Has any one else gone through this??

[qpatty]

Today I am 40 days off drugs, Yeah!! I am having really weird memories from my childhood (not good ones) come flooding in both when I am awake and when I am sleeping. Some of these things I would rather not remember and I can't seem to control them at all. I realize that I had started numbing myself with drugs and alcohol from about the age of 9 but I don't see what good it can do to hash over all this stuff this many years later. It is really throwing me for a loop. Maybe down the road a bit I probably better deal with this stuff but I am seriously not ready yet.

Has anyone else ever had this happen? Or should I call the men in the white coats to come get me?

I will give you an example of one of the awful memories (of many). I was 4 or 5 and the youngest of 6 kids. My father who was a heavy violent drinker came home in a drunkin ti-raid and tried to throw my mother out. Something he did on a regular basis. As usual she refused to leave. Only this time he grabbed his shotgun and lined all six of us up against the livingroom wall. He told my mother if she didn't leave he was going to start shooting at us. When she tried to reason with him he got angry and pulled the trigger. My oldest brother apparently saw that he was going to really do it and just dove on all of us, crashing us to the floor in a heap. At that exact moment my other brother flung himself at my father knocking the gun out of his hand after he fired that first shot. My 2 brothers subdued him long enough for us to all run away. But before I ran I remember looking at the wall and seeing the huge bullet hole directly behind where my sister Janet was standing!

These and many more are memories that are still so painful that I feel like I am being chocked and can't breathe when I think of them. And of course in my family nothing ever was mentioned again after these incidents. Everyone always acted like nothing happened. My father died several years ago so going and kicking his a** is not an option.

I am really not ready or strong enough to deal with any of this yet and just wondered if anyone has ever had this happen while their brain was healing or if I should seek some sort of immediate counseling?

Any insight at all would really be appreciated. I do not want my childhood to be the reason I give up and numb myself for another 50 years.

Patty

[mlajl]

Thanks, sometimes a feel like a cross between dudley do right and Ernest P. Warrell.. lol but I hang in there.. keep talking to your friend.. hash this out.. keep opening up that old wound and deal with it.. your on the right track.. u sound like u need to grieve over a child hood lost.. and why shouldn't you? Just keep seeking help from your friends.. remember, there won't be closure, just acceptance. ... it is what it is.. I'll be praying for u patty!

[qpatty]

I actually talked to someone last night who truly understood what I went through as a child and understands what effect it has on me now as an adult. After talking it out for a long time I feel much better today, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders just having someone who could relate to the horrors of my childhood. I do think I will eventually need to seek some form of counseling but I don't think I am ready for that yet. I so appreciate your input and I promise I will not let it get as bad as your husband before I seek out care.

I have followed your journey from the beginning and I have to tell you that you are one of the strongest people I have ever met! You are truly an inspiration to me and I am sure to many on here. What you are doing with all that you have going on is nothing less than amazing to me. You are a true warrior my friend and your family is lucky to have you.
Patty

[mlajl]

Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.. my husband also numbed himself with different things over the years.. u have learned to ingnore it and keep going.. not deal with it. Basically all the grief u kept buried is bubbling out.. and when u are like my husband, putting on the fake I'm ok your whole life and ignore.. all these memories and emotions are to hard to deal with.. because u never dealt with them in the first place.. there is no closure from your past, only accepting it for what it was.. to adults who where out of control and u kids suffered.. go to a shrink.. get help now dealing with it.. I will tell u from watching my husband, at first u feel worse because you open up old wounds but it does help in the long run.. do it now before u get so far gone like my husband.. hang in there.. your intense anxiety may not just be withdrawles. . Could be from PTSD..  your sober know, not using and creating a nice fluffy happy buffer from your life.. just think about it.. I'd gladly get my husband on here to speak with u.  Today, he is having a bad day and doesn't even know why.. he is shaking all over and can barely stand.. I've put him on a tread mill to try to hopefully burn off the anxiety.. ptsd is nothing to be ashamed of.. u have simply been strong too long.. my heart just aches for u.. I don't personally knkw what u deal with, but I do know what it's like to have to watch someone go through this.. chin up.. strutt your stuff into a shrinks office :)  

[mlajl]

Oh patty, my husband has a simalar back ground.. he is 45 .. their comes a time where u can't swallow all the memories down anymore and u choke on them.. this is the reason my husband was diagnosed with PTSD, aniety disorder and adhd.. with everything else in our current lives.. then his past and child hood.. he broke.. I'm going to tell u, because I've watched my husband.. I don't understand tramitic childhoods, I had a good home life as a kid.. but I do know what it's like to watch someone fall apart from this.. go to a shrink.. learn how to cope and get past this.. my husband takes prozac and xanex.. sweetie, u sound like my husband.. do something now.. before u end up like my husband.. he shakes from head to toe from the slightest of stress. Crys.. then is angry. He is mesrible.. get help from a doctor for this NOW. it only gets worse. U probably have developed a anxiety disorder .. if u get help now.. u have a chance where it won't be permanent. . Get help sweets.. I've watched my husband slowly break over 4 years. . And now.. he is plane broken..

[Krissy_123]

Things like this have been happening to me like crazy. In my head I honestly feel 23 not 34. It's like the past 11 years never happend. I've had to grieve deaths that I never really grieved when they passed. My step dad was the worst. Losing him well I was high was rough,but now being clean it's like I lost him all over again. I have memories have high school like crazy (I hated high school,if die before anyone ever sent me back) I'm having memories of calling all the docs and hospitals from when I was 8-10 years old to see if my mum was there cuz she drove drunk all the time. So not it's not just you....to be honest I'm glad to no it's not just me either.

[Cricketk92]

I am late in reading your post but wanted to comment anyway... First I am so sorry about what you have been through in your life!  I think a lot of us began using to escape the pain of abusive childhoods! When we finally come to our senses and decide to stop using those memories begin to seep back in.  I know they can be scary and make us feel things that we thought were long gone!  Kelly mentioned EMDR....if you can find a therapist who provides that service try to go see them!  It is really helpful in dealing with PTSD!  It is amazing how our brains work and how they hide things from us and then reveal them back at odd times.  Maybe the memories are coming back now cause it is time to deal with them....or perhaps they are just trying to get you to go back to using.  Whatever you do stay strong and you did the right thing by posting here!!  
I am not sure if you are involved in AA or NA but I can tell you that when I did my step 4 and 5  it really helped me to begin to let go of the anger and resentments I had towards my abusers in childhood.  It is good to be free of it and to have the means of putting it back in it's place when those feelings pop back up again!
Whatever path you take please know that you will be in my prayers!!
Keep on doing the right thing!

[DownTheHatchet]

Yeah.. The bad memories start to show back up after ONE day without the drug.

[qpatty]

We are helping each other my friend.

[BraneGame]

You'll never know how much you are helping me through this detox. Thinking of you, Chrisie

[qpatty]

I am so glad you are doing so well after your surgery. I have been sending silent prayers your way all week. Patty

[qpatty]

Thank you all for your words of encouragement. I am not sure whether this is my brain healing or whether it is my brain trying to trick me but either way the outcome will be the same. Whatever is down the road for me will be met by me without drugs or alcohol. (I haven't drank in 18 years or so.). Whatever I need to face I will face and find a way through it. Just knowing so many people care makes it all so much more doable and I really do appreciate that. I am so proud of 40 days and nothing, not even ghosts are going to throw me off the path to my future.

Love you all,
Patty

[chig1130]

Patty listen to Ike, he is SPOT on just like I told you earlier in my message

[kellygirll]

that is just awful I'm so sorry you and your siblings and mom had to endure that kind of torture just terrible there is this form  of healing for ptsd its called EMDR and it really works google it and see if you have a therapist in your area that does it i know some people that have had it done and it works miracles best of luck to you and congrats on the 40 days

[VICourageous]

It is 4/18/2015 and my Hub & I are Both from the same Canyon in Ca. We put on the 70s and we called his family since most of mine are gone. We both went back to old memories. Most were good for me but for him he had a father like yours. So Sorry!  We both had good time too! I know I did. My bother is buried down there now on a Mountain and so hid his. We have so many losses lately that we want to go back to some of those good days but not the bad. He is talking to his bother right now about those bad time with his father. Meanwhile we are craving to be around Family.

Your good memories will come in & go just like the bad. I am 58 and got clean at the age 56 in 2012. The depression can come & go from memories as so can the "GOOD TIMES".

It takes a long time for us that have used most of our life, for the Brain NeuroChemisty to bonce back too. Just hang in.

He had those bad issues happen to him growing up and is slowing been letting them out

Bless

[helplessangel]

Oh no! I tend to agree with the ptsd the others have mentioned. I'm so sorry you had to go through that and then now are reliving it in your dreams. I believe in a higher power and he'll get his just punishment. But the best thing to maybe spite him and get you relief is talking to a professional and healing yourself. Then you can hopefully be happy and figuratively spit in the face of those who hurt you by being well. It can be scary but well worth it.

[qpatty]

Yes they are true memories of my actual childhood.

[qpatty]

I actually was told by one of my Professors in college that she really believed that I suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. Of course at that time I just ignored it and numbed myself yet again.

If my parents were still alive I would go directly to them for closure but since they are not I probably better go try and talk to someone about it. Cause if i go to the cemetery and dig my father up and punch him in his skeleton face then the men in the white coats would definitely come for me. He is probably lucky that he is no longer here. Not that how I felt would have mattered to him.

I am not accustomed to all this unadulterated anger, it's not who I am and it freaks me out more than a little.

[helplessangel]

Oh wow! Those are extremely traumatic dreams. If they are a memory, I would highly suggest talking to someone who specializes in this. I've had strange dreams but nothing like that. I did have psychotic episodes and was forced into the psych ward for very vivid hallucinations. But talking to the people there helped a lot. It seem to me that with some help dealing with this, I pray these will stop. I wish there was something magic i could tell you but getting that help can be it. I'm so so sorry you're having these thing come up.

[spider6]

Honey if you started numbing yourself at 9, that's when you stopped growing emotionally.  I wouldn't be surprised if you had post traumatic stress disorder.  Yes get help honey ...it is normal to start to feel again....but it's soooo amped up while our brains are acclimating .....

I feel soo so bad for you and your family...please know that you're not alone when it comes to such violence, there are others and there's got to be some sort of trauma support group for these precise incidents....my heart aches and simultaneously prays for your spirit.  Hugs