Reddit reviews Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

I'm so so sorry, this is a tough thing to go through. As others have said, the biggest thing is finding some professional help. Be patient with yourself, there is no magic thing that will make this less challenging to walk yourself through. But you absolutely will, and you are not alone.

Reading your post was like something I could have written myself a few years ago. I'm still working on it. Learning to have respect and patience for where I was at in the process was a thing I really struggled with, because I just wanted to be done with it and put it behind me. When I couldn't afford therapy, I read a lot of self help books and these two really resonated with me: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk and Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. Please feel free to PM me any time if you want someone to talk to.

WELL DONE FOR GETTING THE JOB! And WELL DONE for making it through the first days: a new job is always difficult as you adjust, but you have more adjustment than 'normal'. Remember: you're doing brilliantly! You've come through addiction & escaped the sex trade: give yourself the credit you deserve.

I was in an abusive realtionship for about 6 years. Escaped. Into another one where I nearly got killed. Never got any help. Mental health services don't really focus on trauma in the UK. They want to talk about my patterns of behaviour in relationships instead of healing the wounds. I'm done talking about how I feel, I want to fix myself & be able to have a life, instead of this half life I now have.

I can't afford private therapy, & there's virtually no local MH provision on the NHS. I spoke to a psychologist who's a feminist & specialises in trauma focused care - she reccomended the following 3 texts to help me:

8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery (Rothschild, 2010)

Trauma and Recovery (Herman, 2015)

Complex PTSD (Walker, 2013)

They might be useful for you too?

Take care of yourself - you deserve it.

Mental health services are supposed to help. But sometimes psychiatric professionals cause damage by denting the credibility of individuals, a legacy which can last a lifetime. This is a particular problem for women who have experienced trauma, and get placed into what many see as the dustbin diagnosis of 'Borderline Personality Disorder'. The relatively new notion of 'Epistemic Injustice' may help us understand why.

Epistemic Injustice, a concept developed by philosopher Miranda Fricker, is when wrong is done to someone in their capacity as a knower. A subtype - Testimonial Injustice - refers to how the levels of credibility we give one another can be inflated or deflated owing to prejudices about groups which swirl in the social atmosphere. These prejudices can be overt and pre-emptive, for example excluding patients from meetings where their care is being discussed, thus cementing the skewed power dynamic between professional and patient. Or they may be more subtle. For example, if a patient discloses a piece of their personal history as potentially significant, a clinician may appear empathic but offer no follow-up question, or send out cues like picking up notes to block further conversation. Some of these responses are to do with the ever increasing lack of time in the NHS for meaningful connection. But most are to do with unconscious negative prejudices about particular groups.

No group in mental health is subject to as much prejudice as those given a diagnosis of 'Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder' or 'Borderline Personality Disorder' (BPD). 'BPD' is storied as a syndrome characterised by experiences such as fear of abandonment, extreme mood lability, an unstable sense of self, and self-harm. Women - for it is 75% women - with this diagnosis are labelled as 'manipulative' and 'attention seeking'. This kind of language use, which would be seen as pejorative elsewhere, situates professionals as knowing something about the complicated nature of personality disturbance attributed to such women; it boosts membership of the in-group 'professional'. But these hermeneutical claims just do not fit the evidence. 'BPD' is so dubious a category scientifically that it was almost dumped from the latest version of the biggest international diagnostic bible. It clusters women who dissent, who disobey, who resist together, as if these reactions were signs of pathology rather than spirit against the odds.

Yet 'BPD' as a category remains, serving as a kind of shorthand between professionals that there is something difficult about someone, that this particular patient might produce strong feelings like rage or desire in the clinician, that a distance needs to be kept. Staff who like women with this diagnosis are seen as procuring 'splitting' between team members, and are forced themselves to toe the line of being equally distant to show professional competence. A&E staff, reading this label in notes, take suicide attempts less seriously. GP receptionists act with hostility, the prejudice against women with 'BPD' being that they are time-wasting yet again for attention, undeserving somehow. These reactions imply connecting with women with this diagnosis is what Fricker calls an 'ethically bad affective investment'. These deny women the kind of relationships that could help heal. This discursive disenfranchisement kills.

Testimonial Injustice works subtly but powerfully here. Abuse histories are acknowledged on the surface, but the pathologisation of understandable emotional sequelae, and a treatment focus on controlling emotions in the present, rather than foregrounding the testimony of survivors, reinforces the abuser's attacks on survivors' epistemic subjectivity ('noone will believe you', 'it's your fault for seducing me'). Category inclusion undermines the fundamental right to speak and be heard.

These credibility slurs are experienced viscerally by survivors. Many people report, for example, a sudden shift to kindness, understanding and empathy after a change of diagnosis from 'BPD' to 'Bipolar Affective Disorders'. Self-harm and suicide attempts are suddenly reacted to with compassion and care. By contrast, those who cannot get their diagnosis changed feel branded for life.

We must campaign to get rid of the diagnosis of 'BPD'. But we must not simply create a new label - Chronic PTSD - for the same prejudices will slide on to it. To really change the negative stereotypes, we need a new language, a new social understanding of why and how people end up in deep distress, and how contact with psychiatric services can damage.

Fricker offers a pertinent example. In the 1960s, society did not recognise sexual harassment, so the behaviour of harassers was typically tolerated or even excused. As a result, women were victimised because the wider social context did not label such behaviours as sexual harassment. Indeed such women were seen as troublemakers until they had a chance to meet together, to forge a new language that would come to give a discursive platform for other women to speak from.

We need a similar consciousness-raising, language-generating process in mental health. One where professionals step back from imposing understanding, imposing labelling, and wait to be led by frameworks that develop from survivors.

We need, in doing this, to acknowledge the historical wrongs done to survivors in the mental health system, wrongs that continue today. We need to do this in acknowledgment that professionals have often squashed survivor initiatives into a shape services recognise, and further pathologised those who object. We need to do this, urgently, ethically, to redress the silencing of survivors, a testimonial injustice the psychiatric professions have inadvertantly colluded with.

If you would like to share your experiences or opinion, please tweet using the hashtag #TraumaNotPD

Have you heard about complex PTSD? It’s a relatively new diagnosis, and it is not yet in the DSM.
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It is slowly becoming clear in the literature that many, many women who were previously diagnosed with borderline personality disorder actually have complex PTSD from spending years growing up in abusive environments. Very interesting stuff.
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If you are interested check out Judith Hermon’s work, especially “Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465061710/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_mmJoDbNWX2J7V

Someone in this subreddit recommended these books to me when I was looking for advice on recovery from abuse, and they said that a feminist psychologist told them about these. I haven't gotten the chance to check them out, but I figured I'd pass it along:

8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

Why Does He Do That? is also really good. It's straightforward and has a pretty good feminist analysis of where abuse comes from - the book doesn't try to claim that men abuse because they have mental health problems or any other bullshit, but makes it clear that men abuse women because of misogyny and feeling like they "own" women.

Have you done any reading on trauma healing? I found Judith Lewis Herman and Bessel van der Kolk very helpful. It took a couple years, but I had more backed-up years of trauma effects than you do. Six months could be enough time for meaningful progress.

Counsellors and therapists never helped me, either, and I've been to quite a few, none great. I agree with you no one really wants to hear about the trauma and those that are willing to listen at all are few and tend not to stick around. Just my personal experience.

I'm not a minority. I'm a culture of one. I have an inkling of your pain.

As other's mentioned, you need a therapist. This isn't something you can work through alone and no one can tell you everything you need to know on a subreddit. But the one thing I see in others comments and I'll echo myself, what you are experiencing is very common for anyone who has survived sexual assault - even though it's really confusing mentally your body doesn't process things mentally, your body processes all of its experiences physically and the human body is designed to respond to sexual stimulation. Full stop. Even when you don't consent to it.

Rape is rape because you did not consent to it. You were exposed to sexual imagery and assault before you were mentally mature enough to comprehend or consent. It is perfectly normal and natural for sexual assault victims to feel, do and experience what you have been going through - because like I said, the body processes things differently, the mind however doesn't understand and has trouble reconciling how your body reacted to something you didn't want to happen and it creates a state of cognitive dissonance and the brain further tries to solve this "problem" by making mentally boxing it into one category or the other - but it's just not that simple.

You will find very few answers to the problems this has created for you by thinking it through. So much of the process is physically in your body where the assault occurred and emotionally where you responded to the assault - it's a long complicated process that must be overseen by a professional - think of it the same you would as if you needed physical therapy after breaking your leg. You wouldn't really know what you needed to do to heal from that, what exercises would strengthen and hurt - you need someone to guide you through the process.

I am so sorry that this happened to you and that the fallout is affecting your ability to have intimate and satisfying relationships as an adult. You're not alone - others have walked down this path too and it does get better with time, therapy, and self-care.

You can talk to someone now at RAINN: National Sexual Assault HotlineCall 1-800-656-4673 and they can help you find a therapist experienced in assault in your area.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465061710/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_qHTzCbKRG56M8

This book helped me immensely. Having a therapist who understands the principles in this book and is “trauma informed” is imperative too.