Childhood abuse effects in adolescence and adulthood

[RachelTopliss]

Do you think that if you're subjected to abuse as a child but you can't remember it all that your subconscious holds on to it and it manifests itself later? There's bits I can remember and bits I can't, it was verbal and physical abuse but not sexual. Also arguments between parents. I can say this happened and that happened but surely it's a snapshot and there's much more I can't remember. Wouldn't all of it have an effect?

Yes. It has an effect. Why are you asking? Is someone telling you otherwise?

Yes it definitely has an effect on your developing nervous system.

Only my opinion but I think everything that happens to us has an effect. Positive and negative.
The abuse would happen, you would react to it and that reaction is stored in the conscious and the sun conscious.

Of course.

If you remember bits of it, then there was more. Nobody remembers everything that happened as a child. But it's when our view of others and the those around us is formed, our brain is forming. Of course it affects who you are today. Sadly, for many...

Yes that if you can't remember it it'll have no effect.

I remember some occasions of the following - Being shouted and sworn at. Being sent to neighbours and grandad to borrow money every week. Called nasty names. Screamed at when no money for the pub. Physically threatened and often whacked. Most of the time ignored though.

Once you embark on your healing journey you will ultimately understand that sh** happens and you can’t change that. Only thing you’re in control of is how you react… You’re either stuck in victim mentality and revel in your trauma and memories or you re-write your story and take accountability for what’s happening to you now. Your parents are also humans with their own trauma and limitations. You might also conclude that it’s absolutely ok to keep some people away whilst you’re healing.

Yes it has an impact, there is lots of research around this. Have a look on YouTube for childhood trauma and the brain and the impact of the ACEs. Both are short but really informative

Yes there would definitely be an impact, especially as you seem to remember quite a few events.

Being ignored would have formed your view of yourself in this world.

Are you able to speak to a professional OP? I know counselling is often difficult to access financially even if you are doing it online. Don't listen to people telling you if you don't remember it doesn't matter or that you just want to be a victim etc. You were abused and ignored. It wasn't ok and it has had an effect. You will be able to build a better present and future for yourself but it's much more effective if you work with a professional. That said, if you can't do that then there are good ressources online to get you going.

@LeavesOnTrees my dad ignored me most of the time other than telling me off or moaning.

Read “The Body Keeps the Score”. It’s about just this issue

Thankyou I'll look for this.

What you remember is enough to deal with on its own. I don’t really understand the question. It is enough to know that you were abused and that it has impacted on your MH. You will never remember every detail. And that is probably a good thing because you wouldn’t be able to function at all if you were constantly assailed with dark memories.

I understand op. It feels like trying to grab hold of air. You know it's there but sort of want proof?

I kept a diary as a child. I read them again in my late 40s. I was shocked at how many events I recorded at the time, which I now have little to no memory of.

I try to focus (through therapy) on how so felt, rather than the details. So for example, I felt scared and worthless, rather than my Mum belted me one or my Dad chased me trying to hit me.

That's so sad, and very understandable that you're having issues now.

Quite often it's when someone has young children themselves and they see their child through an adult's eyes that their own treatment in childhood comes back.

Yes it affects you. We are constantly being “programmed” as we grow and develop as a young child to learn how we can respond to things and still maintain our survival need for human connections.

If there is constant threat around us, like adult aggression as an example, then we end up taking on a default coping mechanism or maybe more than one coping mechanism to deal with that type of threat typically fight, flight, freeze or fawn. In place of more “healthy” ways of meeting our needs or resolving adult conflicts we default back to these trauma responses in adulthood which causes us to have very inauthentic and frustrating communication interactions as adults.

That is where recovery comes in. That is where we recognise the issues in our programming and reprogram our brain to respond differently in adulthood rather than relying on the trauma responses we relied on in childhood for dealing with the adult issues we face.

As @Sushiandunagi pointed put maybe at the end of that process you might figure out that

Your parents are also humans with their own trauma and limitations. You might also conclude that it’s absolutely ok to keep some people away whilst you’re healing.

Or in my case where there was CSA in my family of origin you might recognise that other people’s refusal to deal with deep rooted issues in the family means that the environment is not a safe environment for you and your children.

All of that is the healing process.

@BallantyneValentine you make perfect sense I've been a fawn for a very long while and it's not done me any favours.

Yes it effects all of you. Your brain and nervous system grow through this. My childhood was filled with emotional neglect, illness and my mums depression. Whether abuse I’m not sure but I’m effected by it. My nervous system is constantly on high alert, I’m forgetful and developed chronic fatigue. I’m programmed to detect danger and please. I feel like I’m never accepted by people because as a child I was never seen. It’s something I work on but my brain is wired in such a way it’s an every day challenge to change the way I think.

I've been thinking about this. I got mixed messages. Sometimes very rarely my father would be kind but not often. Maybe as a little girl I saw through him. I didn't like him. Sometimes he would say I was his little princess but most of the time he was yelling at me and smacking me around the head when he wasn't interested in me and making me feel like an inconvenience.

My mother didn't work until I was 15. My father hated her being out of the house. She told me that when they were going out together he would follow her when she went out with her friends. She had no friends that I recall.

When she was working I had to cook in the holidays because my father could barely make a pot of tea. He used to yell at me if I tried to make conversation and get to know him because it interfered with him watching sports on TV.

We didn't do anything as a family. Never a holiday. Maybe one or two days out in the whole of my childhood other than visiting grandparents or aunts and uncles, Dad spent his time off work on his own hobbies.

I found @RachelTopliss that when I tried to piece together the story of my childhood I couldn’t make sense of it but when I tried to piece together how I felt in childhood it all started to make complete sense.

I felt isolated, extremely lonely, unconnected from both of my parents, bullied by my older siblings, unloved and unlovable. The story of my childhood was that all of my needs were met, we had a lovely home, we went on lovely holidays but the feeling of my childhood was something entirely different. I was essentially gaslighting myself with a story of my childhood that was not a real reflection of the experience so that I could survive the lack of care and connection I received in it. Once I finally stopped gaslighting myself I found it so much easier to deal with how I felt and what I needed to do moving forward.

I'm going to explore this in therapy.

Not familial abuse (although my gran was the narcissist and made me the scapegoat so there is that) but I've always wondered if bullying in my childhood, stops me from...striving.

I often live very much in the here and now.
Don't get me wrong, if there is something I really want, I can chase it. But generally I just avoid chasing things many people would. The idea of a career for example, seems suffocating.

Im not introverted (at least not now). I can absolutely be pig headed and stubborn and hold my ground. But it's almost like with some things, I've given up before i even started. Just decided they weren't for me. I wonder if it's because I don't want them or, part of a defensive mechanism.

Competition for a long time, was a dirty word for me. Probably because my experience of it growing up was that it was used to humiliate me. That even when you win...you can't win. Win and there are...consequences. I've earned through this now though. These days I'm fine so long as its just a game or something.

I guess I've always felt an outsider though. These days I love people, in small doses. But I need a lot of me time. Of space. Of personal freedom. Any threat to those things is cut out swiftly.

I think, although I don't think of myself as having low self esteem, I must have it in some scenarios pathologicaly. Like Im hard wired to think 'oh, that's not relevant to me (because I can't do it)' or 'avoid that, or there will be consequences'.

Which in some ways seems very much at odds with my personality because I'm a stubborn little fucker. I think because freedom (or rather - freedom from oppressors) is the most important thing to me, it means that some routes are just off limits.

like I'm hard wired to 'flight'. Even though I am a laid back sort of person. Some situations are just a straight up 'nope'.

Anyway I'm waffling...dunno if any of it makes sense xD but yeah I do think evil people in our developing years, change our brain working as we develop.. meaning we turn out different.

Actually it's like someone has said 'you can't do that, you're not good enough, you don't deserve this' ect...over and over and you go 'fine, keep it! I don't need to do that. I don't have to want those things. I'll do my own thing'.

So you become this outsider who doesn't want what others do. You just grow into that that personality. And it's not that it isn't you. It's just that perhaps you would have been someone else if they'd never been in your life.