Feel like I have taken as much as I possibly can take

[SwordsPandaGirl]

This is the first time I've posted on her. I'm in so much pain right now and have tried so many ways in which to try and cope but feel myself slipping. All my life I have been the one that people have considered "different" and "weird". No matter what I have done I have always been seen as the black sheep in the family that never does anything right. Growing up, I was constantly compared to my cousins. They were always much prettier and smarter than me in the eyes of my family. No matter what I did or how well i did in school, it was never good enough. Growing up my uncle seemed like the only one who understood me. Whilst everyone else was making fun of me or ignoring me, he would later on talk to me and make me feel like I had someone there. He would provide me with comfort when I was sad and hug me. by the age of 6 he would be the only one i could talk to. Telling me that my parents are too strict with me, they loved my brothers more than me and that started to get me very angry with them. This would cause me to argue with them more and the outcome was always my parents hitting me with various objects around the home. I became closer to my uncle. He was the only one at the time who would take the time to talk to me on my own. Then things started getting weird..
He would hold me more and more each time. Hugs at first. Then resting his hands on my shoulders. Giving me back massages and stroking my cheek. It was nothing I considered to be bad. In fact I liked the attention I was receiving for once.
By the age of 8/9 things got much worse. He started to stroke my chest, grab my bum and put his hands around my waist. It made me feel so uncomfortable but he kept telling me that I liked him and it felt nice. What was I to say to the only family member who really talked to me?
When I was 10 I stayed over at his house as I used to play with my younger cousin sometimes. I went to bed and a few hours later he was sat next to me. Stroking my chest and saying how I've grown up fast (I was an early developer) He got annoyed that I still had my bra on, so took it upon himself to take it off me...
I began fearing him. I knew these actions weren't normal but it hadn't quite clicked what it was he was doing to me. This lead to more serious events. He moved onto slipping his hands down my trousers, up my top and smelling my hair. He kept whispering, just calm down, relax, enjoy it, like I wanted it?! He took advantage over situations when he know my parents weren't going to be in the house, when his family weren't going to be at home and at school. Unlucky enough for me, he was my teacher from the ages of 11 to 16. Every time he got a chance he would make advances on me. When I reached the age of 12 I began trying to fight back with no avail. He would become violent to me pulling me back towards him when I tried to run and calling me weird when I would cry. During this age I began to cut myself. I want to end it all! I couldn't take the abuse any more! That's all I was. All I had become....His sexual device! My family found out and called me stupid! They'd tell me I was an ungrateful bitch for cutting myself. Only crazy people do that. I was to tell no one. They didn't want people knowing that I cut myself because it would look bad on the family. No one cared about me. Instead they punished me. They didn't let me leave the house for anything, which made the abuse worse.... I would leave home often to not encounter my uncle and now I was stuck there...no where to run to or hide. This realisation killed me and made me want to kill myself more. I tried. I failed. Again my family did not understand my pain. By the age of 13 I caught my dad cheating on my mum... I am still not over this. I was told from a young age that I was making them fight. I was a terrible daughter - said by my mum and that my parents were going to split up because of me. I am a strain to them and it was all my fault. That day, my nightmares became a reality as to me, it seemed like I had driven him to do the things he did. I was alone. My uncle had become my enemy and i knew this. How could he? He was a friend... I trusted him and he just used me! Im so empty. Why do people just keep seeing me as nothing? as just a person to use and throw away. He told me if I told anyone I would be breaking up the family. I was to blame. It was my fault. I wanted it.
When I was just about to give up hope on every finding affection, love and trust, I met the most amazing man in my life today. At the age of 15, he was my world and the only person I had. When he moved away it broke my heart. I run off to say goodbye and my mum found out. She took me home and started yelling at me. I didn't care at this point. The only person I cared about had left. I yelled back. I was angry, upset and alone. She stormed out of my room. I cried some more. She returned with a knife and held it against my throat. I sobbed. You screamed at me with the knife on my throat. you ungrateful bitch! I don't want a daughter like you! you're horrible! I don't want you. I cried not knowing what to say or do. I managed to find words some how and the only ones that passed through my lips were: do it. kill me. I want to die anyway. I have nothing, not any more. Her words still haunt me to this day...

By the time I was 18 I started a job. This was supposed to be a new slate. Where I could make something of myself, get to know myself. Instead it was a horrifying experience. My manager would make it clear to me that I could come to him about any ideas on how to get more customers to visit, so that we could sell more. This made me feel important. I did have numerous ideas on events we could hold to get more people in the community to participate and therefore bring in more revenue. He used this to get to me. Start telling me how he was going to f**k me and that I'd have to watch him do all sorts of disgusting things. I freaked out. Having had the experience in my past this scared me so much. Why is it that men only see me as a piece of meat instead of a human? I couldn't have this happen to me again. I got worse. I ended up quitting and my boyfriend helped me report him. This wasn't the start but didn't help me when it comes to my fear of men and sex.

I've had problems when it comes to intimacy for years. It goes it waves. I will feel safe with my bf (who I have now been with for 8 years) and then another day I wont..

I decided to go to University and despite wanting to go for a subject I loved, I was persuaded by my family to go for a subject that is better. I am now regretting this decision. I know I shouldn't let them decide for me but at the time, they still held a very strong grip on me any my life. my life has never felt like my own. I hardly made decisions when I was a child. They made it for me. He made it for me. That I like it...

A few years later, I got severely ill. This meant being in the ICU and being transferred to another hospital which specialised in what was wrong with me. It was a scary experience. I had to have life saving surgery and was unable to see anyone for more than 15 minutes everyday. I felt so isolated, depressed, alone. It started bring back bad memories from childhood where I felt so isolated, alone and like I was about to die. Death was at my doorstep again and this triggered all of these repressed memories I was so strongly trying to hide. I had my first flashback in hospital after a week and a half of being there. I thought I was going crazy. It felt so real. Like I was reliving all these painful situations all over again.
It wasn't until i returned to Uni that I started experiencing a massive spike in my anxiety and depression ( I had these before but it was only very slight). My nightmares got worse. I started having auditory hallucinations, flashbacks and I began to self harm again like I had done during my teenage years. I cried every day. Going outside became unbearable and it felt like I was alone in the world. Reliving the pain of the past. I kept telling myself I was crazy. What was going on? I decided to see a therapist at Uni and got diagnosed with PTSD.

Things got much worse from therapy as I started talking for the first time in my life about the abuse I had suffered as a child. I became hyperventilate, paranoid that every man wanted to attack me. It was a rough time and I still don't know how I managed to pass that year at uni. Things became worse when it came close to summer. I had to go back home... back to the town of my childhood abuse, back to my family that would call me names and never liked me. Made me feel like I was nothing. Back to the parents that had never protected me. Never made me feel like I could talk to them, come to them with my problems and would just call me a disrespectful daughter instead. They never thought I was good enough. I received a 2:1 (few marks off a first) that year! some how and they didn't even congratulate me or show that they were proud of me... The urge was too much. Harming wasn't enough. I would hear my uncle, feel him. I couldn't take the pain any more. So I tried to kill myself again.

My family now don't speak to me. I outed him to my family. My aunties reply? Why didn't you tell us sooner? If it was true you would have. The memory I was forced to sort of share out of my own will by my mother was when I was 10. My aunties just said 'you were old enough to know it was wrong, you would have said something' They later implied I waned it...I wanted him to touch me inappropriately, to make me feel like I was worthless, to make me hate anything to do with sex, fear men, to fuck me up so much I don't know myself. Nothing at all. I just feel void, completely empty. I massive pit of nothing that can never be happy.

Now, I have my mother who is trying to keep me here, in the town of pain. I want to leave. It's difficult! How does she hold this power over me? over my life? When will I get this power? Surely I should decide...but I can't. How do I get over so much pain from the past? Pain that is manifesting my future? I don't feel mentally able to do anything. Getting up in the morning is a massive challenge. I am currently working and find that I just can't keep up. I see myself slipping. Rather than getting better i am getting worse. I need a way out of this nightmare and I just can't seem to find the answer.

Is it possible to be happy after suffering through so much pain? I feel so lonely. I know I have my bf but I just can't open up to him like this. I even find it hard to open up to my therapist. It doesn't help that it's almost Christmas, a time of year where the abuse was at its worst. Where most have a wonderful joyful Christmas, I usually was scared, alone, unhappy and dreaded what came with family get together's. It was a time of being abused and used. Christmas till this day, is still a massive struggle for me. He wants me to enjoy it. I try for him because i love him so much but I just can't. Its difficult and so painful and brings up so many horrid memories.

This is my story... I am surprised I have been able to share so much. I have never done so before. I guess I just needed to let this out. its been manifesting within me for too long. All I want is to be happy and feel I will never get to experience real happiness with a family that genuinely cares for me.

[MyrnaLoy]

I don't have anything clever or brilliant to say, I just wanted you to know that I have read what you have written and that I think you have been very, very brave and strong.

I can imagine that it was very hard to write it all down like this but I hope that it has helped in some way?

I think that yes, it is possible to have dreadful experiences and, in the end, to be happy despite what has happened, but to get there takes a long time and involves being very, very kind to yourself.

It sounds like you have already taken some of the hardest steps, because you have a therapist, and you have begun to share your story. My own experience is that therapy is like peeling an onion and it takes time to move through the layers of pain.

I just wanted you to know that someone, a stranger, has read your story and cares about you: about you now, and about the little girl that you were. I am so, so sorry that this has happened to you.

[SwordsPandaGirl]

Thank you for your kind words MyrnaLoy. It means alot to me, especially now. It was difficult to right. It's the first time I have written it all out like this. There is a vast amount that I haven't told a soul, not even my therapist because I just can't get those words out. I am thinking about showing her but I'm scared to do that. There is alot ive mentioned here that she doesn't know about. I guess im scared of her judging me.
The last part you've said has almost given me tears. Thank you! I always feel so isolated and alone from my past, its such an amazing feeling to know that others do care. so once again, i am so thankful for your kind words and taking the time to read my post and comment.

[24balloons]

I just wanted to say I really hope writing it all down will help you. I don't have any real experience of what you have gone through but would say don't let them ruin your future! Break free from your horrible family, it doesn't sound like they will ever change.
You deserve so much more, try and do something you want to do this Christmas!
Hope you can find some peace in 2015, keep writing, it will help. X

[MyrnaLoy]

I know that showing what you have written to your therapist will feel huge: scary and like you are taking a big risk. If you can bring yourself to do it I think it will help a lot, and I'm absolutely sure she won't judge you.

Be kind to yourself here - you don't have to do anything quickly, but maybe now you have written this down you could talk to your therapist about how it felt to write it? Then you can talk about how it might feel to show her?

I know this is so hard but I really believe that you can find peace and happiness.

[SwordsPandaGirl]

Thanks for the encouraging words 24balloons. I am trying very hard to make my plan of leaving a reality. What I fear the most is getting to the time and then not going along with the plan of leaving. I don't know how they hold so much power on me and my decisions but I hope to have the courage one day to be able to just do it.

Thats a very good point MyrnaLoy. I think I might mention that I have written about it and talk about my fears of revealing this information to her. Maybe I could then work on the courage to show her. I have been in therapy for over a year now. Things are going very slowly. When I think I am getting slightly better, I then go two steps backwards. I find communication to be my greatest difficulty during sessions. I cant get the words out, which has lead me to saying very little about my past to her.Sometimes I wish i could skip to the end where everything is perfect and happy but I know there is no easy way out. I learn't this the hard way as I went through a phase of trying to deny to myself that the abuse had occurred in the first place and this made me much worse.

Thank you both for taking the time to message. I helps to know others do care, even if it feels like no one does in my family.

[24balloons]

I hope you find the strength to break free from them. They don't deserve you, stay strong and remind yourself each day that you are worthy of happiness and love. You did nothing wrong. I really hope 2015 will be a new start for you, don't waste anymore energy on them x