Topic : How Childhood Abuse Still Affects Me

I haven't been through what you have.  But, I couldn't leave this post without responding.  My heart breaks for you, for what you've been through.  I pray that God would surround you and protect you emotionally.  I pray that you will be surrounded by loving people who can help you see what a beautiful person you are, just the way that God made you.  I'm not much help.  And I don't know if you're even checking back on this thread.  But, I had to reach out and say that I was so touched by your story. 

Since Dr. Phil was on Oprah and then began his own show, I have learned and grown and felt I was functioning fairly well. The effects of my challenging childhood of 17 years of abuse, beginning at 6mo. old incest, grampa, brother, 3 out of 5 fathers, mothers part awareness and denial no protection. After running away, the incest stopped but not the rapes and abuses because I knew nothing about victim stance, guilt, shame etc that follows you ...then years of therapy just gave me the It is ok it was not your fault YOU ARE A VICTIM, a title a statistic! Like ok now I feel all better. Then Praise God  Oprah and Dr. Phil gave me healing and hope and training they  became like my parent figures and brought healing, taught me, nurtured me, gave me what I should have gotten as a child so actually like raised me, and all seemed under control for all these years... THEN early March I had the Mother of all unexpected UNIMAGINAL Traumas and in less than nearly 4hours they reduced me to nothingness , took away ALL my years of therapy  AND I cant even hear Dr. Phils words right now I truly cant think, I am blank...lost, raw, empty, like a carcass. This is the first time in my life I cannot get back up and I cannot understand what is happening to me...Is there really a last straw???  A final knockout?  They  stole my soul, I feel like this time I worked tooooooooo  hard for recovery and victory and for that to be taken like my whole childhood and most of my adult life... is just finally too much! Much too much. I cannot fight back, I cannot sleep, I cant think, the one thought I keep trying to hang onto is Dr. Phil , Oprah, DR. Phil, Oprah, ( I had just begun the first week Of her A New Earth and was so hopeful of growing even more when my world was blown apart, and they cut me off from Oprah as the took my computer too) And Dr. Phil He is the only one who has ever represented safety to me in my life so I dredged up the strength to go to his site and found this avenue, I do not know maybe someone has been in this depth of a place and just hearing it is never too much, never over that maybe there is a way to stand up, crawl out of this hole and fight some more.

So I wondered if anyone out there has had the same being re traumatized years later and could maybe explain the physical pain I have for the first time and for the first time my thoughts are going from that horror and back to 2 years old, 57, 14, 57, 2, 8,57,39,  57,and back and forth and back and forth I am lost. AND I am tired. This is how my childhood abuse is still affecting me.

i suffered at the hands of an abusive alcoholic father.... many nights as a young boy i was beaten severely when he would get drunk. i had to wear long shirts to cover the bruises, i remember running from him in the middle of the night with my mother to escape from him. im 25 now and i havent spoken with him in 4 years as i hate him. i hate what he has done to me. it bothers me to this day. i have only been seeking treatment for it within the last 4 years, i suffer from severe depression, anxiety, social anxiety disorder, panic attacks, constant worrying and fear and i attribute it all to being a scared kid scared of being beaten by my drunken father, it hurts to this day..... you never get over it. it hurts me to this day, i still cry over it. my mother was also beaten alot too, i can still see them fighting viciously and she stayed with him off and on until 2003. now i wish she would of left him when i was younger so i wouldnt of had to have went through what i went through. i have forgiven her for letting it happen to me because she had admitted she should of did something about it, but i cant forget it. i see psychiatrists and social workers and take medication but i still have flash backs and constant reminders all the time. the recent show "confronting grandpa" reminded me of my dad, i dont believe he molested me although he grabbed by private areas off and on as a kid in a joking way i suppose, although i hated it cause it was embarrassing and to me stupid. i felt the pain that she feels towards her father, i havent spoken with mine in almost 4 years and im glad because he does not deserve to be in my life.  i have to admit when i was 20-21 and experimenting with alcohol myself, the rage and anger came out and we fought a few times and everytime i hit him i felt i was getting him back for all the times he hurt me, i felt good about it, i dont drink anymore, i hate it actually but i felt like i was paying him back the few times we fought when we were both intoxicated. i definitly will never do to my child (if i have one) what he did to me..... i could never harm a child. i have a 3 yr old nephew i would do anything for.   i thought i would share my story for anyone else who had similar things happen to them

thank you for sharing yur story with us, and I am sure many of us can relate, sadly similar things happen to many many children and many many adults are struggling to lead happy productive lives despite their horrific childhoods.

this has been going on for centuries, it makes me wonder how long does it take for the hammer of justice to come down and start holding abusers accountable?

Im not an advocate of violence in any way shape or form.. but you know what, there was many times that i thought public horse whipping for abusers was nto a bad idea =(.

Yea i had a lot of rage too, i think we have a lot to be enraged about =(.

I once had to write a paper called  Who am I?

Asking a survivor to answer that question is like trying to get a answer to why am I here.

I know if i was not abused i would probably be a very different person, whether better or worse i do not know, but geez i sure would have liked the opportunity to find out.

Any way, today i am a product of my own making, not my abusers, sounds like you have gone the same route i did, I am so happy for you, for we are not a product of circumstance, we don't have to be, we can take what was freely given to us by God, our lives, and take back what was taken from us, and rewrite the chapters of our lives. A very liberating feeling for sure!

for those still struggling to pick up the spiritual pen and rewrite your lives, I hope you find the strength and courage to do so, and dont worry God is a forgiving editor hehe, he does not mind typos ;p.

I am so glad to be able to just sit here and write knowing that even if the rest of the world thinks im a confusing anomolie, that there are people who know exactly what i am saying lol =).

Hugs

Tammy

 

 

 

I'm 46 years old with 2 grown children.  One just graduated college, the other a sophomore.  In the

back of my confused and always hurting mind, this is where I wanted to get - to the point I knew they

could take care of themselves.  Now, they are there.  Now, I don't know what to do.  I'm so exhausted -

mentally & emotionally.  I'm so tired of just hanging by my fingernails to smile and make it through

another day with the intentions of no one seeing the memories in my mind and the pain that has

been brought on me.   Not by just one person, but by several.  Not just physical (rape by a trusted

family friend; slapped, hit and emotionally abused by my Mom and ex-husband), the list keeps going

on and on.  I can't help but believe that I allowed some of it.  I just wanted one person to say that

I'm not a bad person, that they loved me, that I was pretty.  But, now I know I'll never hear those words

and I'm okay with that.  I'll never be in another relationship and other than my brother, all of my family

has passed away.

That's how childhood abuse has affected me.  It takes away who you are and strips you of your very

soul; because you never understand the rage in the persons'  eyes as they swing at you - these

people that are supposed to love you and they hold your very heart in their hands, not want to kill

you with one snap of their hand on your neck.  My abuse started very young, but continued well into

my adult life.  I have paid for it dearly.  But, I won't go into that.

I have a plan, one that will make the pain, hurt and memories go away.  Somehow, just knowing

it's there, helps me in some morbid way.  Knowing I have an out.  Well, thanks for reading. R

What's your plan?  In your message, you seem to be hinting at suicide.  I hope I'm wrong.  I was abused too, but there are other ways to make the hurt and memories go away.  Suicide is a permanant solution to a temporary problem, and it would hurt your children more than you can imagine, no matter how old they are.  I'm 24, and fully capable of taking care of myself, and my own family, but I still need my mother.

Your life-long pain my not seem temporary, but compared to eternity, it's just a blink of the eye.  I know that your pain can be healed without ending your life, or any other "morbid" plan.  My relationship with Jesus Christ has changed everything for me.  I still have pain, but I also have someone to turn to when I think I can't handle it.  He tells me that I'm a good person, He loves me, and I'm not just pretty, but beautiful.  He feels the same way about you.  No one can strip your soul from you when you put it in His loving, healing hands.  Give Him the pieces of your broken heart, and He can make something more beautiful than you can imagine with it.

You're in my prayers.

Thanks for responding.  Yes, my plan is what you have thought it is.  But, I've pushed my

"feelings" so far back for so long & pretended they weren't there, I don't know what to feel

anymore.  At night I don't know whether to pray to wake up in the morning, or pray to not

wake up in the morning.  I understand you are capable of taking care of yourself & you need

your mother.  But, if I just get to where I can't hang on anymore, my kids don't need that in

their life -  they both have extraordinary futures facing them.  I took care of both parents and

two of my grandparents prior to each of their deaths.  Two of them were extremely hard to

take care of, plus it lasted years for both of them.  I have had no one to turn to all of my life,

and that's where I still am at in my life.  I'm at a dead end.  But there is so much more involved-

I'm not on drugs, or into anything "weird" I "just" suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and

major depression disorder, severe.

 

My last "goal" was to make it to my daughters' graduation.  I did, so I'm trying to decide where

to go from here, if anywhere.  I don't mean to sound so morbid, I'm just at that horrid place and

people that haven't been here don't get it by any means.

Thanks for your prayers.  I'll try to hang on.

 

I know you don't know me, and so have no reason to trust me, but if you can try to trust me anyway, let me tell you a few things.  You will not be sparing your children any pain by taking yourself out of their lives.  If it were their choice, they would rather take care of you than lose you.  You seem to think that your pain would be a hindrance to your children's bright futures.  My best friend lost her mom in a house fire more than ten years ago, and she's still struggling to overcome the depression, and suicidal thoughts.  And her mom didn't choose to leave her.

If you're all out of "goals" to keep living for, then make some new goals.  How about living to see your children get married, or living to hold your first grandchild?  These are special moments your children would want you to be present for.  Moments that will be bittersweet without you if you choose not to be there.

I can't claim to understand where you are, becuase I have not been suicidal.  I have been depressed, and I have been effected by suicide.  My older sister tried to commit suicide when I was 9.  All I can remember about that time is my mother crying for days.  It broke her heart.

I can understand what it's like to push all of your feelings aside and refuse to feel them.  My family didn't talk about problems or feelings, so instead of feeling something I couldn't handle or understand, I learned not to feel anything.  When I finally tried to talk about my feelings at the age of 19, I couldn't even begin because I didn't know how to identify any feeling.

You say that you have never had anyone to turn to.  If you had someone to turn to, would you?  It's sometimes easier to stay in your pain, than to venture into the unknown to try to get help.  Maybe you've gotten comfortable in your misery, but nothing will change unless you try to get better.  You CAN have a happy, fulfilling life, but it's not just going to drop into your lap as you huddle in the corner afraid to live.  If you're willing to turn to someone, you can turn to me.  You'd be better off turning to God, but if you're not ready or willing to do that, I'm here for you too.

Before I end this post, let me just urge you to try to find five things in your life that are worth living for.  I would think that your children are an obvious numbers one and two, but I think you can find more.  You might not realize it in the darkness of your pain, but you ARE blessed.  God DOES love you, and He has given you many wonderful things to be happy and grateful for.  I'm not saying that you have nothing to be sad about, but that you will only see what you focus on.  If you focus on the pain, that's all you'll feel.  Think of the good once in a while.

With continuing prayers,

Sarah

I was looking online for something to help me explain to you how to turn to God if and when you decide to do that.  This is the website for the church that I'm involved in.  I hope you'll go look at it and that it can help you.

 

http://www.ifaithhome.org/cwowi/salvation.html

 

With prayer,

Sarah

I appreciate the information as well as your concern.  At one time I had a deep faith, but, I guess

I allowed that to get knocked down as well.

 

I'm just so tired from the memories-the smells, the sounds, anything seems to trigger them these

days.  I had kept them locked down somewhere for all of my life until 2006, I don't know why

I started talking about them then.  It's been downhill ever since.  I have lost complete control

of "me".  I can't take it anymore- I'm so sad, so unbelievably ready for it all to stop.  If there was

a never been tried answer, I would be the first guinea pig.  I have reached out, and reached out

and end up at the same place.  I do everything that's asked of me and end up at the same place.

Something is just not working and I don't know what it is.  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe I'm

just done and my purpose has been served, I'm tired of thinking and trying.

 

I make myself get out of the house with or without panic attacks.  I make myself do things-

even things I hate doing, just to cooperate where people can't say I'm not trying.  And so my days

go.

Again, Sarah, thanks.

Renee'