Just curious, seems like a lot of us on another thread - how many of us have been abused as kids?

[OneLieIn]

Just curious, it seems like everyone was saying they had been abused as kids - have we all been through this together?

And playing loud music so no one heard anything just has me in tears....

Please seek some more help...and you won't be like him as a parent...most of us on the thread have children and we are doing things different to our parents...

ally90, I don't really have much contact with my mum. She still finds it so hard to deal with all that went on. I'm still struggling not to blame her for not taking me out of that situation too, the way I see it she should protect her kids. My mum also took alot of what my stepfather did to her out on me, alot of emotional abuse came from her too.

I have the most wonderfully supportive husband, who has been to hell and back with me. A few years ago I ended up having a breakdown. I agree I think I do need to seek more support for it. Thanks for reading my post. I'm so pleased to have found this thread. Off to look for the stately home one now

Hobnob- Awful, Awful, Awful! I agree with Ally- this goes beyond abuse.
God only knows how you must have felt as a young child living through this.

Petrified every day of your life I would imagine.

And a professional validating your abuser???

No wonder you have not told your story before now! How could you have any level of trust to do that when when everyone who has been entrusted with you care to date has let you doen so badly .

smithfield, I have no idea how I'm still here and 'sane'! Friends I have told have told me how 'normal' I am! Someone up there must have been looking over me thats for sure, other wise I'm quite convinced I wouldn't be here. It takes me a very long time to learn to trust anyone, I just knew I could trust my husband from the moment I met him. He gets so upset when I tell him what I've been through but no one knows the full story apart from you guys on here. I haven't even told the half of what went on to you Mnetters, I only told the things that stuck in my mind the most. I think most people would be absolutely horrified at some of the stuff, even I can't quite believe I've lived through it!

I wasn't a child, a teenager, but raped by my boyfriend on more than one occurance, it culminated it me going well and truely off the rails and a very close suicide attempt.
Some of the accounts on here are heartbreaking though.

Ambi - did you report the twat ? You poor thing (((hugs)))

No I didn't, and I don't think he thought he'd done anything wrong either. It's hard when you're a teenager though and you think you're in love.

That was over 10 years ago now and is definitely behind me, but it took me a lot to trust a man again.

Hobnob- I think you would have had to have learnt/built an aptitude for resilence in order to usrvive what you have.

Also I do think the universe often brings us what we need (as well as what we dont)- So yes your hubby and your relationship with hime Im guessing will have helped you to heal.

Im also guessing your mothers abuse may have affected you more than your stepfathers?

Do you have contact with your own father?

Hobnob, that is the worst thing I've ever heard and made me cry. You must be one of the strongest people I've ever come accross. I just can't comprehend how this can happen. I'm so glad you have your DH.

Not all therapists are the same and you so deserve help so please keep searching for the right therapist. I found mine on the internet and searched for one with lots of experience and qualifications and member of those groups that approve them to be good or not. If you instinctively don't feel right with them after a couple of sessions try another one until you find one you are ok with. I didn't really believe therapy would work but wanted to try anything that might, and it really is helping more than anything. I want this for other people who are suffering as well.

I hate it that you have had to go through what you have, nobody should go through it. I wish I could send you a huge amount of love and that you could feel it. You deserve to have so much to make up for everything.

I hope you know that there is nothing wrong with you and the people that hurt you are very very sick and f*cked up.

big hugs to you Hobnob

Yes, I'd like to echo that to anyone who has posted on this thread.Its amazing and brilliant how you have all survived.

Its so incredibly difficult to begin to open up sometimes about the things that have happened, but, only speaking for myself, obviously, I've found that as I've talked through the things that have happened, it helps.
For me, keeping the secret also kept the shame, perpetuating the abusers power and the impact upon my life the events had.
Recovery meant getting the secrets out so I could work through things, so that the hold my childhood had over me lessened, if you see what I mean.

periwinkle, I completely agree about the shame. When you keep it secret it is like you are agreeing with the view that you should be ashamed. When you keep telling the story the shame feels like it is not yours but the perpetrators - which is where it should be

smithfield - the story of my father is a long and complicated one and it goes like this.

My mums story was that my father left when I was young and she never saw him again. My mother didn't tell me until I was 18 yrs old that I had a different father to my siblings (even though I'd kind of worked it out a long time before that). She didn't want to talk about it much, I've had very little information about my father. I think she expected me to get in touch with him, but I felt hugely disloyal to my mother and felt like I didn't want her to go through the hurt and upset it would cause. I kept putting off searching for him for many years. I also knew that it might not be this big emotional reunion thing, and didn't know if I could handle the rejection because I was still very fragile from all the other stuff that had happened to me.

Eventually last year just before I got married I decided 'now' was the time to search. I got in touch with my father's brother and wrote him a letter. I got a prompt text message back asking me to go and visit him. Sadly he had to break the news that my father had passed away only two and a half years before. Then I heard a different version of the story that my mum had told me. My uncle said that it was my mother who left with me at six weeks old whilst my father was at work one day and he never saw or heard from her again. My mother has never told me why she left, I've since asked her, but I'm assuming it was because she'd met my stepfather. She married him a few years later. The heartbreaking thing is that my uncle has since told me that he spent most of his life looking for me, but my mother moved us to a different area and married, changing my name too.

smithfield, forgot to say, yes my mothers emotional (and sometimes physical abuse) probably has affected me more than my stepfathers. I can not comprehend what would make a mother do that to a helpless child.

ActingNormal - sorry to make you cry! I didn't realise what has happened to me was so awful. Obviously at the time it was happening I knew it was horrible to live through. Have just re-read my first post and cannon quite believe its me that I'm talking about, it feel like it happened to someone else. My DH has and is an absolute godsend to me, I don't know how he puts up with me sometimes! Thank you for the beautiful things you said, I'm sat here crying! I'm so touched that a stranger can say such lovely and meaningful words to me, and I can feel how much you mean them.

notnuftime- you were let down by so many people which is why you blame yourself...it's hard to believe that all those people who should protect you could all be bastards and instead you tell yourself there must be something wrong with you. Of course there's nothing wrong with you and indeed I bet you're a thousand times stronger than any of the family members who abused you. I hope your future relationships are non-abusive and you get the love you so clearly deserve.

Hobnob, that thing about not realising how bad it was until you see it written down as though someone else could have written it - I felt that too with mine and I bet lots of others do. I think that is a really useful thing about MN, it helps you to see the reality, especially when your upbringing has made you think that being treated badly is somehow normal.

I didn't mind crying. My therapist wants me to do it more often!

Yup, just to add my name to the list. I was sexually abused as a child by my grandfather.

I didn't tell until I was 21 - the shame keeps you silent. Half my family believed me and supported me, the other half I think also believed but were too afraid of disturbing the status quo and of course with him being the sociopathic bully type that he was, his wife (not my gran) and new kids all stuck by him, though one of his daughters was secretly desperate for me to try to prosecute him - I wonder why? Anyway so we've just cut them off and never talk to them - let them sweep it under the carpet and enjoy their lives together living a lie with that horrible lying dirty old man. I won't pursue it legally because it is too painful and horrible and I think I couldn't take it.

I think it is a lot more common that most people think, often when I have told close friends they all have some experience of it either in their own family or they know of it in a family they know. Everyone I know who has been abused has been a victim of a family member or close family friend, or person in loco parentis (teacher, scout leader etc).

As a result of what I went through I developed a really strong moral sense and I find manipulative people abhorrent, I am ultra sensitive to it and I just can't have to do with people who are like that.

Respect and thoughts to all you fellow survivors of all types of childhood abuse. It is the worst, most cowardly type of cruelty, carried out on trusting and defenceless children and adolescents, is the the ultimate betrayal.

I was physically. My mum had such a wicked temper and would kick me and drag me by my hair from room to room. At times I was sick to the stomach with fear. She didn't like children and I can't imagine why she ever decided to have a family in the first place. She was mentally cruel too and said and did such awful things.

When I was 14 years old she kicked me out with my brother, it was around midnight in December and my brother had to climb back through the window to get my shoes and coat. I can't understand for the life of me how a parent can be so cold and do this, she just didn't care.

Sometimes I feel such anger inside when I drag up these memories, I just can't make sense out of any of it. For 8 years I cut off contact but now we have a distant relationship which kind of feels fake. I've long accepted that she just didn't love us and have now moved on with my life.

My dad is still a violent raging undiagnosed nutter and my mum is still with him. I thought for many years that because there was no sexual abuse, then it was all 'normal' - normal to bully, threaten, and beat up your wife and children.

It has affected myself and my siblings quite badly. All of us have very little self-worth and find it hard to get a job which actually pays anyhing. One brother beats up his wife and they have massive family fights with all the children involved. I spent the first 30 years of my life trying to get rid of myself one way or another. My other sibling prefers to keep relationships at arm's length for fear of being like my dad.

Some parents are just horrible, and their affects can be devastating. It has taken a long time for me to start to come to terms with my father's insanity, to realise that it really is NOTHING to do with me or anything I have done, that my life is not actually his life. A lot of people don't understand just how worthless I have felt, and still a they say, why don't you? Have you done this? Why don't you try...? You could do... If I had what you have, I'd be over the moon...

Sadly it's not that easy.

Womens Aid have been fantastic, and there is a good link for adults abused in childhood. NSPCC have a lot of information about what constitutes abuse. Also the Duluth wheel can help clarify things I've found.

Sorry to sound like a ranting angry woman. Perhaps this is just what I am.

Me

only just started 'coming out' about it this year though.

I was sexually abused as a teenager by my friends dad.

I have never felt like this before, but right now I want to kill the bastard

Mrsmacaroon I could have written your post.

Drunken dad used to make 'close to the mark' comments (he also used to hit me but so did lots of dads in the 70s and 80s I guess). Used to look at me inappropriately, used to flick my developing breasts in a supposedly jokey way which I just find odd. Used to give me what I think people call wedgies although not sure that is sexual in itself in the context a bit odd.

One time I think he did more than this, well I'm pretty sure and briefly touched me in the worst place iykwim but when I told my mum he said he hadn't.

Never really talked about the last bit before but I have mentioned the first bit to my aunt (mum's sister) who was not surprised. Apparently he tried it on with her quite blatantly and said my mum didn't mind and thought it was a good idea which is just surely bullshit.

I also think I was more blatantly sexually abused by my brother but the problem is I can't remember clearly and maybe I dreamed this and am very confused.

I feel bad posting this as this is nothing compared to what others of you on here went through but MrsM I'd love to chat more.

p.s. Mrs M if I had daughters I wouldn't be letting them near my dad either. Not that I'd let ds go and stay with him anyway as he is too unstable but I'd be even more careful with dds.