Content Warning: Normal late teen experiences?

[FairyLightPups]

I've been thinking about this more and more as I get older and I'm trying to figure out if these are things I need to address in therapy or if it's just part and parcel of being an older teenager.

From age 18-20 I was in a group of friends. I was the youngest by at least 7 years with everyone 25+. I lived with a few of them too. They would spend their lives drinking, smoking, having parties and talking about their mental health, and not doing very much. They mostly all identified as transgender (for much of this I thought I was a transgender man, I'm not now) and were very angry about the world. None of them had any goals and vilified anyone who did.

A woman in her forties was particularly mentally ill and relied on this group of friends heavily, me more than anyone else. She had two children who were in late primary school. She often left them without me with no warning and expected me to look after them.

Just before my 19th birthday, a 27 year old trans woman got me pregnant. I miscarried and then moved in with her and she treated me awfully for a good few months including physical and emotional abuse. It was a really difficult time.

After I managed to leave her was when I moved in with other people from the same group of friends. They were all age 30+ and expected me to sleep in a cupboard and pay full rent. I did so because I felt grateful for them taking me in.

When I was 19, I decided to go to college and start making something of myself. I started a college placement and due to my work ethic ended up getting hired as a paid staff member by the organisation very quickly after beginning my (unpaid) placement. None of them were happy about this and I started losing friends around this time.

A few months later, just after turning 20, I decided to leave the flat. The entire group turned against me for abandoning them to go to get an education and a job. The mother of the children made up rumours that I abused them. The people I lived with pretended I left the house a tip when I moved out. None of this was true.

I'm now only in contact with two people from that time period, who were both not really in the main group, just occasionally hung out with them. I'm obviously much happier, settled, have a degree, a career, a lovely partner (I identify as a lesbian these days). I have a bright future. But I often have flashbacks to that time and I just don't know if I'm overreacting or not.

Is this worth exploring more in therapy or similar?

Thanks for your kind words everyone. Good to know I'm not overreacting. To answer a few questions:

1. My family are not around, my mum was abusive and I ended up homeless by 16 so I didn't have their support throughout this time

1. The child abuse thing was rumours within the group and didn't go further, most likely because nothing actually happened and putting the children who actually missed me a fair bit (apparently) through a court case would have been barbaric. I work with children and young people so I think it was made up to harm my reputation and sabotage the beginnings of my career as they weren't happy I was working.

1. I don't think I could ever talk to the mother of the children again, she is incredibly manipulative and delusional to be honest so it wouldn't be a helpful conversation to have

@Feelingoktoday

What do you mean that you identify as a lesbian?

I’m not really understanding this.

You mean that you ARE a lesbian.

They sound like awful people.

They do sound abusive and dysfunctional and your life before that time doesn’t sound great either. You’ve done amazingly well for yourself to rise above that past. But the past can come back to haunt us at certain points - for me it was when I started having children. Counselling can only be a plus I reckon.

I had similar experiences at that age.

Dodgy people, and behaviour towards me, but also other young females, and more so to one in particular.

She was really young, and essentially passed round much older men for sex.

It's only with a lot of distance I've been able to see the situation for what it was.

So while your experience isn't out of the ordinary for some people, it is not normal and that it not your fault.

You were preyed upon by older abusers but you got out. It sounds like they groomed you into an identity along with a lifestyle.

I also totally empathise with the feeling abandoned by friends. I was raped when at a similar stage in life and much worse than the incident itself was the shunning from the community. It was easier for them to carry on getting fucked up and not challenging anything. Essentially I was more dispensable than he was. Challenging him challenged their worldview it was easier to cast me out for kicking up a fuss.

As for whether therapy could help? Probably, but it sounds like you have realised what's happened and made your own way.

Congratulations on freedom and lesbianism. It's the best.

OP I want to say well done for turning your life around and being in a good place with your career and a loving partner. The one thing about your message that stands out to me is that the transgender woman got you pregnant. OP this sounds to me like rape and with everything else that went on in that period of your life I do think you would benefit from therapy
I wish you all the best you sound amazing to achieved so much after all that trauma

First question, you don't mention your family at all, where we're they?
Secondly, these people were NOT your friends. They sound like a disgusting group of people, who were all adults who lived like a bunch of squatters it sounds like to me.
I think you had a lucky escape and should feel very pleased that you are away from those bunch of losers

It sounds like a time in your life when you felt incredibly unsafe, and that with your current eyes, of a grown adult (as opposed to adult teen), you're able to understand see how these (much) older people - who I'm sure you trusted and maybe even looked up to - violated your trust in a multitude of both overt and underhanded ways.

Sometimes flashbacks can be our adult brain trying to process scary or unsettling feelings and experiences, so that we can reach a stage of understanding our past and peace.

Talking therapy can be helpful to people for a variety of reasons - the very fact that you're thinking about it means that it is something you should do. Please also talk to you partner about your experiences if you haven't already - don't bottle it up.

Wishing you well OP, you've got this xx

I would say it's worth exploring with a therapist, just to get to the bottom of why you were drawn to these people and why it took so long to get away. Many years ago, I got pulled into a cult and I found it very helpful afterwards when I left, to unpack how I ended up in that situation, with a counsellor. I learned some useful life skills from the counselling and I don't think I would fall for something like this again. Even though you're in a healthy place now, counselling can be like a MOT, just checking for any hidden issues with a view to fixing them.

I was on the fringes of a group like this when I was the same age. Thankfully not as deep into it as you. The older ones were incredibly broken people. Most of the younger ones have grown up and live normal lives.

Are you happy now? Or is the memories of the past effecting you and your life? If so, therapy would definitely be a good idea. Not because you are broken, but because it's helpful to see things clearly and straighten them out in order to completely move on.

@Jk24

Op if you don't feel you need therapy but feel you need closure why not get in touch with the woman with the kids? Ask her why she said these things?

Don't do this.

@FairyLightPups

I think what's knocking me out a bit is that the things that I'm having flashbacks over isn't the abuse from my ex or the miscarriage. It's how my 'friends' treated me - does that even count as something to be so upset over, so many years on?

They were not your friends

If you can write all that and need to work up the courage to post it OP, I'm sure its the sort of thing that therapy can help with. Best of luck.

None of that sounds normal OP, but you had no support from your family to help keep you on the right path so you were just trying to do the best you could. Friends support and love you, they don't try to keep you down. It sound like you've done an amazing job of pulling yourself up and getting your life together, you should be immensely proud as that is not easy when your start in life is to be abused and then homeless at 16.

I think you have a huge amount you could talk about at counselling that could really help you. Your childhood with an abusive mother, being homeless at 16, thinking you were a transman, and the way you were treated by these people. Do it for you OP.

Thank you for your responses and apologies for not coming back to the thread sooner. I was mulling over the responses.

To answer some questions:

1. The time I got pregnant wasn't rape (well, it was consensual but the age gap was gross though legal) but the same person did rape me later on, multiple times

1. I definitely won't be contacting the mother of the children, she is completely unhinged and it would open an awful can of worms. I'm almost expecting the kids to knock on my door when they turn 16 though if their mother is the way she was before. I think this is the biggest flashback because I still worry about the children and the care they're receiving. I did speak to social services once I disentangled myself from the mess but obviously they couldn't give me any updates.

1. As mentioned further up the thread my own mother was highly abusive and we were not in contact during this time. I was homeless very soon after turning 16. I've never met my father so that was no help either.

1. Tbh it did feel a little like a cult and I think about it in this context regularly.

1. I'm very happy now - lovely fiance, lovely career, an excellent collection of animals, live somewhere else entirely, got a small amount of very good friends, and thanks to my fiance's family I have a lovely second mum now too. It's really just the past getting to me more than anything else.

Thanks again - I've been working up the courage to post this for months. I knew mumsnet would be a good place to come with this but it was so hard to write and I really appreciate the warm wishes.