“Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Assault: Self-Love and Time”

Hello Seaweed Bear:

Thank you for each of your shows, healing our wounds, big and small. This song was miraculously released when I was experiencing severe PTSD. At that time, I wanted to die every day, and cried in the middle of the night until I couldn’t stop thinking about how to pass away without disturbing people.

When I heard the lyrics “See you tomorrow, I have made all the preparations, let go of all attachments, and let all obsessions live today until I close my eyes at the end.”, I seemed to be awakened. I was thinking, if every day is an end, can I also try to end these pains, cry loudly, and bury those pains in batches bit by bit today.

Another lyric says, “I dare not say that I believe in tomorrow, I am insignificant, and I am still hatching the dream of tomorrow.” I dare not say that tomorrow will be better, but I still hope that when I wake up, I will no longer suffer from trauma. pain. Later, when my condition was relatively stable and I didn’t think about how to end my life all day long, I watched the MV and was even more moved. In the daily death, is there another me who is being reborn.

Although I still hate the person who violated me, I also thank myself for going through the struggle all the way, choosing to let part of me die and be reborn in another form.

Bringing up this story again, I still feel uncomfortable thinking, why is it me? Why is it that I am the one who must cry in the same sky? Why do people who hurt me still live a good life in this world? Even continue to hurt the helpless girl. But I also hope that when I die yesterday, I can slowly look forward to tomorrow and say “see you tomorrow” instead of fearing a tomorrow full of pain.

Seaweed Bear Thank you for every warm words, accompanied me through countless troughs, I love it! I really like the encouragement and company of seaweed bears like friends.

by Yesterday (on-demand: 2023/3/26 12:29:37 pm)

Picture｜Photo by Andrew Piacquadio on Pexels

dear yesterday:

You said, “Goodbye Tomorrow” seems to help you see every day as an end, try to let yourself leave the pain at the end of each day, so as to seek rebirth in a new day.In fact, such thoughts are very powerful, allowing you to find a glimmer of hope to live in the face of pain.

To be honest, when I heard this song, I also felt that I was quickly attracted by the lyrics in it. A seemingly ordinary beginning, but it also reflects a person who can’t move in life, the feeling of powerlessness .

“Another ordinary day

The world still passes me mercilessly

Like being nailed in place, motionless”

Perhaps, you are in a passive state of life, feeling like being “pinned in place”, which is actually the so-called “learned helpless” (learned helpless)Maier & Seligman, 2016）。

It refers to a person who becomes passive and unable to take action when facing difficulties and challenges due to past experiences and expected failures, and feels powerless and negative about his life. Thinking about what happened in the past creates doubts about your worth and abilities, leading to self-denial and a decline in self-esteem (Carvalho et al. 2011).

You may often think, is it because I am not good that this kind of thing happened? If not, why do bad things fall on me?It’s normal to have this “unfair” feeling.

In this world, sometimes we encounter unfair and unexplainable things that make life more difficult, but what is commendable is that you choose to walk through the struggle, let part of you die, and be reborn in another form, You are really brave and brave.

Added in the same field:Inner Child Healing Story｜Illustrator Shi Nuannuan: Don’t use the past to deny yourself, your world will be bigger!

Picture｜Photo by Matthias Cooper on Pexels

“It’s clearly the same sky, whose tears are shining brighter than the stars tonight”

This is a sense of longing and uncertainty about the future. You may seek change and hope, want to release the burden of the past, and focus on the present, but find all this very difficult and difficult.

When you don’t know what will happen in the future, even when there are often messages in your life that make you feel terrified and have nightmares, these uneasy feelings will make up your life and make you tremble all the time, even if Others tell you to relax now without threats, and you will find yourself unable to relax properly.

“I am insignificant, but I am still hatching the dream of tomorrow”

However, you still have expectations and desires for the future, hoping to be able to escape the pain of trauma every time you wake up, which is very important in overcoming trauma.

Psychological OK stretch

So how do you calm down your restless self?I want to share with you an interesting psychological concept called “Uncertainty and Anticipation Model of Anxiety, UAMA” (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013).

This theory integrates neurobiological and psychological research related to anxiety to explain the impact of “uncertainty” and “expectation” on anxiety. There are five things that “dance” with our anxiety:

• Threat assessment: When we encounter a “potential threat” (such as a shadow in a dark alley), the threat is assessed.
  The process of threat assessment is affected by many factors, including genetics, early experience, and brain neural circuits. There is an overreaction, and then the anxiety explodes.

• Uncertainty: Uncertainty about future events is at the heart of anxiety. Uncertainty increases when we cannot predict possible threats.
  Using the previous example, when the light is bright, you may still be able to see clearly whether it is a human or a ghost in front of you, but when the light is not clear, you don’t even know how many people are there, and your fear and anxiety will increase.

• Anticipation: Anticipation refers to predictions and expectations of future events. Anxious people usually “over-anticipate negative outcomes”. The strange thing is that when you always think about bad things, you will be more anxious, so it becomes a negative cycle, and anxiety feeds anxiety.

• Regulatory Strategies: We employ different regulatory strategies to cope with emotional responses when faced with threat, uncertainty, and anticipation. These strategies include avoidance (such as avoiding an alley that scares you), aversion (getting angry when talking about sexual issues), seeking comfort, and so on.
  Certain strategies may relieve anxiety, while others may exacerbate it.

• Self-concept: Self-concept is your thoughts and beliefs about yourself. The more anxious you are, the more you doubt yourself, and then you keep seeing the bad things about yourself. This negative self-concept will increase anxiety and increase your negative expectations for results, and then you will fall into a vicious circle of negative emotions.

Picture｜Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels

So what to do? According to the above emotion regulation strategies, in fact, we only need to use more “anxiety-relieving strategies” and less “increasing anxiety” strategies. For easy understanding, I made a table for your reference.

The interesting thing about the above strategies is that the strategies on the left that increase anxiety can usually reduce your anxiety in a short period of time, but in the long run you will make yourself fall into a more anxious circle; the strategies on the right that reduce anxiety, on the surface, seem It’s a slow way to get up, but through gradual accumulation, you don’t need to always rely on others, but can rely on yourself steadily.

In the face of pain, the most important thing is to love yourself and allow yourself more time and space to slowly get better. It doesn’t matter if you give up sometimes, and it doesn’t matter if you are not brave sometimes. The healing process is inherently ups and downs, stumbles , the years will always bring us hope, and will hit our self-confidence hard.

But you have to believe that those important things that belong to you will eventually be left behind. Although the sad past that you don’t want to think about will not disappear, it can become the background in your memory, and it will bring out the perseverance of you who has never stopped.

[IwanttocontributetoNoriBeartoorderasongforyoulink please click me. “Seaweed Bear sings for you”listen here。】