How being an abused child still affects you as an adult

[BlackSwan]

I suffered physical and emotional abuse as a child - I had an eating disorder before 10 which was unrelated to wanting to be thin… my parents would yell at me to the point I would retch… then they would tell me they would make me eat my own vomit. I’d get hit with the belt and be threatened with the buckle end… that kind of thing. It was miserable. I’m sure others have been though worse but it was my particular kind of hell.
My father was a bastard to me in my late teens and effectively threw me out of the house after telling me if I ever went to a guys place and he raped me not to come crying to him as “women ask for it.” I hate him still and live in another country - unfortunately I have to see him whenever I FaceTime my mother, with whom I have a better relationship now. He lurks in the background and I cover his face with my thumb so as not to see him.

I’m a pretty strong independent person now… but when I find myself in a conflict situation now (if someone is unfairly having a go at me), I do feel a hint of the l bottomless pit panic and fear as I did as a child.

I’m realising now that I have to be my own rod of strength and that I cannot rely on anyone else to come to my defence or make me feel better, but I’m not very good at it.

Am I right in thinking these are old wounds - that I learned early on that I am vulnerable? I wish I could just be stronger. I’m going to try.

I'm sorry for what you went through, OP.

I recognise a lot of what has been said in the thread, especially about panicky responses. It made me sad reading the recent thread about women crying at work - if someone at work (or anywhere else) shouts at me, I go right back to feeling scared and powerless, and the tears come.

I once dropped and broke a plate at a friend's house, and she laughed at the 'look of terror' on my face when it happened - then realised I was actually freaked out and was kind about it. And obviously I know intellectually that my friend isn't going to react the same way as my parent when I broke something. But those pathways are there. Bad code, I call it.

I had psychotherapy in my late twenties and that improved my life a lot, but some maladaptive things I suspect might always be there.

You are all very brave, resilient people. What happened to each of you was not your fault, you did not deserve the various abuse that all of you experienced.

I really hope you can all find peace. Thank you for reminding me of the reality of life for some people.

@duvetdayforeveryone The damage doesn't necessarily have to blight the rest of your life. It's true, you can't rewrite the past but you can create new, healing patterns for yourself. It sounds as though you have made a great start with your own DC and there are strengths which can come from our past struggles too.

Please take a look at the therapies which have helped some of us here. I wish you peace and strength. 💐

I was sexually abused by my maternal grandparents, they went to, and died in, prison.

I can't get peace but I have been able to live with it and the awful choices I have made because of it.

I find I have most people figured out (safe or unsafe) within 5 minutes. I never had a safe place, home and school were never safe. Abused at home, bullied in school by teachers as well as children. One teacher put me on the dunce side of the class and beat me regularly in front of everyone. I joined the scouts when I was 12 and I lived for those camping trips away, I used to cry for a week when we got home again.

I have complex PTSD, anxiety and depression and i'm on long term psychiatric medication because later on in my life I started having hallucinations and hearing voices.
However, I'm a really strong person and although I have my limitations I've managed to buy myself a house, have a really good career and pension and am very very close to DS and Dil.
I feel proud of myself for overcoming all my obstacles.
I also have my cats and some lovely friends.
I can be a bit of a hermit but I think that's ok.
I don't do romantic relationships because I can't cope with them but I'm happier alone.
I don't allow my past to define my present.

I'm glad you're finding The Body Keeps the Score useful. I'll also recommend Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving which is about recovering from childhood trauma and on youtube, the Crappy Childhood Fairy has lot on practical tips for reregulation and recover that she largely distilled those two books and her experiences using them. I found them all helpful.

As for how it still affects me, I woke up this morning, though 'It's Christmas' and all I felt was dread and sickness. I've spent this morning and much of the last couple of days looking at things like Religion for Breakfast and Dan McClellan, basically treating it all as an academic thing to study and create a barrier of distance from which is a coping method I learned young.

I was profoundly scarred by my parents behaviour when they divorced in my teens. Parental alienation, blackmail, financial abuse, utter neglect, being the bullet in somebody’s gun pointed at their spouse took a huge toll. I spent the next 3 decades + dealing with the fall out of the damage sustained.

It’s only this last year or so I’ve truely made progress. I agreed (finally) to go on antidepressants/anti anxiety meds. They have been life changing. Like my first holiday from the pain since it started. It gave me the space to use the tools people usually suggest, like mindfulness, gratitude, breathing, relaxation etc. I have ADHD so all of the above are hard anyway (I get bored so easily) and it was a bit hit and miss. I’m using the Remarkable app now and for the first time I’m effortlessly staying on track and it’s really working to mop up residual issues.

I’ve never been in therapy and I won’t go. I have trust issues (shock) so the idea of opening up to somebody who might promptly bugger off and leave me with all my emotional entrails hanging out of me, that I unpacked at their request, is a non starter. But despite that hang up, the tools I’m using have allowed me to finally find some peace and come around to meet the me I was supposed to be again.

A big fat hug love. It’s a long hard road back from the mantra that “kids are resilient and can adapt” used by adults to justify a wide range of intentional and unintentional abuse. Long and hard, but not unwalkable. And you aren’t hiking it alone, you have plenty of company along the way.

It has battered my entire life. I was violently abused, living under constant threat of more, with daily put downs, being humiliated, laughed at, made fun of, and then shouted at for not wanting to cuddle my parents.

I’ve spent my entire life with mental health problems. Started self harming at age 8. Stopped eating at 16. Went down to 6 stone and my parents didn’t notice. Was hospitalised for 2 weeks. Panic attacks. Depression. Was suicidal at 25-30. Voices in my head. Put myself in hospital needing 11 stitches. In more recent years I’ve been diagnosed as having PTSD. I have nightmares and flashbacks daily. Currently back in therapy for that and have recently conquered BDD too.

I’m 42 now. It doesn’t end. I’m more stable these days but constantly feeling wobbly.

I no longer to speak to any of my parents, and by extension my sister and aunts etc. Life is much better for it.

Sending love to all my fellow sufferers.

I carry it everyday. It’s a hard thing. I’m sorry you and everyone on the thread who has shared, had to suffer it x

Hyper independence is a trauma response too.

It’s ok, in fact essential to be able to be vulnerable and allow yourself to depend on other people to an appropriate degree.

It’s about learning who you can trust, how to build trust gradually over time, judging the degree to which you open up and give weight to people and having the resilience to repair minor breaches in relationships.

I have not suffered half of you people have and I'm so sorry you had to endure what you have from the people who are supposed to protect you.

What it is for me though, is 2 parents staying together for "the kids". It was awful watching the awkwardness and arguments. It was really dysfunctional and caused issues for me when I entered an adult relationship. My mother was clearly mentally unstable. My father ended up leaving and ended up with custody and my mum hardly bothered. He tried to keep the family together but it caused more damage to us kids and he realises that now. My siblings have all entered abusive relationships or just shitty ones. I'm just emotionally shut off and struggle to allow people to love me or support me. I'm just really closed off.

Ive had The Body Keeps the Score but a vit scared to read it as I know the general gist.

Does it come up with any answers or just ecplain to me just how fucked up I am due to trauma (which I know!)

I’m going to go against the trauma grain here and say I never got past the first few pages of “The Body Kees the Score”.

Something was off about the tone and then there was the controversy that later surfaced around his
conduct and I never tried to read it again.

What was the controversy? I know its a well known book and completely "get" the premise. Just don't know if reading it will tell me any more.

I also realise a year ago I bought a book called "complex ptsd from surviving to thriving." It looks brilliant but I've spent a year and realised ive not reD it...

Well, I own the audiobook now so I'll see what I get out of it...
But thanks for the warning too Yennifer.

To everyone on the thread, thank you for sharing your stories, I'm so sorry for the pain you have endured but I also know we are tough and can't let other people's treatment of us beat us or box us in. Some of these experiences are horrific. It's impossible they wouldn't have a profound effect. Azerothi, that you survived to adulthood is incredible really. I have to say I'm glad your tormentors are dead.

I have had therapy a couple of times - I did find it useful, but it also made me sad to come to the realisation that there's no undoing the past.

I'm an adoptive mum, my son is now 17 and doing well. I have no doubt that he will carry emotional scars with him throughout his life but he is learning to come to terms with it.

You are all amazing people, whether you think you are, you are strong and resilient, that does not mean that you are not also vulnerable. You can be both.
@duvetdayforeveryone I'm so sorry you feel like that. You have broken the cycle with your own children - that's just amazing. Maybe its time you got some help just for you?
I think @Duvetdayyay is absolutely right
I wish you all peace and strength

@BlackSwan

I sat through two years of therapy with my son. It was the hardest thing I have had to do in my life - and of course so much harder for him.
Ultimately it was worth it.

You are right, you can't undo the past. But the future is there.

Following, my new partner and his siblings were abused both sexually and physically. He's done a load of therapy to resolve things so I met him at a reasonably OK place. His siblings not so much though are in loving relationships.

Yes. Emotional and physical abuse (mostly EA) had a devastating effect on me. I'm mid 50s and am still effected. Many years of therapy have helped enormously and I'm also sober for 14 years having drank to self medicate. Day to day I'm ok and even successful but it took a long time to recover. My parents are now both dead. Without wanting to sound horrible, that's a huge relief if I'm honest.

I don't blame you for feeling that way emmetgirl.

This is ridiculous... but I got a text from my mother last night asking if we could speak and my immediate thought was that they had seen this thread. I know that sounds insane. Fragile fragile fragile. Fuck it.

I developed BPD/bulimia and a whole load of others shit as a result from verbal and physical abuse from my step father, followed by 5 years of insane and brutal bullying at school.

I am trying to get over it, but even since my 20s people are still proving to me that they are out to hurt me... it's challenging x

I found The Body Keeps the Score lifechanging because it -explained- what was going on. It wasn't just compassion, though I think der Kolk is compassionate. It was that he gave clear eyed and understandable explanations for all sorts of consequences of trauma.

For me it reduced the guilt for being damaged and not being able to 'get over it', which really has improved life. And simply understanding what's going on helps me handle it much better.