Support thread for survivors of childhood sexual abuse PART 2

[CailinDana]

The original thread is here

The purpose of these threads is to allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse, their partners, friends, or parents, to talk in a safe place about what they think and feel. Nothing is off limits or taboo, just say what you want to say.

Some useful links from the previous thread:

Samaritans
National Association for People Abused in Childhood
Rape Crisis
Pandoras, a chat room for survivors and their families, American based
Mosac, for non abusing parents and carers, London based
Women against rape self help guide to court

I'm glad you posted tryinghard, the thread is open to anyone who wants to talk. I'm so sorry that you're going through this with your DH, it must be so hard to see him struggling with it. Is he getting any help, or is he just dealing with it on his own?

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted the past few days, i've been having some hard times and feel a bit boxed in.

For those people who have mh issues stemming from the abuse, does anyone find themselves reluctant to seek help now that they have a small child?

I know I feel totally trapped at the moment, things are particularly stressful in every aspect of my life at the moment, apart from the small amount of time I get with my dd, so far I've avoided drinking (5 years sober almost) but I also know I am feeling vulnerable.

I'm on the edge of tears, which is not like me at all, not even when I had the breakdown, I am getting very little sleep, to an extent I think raking my old memories and issues up is causing this as I am starting to have recurrent dreams, I literally do not have a single person I can speak to in real life, everyone is either too close, has an interest in seeing my vulnerability or I have kept at arms length.

I just don't know where to turn, I talk a good talk about the abuse and how calm and open I am within a therapeutic environment that I worry to try and revisit that would cause them to doubt me as a mother, and I know if I lost her I would not survive this time.

Is there any path out of this maze? Every time I think I have accepted what happened to me and what happened after, something comes along, I have a memory of sitting after the first rape in the bath, hearing my mother come in downstairs and shouting her, I started to push my fingers down my throat trying to make myself sick, trying to get her attention, but instead she came up and shouted at me for being in the bath late and using the hot water she wanted... I was covered in bruises, she didn't see this, I can't imagine she did, no-one would ever turn and walk away from a little girl like that would they?

This is where my mind is taking me at the moment, I feel disjointed and random memories keep coming to the surface all of the time.

I just feel very alone with it

Antsy :(

Do you think it would help to write the memories down. I know it's not the same as having someone sitting with you, holding your hand, but we're here and we're listening. And we know how you feel. Nothing you can say will shock us.

I don't know calina, part of me just wants to ignore it all and pole through it, but I also know that's of no long term benefit, it always comes back when you don't ace it head on.

I think what I'm struggling with most at the moment is the fact that I still have my mother in my life, and that she is this very fragile yet loving and nurturing person to my dd, but never was with me, and still isn't, she will try to say something nice but it always comes out as a barb, I know she does not care for me and would have nothing to do with me were it not for my dd.

And to be honest, I feel the same way, I guess the thought it, am I depriving my child of a happy grandparent relationship because of my issues? Or can I put myself first in this and cut her out of my life, without this negatively impacting on dd.

I don't know what I am trying to say, every protective instinct within me is telling me just to run, leave everyone, they will be better off without me, yet I know that is the child speaking, she needs reassurance and I am not strong enough to give it to her.

I am also aware that I am taking from this support thread and not returning it and for that I apologise.

Antsy I had real problems after DD1 was born severe depression even nightmares of me abusing her I came close to putting a cusion over her but stopped myself. My counseller was the first person I told apparently its EXTREMELY common.

I was under my gp and on AD's supposedly for 6 months but foolishly only took them for 6 months I was young and stupid thought I would lose her if I told them how bad it was.

I tried to get help for my problems was in and out of therapy until she was nearly 4 and I was pregnant for the third time.

Until your truly ready you won't be able to let go of all the pain and hurt but it is hard work but an amazing relief to do so I am still getting there I know it will never be truly buried again but that is dangerous as it rips you apart.

Antsy I feel so many of the same things towards my mother. She is just wonderful with my DS but has never shown me any love. It's a total headfuck.

I've not posted on the new thread (I think). And I haven't read all the posts. I just can't, and I apologise. Just to put the following in context, my older brother abused me but I never told her.

My mother never showed love to me. At all. Nearly everything she says is a barb too - "oh, that's a nice dress on you, it's very....forgiving". (For what it's worth, I'm 9 stone, 5ft 7, and have had 3 kids)!.

I remember starting my periods and she threw a packet of sanitary towels at me and said "what are you crying for?". She said she was a Mother until 7pm, and a Wife after that. Yet she shows so much affection to my children than she ever did to me.

She was the one that told me not to go on ADs, not to seek help from Social Services because "they will take your children away".

I also tried to get her attention. I would scratch my knees until they bled. I did this while at school. She just cuffed me round the ear as she could see it was deliberate. I deprived myself of lunch and hid the sandwiches in my bedroom. Eventually, of course, they went mouldy and she discovered them purely due to the smell. I got shouted at right royally for that one! I then learnt to take the sandwiches she'd made for me and bin them on the way to school instead.

I put a lot of how she was down to Old School thinking really. Although I do obviously hold some resentment towards her. She's in very bad health. Helps out when she can and has mellowed as she has aged.

I still don't think she failed me. I think I said this on the first thread. It doesn't excuse her actions. I'm not perfect. But I'm a better Mum that she was. Vigilant without being over-protective of my children. Pretty much balanced after I did seek out the help I needed which she had advised against. Took the meds she told me not to take. I don't think she's toxic, she's just from another generation.

This has turned into an essay. Sorry.

Final point...I over-apologise. I've seen this in earlier posts. Why are we so sorry for something that was not our fault in the first place?

antsy
My mum can also be nice to my DC in a way she wasn't with me (however, she also calls them fat, stupid and ugly which helps me to believe it is not just all in my own head). FWIW I think your own mental health and peace is more important to your DD than a relationship with her grandmother. And although she is nice with your DD now, you know what she is capable of (leaving a young girl bruised and crying in the bath alone) so who knows what she will be like in the future? If you need to cut her out of your life, I would just do it - what can be more important than helping yourself to heal, and that will only help your DC as well

TOTU I did that with the sandwiches they where found when I was in hospital at 12 my parents treated the eldest in each of our families well just like the golden boy difference was we didn't stand for it.

I also have ASD traits but reading into it more they are also indicitive to what happened as a young child but are they I'll never ever know if what that bastard did caused me to be like this or if I was always going to be this withdrawn.

((Hugs)) Angsty and ((Hugs)) TOTU

What a lot of shit we've all been through. At least we can talk here among people who will accept and validate our feelings. Whenever I've talked about my experiences to other people who haven't been through something similar they always try to analyse what I'm saying and and try and tell me what I should feel or how I should be responding to it all.

Ansty (hugs) sorry! Well extra hugs anyway

I did something similar with my sandwiches - how bizarre! I used to leave them at the bottom of my school bag and they'd go mouldy. One day my mother found them all festering there and she took them out while I watched. She seemed flabbergasted and kept saying how disgusting it was. I think I was about 9 or 10. I was absolutely mortified. I have no idea why I didn't eat the sandwiches, I just can't remember. Isn't it odd that a few of us did exactly the same thing?

I get what you mean about people analysing what you're saying Avalon. To be fair I think people just want to feel like they're helping somehow. I do sometimes tell friends that they don't have to say anything, just listen, and that takes the pressure off them.

How are you doing antsy?

Avalon thank you for the hug. I hope you are ok. I don't tell people what happened to me (apart from one sister and my counsellor). I felt like they didn't want to hear it. That it burdened them. Sometimes people tell you what you should be feeling just because they don't know what else to say.

Cailin and Antsy it is weird about the sandwich thing isn't it? Looking back it was attention seeking maybe on my part? I was made to eat breakfast and tea in the family environment (usually sat next to my abuser). Maybe it was defiance that I would not eat the one meal he wasn't present at. Taking control? I just can't remember either. To this day, I cannot eat a sandwich with butter on it.

I could not eat in public or at a restaurant for very many years.

I hope everyone is ok. I can only look at this thread from time to time - and then I over-analyse everything I've written!

I lost 2 stone from october until christmas could feel my hip bones and see my cheek bones DH went mad. My appetites back but slipped again over the weekend after hearing some news off DC. Also going away and trying to get emergency script as my drs on annual leave and I'm to ashamed to see another dr and expain myself.

Silly little things keep comimg back to me though reading my book is doing a lot of it has me in tears but makes me realize how normal it is.

I'm the opposite, an overeater, my mother always said I was fat, this happened because I was fat, that happened because I was fat, fat, fat. I used to gorge myself sick. Looking at photo's of me really skinny, knowing I used to eat until I was sick and remembering everything that was my fault because I was fat just makes me realise how sad and pathetic my mother is. As an adult I'm tall and at a skinny size 8 I was still told I was fat!
I now prefer being fat as I feel it makes me undateable!

Before christmas I was eating a sandwich once or twice a week I've put all the weight back on but DH says I'm not allowed to go that low again want to lose 1.7 again but can't do it without attending class don't know if I can face that yet though altogether I lost 5.7 stone.

I just want to thank everyone that has replied to my posts, I work until late so can't answer till I get back, but I can't tell you just what a boost it is to have my feelings validated, to know I am not alone in this, I have been thinking about it all day and all of last night and it's just such a massive weight lifted to hear that it is okay to have these fears

Hugs Antsy, it's hard to express how you feel when you've never been allowed to.

Hugs Totu and everybody.

At my worst light weight I was living on 2 rice crackers a day and looked ill, my mother still thought I was fat!
My Ds started copying me though so I got help. Now we grow food, source good ingredients and cook from scratch. It's great a way to bond as a family.
I do have to test everything though :)
Nhan, thanks :o blokes do not fancy fat me though!
Dotty, hugs, I hope things get easier.

I've got a question. How can any wife know that her husband is abusing their daughters and do nothing about it, for years. My mother must have known, husband goes to daughters room at bedtime for a hour, then comes back stinking of sweat and sex! She must have known.

How wierd that so many of you did the sandwich thing! I didn't but definitely had control issues, well still do. My mum also used to go on about my weight, is obsessed with other people being overweight, goes on about my DC being fat babies etc - I wonder what it is all about - could it be that our mothers felt unnattractive, focussed on weight as a cause, felt threatened by their daughter's appearance and therefore 'allowed' the abuse to happen - no idea if this is right, just talking completely off the top of my head...

1980 - absolutely your mum must have known, just like mine must have - so they were absolutely complicit in it and they are, in my opinion, almost as much to blame as the abuser themselves

TOTU - my mum reacted similarly when I started my period - laughed at me and told me not to be stupid. I wonder if it was about our transition into becoming a woman, and therefore a sexual being, a threat??

I think my mother must of known to many signs where there bleeding etc even though it wasn't my father who raped me, hell he almost got caught twice as he pushed me aside when my father came in my room he shared my bed when on leave and yet I still didn't know it was wrong and allowed him to carry on.

Even now my mother has told my sister he hasn't been charged so he's innocent but he's her PFB/golden child/blue eyed boy. DC was going through court proceedings even before files where sent off and yet at new year when I met her she told me not to get my hopes up as it would be wrong to second guess what would happen.