Very complex childhood - description from professionals, sexual and emotional abuse and emotional neglect. We were clean, never hit or deliberately frightened - but weren’t parented.
Sexual abuse was very complex as I don’t even know if you would call it that. I was never given sex education, we got some vague stuff in school but nothing at home really. DM had a lot of hang ups about sex. She was abused herself at different points in her life.
DM would do stuff that on paper would come across as sexual abuse but I am 99% she would never have intended it to be. She always said it was meant to be funny. Twenty five years on I’m not sure it was OK or funny . But I’m also not sure if I’m making something out of nothing . It’s thought she had a brain injury/frontal lobe damage and almost certainly a personality disorder, or a learning difficulty.
DF the same, mild-moderate learning difficulty I think or foetal alcohol related damage. DF I don’t know if he did anything as I was too small when he left. Just know I don’t feel comfortable alone with him and there’s stuff that’s been said to me (by him) as an adult that’s made me think, oh, that’s not right .
DM just said what she thought and as a result I grew up knowing a great deal about her sex life with DF (before I was born) . Aspects of what she said would also have been abuse and marital rape.
Boundaries that should have existed were never enforced and difficulties were never dealt with. As an adult I’m training to be an HCP and done child protection training, and realise there were so many red flags with me that were just ignored. Stuff that these days would be called problematic sexual behaviour.
There was also sexual abuse out with the home. I wouldn’t have known what was and wasn’t appropriate. I have a vague idea that social services may have discussed it with me based on concerns when I was five or six but I don’t know. I remember again at 14 the school nurse talking to me, but can’t remember it well or what was said or why.
I have been referred for therapy via the NHS based on what I’ve already told them (GP and consultant) but I can’t get the rest of it out. They said I was parentified but I’m not sure what they can do about that. I’ve managed to get some of it out in appointments but there’s so much I don’t know if I can ever discuss with another person. GP I spoke to said to me, and wrote it down, ‘anything that was happening with you happened because of the actions or lack of, from the adults that should have cared for you, you were a child and it was never your fault.’
I’m scared I don’t know how normal healthy relationships work as I’ve nothing to model it off, and terrified I shouldn’t ever have children in case I’m like mum and dad - despite my closest friend saying I’d be a wonderful mum.
I find it extremely hard to talk about mum and dad in a negative way too and admitting they made mistakes feels awful to me. Neither of them can defend themselves - for different reasons - so for me to now (without their knowledge) say they got stuff wrong, feels so wrong to me iyswim.