TW: abuse. Those who endured abusive childhoods… are you ok now?

[VisionsofJohanna]

TW: child abuse.
Reading the news and many current threads in MN Chat about Arthur, Star and all the other children essentially tortured to death. My heart aches for them and the terrible experience of life they faced before their untimely deaths.
I was wondering, for those who experienced similarly abusive childhoods: are you ok now? Do you feel safe? Do you think these children could have been rescued and gone on to live ‘normal’ lives if that chance hadn’t been taken from them?
No motivation here apart from a burning sense of anger at what these poor children were subjected to. Needless to say, there is no need to share any detail at all.

I would hope that, if these children had been removed from the care of these monsters, that they could have been lovingly fostered and relearned love, care and family. But I appreciate that might be very naive.

Not as extreme abuse as what those poor kids endured but I suffered mental abuse and violence. No I’m not okay, I thought it was normal up until late teens and it’s influenced everything about my life. I only stopped sleeping with the light and radio on last year at the age of 40.

I was thinking about this a lot today too.

I'm not OK. I'd need hours and hours of therapy to come to terms with it and I just don't have the money or time to dedicate to it. I manage ok though, am fully functioning and hold down a job etc etc.

I was also thinking we only ever see the ones that die. There must literally be thousands of children suffering who never come to anyones attention.

I wish I knew what the answer was.

It’s going round and round in my head too. The horrifying thought that the ones who die might be ‘lucky’ ones because they’re not having to endure that treatment anymore. The thought of how many more there are. It’s just…beyond comprehension of any normal person.

I’m so sorry you both went through that, and sorry that you are not ‘ok’. You sound very strong.

I’m ok. I’ve got a good, healthy marriage and kids who are also doing ok. I’ve got good friends who I enjoy spending time with, and I’m currently renovating a house.

I’m still working on stuff. I don’t have many hobbies because I’m scared to try new things. I find it too stressful to work.

It’s taken a long time and it has been incredibly difficult. I’m still more easily ‘knocked’ than others around me seem to be by the normal stresses of life. But yeah, I’m ok. I feel safe and I’m glad I’m here.

I did nearly die a couple of times in the childhood, one time that stands out. I find it so freaky that if I had died, that sad little girl is all I would ever have been. None the people who know me now would ever met me, or even be able to miss me. My kids wouldn’t exist and their whole lives would’ve been missing from the world.

So yeah, I think what you’re feeling is the right response, because those kids lives were so worth saving. No one can know who they could’ve been.

I had a difficult childhood that I am very much not over. I’m also a child protection social worker and these cases chill me and it’s such pressure to try to make sure you do a positive job for the children you work with and a constant battle against lies and evidencing what you know is happening but can’t prove.

These people who do this to kids, are the weakest humans in my view. So
inadequate, they resort to this power over tiny humans, due to their inability to know the difference between right and wrong. The oies they tell to cover their tracks. By the time someone has alerted SS. The kids have already suffered many times. Although, SS do not keep contact with these kids, just close the case. Its sickening, and these people know who they are, every time they look into a mirror, and see the monster looking back at them

Oies means lies

I spent a long time not being ‘ok’ but I am now. Having supportive people around you and finding the voice to share what you went through, feel heard and have them support you does work. I now work with traumatised children and see this growth in them. No such thing as a lost cause.

No. It's many many years later and I still suffer from ptsd, I have severe anxiety, hypervigilance is exhausting, if I sleep unmedicated I'm right back there with nightmares and flashbacks. When I grew up and started relationships of my own the abuse seemed completely normal to me as it was what I had grown up with. It took a long time for me to figure out that it wasn't.

No, definitely not ok. I often wonder what I could have achieved if I'd had a secure, safe childhood and it makes me really angry and sad.

No I am not ok, I do a good show of seeming like I am, but like the PP nightmares and flashbacks are a big feature of my life. Oddly when I was younger I did think I was ok, and certainly have been able to function well. I am now 50 (I escaped at 15), and perhaps more reflective and self aware, or perhaps it's the resilience learnt as a child, but it wasn't really until I was in my 30's that I accepted the full truth about my childhood. Like many others I thought it was normal.

I was abused and neglected as a child, to a much lesser degree than the cases you mention. There have been times I’ve been ok, times I’ve been good, times I’ve been just managing and bad times.

Mostly I am aware that the way I measure those terms is vastly different from a lot of peoples.

I’ve been able to have a fair amount of therapy and the space to do a lot of work on myself. I know I am probably in the minority in this because unless you have money the support that is out there is patchy at best, largely absent as a norm and often, downright harmful.

I think this is changing in the last few years, a bit, people are more aware of the effects of trauma, and I think there is more help now during childhood for people who have been abused.

However there are cohorts and cohorts of people who didn’t really get much intervention in childhood who have now reached adulthood.

There is still nowhere near enough help for people who have survived bad childhoods. There are lots of people who are now adults who’ve never really had any help.

Through my various types of therapy etc I’ve been in contact with people who had far worse childhoods than me. People with drug addicted parents, people sexually abused by multiple relatives, people who were sex trafficked as children and into adulthood, people who received physical abuse so severe they are now physically disabled.

Basically the only ones I’ve ever known receive any substantial help fell into two categories:

1. Family money. This means enough access to rehab, therapists etc to make a difference, but the money usually comes with strings. By this I mean maintaining some contact with an abuser or maintaining a family situation. So they get professional help but not to escape the situation.

1. People who come into contact with the criminal justice system frequently. Usually as both victims and people who commit crimes (so possibly things like prostitution, a violent outburst, possibly drug dealing). They might, if they are lucky, escape criminal prosecution because they encounter someone who is sympathetic or abused here is e.g. a social worker or charity worker who has been involved since childhood who fights for them.

Instead they get sectioned, are often detained for a long time and receive a lot of professional help whilst sectioned. I know someone who has basically been detained for treatment for over six years now.

Some of this help is good. Some of it isn’t- so they are forced into types of therapy that are counterproductive and which retraumatise them. Sometimes they get very institutionalised and isolated in treatment which doesn’t help. And sometimes they are in danger whilst in treatment. For example I know someone who was raped by a staff member whilst in treatment.

But sometimes the sectioning and treatment does provide them with help and a stable environment and they get somewhere.

It’s not well joined up though. I know of people who when they are released who are just sent back to the same neighbourhood as the one where their traffickers live. So the cycle is likely to repeat.

So, yes, it’s possible for people to be ok and even do well. But that’s the exception not the rule.

Not OK, not at all. Like PPs I thought I was OK when I was younger, got worse as I got older. I wonder what’s behind that.

That’s all interesting stuff @NadiaVulvokov . I do think that in years gone by people were told children forgot things and would be fine in the future.

I'm better than I used to be but not 100% ok. It's 4.20am, I still struggle at night to sleep. I have had a lot of therapy which has helped me move forward but there is a part of my brain which is still stuck in my childhood/ teenage years. It's a part of my brain which is instinctive and reasoning with it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Sadly we know that kids who end up in foster care don't have good outcomes. My sister ended up in care and was passed around. She just got her degree this summer aged 40 and it has also taken her a long time to settle.

I am good actually. I suffered a triptych of abuse from a very young age - I was neglected because my mum was 15 when she had me, which led me to not being supervised properly, which led to me being sexually abused, which led me to difficult behaviours (I used to vomit constantly as a younger child, took drugs and self harmed as a teenager, had an eating disorder, got in DV relationships etc, I am textbook) and my Dad, in his frustration, used to hit me a lot, with objects. I was labelled by my family, then the medical profession, school, social workers and eventually the police as the problem. Even though I smashed school, A's at A Level etc, they hated me. I think the trauma of not being believed cut deeper than the abuse tbh.

I have had help from psychiatrists, inpatient and outpatient stays, drugs (including the big hitter legal anti psychotics on top of the illegal class A's) MH nurses, counsellors, rape crisis, EMDR and DV charities. The only thing that has worked is reading and studying the shit out of subjects that related to it. I was in children's safeguarding that helped with realising I was textbook and my reactions were understabdable, I got an MSc in Psychology, am a qualified family therapist and I am doing a PhD related to ACE's. I feel generally I function well and parent fiercely and I am healthy enough in my current relationship. The only hangover I have is sometimes I tell little, white pointless, harmless lies. Still not got to the bottom of that and I am working on it.

@Ishouldhavedonemore

No. It's many many years later and I still suffer from ptsd, I have severe anxiety, hypervigilance is exhausting, if I sleep unmedicated I'm right back there with nightmares and flashbacks. When I grew up and started relationships of my own the abuse seemed completely normal to me as it was what I had grown up with. It took a long time for me to figure out that it wasn't.

Exactly the same with me. Could have written this word for word.

My mum was schizophrenic and alcoholic (and basically just not a nice person) and I was left to my own devices a lot - either that or shouted at and not fed as much as I should have been. I was in foster care a few times (which was great and I didn’t want to go home) and my mum was in and out of mental hospital a lot. There was also domestic violence between my mum and dad which I witnessed including my Mum trying to stab my dad to death with a fork.

I am okay in some ways. I’m mid 40s now. I had a bit of a meltdown between 15-25 - awful choice in men, drinking way too much, doing dangerous things (even though I had my dd at 22 - she would stay with her dad every other weekend and her grandparents so I was still able to live a “young” life). It wasn’t till I met my now dh 12 years ago that I really calmed down. I stopped drinking completely. Haven’t drunk since. He was the only person to stand up to my mum - I was still living with her when we met, we had such a weird relationship (I felt sorry for her / too close etc). He made me see her for what she was really. She died in 2019 and I just feel relieved. And sad I never had a good mum.

I try and be the best parent I can to my two dc. I never shout or use any sort of punishment. If anything I’m too soft. I can’t stand any child cruelty - the recent cases have really affected me.

I sometimes have flashbacks and quite often just shutdown. I think as an abused child you learn not to rely on others. That’s me now. I love my family but I’m fiercely independent and never ask anyone for help and never expect it. I don’t have any really close friends. I don’t trust anyone.

Not really. I ended up copying my parents relationship twice with violent men, one was a pimp (I didn't know that when I met him!) and I ended up forced into being his meal ticket for a long time. I'm still getting over that. It's ruined the chance of having a normal relationship now I think.
Parents didn't believe I was bullied at school so I missed a lot of education through being terrified in lessons, plus they kept me at home a lot to look after the younger children. I did get to university by the skin of my teeth but did badly because I couldn't cope with it.
They don't believe in mental illness so I didn't get help for anorexia and trichotillomania, which still affects me.
My siblings are all younger and I hid them from a lot of what was going on, and they don't remember most of it.

@Gingerkittykat I feel like my brain is stuck at 17. I can't reconcile it with the 40 year old woman I'm pretending to be.

@Gingerkittykat

I'm better than I used to be but not 100% ok. It's 4.20am, I still struggle at night to sleep. I have had a lot of therapy which has helped me move forward but there is a part of my brain which is still stuck in my childhood/ teenage years. It's a part of my brain which is instinctive and reasoning with it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Sadly we know that kids who end up in foster care don't have good outcomes. My sister ended up in care and was passed around. She just got her degree this summer aged 40 and it has also taken her a long time to settle.

My brain is also stuck at an earlier age. I don’t feel and don’t think I ever will feel “adult”.

I’m more ok than I was but very sad about how my life started out and all the mental and physical health problems I’ve had to deal with.

And I think it’s unfair that I’ve had to spend so much on therapy. But then, none of this is fair.

I don’t feel like an adult either.

@Bagelsandbrie I think I am the same with parenting actually, I just can not bring myself to make my DC feel shit about themselves or shame them and a lot of 'firm' parenting relies on that. I try to talk it out with them but people think that is too permissive. But I honestly don't give a shit what they think tbh. My DC have very good self esteem now so I am hoping that I am doing it right.

I identify with not feeling like an adult either. I think that the way I tell little lies about stupid stuff is very child like. I don't even know I do it sometimes until the lie comes back round. I will never understand it.

No, not really. I was emotionally and mentally abused my entire childhood by my father and lived in an environment were I had to be silent, not seen, isolated and I spent most of my time acting as a human shield for my younger sibling to protect them from the same abuse.
Now I'm nearly 30 and have anxiety through the roof and can't work due to stress and panic attacks.
All my previous relationships before my husband were abusive in one way or another and I now struggle to maintain friendships which is hard because I'm a people person.
I've spent my entire life putting everyone first and have only recently started cutting toxic people out and putting myself first but I'm improving

No, I'm not. I spent a lot of time not dealing with it and then had a serious mental health crisis, which lead me to where I am today which is much better from then (though heavily medicated), but finally about to start psychology treatment with the correct specialist care team.