because he had never hit me or anything like that...until this session.
He did physically abuse me. He put me under the influence of drugs and did things to me that I wouldn't do in a sober state. He got me pregnant and when I was scared and vulnerable and didn't know what to do, he filled my head with all these horrible things that would happen if I kept the baby and convinced me that the only thing that would save us both was to terminate and gave me the money for an abortion and then drove me to the first appointment (and boy that is a story for another time). That was a form of physical abuse in my opinion. He may not have beaten me but my body sure did take a beating that weekend.
I went in for my follow up appointment and I admitted to my therapist that I had looked him up on Facebook just to make sure that he was still thousands of miles away from me and according to that social media app, he is. Thinking about that year of my life that I was with him and all the shit that he put me through still makes me angry. It still guts me. It still pisses me off that I couldn't see what was happening to me until after it was over. While these things still make me angry, I do not blame myself. I thought I did for a long time but I realized that it wasn't my fault. I was manipulated by someone I was supposed to trust. Someone who was much older than me.
Now my therapist is leaving and I have so much more trauma to deal with, especially around this particular person, and I don't know how I'm going to proceed.
