I’ve never been ‘me’ because of how I was treated as a child. Can anyone relate to this? I’m struggling

[Yessterdsy]

My parents are great in many ways and I do know they loved me and have tried their best.

But I’m 42 now and I’ve never felt emotionally stable. Their treatment of me as a child ruined my life and continues to. I have had therapy and I do feel better than I once did. But the scars are always there.

It was emotional abuse often. Lots of hitting and dragging upstairs and thrown into my room. I remember feeling totally aching all over after my dad had dragged me by an arm or leg upstairs and my mum just watched or sometimes shouted nasty things while he did it. I was told I was a devil child and I couldn’t possibly be their child. All sorts of comments like that.

The silly thing is that I know they were just struggling themselves. They didn’t have the best childhoods. I don’t think they honestly thought I was a devil child and I think it was said through deep immaturity and inability themselves to process their emotions.

I grew up hating myself. I had an eating disorder and was hugely anxious.

My family had lots of money and so I never wanted for anything material. On the face of it I seemed like a very spoiled child. Went on amazing holidays, we had our own horses (me and sibling), we had food and clothing in abundance along with toys.

It was such a strange way to grow up as I felt ashamed of the abuse behind closed doors. I feel like I will never truly relax and breathe. I will never be free of anxiety and stress as it’s just in my bones now. More therapy seems useless. I understand what happened to me and I’ve processed it but I’m left with the scars. Can anyone relate? I feel so alone. My sister does understand but she’s the only person and I would feel I was betraying my parents if I told friends

You can only gain freedom by letting go. The memories are keeping you in bondage.

You need to start telling close friends or someone - therapy perhaps? CBT is particularly good for past trauma as it helps you deal with things you had no control
over and need to find a way to let go of without dismissing what happened to you.

you also need to find a way to help control or alleviate your anxiety if you can - I have through cold water swimming, keeps me sane, another friend uses mediation and mindfulness methods and goes on Buddhist type retreats, another friend has used art therapy and another friend writes - just for himself mainly and fiction but he finds that writing helps with his emotions. Another friend started running, Park run then 5ks and now years later does those mad ultra runs…
These friends are all completely ‘normal’ people, you wouldn’t know most of them even struggle with anxiety and stress but that’s the way with most people. We all mask to some degree to stop feeling overwhelmed.

I'm assuming you've had therapy already. I can relate to having had good therapy and then...what now? (For different circumstances). I did go back and yes it was a waste of time and money.

For me, it was letting go and moving on, but this took a long time post therapy and was helped along by having children who take up all my brain space and no time to think about and keep going through the past. So I'm grateful for that.

Since I started doing the school run, a lot of memories have come back from when I was cruelly bullied at school, even by friends. Which is quite frankly yet another trauma to process!

I suspect I have CPTSD so it's kind of like whack-a-mole. Again, I'm keeping myself busy, exercising and doing projects.

This might sound stupid but juggling really helps mental health - it's so absorbing, learning it then improving, like a meditation and studies have even proven it's good for PTSD.

I relate completely. I had a similar childhood, particularly with my mum.Very few friends as I didn't want them to see what my home life was like and I was too ashamed to tell anyone. Can I ask if your parents are still alive? Have you or did you ever tried to discuss this with them? I understand completely if not. I think therapy might be the way forward. I have considered it but still haven't taken the first step. I'm so sorry this happened to you and you're still feeling the effects as an adult. Sending a big hug of solidarity.

@Marylou2 hello, yes I have raised with them but it was not an easy conversation. Some things were accepted and apologised for, others not. I do see them and enjoy seeing them but there anxiety is always always there and I know I am damaged because of it. I feel damaged even if I’m shopping or driving or doing something totally normal. Such a strange sense of being a bit broken.

@Marylou2 i am so sorry you experienced similar too, it’s hard x

There is a12 step group called adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families, may be of use for you.

Yes OP I can relate, completely. Stupidly it only occurred to me fairly recently that I am "a bit broken". I think it was when my daughter became an adult, got a job, a boyfriend, an apartment. I started to think,, what kind of adult would I have been if my childhood had been happy?

I've had therapy, found it a bit useless going round in circles talking about it.

TBH how I cope now (in my 60s) is by recognising that there are many many people in the same position. This only became clear to me when I started opening up a bit. I don't go into details but will sometimes make a half-joking comment about my childhood. The amount of times people will relate is crazy.

Very few people get through life untouched by anxiety, stress, unhappiness, worry. For some of us the issues are greater than for others, but we're all struggling through life as best we can.

My best advice is to try opening up a bit. I felt ashamed of my life as a kid, hated friends coming to the house, hated when people assumed I was spoilt as the only girl in the family. I refuse to hold on to that sense of shame any longer, it belongs to others, not the unhappy little girl that I was. 🌺

OP, sending hugs. Your experience, or at least the scars it left on you, sound very similar to mine: eating disorder, lifelong massive generalised anxiety; and crippling social anxiety, feeling empty, terrified of being a burden if I ask for help, feeling unworthy of love or attention. And as if life is a game in which everyone else knows the rules and I don't.

You have CPTSD and although you're conscious that your parents were abusive, you're still not emotionally free—hence your desire not to "embarrass" your parents, and your feeling that you're still not "you."

And the shame, as if it were somehow your fault. It's not, it's all theirs. Having had a horrible childhood is no excuse to treat your own children the same way—it's possible to break the cycle. It's unlikely your parents will see or feel guilty about treating you so badly, far less apologise: they'll probably try to justify it by blaming you.

It will probably help you if you can find your anger. You were a small child who deserved to be treated with love and affection and to have your needs met.
The more people you can tell about it, the better for you, though a lot of people with normal loving parents won't be able to get their heads round it.

Some people who feel like you are helped with medication (doesn't do much for me), some by therapy, but it needs to be trauma-informed therapy.

Or you could try reading about it: there's a lot of material online, and some good books: Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score and Pete Wells' Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving are good. Or watch Gabor Mate and the Crappy Childhood Fairy's videos.

Then there are the Stately Homes threads on Mumsnet—you described exactly that phenomenon—"How can you claim we were abusive when we took you to stately homes?"

But it's love children need, plain and simple, not holidays and horses.

Dealing with this is a long slow process: it can take decades even to realise the problem was them, not you, just what aspects of your life weren't normal, what you've missed out on and will never have now, the skills you didn't learn, how your experience taught you that people aren't safe and you can't rely on them. But progress and at least some healing are possible.

Sorry for the epic post!

Edited to fix typo

Sorry, book I mentioned near the end is by Pete Walker

Similar here, with one parent. The other parent was lovely, but wasn't strong enough themself to stand up to the abusive one on our behalf.

My childhood had the external appearance of everything that a child could need; two parents who stayed married to each other, were seldom out at night, one holiday a year, a fuss made about Christmas and birthday and yet... the name calling, the slapping, the occasional beating, constant put-downs, inconsistency, favouritism, sarcasm, constantly being compared unfavourably to the girls that the one parent taught... (that bit hard).

Like OP my legacy is an eating disorder and a sense of nihilism. I also try to be all things to all people, especially to partners. I look for what I think they'll want, and pre-empt it but it's all acting.

When the abusive parent died I went to therapy. After a number of sessions, I told the therapist that I believed I was undiagnosed autistic.

She totally took the wind out of me by saying that in women, the symptoms of CPTSD from childhood trauma present similarly to autism.

That's where I'm at now. I'm still processing it! I'm finding repressed memories bubbling up from time to time, and I'm dealing with them as they happen.

It is part of a process and, OP , I'm not sure if there's an end to it, however I'm finding that things are a lot better now that a year ago.

Please try to find a counsellor or therapist you get on with, and let them help you. (That's bloody hard for people like us, but you can, and will get there.)

Also, don't feel guilty!
It's not you, it's them!

Good luck.

Are you still in contact with them? For me, the moving on didn’t begin until (and at least a year after) I removed myself from them. Physically and emotionally.
I had therapy for the trauma, estranged myself from the family and now in therapy for the grief side. I have found myself and who I am and what I want and what is good for me since moving away from them. It’s hard but the only thing that allowed me to feel like I was living beyond my past

Yes, I can relate OP. I was in therapy for a long time and it was absolutely invaluable in helping to understand myself and genuinely learn to take care of myself. I'm still very much a work in progress. It's hard, it's tiring, I often make mistakes, I get dysregulated and don't always handle it well. I often feel lonely and outside of things. I have a tendency to withdraw and withhold - I'm more aware of those coping strategies these days and try to challenge myself to handle things differently

I am really horrified by your parents behaviour towards you as you describe it. They sound seriously abusive, both emotionally and physically. You must have been so petrified of them as a child. Not at all surprised that you're currently living with CPTSD x

Yes I can relate to a lot of this. My birth family is very violent, addiction and trauma for as many generations as we know about. On the surface, all was ok - not horses and a nice Christmas, but enough to eat and parents together and all that. But behind closed doors it was very scary. My older brother was absolutely brutalised, which tbh even scares me to write in case he or anyone else in the family saw it and recognised me! I love him, and he's really worked hard (not that I think he knows this) to be different with his own family, but it's very difficult. I wasn't beaten up, but other things, which he sort of did know about and didn't know about at the samr time if that makes sense. Like it's only as adults that you can see what was happening, and acknowledged it, and see how wrong it was. And our poor wee brother, what a childhood he had. It was chaos by the time he arrived. At least with him, though, it wasn't deniable anymore, and he had somewhere else to go.

I think the honesty is the first step, and the very fact you've spoken to your parents is amazing - not something any of us had the courage to do! But honesty with yourself is the main thing. And then, just allow it to be - it happened, it has damaged you (I mean that not as a bad thing, it's just how I feel about myself, I hope that's ok - eating disorder, self harm, PTSD, that's what I have and I feel like it's damage rather than "my fault").

And then find stuff that helps, which I think some people have suggested really good stuff but it has to be the thing that works for you. Exercise is what works for me, but juggling someone else said, or whatever it is - you'll know it when you find it, and it helps as much as therapy.

All the harm that was done to you will have effects on things you'd never imagine. Getting my head around all that - it was my poor DH who had to sort of over years hear what things were like, see what things were like, and join the dots to what I'm like now and be like that's all messed up - it was a hard, and my brothers and I are only just starting to really talk truthfully about it to each other.

I hope you find the thing - cold swimming, juggling, meditation, whatever - that helps, and I hope you have someone in your life who lets you experience real kind love, because that's also been a big thing to help me.

Were your parents religious op?

Mine were deeply religious, I can remember being told I had the devil in me and lots of other awful religious based stuff. I can also remember being hit and dragged about. I could be wilful as a child but I do jot believe I was anything other than normal.

I can really relate to your post. Whilst I haven't had therapy, I have learned to be kind to myself - but for a long time i felt the effects of their abuse every day. There is a high probability I am autistic, and its clear mum struggled with some challenging behaviours.

However, I think what angers me most is how damaging their emotional abuse was, and that it took until I was almost 50 to move forward.

My mother turns 90 next year and she completely denies that any anythung happened.

I had similar but without the financial benefits (my parents were poor). Although I was always dressed and fed well and the house was spotlessly clean. Yes, there are times when I think with sadness about my childhood but I realise that both my parents were raised more as less as they raised me. They were the best parents they knew how to be and there are far more horrific childhoods. Nobody can actually undo or erase the past. No therapist, friend, priest or anyone. So what do do? Waste the rest of your life dwelling on every injustice - or move on?

'Nobody can actually undo or erase the past. No therapist, friend, priest or anyone. So what do do?'

Therapy isn't about erasing the part or blaming anyone. It's also not about 'dwelling on it' or endlessly going round in circles. Working with a skilled therapist who you trust can help you to understand the impact that your past has had on your present and to slowly come to terms with what you experienced, so that you can feel more at peace. What that looks and feels like exactly will be different for everyone. Therapy was the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the best thing I've ever done for myself

I read somewhere...

If you focus on the hurt you'll continue to suffer.
If you focus on the lesson you'll start to grow.