To be green with envy at people who had 'good enough' parents and didn't suffer abuse as children?

[WannaRant]

Just that.

People who didn't have their souls shattered as children and were shown that they were of value, were loved and that they mattered, even if not all the time.

Its difficult, if not impossible, to try to retrain your goddamn brain from scratch as an adult and a parent, especially when your life is already stressful due to lack of support, financially due to low attainment, and emotionally due to all the trauma you've suffered.

I'd never wish my life experiences on anybody but why me?!!

NellyBarney, your life sounds very much like mine. And to make a good career, life and family for yourself whilst carrying this weight of baggage with you is no mean feat.

I was recently in a similar place. I had no idea I was traumatised, or that despite an apparently confident exterior I was putting out the kind of unconscious signals that attract abusers. I attracted them because I'd previously been a victim of abuse. I was unaware, got on with my life, and then, almost 2 decades later I found myself (not for the first time) the target of sexual harassment and stalking at work. I got sick. Hair falling out in handfuls, zero concentration, pain in every joint, terrifying short-term memory loss. I felt 80+, and was afraid I might have early-onset dementia. Then I realised I was responding to specific triggers and wondered if it was possibly PTSD. This was since confirmed, and I've been in intensive therapy - now nearly concluded - for a year.

Those frightening symptoms have gone. I'm often told cPTSD lasts for life. Time will tell, but I have reason to hope this isn't true. Memories don't change, it's true, but they can be divested of their power to control our present. The most important step for me has been to stop internalising other people's shit. The abuse was about the abusers; not me. Their actions define them; not me. The immediacy - the flashbacks - are gone. And for the first time I'm starting to believe that it IS possible to recover from a condition I've suffered from for nearly 3 decades, and had no idea I had.

I'm posting this as I want others to see it's possible for them to get better, even having been severely traumatised as I was. I refuse to think this is forever, and for the first time I'm cautiously optimistic. I hope for the sake of everyone who's posted on this thread, that some day this might also be you.

Thank you so much for starting this thread OP and to everyone who has contributed. I can relate to so much of what has been said. It feels very isolating to have had a troubled abusive background, particularly when it was 'covered up' and not exposed to anyone in the outside world who might have helped.
What a feat it is to raise our own children and break the cycle. I've had therapy for years but that residual sense of inadequacy and constant hypervigilance and anxiety is something I'm realising may just always be background noise.
Like others I am nc with a few remaining family members and I chose an abusive spouse so am divorced, so it all adds to the isolation and shame feelings. Often I find it hard to interact with and trust people.
I have recently however learned to like myself more and to start to recognise that just surviving it all is an achievement, just breaking that cycle and keeping going. I've been constantly seeking achievements and goals but I can see now that whatever I do achieve, the 'proving myself' isn't necessary, it's self acceptance and self care that's needed really.
Warm wishes to all of you. We aren't alone really are we

Oh my goodness Mariel........I agree with the short term memory loss, hair falling out in handfuls. I could cry for you. I am so terribly sorry to hear how you have suffered.

But as you say, all the filth and dirt and shattered souls are to land at the feet of the abusers, not those who have suffered.
That is a healthy realisation, and I hope and pray all of those shattered souls get to a healthier place.
I do think about suicide just about every day at the moment, that is how low I feel. I know very well that the abuse and assaults were not my fault.
It takes huge character and truth to break the horrendous cycle.
There is no way on earth I could have my gorgeous boys hating me.
I couldn’t have them growing up feeling confused, lonely and with no one to turn to.
I salute all those very very courageous souls who had to learn to be decent parents, to break the evil cycles, it is no mean feat indeed.
The psychologist that I receive therapy from cannot understand how I have survived. I don’t know either!
Many other poor souls have not survived, and I feel so terribly sad to know that.
Love and light to you all 🌺💐🌸🌼

Oh Oprah and all of you . I am so sorry you're all walking this same path but heartened that I'm not on it on my own.

I was never suicidal until my mother and my siblings disowned me, not that I missed her as such, but because she insisted I was so evil and disgusting and deserved everything I got, that I truly believed I was a risk to my DC and might cause them harm. I had seriously decided that they'd be better off with me dead and DH remarrying a 'normal' woman. It makes me shudder that I used to think like that now. The only thing that stopped me was that I couldn't think of a 'clean and non traumatic to who'd ever find me' method!

I have sort of accepted that this is my lot now. A half life, head down, never able to show my true self in case I scare people away, isolation, anxiety constantly draining the energy to actually 'do' anything constructive with my life, OCD intrusive thoughts, shame, guilt, always worrying I'm doing something wrong. I have to keep going now because my DC don't deserve to be affected by my childhood.

Sometimes I think what I could have done with my life, how I would feel without all that shit going on inside.

I have a vivid memory of being a child of about 7 skipping into school (having got myself ready and out the door while my mother was still in bed), full of joy and relief to be there and loads of kids calling my name and running over to me. I was actually popular once but that was before the SA started. I was top of the class always finishing my work long before everyone else not that anyone outside of school cared. I had an amazing imagination and truly believed in magic. I found a poem that I'd written and decorated that my mother had kept from the same age, full of fairies, butterflies, hearts and flowers. What could I have become? What could we all have become.

I hope one day, I get just a tiny bit of that little girl back.

I did some inner child work with a very good therapist I saw for 18 months and she got me to imagine that my 7/8 year old self was sitting in the chair next to me, to talk to her, try to make her feel safe and work up to giving her a hug so to speak. I couldn't do it! I imagined her as a Chucky type figure with red eyes. I was furious with her and couldn't find any empathy at all.

We also did some looking in a mirror stuff for positive affirmations but I couldn't do that either. I saw myself as a sort of grotesque creature. I didn't realise that that was the way I felt about myself subconsciously. No wonder I felt socially inferior. It was eye opening. I have come on a little bit since then thankfully .

I salute all those very very courageous souls who had to learn to be decent parents, to break the evil cycles, it is no mean feat indeed.

So do I @oprahfan. Every single one. I know I've not been a perfect parent, but I am proud of what I've overcome. I don't scream at my kids all day long. I never expect them to parent me or shoulder my emotional issues. I don't wallow in self pity and our house is not chaotic. There are clean clothes, comfortable beds, fair pocket money. We care where they are and who they are with. We care how they are doing at school, socially and academically.

@WannaRant - that's so sad, But so revealing. Must have been a huge breakthrough to realise you were carrying that weight of self-rejection around day in day out. I hope you can feel closer and kinder your youngr self now. And to your own reflection.

WannaRant lots of . I can glimpse what you have gone through. My father was laid back and benign neglect is what I say about him. My mother had an idolised idea of how children should act and constantly criticised me when I didn't fulfil that. Very little love. No praise, no positive attention. I learnt that the only attention I got was negative and I played up to get that. I look back on my childhood and shudder at how I was ignored and the things that were said to me. I grew up believing no-one liked me (my family still talk about how useless and awful I was). I was shy and awkward as a child and am certainly have an avoidant personality as an adult. I suffer from intrusive OCD, anger issues and anxiety. I have married a man who is equally fucked up from his parents. Together we are a mess.

I feel my abuse was minor compared to others and would could have been. I know how it has affected and coloured my whole life. If things were up a notch as yours was, I can understand how your mental world would be very very difficult.

I had dd late and am so glad. I used to sabotage relationship because I was emotionally needy, was verbally abusive to boyfriends and lost my temper when treated with disrespect (after only going for men that treated me badly). I had no idea how to people in a healthy relationship spoke or treated each other. And as I say ended up with the male version of my mother.

I trained as a teacher and learnt the basics of positive psychology and that positive attention is the best way to deal with behaviour problems. It was like a revelation. Be nice to someone to get the best out of them. Who knew! I believe if I had of had dd before my teacher training I would have inadvertently repeated some of my mother's mistakes.

I am a great believer in neuroplasticity. But at the same time, I recognise that it is bloody hard work. I hope that the OP and other posters get some respite.

Sorry for the typos!