[SkyWhite]

After sharing my child abuse story with my T last week, I was told it would be helpful to tell people I trust about it. This is supposedly to help me accept it better.

I arranged to meet my very best friend today who I've known since I was 14 (that's a lot of years). I told her I wanted to share my abuse story with her and explained why. She is very supportive because she saw first hand the terrible home life I had.

The problem is I'm now getting cold feet. My palms are sweaty right now and I'm thinking of cancelling our visit. I don't know why this is happening when I already shared everything with my T.

[MotownJohnny]

Is this something that was kept "hush-hush" in your family, your household growing up? I know with me, my father was a brute, but we had to present the image of "the perfect family" to the world. And, it was weird a little at first when I started to "tell people" what my life was like growing up. But, it rapidly became very much a cathartic thing with me, and I got over that fear rapidly - to the point I'm sure I made some people uncomfortable by "telling all". I think you definitely should try to talk about it with your best friend. She should be "safe" for you, understanding and concerned. Because, keeping it bottled up is no good.

[SkyWhite]

[QUOTE=MotownJohnny;3785762]Is this something that was kept "hush-hush" in your family, your household growing up? I know with me, my father was a brute, but we had to present the image of "the perfect family" to the world. QUOTE]

My mother was the main brute and was terrified I would tell people about her abuse. She kept me out of the hospital when I was extremely sick at 14 because she didn't want me to tell hospital staff she was a horrible mother. She was a nurse. When I asked her at 16 if I could see a psychiatrist because I was always depressed, she said children didn't see psychiatrists! She didn't want me to spill the beans to anyone in the medical comm. Yes, there was a lot of hush, hush. Since I was very young the message was "never tell, never tell."

She's dead but when I told my story to my T and now want to tell it to my friend I have this weird thought she's going to come back from the dead and kill me. That's so irrational!

[Parley]

Good friends are hard to come by and if you choose not to talk about it, I bet your friend will still welcome the visit.

[tinyrabbit]

It's hard sharing things. Maybe start small and just talk a little bit, rather than trying to get it all out at once?

[Open Eyes]

You are getting cold feet because you were constantly told not to tell. And your feeling your mother will somehow still get mad is something you need to finally "free" yourself from. The more "validation" you get the more you will "heal".

(((Hugs)))
OE

[SkyWhite]

I erred on the side of caution and decided to meet up with her on Friday. Working through this has made realize how terribly frightened I still am of my mother and she's been dead for 13 years!

[Parley]

That bites but I would probably do the same. I'm good at changing my mind.

I hope you meet Friday~ even if you don't want to talk about your mother. Maybe try meeting in spite of your mother? or is that considered unhealthy? If you and your friend met when you were 14, I bet a lot of togethers were ruined in your younger years. Old habits die hard.

[SkyWhite]

Originally Posted by Parley

That bites but I would probably do the same. I'm good at changing my mind.

I hope you meet Friday~ even if you don't want to talk about your mother. Maybe try meeting in spite of your mother? or is that considered unhealthy? If you and your friend met when you were 14, I bet a lot of togethers were ruined in your younger years. Old habits die hard.

My friend suggested we meet up on Friday and I can decide than what I'm comfortable talking about.

I never thought of the ruined meet ups and it's true, my mom didn't like my friend because I was going out with her cousin who my mom didn't approve of. That was an incredibly difficult point in my life. That's when I started cutting.

Boy, there's a lot of s*** coming up for me in this thread.

[JaneC]

I can understand skywhite

Each time I would say something bad about my mother, even on here, I would feel instantly guilty and anxious. Worried she'd hear or that something bad would happen. I am going to face all of that again soon. It is hard......but I think by talking about it more often, as you are able, it helps to take some of the power out of it.

Kind to you.

[SkyWhite]

Originally Posted by JaneC

I can understand skywhite

Each time I would say something bad about my mother, even on here, I would feel instantly guilty and anxious. Worried she'd hear or that something bad would happen. I am going to face all of that again soon. It is hard......but I think by talking about it more often, as you are able, it helps to take some of the power out of it.

Kind to you.

Since gaining these insights on this thread, I've decided to really work on realizing that my MOM CAN'T HURT ME ANYMORE. She is dead, gone, it's over. She can't come back from the dead and yell at me and hit me. She is F**KING DEAD! Do you hear that mom? You're dead and I'm not....ha, ha.

I'm going to journal this today and really get it all out. Don't want to do that here because you'll all think I've gone mad.

[Open Eyes]

((Skywhite)),

It's ok to have an open journal here, we are not going to think you are mad, and what you may get that you need is "validations" that was absent for you before. Or, you can have a journal and share here the different things you either struggle with, or just hit a dead end with too and get frustrated and could end up having some input that breaks you free from whatever that road block is so you can keep gaining on your healing.

(((Supportive Hugs)))
OE

[SkyWhite]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

((Skywhite)),

It's ok to have an open journal here, we are not going to think you are mad, and what you may get that you need is "validations" that was absent for you before. Or, you can have a journal and share here the different things you either struggle with, or just hit a dead end with too and get frustrated and could end up having some input that breaks you free from whatever that road block is so you can keep gaining on your healing.

(((Supportive Hugs)))
OE

Well, I wrote my "mother" a 4 page angry letter today. It was filled with profanities I wouldn't even let my T see. It was interesting what happened. I'm writing like, your this your that. Than I started saying how she never appreciated the beautiful little baby girl she had. And what a good natured and happy little girl I was. And what an intelligent and talented teenager and young woman I became. I was going on and on how she didn't deserve me. And I started thinking as I'm writing, "F**k yah, I was a great daughter, a daughter any normal woman would have been proud to call her own and how she missed out big time by verbally, emotionally and physically abusing me and neglecting me and locking me in a f**king pot cupboard when she didn't want to be bothered with me.

Anyhow, all this positive stuff I was saying about myself made me feel better and stronger, because I began realizing it was all true. I was a good kid and I would have cared for her when she was sick and would have cried at her deathbed instead of wishing she'd hurry up and die (sounds horrible, but it is what it is and I'm not going to be ashamed).

I felt stronger after I finished and was starting to direct my anger to where it should be directed, at her, instead of myself. Saying all the positive things about myself made me feel good.

Tomorrow I'm going to have a little ceremony under my favorite tree in my yard and burn the angry letters and the stuff about her I read to my T. And then, I'm going to drive to the river and through the ashes in the river to get washed away from my life.

Funny how things turn out.

[Werewoman]

Wow SkyWhite, you truly amaze me!

My mom is the monster in my life too, and unfortunately, she's still alive. I don't feel the least bit guilty for feeling that way, either.

I was 40 years old before I told anyone, though many people knew there was something 'not quite right' about her. Part of the reason I kept quiet for so long was abject terror that this time she really would kill me, but a bigger part of the reason was that by telling someone, it made it all real - every single living nightmare becomes real. Once the truth comes out, it becomes impossible to ignore it any more.

I think you're doing great! Keep it up!

[Hellion]

It can be helpful to tell people you trust who will be supportive, but only you can know when you are ready to talk about it with someone...sometimes talking too much about it at once can just be too overwhelming. You could maybe try still having the visit and just tell her a more basic version of what happened like you could leave out some of the more painful/difficult details or anything you're not comfortable going into detail about.

[SkyWhite]

Originally Posted by Werewoman

Part of the reason I kept quiet for so long was abject terror that this time she really would kill me, but a bigger part of the reason was that by telling someone, it made it all real - every single living nightmare becomes real. Once the truth comes out, it becomes impossible to ignore it any more.

I thought she would kill me, too, and she's dead. That's how terrified I was of her. I'm still apprehensive, but I don't think the fear goes away over night. I had this insane thought that she would come back as a ghost and punish me!

Yes, the truth is a nightmare, but telling the right people can bring me peace I think.

[Werewoman]

Don't be surprised when you do talk to your friend - she may already know more than she's been letting on and has been waiting for you to be ready to talk about it. That's what my best friend since 8th grade did, and that is why she is still my best friend and always will be!

[SkyWhite]

Update: I shared my whole story with my friend and she wasn't surprised one bit, although she did seem a little overwhelmed. I got her full support. We talked for 3 hour about all kinds of stuff, not just my s***. It was one of the best visits we had in a long time. Just for "fun," as I was driving her home, we went past the house I grew up in. It has been fixed up and looked a bit different, but when I saw the back door open it triggered me. I was ok but that was probably a dumb thing to do.

[Open Eyes]

(((SkyWhite)),

I am glad you ended up having good support from your friend. You really did deserve that, it was long overdue.

It was a good idea to write everything out, express the anger you have storred up, anger is an emotion that really pumps adrenaline into the body, so I bet you felt like running around or getting physical somehow.

Yes, you were a good child and your mother didn't appreciate you. However, what that really meant was that your mother simply could not tap onto her emotions. She locked you up or hit you because she could only get frustrated or angry, and really did not know how to fill your emotional needs, could be and often is because a parent did not have that themselves.

A parent will feel, "oh, my child doesn't love me, must be something genetic. Well, what these parents don't realize is that while sometimes it is because of Aspergers or another disorder that disconnects a child from their emotions (except for anger), it can also be that the mother is not "emotionally available" and is missing the "nurturing needs" of her child and isn't really connecting. Sitting and cuddling and reading a story is a good way to connect "emotionally" to a child, I began doing that when my daughter was an infant. Children's stories tend to have "emotional" things in them that are "age appropriate" and therefore the child and mother can follow along with the emotions that are being shared in the book. I can remember my daughter's favorite story, "Panda Bear's Paintbox", and while we read other stories, we always had to read that one too.

Oh, my daughter used to have to walk half in front of me and I found it annoying because I almost kept tripping over her. One day I got frustrated and told her to stop walking in front of me and why do you do that? She looked up at me and said, "That is because I love you mommy and I like to be as close as I can". Awww, I never expected that and felt bad I was sort of scolding her.

So, while you review what your mother did not provide and how she hit you or emotionally abused you, it is also important to see if you can get the "why" and if you look, the answer is usually there, only that child part of you didn't know what it meant. When you get these emotional pieces expressed and see some of the whys, it will relieve bad dreams which come from trying to process at night and struggling with that emotional part of "resolving".

Yes that little girl did deserve to be loved and nurtured better, all little girls deserve that, but not all little girls get that need met. The same thing also can happen to little boys too, and many of them block of their emotions too, yet become abusers because they are so uncomfortable with emotions or they may be too needy or lost and don't understand "why".

Complex PTSD, and most PTSD has a lot to do with the emotional part of the brain, not the intellectual processing part. There tends to be anger, fear, tears, and deep feelings on unworthiness involved. People who develop PTSD want to "not feel" again, to remember how to "block it out" like they used to. When we used the processing thinking part of our brains, for example concentrating on math, we disconnect from our emotional part of the brain, many things we do that may seem OCD almost, are functions that distract from our emotional/empathetic part of our brain. That is why those with Asperger's tend to be drawn to math and some are high functioning, however, they cannot connect to their emotional part of the brain, and yet they experience one emotion, anger or have a rage. It depends on the degree of autism that presents itself. Also I believe Schizoaffective disorder struggles with the emotional too, they often abhor cuddling or showing affection both giving and receiving.

So, now you are resolving your "emotional" challenges, getting much needed validations, and the Ghost of your mother will only be the confused part of your emotional mind that you can have validated and learn to understand better and grieve with the help of your therapist.

((Supportive Hugs)))
OE

[SkyWhite]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Complex PTSD, and most PTSD has a lot to do with the emotional part of the brain, not the intellectual processing part. There tends to be anger, fear, tears, and deep feelings on unworthiness involved. People who develop PTSD want to "not feel" again, to remember how to "block it out" like they used to. When we used the processing thinking part of our brains, for example concentrating on math, we disconnect from our emotional part of the brain, many things we do that may seem OCD almost, are functions that distract from our emotional/empathetic part of our brain. OE

I'm terrible at math but my sister loves it and is very disconnected from her emotions. We're 9 years apart and even as a kid I felt she was somehow lacking in the emotions dept. We both enjoyed Star Trek and she told me many times she wished she could be like Spock! I loved Cap. Kirk...lol. She and I are complete opposites. She's terrified to admit she has painful emotions and she can't express them. But she used to get very OCD when she was really upset back when her kids were small. She had the cleanest kitchen floor in the neighborhood! There is no way in hell I can tell her about my emotional problems because she just doesn't get it. She sees me as weak and mentally sick because I express my emotions and see a therapist. She doesn't come right out and say it but I feel it. She can be a warm individual, but when things get to close to the bone, she shuts down.

I'm definitely not saying people who love science and math are disconnected from their emotions, but in my sister's case it seems to be the case.

[Parley]

Originally Posted by SkyWhite

There is no way in hell I can tell her about my emotional problems because she just doesn't get it. She sees me as weak and mentally sick because I express my emotions and see a therapist. She doesn't come right out and say it but I feel it. She can be a warm individual, but when things get to close to the bone, she shuts down.

That's sad that you two can't talk about your family but I don't talk to my sisters too often about their issues. I am the one accused of shutting down but I see things differently. My sister is on medication and I've taken her to her therapist. I'm sure I wouldn't be told about my sisters issues if she didn't need someone dependable once in a while to lean on. she's had a lot of medical issues as well. And yes, she knows if I am spending the night, I'm probably going to scrub her floors. lol I guess I'm wondering if your sister is an introvert and doesn't really shut down.

Thanks for the update about your visit. I don't think visiting your old home was a mistake but I'm not a therapist and your therapist has you talking to your friends so I'd go with her advice.

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by SkyWhite

I'm terrible at math but my sister loves it and is very disconnected from her emotions. We're 9 years apart and even as a kid I felt she was somehow lacking in the emotions dept. We both enjoyed Star Trek and she told me many times she wished she could be like Spock! I loved Cap. Kirk...lol. She and I are complete opposites. She's terrified to admit she has painful emotions and she can't express them. But she used to get very OCD when she was really upset back when her kids were small. She had the cleanest kitchen floor in the neighborhood! There is no way in hell I can tell her about my emotional problems because she just doesn't get it. She sees me as weak and mentally sick because I express my emotions and see a therapist. She doesn't come right out and say it but I feel it. She can be a warm individual, but when things get to close to the bone, she shuts down.

I'm definitely not saying people who love science and math are disconnected from their emotions, but in my sister's case it seems to be the case.

Yes, your sister got obsessive about cleaning etc, because it distracted her from her emotions. You both had the same mother remember.

No, she is not going to be able to help you emotionally, she will look for any excuse not to go there. I had that with my older sister.

To get "support" with the emotional challenge with PTSD, you need to be around someone who understands it or can validate emotions. A lot of people
unknowingly shut their emotions off and distract themselves. They tell you to,
"just don't think about it, just stop dwelling, just get over it etc, etc.", they "avoid" and don't even realize it.

A lot of people genuinely do not know how to be "empathetic", it is too emotionally risky for them.


OE

[Parley]

Edited to say never mind~ it's not important.

[SkyWhite]

Here's the deal with my sister. She's sick, she needs help, and she'll never try to get it. Because we had the same mother, I do feel compassion for her. However, because she has said hurtful things to me over the years and used me as an emotional punching bag by lamenting how hard her life has been, I can't have her around me. She can't let go of the past and is bitter, bitter, bitter. I think the only emotion she can really express is bitterness.

Anytime I've tried to make peace with my past, she reminds me of what was done to me growing up that triggers me. When I told her once that I was confident my bros loved me, she told me they didn't! Ten years after my divorce I told her I didn't have any bad feelings about my ex. She proceeded to tell me she found out that he was having an affair while we were still married. That was BS and even if it wasn't, why tell me ten years later when I'm at peace with him. When I'm feeling good, she'll bring me down with any kind of BS she can dream of or just be outright f**king mean. It's like she doesn't want me to get well or find peace. What she did 2 months ago put me over the edge. She kept insisting her abuse was worse and my mental illness was only caused by some genetic brain thing. I was so triggered by that I drank myself silly and emailed my T @ 3a.m because I felt so lonely. She acts like we're in some kind of contest about who got abused worse or tries to imply I wasn't abused. I can't talk to her. She doesn't want me to get well. She is so much like my mother in a lot of ways. Rather than be happy for me, she wants me beneath her. She's a real mind f**ker for sure.

I haven't talked to her in 2 months. I won't call her and she hasn't called me. Until she gets help, I can't be around her. And I know she'll never get help.

[Parley]

wow~ what she said about your ex was mean spirited. My sisters and I don't treat each other like that but my trauma had nothing to do with my family and that probably helps because we have different needs.

My sisters are a bit hateful though and I know that was from our family dysfunction. It makes it hard because when I am around them I find myself grateful for my trauma and that makes me sick!

I think its great that you have learning to take care of yourself and hopefully your sister will learn to take care of her needs as well.