How do I ever move past this/get over it ?

[Hedgehog80]

I'm struggling tonight :(

In 2000 when I was 18 I was forced in traumatic circumstance to have a second trimester termination. It's never left me despite extensive counselling. Lately I've been feeling like I'm that scared, sick, terrified and lonely 18 year old again. I have flashbacks and this time of year is horrific for me.

Dsis is pregnant and we don't get in at all. Dm keeps having a go at me saying poor dais is feeling ill and lonely why won't I help/be supportive. I got upset and said who was there for me when I was 18 and terrified and forced to get rid of a much wanted and loved baby. It haunts me to this day. She said "never talk about it it's in the past" and then shouted me down to tell me I didn't actually feel as bad as I do. Dsis has the same attitude and nobody will let me have valid feelings. It was my baby and I loved it and was heartbroken.

I'm feeling really lost tonight. I was never allowed to talk about it at the time, I was virtually kept a prisoner Windows locked and phone charger taken so couldn't contact anyone and brainwashed into it.

I feel so sad , why will they not allow me to feel what I really feel and allow me to be angry when dsis is treated differently. It hurt when everyone was cooing over her scan yet with mine dm scowled and said "ugh it looks like somethings wrong with it"

I'm still heartbroken after all this time and it's all come out tonight. I can't talk to dh as he's not well so I'm here as nobody else in rl who I can speak with right now

I think you need to talk this through with someone. You poor thing, just awful.

I see a counsellor and that's really helpful but sometimes despite that it feels so raw again

It's always bad at this time of year and I've come to expect it but with dsis being pregnant and the attitude towards me and my feelings it's just made it feel as if it were yesterday . I am starting to think ill never really move on it hurts so much :( and they won't allow me to grieve. I tried once I really really tried I planned it all, wrote a card, put a note on a balloon to let go and planted bluebells so that every year there would be something. Dm dug them up :(

Sounds as if something very cruel has gone on here.

I'm never going to get over it am I? Do I just have to carry this forever because it hurts so much. I have 4 beautiful dcs now and a lovely dh but this is still there especially this time of year :(

It just all feels particularly bad tonight

Awful awful behaviour on your families part.
I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. Your feelings are important never forget that.

Step back from your DM and DSis for a while until you feel strong enough to cope with their ignorance.

As long as you're still in contact with your abusers, it's going to be very hard, if not impossible, to move on.

When you were in counselling, did you speak at all about your relationship now with your abusers?

Yes I have spoken at length about dm/dsis
They are no good for me I know that. The difficulty is living so close I bump into them often and I'm a doormat who kept believing people could change and I was wrong

Every year from Sep-Nov I feel bad (found out I was pregnant in the Sep and late Nov had the termination) so it's a bad time of year anyway but this time with the added horribleness of being shouted down and told my feelings are not valid has cut deeply.

I'm so sorry.

Something very similar happened to me in 1999. 16 weeks. Worst thing that has ever happened to me by a very long way. I have been raped before, and beaten but there is nothing, nothing as bad as this. I also have had dcs since and while they've been such a comfort to me, like you there are times that I am overtaken by memories. For me it's February when she was due, and sadly also one of my DCs birthdays because its shared with the date of the termination

Your family is being so, so cruel to you. I wish there were something I could do to take your pain away. Can you stop talking to them? I wonder if you might heal more if you're not in contact with them? I don't talk to my family about the termination I went through at all because tbh I can't bear it, I know they'd have the same attitude as yours. You're quite brave to even mention it imo. Good for you not letting the truth die.

I can't help you but I so wish I could. I can only hold your hand and tell you I understand and I am so sorry.

Thankyou thestamp I'm so sorry it happened to you too :(

I just feel like part of me will always be that terrified 18 year old trying desperately to save her baby but nobody heard me. I remember the first week at hospital I cried and screamed and the nurse had to be v stern with me as I was "scaring other patients" the. They got the counsellor in and I said I wanted to leave. Dm was furious. Wouldn't speak to me and told me to leave home unless I rebooked and went through with it. I had hyperemisis and was broken and brainwashed.

This year it feels so much worse :(

I know just what you mean. I'm so sorry.

One thing that helped me was thinking that although I'd suffered greatly that at least my baby had been spared the suffering of being born into my family at that time.

When I am really hurting I try to think that at least I'm hurting instead of my baby. It doesn't always help but sometimes it takes the edge off the worst of it.

I know how it feels to go over what happened over and over again, to comb over it to try to make the pain stop. I still don't know whether it helps to go over it or not. But I just want you to know that I go through the same thing.

I've written many letters to baby to tell her how loved and missed she is. I do think it's OK to have done the balloon, bluebells etc but to still need to redo the letting go many times. I think these things are circular, you come back to the trauma over and over and heal in a different way each time. Not sure it ever ends. I suppose we only know when we're old don't we?

Just rambling. Hand holding still.

Yes it does feel like I keep going over it again and again and finding a different way each time to paper over the cracks. I have cards and letters, a memory box I made, obviously the balloon and bluebells early on (that was 2003), so each time well each year or more often there's been something.

One thing I do have now at least is that I no longer blame myself. I had been so brainwashed that initially I believed I had killed my baby. I had been told "it's your signature on the consent form" so I believed I was totally responsible it's only been through picking over it all time afte time that I realise I'm not to blame and I was a victim. That doesn't take the hurt away though but in a small way it helps but then I question why did my own mother hate me that much and why now does my own sister want to cause me pain about it ? What does that say about me I wonder sometimes

I question why did my own mother hate me that much and why now does my own sister want to cause me pain about it ? What does that say about me I wonder sometimes

It doesn't say anything about you, OP, not at all. Your mother and sister are abusive because they are abusive. They brought you up to play the victim role because they needed to feel power over you. They continue to exercise this power whenever they want to make themselves feel better.

You can't understand their behaviour, because you wouldn't treat anyone like this. And thankfully, the vast majority of people wouldn't either. They are the ones at fault. Not you.

Hedgehog, you were coerced into signing that form. It was against your will and you are in no way to blame.

I am very often rather when, on MN people say, go no contact with close family members. However, in this particular case, I think it might be the very best thing for you.

You are not to blame and I'm glad you recognise that so forgive yourself for any lasting guilt. They are to blame for a) forcing you to do this against your free will and b) refusing to discuss it or acknowledge your deep distress. Indeed, making you feel unreasonable for being distressed.

No, you won't ever 'get over' what happened. Our traumas make us who we are and in some cases they can even shape us in a positive way. But to gain peace with all of this, which is getting through and living with rather than getting over, you do, perhaps need to get tough with the perpetrators. Enough suffering. Enough of being ignored. Can you turn the tables and take some control back? I will not allow you to treat me like this any more. Do not contact me and leave me and my family in peace.

It might be hard but it might be best for you. I hope your dh is supportive and also that your four other DC make your life feel good in spite of this.

Best wishes to you for peace moving forwards.

Dh and the dcs are wonderful. I honestly do t know how I'd get through each day without them. Dh has put up with so much lately as there have been nights where Ive cried all night about it and can't sleep at all and he's stayed up with me, comforted me and looked after dcs the following day.

I think the biggest problem is how my pain is not acknowledged and the fact dm and dais will not allow me to speak about what happened or express my pain. If I do Iam accused of upsetting dm or overshadowing dsis because she's pregnant and it hurts. If I then ignore them I start to get texts from dm telling me I "have to carry on as normal and not to ignore them/leave when they turn up somewhere/avoid them in the street"

I'm just tired. Tired of feeling so unhappy and tired of their nastiness. Dh doesn't have to love me and he does, I have lovely friends and I get on with the majority of people, the dcs despite their health issues are happy children and I start to see it wasn't me all along it was them but the pain from the termination just won't go away.

I am so so sorry for your loss.

You have every right to feel pain and anger and even jealousy.

Their behaviour and lack of ability to empathise or accept your feelings is what's weird, not your reaction.

Could you have a plaque engraved and put up somewhere like a crematorium, to acknowledge your loss publicly and give you space to grieve?

You're entitled to feel as you do and you're entitled to keep your mum and sister at arms length as well. They shouldn't tell you how to feel and I think it would help if you put your feelings down on paper, in a letter form and send to your mum.

You can tell her, that if she tries to hush you down and not allow you to feel as you do, then you'do rather she stayed away from you and your family. It's non negotiable. Those are your feelings and as a result of what you went through and the lack of support, you are still suffering.

You can create a memory book. You can let off balloons again if you want to. Your mum can't stop you now and you don't have to help your sister if you don't want to.

It seems your mum is making things worse, so cut her out.

That might help as a couple of years ago I read that babies were sent to the local crematorium so I enquired if my baby had gone there as they have a lovely garden. Unfortunately it hadn't. Dm did tell me at the time that I had to "shut up and forget it as it had gone in the hospital incinerator with the rest of the sluice" that destroyed me. The hope that perhaps my baby had been sent somewhere and cared about and laid to rest in a garden was comforting but unfortunately that hasn't happened. It made me realise i did want something though. Maybe a plaque is more permanent than the bluebells that got dug up :(

Hedgehog

I am clumsy at saying it well. But I acknowledge your pain. I can bear to hear about your pain and let it be real, I don't need to shut you down.

Keep talking about it on here, people are listening.

I agree with Pikawhoo's idea of a plaque or something - plant some more bluebells, or a rose or something as a sort of "placeholder".
Light a special candle sometimes when you''re hurting to honour and represent your lost first child.

I would have gladly helped my sister but she has made her position v clear in all of this and that is that nobody else is allowed feelings and she is the most important and that hurts :( it hurts a lot so Ive had to just ignore her which is sad as I'll probably not be allowed to even see her baby when it's born.

Seems to be all this pain and nastiness around babies and it's not how it should be. I long for them to accept I'm hurting and for dm to be sorry and for dsis to realise what hell I've been through but they are too selfish

I wanted my baby so much. I remember being so happy and excited at scans initially. Things were fine but I got hyperemisis and dm kept telling me every day it was a mistake, that dh wouldn't stay with me, that the baby looked like something was wrong with it, that she would throw me out and is have to put the baby in a 'council nursery' and they would be mean to it there. She said id have no money (I wasn't aware of things like IS). She totally terrified and brainwashed me :(

For years I had my scan photo on an envelope hidden away. Dh got a lovely frame and found a rare photo of me (from our wedding day with dcs all in it) and behind the photo put the scan picture so the baby is with us all.

I have blanked a lot of the termination day out deliberately as if I let my mind go there I get ill. I remember begging the doctor though like a child to please please make sure my baby went to heaven just as I fell asleep it was awful :(

Gosh, reading all this about your family and their cruel reactions makes my blood boil while I don't even know them! It sounds so horrible what is done to you. I'm so sorry.

A friend of mine had emdr to help her let go of a very traumatic event. Maybe you can try it? You don't forget it, it's just more in the past and it gave her some peace.

I am so sorry for you. This is a very sad thread. So these are for you

All I can offer is that I think that you need to try to deal with this and move past it (without forgetting your baby).

You must carry on with the counselling and if your counsellor is not helping, you need to try to find one who does.

I cannot imagine a circumstance where a mother would force this on her DD, so I am very angry on your behalf and aghast that your own mother would treat you in this way.

You are NOT to blame, I hope you can accept that.

It's a tragic situation and it's very normal for you to grieve, particularly at this time of year.

I am wondering if going NC is the only way forward. I know it's extremely hard to but it seems like they are the biggest link and blocker to you moving forward?

Do you feel that your mother has control over you, or do you feel independent?

She is very controlling and has control. Whenever I see her I get stressed or upset but as soon as I am obviously stressed or unhappy she turns herself into a victim and gets upset and has a go at me saying things like "oh you'll never let me forget it will you?" And "don't talk about it it's in the past"

Dsis is just spiteful. When I got upset she just is unpleasant and accuses me of overshadowing her or living in the past and tells me to get over it. I think they can't comprehend how all this time later I'm still deeply affected by it. They try and say things like "well if you hadn't then you'd never had had dd1" and they try and make me believe that if wish the termination hadn't happened then somehow it means I wish dd1 didn't exist (I was pregnant with her 3 months after the termination)
I also feel that it's why I have 4 dcs as I've felt compelled and desperate each time for another child. I love them dearly but I feel I wanted so many dcs as I needed to be pregnant and have a baby so many time because of what happened and that's not healthy but I adore them all and Iam so happy I have them

My feelings are so tangled. I want to hate dm and dais with every fibre of my being because I know what dm did was hateful and what dsis does is equally hateful as she dismisses and minimises the trauma I went through yet a part of me is always saying "but it's your mum and your sister you do love them"? The thing is I don't want to but I do. I want to hate them completely but I can't be that horrible. When dm had a brain haemorrhage in 2014 dsis wouldn't come and help me get her to hospital she said "remember what she did to you? Just leave her"
If I'd have left her in bed she would have died :( I can't be that person but I so badly want to hate them that much sometimes. I'm so confused and muddled up and this year seems worse than ever :(

Reading your posts is heart-rending. for you if that's any help at all.
Firstly, look to the positive. You have what sounds like a lovely dh who helps and supports you. IMO, he's worth his weight in gold.
Secondly, you have four dcs who you clearly love.

Concentrate on them.

Don't waste your time, energy or heartache on people who only take from you.
Whether that means you go NC, LC or carry on as you are is up to you - BUT - don't let a sense of guilt (read about FOG) make you feel you have to continue contact.

You went through something horrendous. If you can try to 'let it go' through counselling, that would be a good thing (it doesn't mean you forget, just forgive yourself for it).
Whatever you do, don't allow your family to continue to stigmatise it and pretend it didn't happen. It did, and you are clearly deeply marked by it.

This is your journey. You can take charge of it and decide where it goes. Good luck.