Topic : How Childhood Abuse Still Affects Me

Hi, Renee'

 

I'm guessing (and hoping)that you've closed on your house by now, right?  I'm so excited for you!  I bet it's just beautiful.  Congratulations!  Now you just have to go through the moving process, right?  That's kind of a pain, but I'm sure it'll be like moving toward the light at the end of the tunnel for you, since it means freedom from your relatives. :)

 

Everything's about the same here.  I'm tired, and nauseous, and a little crabby. :p I just wanted to tell you hi, and make sure everything is going well for you.  Hope to hear from you soon.

 

Sarah

I'm a survivor of CSA and subsequent attacks. I've only recently been diagnosed with Complex-PTSD. The upmost authorities on this condition are Judith Herman and Besser van der Kolk. This is missed in most of the therapy community and it is a shame. It is treated very differently than PTSD. The impact of CSA is very insidious and difficult to treat. It is very long-term.

I have trouble sticking with things, memory. It's easy to get discouraged because I can't get a foothold. I have high anxiety which easily turns into dissociation. Then I forget what I was doing. People tell me I'm intelligent and that I'm wasting so much potential. This just depresses me. There have been brain scans proving changes in the brain in the hippocampus and thalamus due to long-term child abuse (even in the size of these areas of the brain). Treating this is imperative and is being studied under the heading of C-PTSD or DESNOS (to be listed in the new edition of the DSM-V).

It is very important that we keep talking about it with each other. Together, we are strong.

Us survivors are very brave. Much love and many blessings to all of you who are survivors. Take good care of you. Take time to nurture your souls.

-K, survivor

so we're all loosers?

I'm glad you are feeling better. I have to tell you, that I've been "there" too. Several times.

Check back after a few years. Don't shut people down. Excitement is wonderful. Nature and even the stock market do not move in a straight line. There is no quick fix. Especially when the brain has been physically affected. I am very leery of your post. It's irresponsible. But good luck to you. Sincerely. Enjoy the ride.

Hi

 

I am a serviver of CSA, I am a 31 yo Oz I was asolted by one of me teachers when I was 8, and severy other time by diffrent people. my thory is that when a child is assolted there is a scare that is pote onto there sole. Abuseres can see these scars and see them as "easy pray".

 

I was luky that my parents were not abusive and that I had a safe place there, but like many of you I am overwaight to pretect my self. My memeries of my childhood as vage and pachey - I supressed the memery of the assolt for over 15 year and when the memreies reapered I thort I was going mad and attempted suiside .

 

These days I am been treeted for PTSD, OCD, and minor Schyaphrenia (Well depends on how you talk to 1 Doc say Schaphrenia and another say molti-personality disorder). I will explain this when I an not coping it is like ther are two of me - the person that God created me to be and the person that was born out of the abuse - this is what has coused the confusion.

 

I am curently unable to hold down a full time job becors of these problems - I have and will agane hold a full time job but the nature of my problem is that I have "good" years (the longest has been 7 years) and Bad years (like now) some of you have talked about - for wont of a better term - "getting over it". My point is that we never get over it - we lern to live with it, we lern to use it to help others, we use it as a bage of pride, we strugel with it, we sucome to it, we manage it, BUT WE NEVER GET OVER IT.

 

I think I am luky to live is a cuntry that has a welfare state mentality (that is that people how are unable to make a living are given an income, equeverlent to base wage, by the goverment) as it alows me to be indpendent of my parents and alows me to work on getting myself better (well back to been able to earn a living) with out having to warry about how to keep a rofe over my head.

 

KLB

 

PS sorry about the spelling but I have dislexia :)

 

Hey Sarah,

It was good to hear from you!  Yes, I'm in the house and I have had quite the disappointments

with utility hookups and such.  But --------I am on my own - finally!!! 

It has been good on one hand, but, surprisingly my depression kicked in, so I've had to

deal with that. 

Every box from Arkansas has been hard to open and go through.  That has shocked me

more than once, but, my doctor says he isn't surprised that it's been so traumatic for me.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with the nausea - with two little ones already, that can't be

fun.

Well, I have to go run some errands - I'm at my brother's house on the computer, since I

still don't have internet connection yet (another story).  Talk with you soon!

Renee'

I can't believe that when I finally decide to find a way to release some of my angst about my abuse that I find someone whose story is so similar to mine. I just turned 30 and my husband and I recently celebrated our 10th anniversary. As a Christian, I have tried very hard to forgive and leave the past behind me. It's difficult when we're going to church and I'm crying and having a furious argument in my head and my husband notices and asks what is wrong. My typical response is that "my demons are trying to come with me to church". Circumstances lately have been bringing it to the surface. I've been very depressed, distressed, fighting with myself, hating myself so much. I have never told anyone. I have never discussed it, hinted at it, blogged about it. I've spent most of my life lying about it to everyone. The closest thing that has ever come to the truth is when a very discerning friend asked me if I had been abused as a child and I said yes, that I had been abused by a neighbor. My husband thinks that my standoffish-ness is because of physical abuse and my dad's alcoholism. My older brother molested me when I was a child. I can't put an age to it. Maybe 7 or 8. Some memories I have of it are very vivid. But I can't go deep enough to remember how far it went. I have these images of him sharing me with his friends. I don't know if it's real or imagined. I do know that one of these men is a salesman whose picture was on a billboard about a year ago. When I passed it, it made my stomach twist up in knots. I do remember my brother telling me back then not to tell or they would send him away. My mother found my bloody panties and confronted him and said that if he ever did anything like that again she would send him away. It never happened again, but it still wrecked me. I didn't date in high school. Then in the year after I graduated I had four sexual partners. I was and have been fighting with being obsessed with anything related to sex. Mainly pornography. I've been trying to get past it. It's something really sick that's shaped me because of my abuse.

 

I met my husband during my tail-spin during college and he turned my life around. We went to church together. He treated me like I was precious and special. He didn't drink, which was a big thing for me. My father is an alcoholic who beat my mother when I was a child. I really believe that my husband saved my life. And he doesn't even know it. He knows that something is wrong. It has really been getting to me lately. Maybe because our oldest daughter just turned 9. I can't tell him. I can't risk him hating me. What kind of person is molested by her brother and then as an adult attends family functions and plays nice? I realize that to other people this sounds ridiculous, but for me, I just can't take the chance. I've hated myself for so long that the idea that it wouldn't play out like that is impossible for me. The fact that God loves ME is just so hard for me to comprehend, since He knows all of it..

 

Maybe releasing some of this will help me. And maybe knowing that this situation is not one that only you have suffered will help you. I never imagined that someone would have gone through something that is so similar to what I went through. I will pray for you and for me that God would give us both ease and comfort through this situation.

i just want to say that i really respect  the courage displayed by everyone on this thread that has shared their experiences. i also experienced abuse in my lifetime in various forms. i am in therapy for two years now with an incredibly wonderful and caring therapist who is helping me to come to to terms with what happened to me and giving me the hope and courage to move forward. through her persistent caring (even when i cant believe it and try to push her away or convince her how horrible i am and im so not worth her time or caring) she is showing me that it is safe to trust, it is safe to feel, it is safe to be in my body and fully in this life...
she is showing me in a way i can finally believe and hear and see and feel that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. and its safe to hope and believe that and even take tiny steps forward towards it instead of remaining frozen in terror. i can see it now, the light,and sometimes ican feel its rays. im not quite brave enough to post my story online like all of you just yet . but i wanted to say that i respect the enormous courage it takes to do so, and my continued amazement at the resilience of the human spirit.

may we all find the peace and joy and contentment that are our birthright.

peace.
gra8fulsongbrd

I'm so glad you're in your own place at last!  I can see how it could make your depression kick in, though.  Moving is such a big change, and it can be hard to deal with.  And, going through boxes from you past can be hard too.  Even if the boxes bring up happy memories, it can be bitter-sweet thinking of how those happy times have passed.  I hope you can find a way to focus on the good times you have ahead of you.

 

It's nice to hear from you again.  I've been pretty distant, and I'm sorry.  I'm still feeling overwhelmed with this new pregnancy, but at least the nausea is starting to subside.  I'll be three months along right after Thanksgiving, and I'm already starting to show a little.  With my other two pregnancies I didn't show until I was four or fives months along, so I've been teasing my husband that we might be having twins.  I hope that's really just a joke, though.  The thought of just one more baby is a little scary for me right now, and the idea of two... Eek. 

 

A few other things are new for me, too.  My three-year-old has starting asking a lot of questions about Jesus lately.  I just don't know how to answer some of them.  She asks where he is, and if he's always with us, why can't she see him?  She's so curious about everything, and she can come up with some questions that I'd never expect.  I worry sometimes that I'm just making her more confused when I try to answer her questions.

 

Also, my little sister is pregnant.  She's due six weeks after me, so we get to get fat together.  This is her second child, and she's very excited.  I'm happy for her, and I think it'll be fun to be pregnant at the same time.

 

Plus, my brother and his wife just had their fist baby in October.  There are babies everywhere.  Even a lady I work with is pregnant, and due just four days before me.

 

I hope things start to get better for you soon.  Getting settled into a new place can be stressful, but you can have fun with it too.  I hope I'll hear from you soon.  I'll try to keep in touch more often.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sarah

      I often wonder if I have a reason to be depressed @ 30yrs old when the last 12 yrs of my life have actually went quite well. Then, I think about what I went through to get here.... My dad abused me as long as I can remember, even before I was old enough to remember, my sisters and my mom tell me of how I was abused even as an infant. When I was about 5 months old, my dad beat me so bad that I actually stopped breathing and turned blue, luckily, I didn't die. When my mom and sister took me to the ER I was so bruised that the DR called the police, this was in 1978, as we all know, child abuse wasn't reported then as it is now, I wish it had of been because it might have saved me a childhood of pain.  It wasn't just physical abuse, there was mental and endangerment. Other than the beatings I would get for things like giggling, he also would yell and scream at me that I was lazy, worthless and ugly. He also taught me how to break into houses, my first drink of whiskey was with him when I was about 6, he would give me muscle relaxers and I can honestly say I don't remember what happened after he would give me one of those, and I am glad I don't . He use to take me and my brother out and have us break into houses, that started when I was about 6 as well. He would always send me in first cause I was the smallest and could fit through small windows and such. One of his proudest moments of me was when I figured out how to remove a door chain from the outside. We moved a lot, running from the police and landlords, we would steal groceries from stores, and if we couldn't we would go hungry. Which happened more times than I can count. Incest between my brother and I began at some point when he would show us Hustler magazines, I really don't want to go into anymore detail about that since it turns my stomach.

                        When I was almost 15, my dad committed suicide. My mom and me was left to clean up the mess of a person shooting them self, That wasn't pretty, but had to be done. Just a couple days after he killed himself, we were kicked out of the trailer we lived in and had no where to go, we lived in our car for about a month until a government subsidized apt. came available. Unfortunately, the abuse didn't stop with his death. I lost my mom to alcohol just weeks later, and at 15 I was on my own. A lot of men took advantage of me. Some, because they knew I needed food, some just because they could. I dealt with a lot of sexual abuse as a teenager. When I was 16, my mom remarried and hung me out to dry, she had a new family and I didn't fit in, so I wasn't allowed to live with them. I stayed in the apt by myself. I met my husband around the same time all of this happened. He saved me, he was there for me and I could never thank him enough. We married when I was 18 and have 3 wonderful children, we have been married 12 yrs.

                        There is much, much more to the story, to go through it all would take too long. I still haven't dealt with much of the trauma of my childhood. Some of it embarrasses me so badly I can't  talk about it. The only think I have dealt with is the death of my dad. While he was a very cruel man, he was all the dad I knew, and it hurt when he did what he did. Despite it all, I actually did love him ( go figure, huh?). Despite all my mom has done, I still love her. I would very much like to deal with these things, but I  am not sure how to get past the wall I have built to protect myself from it.

                        Thanks for reading my little story, and if anyone would like to know more, let me know, I can go into great detail about some of it, other parts, not so much.

Hope you felt well enough to enjoy Thanksgiving!  Wow!  You are going to be surrounded by

babies!!  Maybe they will all be good playmates!!

 

Regarding your three year old's questions, just keep your answers simple & to the point, and

just go into detail as needed and I bet she'll be fine.  My daughter loved music at that age and

I would play songs to help her understand & she was quite the entertainer!!

 

My son came in from college for the Thanksgiving break - we ate, watched movies, and did

some sightseeing.  He brought snow, so he was thrilled and we played out in it.  It was

actually wet enough to make snowballs and snowmen.  The last time he was here the snow

was too dry to pack, so he was bummed.

 

My daughter didn't get to come, so she stayed in Atlanta, but of course had to be the drama

queen anyway.  Her boyfriend (ex?) decided to make her holiday miserable and break-up

with her a few days before, then decided she didn't need to spend Thanksgiving alone, so

invited her along to his family Thanksgiving without telling anyone he had broken up with her,

etc. etc. etc.  Ugggggghhhhhhhh    She called me crying umpteen times for advice, so I

literally spent hours with her on the phone, but then what does she do?    GOES TO A

PALM READER for advice  !!!!!!  Sigh      Who, by the way, told her exactly what I did.  Not

that that mattered any.  Then, they went to a concert together on Saturday (because she had

already bought the tickets), but he said it didn't change anything.

 

I'm trying to be supportive and upbeat for her, but, honestly, she's sucking the life out of me

right now!!!!!  Don't get me wrong,  I love her to death, but she doesn't have a clue (my fault)

what I'm going through.

 

Well, enough of that - thanks for letting me vent!!  Don't overdo it between now and Christmas!

Enjoy those baby girls !   They grow up too fast!

 

Happy Holidays!

Renee'