Does anyone else feel that they are too damaged to ever recover? I do. Whenever I read in books about how a child can be damaged by abuse, there is always mention of how a good/secure attachment with another adult can do a lot to minimise and counteract the damaging effects of the abuse.
But in my case there was no secure attachment with another adult. My dad was the abuser and my mother was too weak/scared to do anything about it. Nor did she try and provide any support or comfort to me at other times, we simply had no relationship at all. I had some very good friends as a child, but there were no adults in my life who could provide at some some safety and security in the absence of any being provided by my parents.
And as a result of this I think I am so damaged as to never be able to fully recover. I sometimes think that my brain must have been so 'frazzled' by some of the truly terrifying and horrific experiences I had as a child, it must be damaged beyond repair. I think if shortly after the abusive peisodes my dad realised how awful his behaviour was and had tried to make amends, the damage could have been mimised, but that was possible only at that time. Now, 30 years on, it's too late.
And now as an adult, I have nobody on my side. Nobody who knew what I was going through as a child, even though they might have felt unable to help, but who could at least now validate my experience and tell me they believed me. Some of you have at least one sibling who can 'see' things the way you do, who are not caught up in the family's dysfunctional system, but I don't have that either. Neither of my siblings can or want to step out of the family system.
And so that leaves me feeling completely alone. Things are not good with DH either. I don't see how our marriage can last. I am too damaged to be a proper wife to DH. I was reading something recently about adopted children who have come from abusive backgrounds and how their adoptive parents need help, support and guidance in coping with the issues the adopted children inevitably bring with them. And I suddenly realised that in some ways I have needed DH to be like a parent to me. This relationship with him is the first time in all my life that I have felt safe and secure and trusting enough to start forming an attachment to somebody. I know at times I have acted very childishly with DH, with childish needs for reassurance and security and protection from him. Whereas he sees me and sees a 40 year old woman and he doesn't understand why I behave the way I do. He doesn't know that the outside is just a shell and inside, the real me, is still a child needing to feel safe and secure and loved, all the things she never got as a child.
I don't think my childhood needs will ever be sufficiently fulfilled as to go away, because they are so great, my needs as a child were not met in the slightest and so there is an absolutely huge void that needs to be filled. DH can fill it to a certain extent and he has, but he needs and wants something back from me too but I seem unable to give him anything. I just about manage to give what little I have to my DC's, and there is nothing left for anybody else, not even DH. Understandably, he is becoming increasingly unhappy with me and I sometimes think it will be a relief if we split up. Because then I won't have to try and be something that I can't be, not right now anyway. I can't be the wife that he wants and the pressure of trying to be something that I'm not is getting too much. I find it hard being a parent, but I somehow manage it as best I can, because I love the DC's and they trust me to look after them and they have nobody else and so I somehow manage to create something out of nothing and give them everything I have. But DH is not a child and although I care about him I don't love him like I do the DC's and I seem to have very little left in me to give him. I feel sorry for him. If he had met somebody else with far less baggage than me he would probably be happy now. I have told him many times he is free to go and find somebody else, that he deserves to be happy. But he refuses to go, he says he loves me. But it just makes me feel worse because I don't feel I love him back, not in the way he wants anyway.
Ok, sorry for the ramble, I just needed to get this load off my chest. Thanks for reading if you have got this far.