You know - I think everything you felt is very normal and normal is the last thing that we're used to.
Our therapist told me that our brains are made up of millions of chemicals. Each word we learn, each sound we hear, each color we see, everything is stored in our brains chemically. We may not even know they are their - he said his best example was a digital camera. Our eyes are CONSTANTLY taking it all in, storing what we see chemically and the process isn't any different for people with blindness, or deafness - we all store memory processes chemically. Even the bad ones. Simply put - if we witnessed it or lived through it? It got stored in the huge chemical ware house in our brains.
Now - recall is like a file system. If I say a word - an odd word - maybe one that you haven't heard since grade school - your brain will send a transmission to that storehouse in your mind, and seek to find the file with exact or similar words. To prove a point - I'll say - aardvark. Immediately your brain goes to a mental picture of a small, nearly nude, ant eating animal like a picture in a childs dictionary - or the pink panther cartoon - with the blue grey animal - or if YOU personally have seen an aardvark in a zoo - you have your own memories. But - how amazing is it that your brain sent a "runner" to the aardvark file - and thought of something. That's recall. AND - people who suffered abuse? Have files that they fill and close, and put a lock on the door, and shut those files in a box, and put that box in another box, and lock it up again and again so we can forget - that's a safety mechanism. BUT.........
WHen we do that over and over and over and over.....and over whether it's with an alcoholic father in our childhood, or an abusive spouse or an abusive difficult child - it's there - it's stored....and our processing system and filing system get bogged down, and instead of having the skills to shred incidents like this in our storage facility of a brain - (which is what I think therapy teaches us - how to open those files, look at them for what they are, shred them, and empty out storage space for happier moments because we learn HOW to draw boundaries) we keep stuffing them and stuffing them and stuffing them and swallowing things and dealing and lying to ourselves that it's OKAY to forget these things. If no one has ever dealt with you about these things - they're sadly still there and they can affect HOW we live our lives, how we form relationships, HOW we draw our boundaries, HOW we're able to deal with others.....
In difficult child's? I think their filing systems in their heads looks like their bedrooms. We all figure they should process information - but it doesn't - their systems are amped up or wires are crossed at birth and instead of filing things - they pile things - shove them in a storage box, plop the lid on it - and when you say aardvark to them - they look at you like you're speaking Chinese because their file systems are non-existant - almost like a slow computer.
When you start therapy - You are literally emptying out your storehouse and looking at things you haven't had to deal with for a long time. Just like a storage locker - you can't possibly look at the boxes in the back FIRST until you deal with moving the ones in the front. And while you deal with the most recent memories - eventually in therapy they'll lead to the older memories because you have recall. I say aardvark - your therapist may say "Father" and you're going to have your own set of memories to draw on. You may THINK that abuse has nothing to do with your life now - but it may well be that you formed your personality and learned how to cope differently to survive then - and don't even realize it affected your life now.
The most horrible thing about purging your brain, emptying out your mind-files or memories is that just like a storage space - once you file them or shred those memories - there is a hole - or space that has been occupied for YEARS with potentially unhappy memories. ANd now what do you fill them with? You're obviously AT therapy because your life doesn't make you feel good - and in time you'll learn HOW to fill those spaces with your OWN good thoughts - because once you work so hard to get that space in your head cleared out? YOU really will NOT allow bad things to be filed back there. Eventually - you learn to deal with the fallout of a session. YOur therapist should teach you some breathing exercises or some ability to divert thoughts of sadness -
In my sessions - since I'm so organized physically - I have been able over the years to store more junk in my head than I wanted and most of it was bad. So the fact that if you said hurt, pain, beating - my brain went right to the files during the years I was married. In our exercises I was taught how to mentally picture myself taking the pain file off my mental shelf and sit in the warehouse of my brain and shred, shred, shred......bad memories...and occasionally when I'd come across a good one - like Dude catching his first fish ? I put that in a box I mentally marked HAPPY or good or GOOD memories.....
Therapy just re-organizes your mind to cope or purge bad files and realize that sometimes there is NOTHING you could have done about "THAT" but shows you how to take control over the memory and do what you need to do with that particular memory to have a healthier life now.
Leaves a lot of holes - holes are painful - and a lot of people seem worse AFTER they go to therapy because right now you have no coping skills to deal with stuff you haven't had to think about - because you either locked it away, your brain locked it away as a dangerous thought or you didn't deal with it when because you didn't know how to.
THis is why a lot of us get on antidepressants - when in therapy - it's just a little help/crutch until you wade through the muck of your life and figure out that you really ARE a good person, you really DO deserve peace in your life, you CAN have happiness even if you have a child who's miserable. The SSRI's can help - but ask your therapist for coping skills and DO tell her/him about all the fallout and depression you're having.
WELCOME TO THE PATH of GOOD MENTAL HEALTH - and keep telling yourself - not many things that are good for me come easy - and stick with it.
It hasn't beent too too long ago that I had my own first epiphany about what I learned in therapy and just automatically applied it to my life - it was something DUde tried to do and I automatically said NO - THAT was the first time that I truly KNEW what I had done for myself - despite not feeling like going, thinking it was a waste, not feeling the results fast.....paid off.
Hang in there - you're really going to like all the space and happiness you get in your head - promise....
Hugs
STar
But then, I've never claimed to be normal. 
Believe me, the counselors have heard it all!!
