Coming Soon!
My Books:
My Voice of Truth
Seven Keys to Reconditioning the Abused Mind and Body
Letters to My Abusers: What I Couldn't Say Then
(this is not an exhaustive list, if you would like to add to the list, feel free to email me. I value your input. Also many of these coping mechanisms are useful at various times in our lives. They are not all negative, all the time. They become detrimental when they keep us from fully experiencing our lives and keep us from what we want)
Dissociation
“experiencing detachment from one self, experiencing a reality outside one self' or 'a falling apart of the self in segments or personality parts' (also called alters), who have amnesia for each other”
I experienced depersonalization/derealization (feeling separated from my body, robotic like in my memories of sexual abuse) for many years until I started to understand what I was experiencing and am now learning how to reconnect with my self and my body. Since it is so conditioned I tend to detach as a knee jerk reaction whenever I become stressed or something traumatic happens. Within hours, sometime minutes, I am learning to come back into my body and allow myself to experience the emotions I am afraid of.
There is a spectrum of dissociation, not all survivors have alters but most used some form of dissociation as children in order to survive.
For more information:
http://www.empty-memories.nl/disspectrumE.html#spectE
Denial
Not conscious, pretending something did not happen. Not being able to face it, to deal with the pain of it, we deny it sometimes through rationalizations that “it” either it did not happen or happened an entirely different way. It feels like you block off any reasoning to the contrary of what you want to believe or need to believe. It’s like it is not there and when it does come up, you shut the door as quickly as you can.
Minimizing
It wasn’t so bad, he didn’t penetrate, he “just” fondled me. I was never raped. I was older so I consented. They never hurt me.
If you were date raped, you may minimize by thinking that you invited him in, you knew him, you were on a date with him so therefore it's probably not rape.
Many of us will do anything to let the other person off the hook. Sometimes we don’t want to cause trouble for the other person, we don’t want to make waves in the family, so we minimize. Much of this comes from feeling powerless to do anything about it anyway and from feeling we are not worth the trouble of getting justice.
Avoidance
We avoid in so many ways. Some of us don’t like to be alone, some of us feel we have to be around people which can also be a form of avoidance (avoiding being with yourself and your feelings), some of us isolate and avoid people in general. Some of us use drugs, alcohol, or food to avoid. There are endless ways we avoid what is really going on inside of us.
Isolation
We isolate ourselves from others, friends and family. This stems from fear and distrust. Many of us grew accustomed to being alone, to retreating into ourselves. I am more comfortable alone, no one can hurt me if I am alone, I don’t have to be stressed out, I don't have to pretend or give what I don't believe I have. I don’t need to be around people. What's the big deal?
I've personally have worked very hard at not isolating myself, since it is what I prefer. By working on it, I have become much more social than I ever was, less socially phobic.
Repression/Blocking out/Forgetting
When I personally become stressed, I can’t remember what to do, I lose my equilibrium in a sense. I forget important things, things I “should” remember.
There is much I have blocked from my memory in terms of sexual abuse and physical abuse. I often have memories in which I do not remember the act, or I remember the act, but cannot remember what led up to it, or what happened afterward. Most of my memories do not have sound. Some I can remember the feeling of shame and guilt, but not the act itself. Most of my memories are missing the emotional component but the details are there.
Maintaining Control
Many of us are "controlling" in order to compensate for the lack of control in our childhoods and many times in our adult lives. We can be Inflexible to change, overreact when things do not go my way, develop rituals to stay in control. We like to know what is happening ahead of time, no surprises. We want to be prepared.
Hypervigilance
If I can stay alert, maybe I’ll be safe, or ready if something happens. If I can imagine the worst, maybe it won’t happen. Always being on high alert, suspicious and overly cautious to the point of interfering with your everyday functioning.
This is definitely me. I tend to imagine the worst, sometimes I see full tragic scenes in my mind and I must shout at myself mentally to "Stop". It can be jarring emotionally. I am can be overly cautious, suspicious and tend to think the worst of people. I imagine ulterior motives that sometimes seem far fetched to others.
