[PinkPearl]

I've been having a rough time with memories from my childhood. They felt traumatic to me but I tend to doubt myself and think I'm making a big deal out of something not very significant. And I'm 42 yrs old so I have to ask myself why I'm still dwelling on it. I suppose it doesn't help that my family will never admit to any wrongdoing. I stopped arguing with them about it long ago.

Anyway, everything came flooding back the other day. I don't know why. My older brother tormented me greatly as a child, beating up in me viciously - In my opinion not your typical sibling rivalry and fighting but abuse. He has issues of his own - Still very volatile (tried to push me out of his truck several years back). As a kid, I told my parents what he was doing when they left us at home alone and asked them not to leave us alone together, but they did nothing. My mother and brother fought as well, kicking and hitting each other up and down the hallway, and I usually had to watch it because my bedroom was right off the middle of the hallway and I wasn't allowed to close my door. My father would retreat to the basement when this stuff was happening, checking out even though he could hear the yelling and stomping and banging. A few times he finally lost it and came upstairs in a rage. When my brother was in junior high, my parents sent him to karate classes, thinking it might be positive for him, and he got his black belt. He used his karate on me frequently and I had to learn to block his kicks and hits. My mother was psychologically abusive as well.

I went to Catholic school and they tried to brush everything under the rug - didn't want to involve the authorities - until one of my teachers in high school threatened to report the abuse, if you can call it that. They sent me to the school librarian's home for two weeks and had my parents agree to two family therapy sessions, which were a joke. My mother snowed over the therapist - She was always anxious for everyone outside our home to think we were the perfect family. I'll never forget - it just sticks in my mind - that my parents delivered my clothes and personal items to me in a big plastic trash bag when the school asked them to bring what I'd need those two weeks. It feels symbolic.

I tried from junior high onward, btw, to be the perfect child. My parents loved that I got straight A's and won lots of awards and went on to an Ivy League school with scholarships, but the abuse never stopped. Also, I think my mom has bipolar like me - She has a huge shopping addiction and is generally impossible to deal with, but she's not treated. She drives me and my husband nuts because she doesn't respect our wishes where our kids are concerned.

I do have a great therapist but sometimes I just need some extra support. I can't stop thinking I'm overreacting or remembering things wrong,

[Open Eyes]

Hi PinkPearl, I am sorry you are having these intrusive memories come forward like this.
It does sound like you were stressed and your sense of safety was compromised and you did not get validated and protected as you had deserved.

Often these experiences don't come forward like this until a person gets older and can better process them, has more capacity and life experience to finally sort these troubling challenges out. You need not feel guilty or wrong for having these memories either, a lot of people at one point or another will get older and refect on their past and try to make peace with some of the life challenges they had, nothing to be ashamed of. Don't worry about over reacting either, you remember what you remember, and what is more important is just working through it, mourning whatever you feel you lost because of it, and finally just storing it and accepting that you managed to move forward in spite of it.

((Caring Hugs))
OE

[PinkPearl]

Thank you, Open Eyes. You have it right I think. My therapist thinks I need to really feel and acknowledge my anger - Right now I'm questioning myself and beating up in myself and stuffing all the anger down. Wish I could be as compassionate to myself as I am to others. Take care and many thanks for your compassion and insight.

[CrimsonBlues]

Originally Posted by PinkPearl

I've been having a rough time with memories from my childhood. They felt traumatic to me but I tend to doubt myself and think I'm making a big deal out of something not very significant. And I'm 42 yrs old so I have to ask myself why I'm still dwelling on it. I suppose it doesn't help that my family will never admit to any wrongdoing. I stopped arguing with them about it long ago.

Anyway, everything came flooding back the other day. I don't know why. My older brother tormented me greatly as a child, beating up in me viciously - In my opinion not your typical sibling rivalry and fighting but abuse. He has issues of his own - Still very volatile (tried to push me out of his truck several years back). As a kid, I told my parents what he was doing when they left us at home alone and asked them not to leave us alone together, but they did nothing. My mother and brother fought as well, kicking and hitting each other up and down the hallway, and I usually had to watch it because my bedroom was right off the middle of the hallway and I wasn't allowed to close my door. My father would retreat to the basement when this stuff was happening, checking out even though he could hear the yelling and stomping and banging. A few times he finally lost it and came upstairs in a rage. When my brother was in junior high, my parents sent him to karate classes, thinking it might be positive for him, and he got his black belt. He used his karate on me frequently and I had to learn to block his kicks and hits. My mother was psychologically abusive as well.

I went to Catholic school and they tried to brush everything under the rug - didn't want to involve the authorities - until one of my teachers in high school threatened to report the abuse, if you can call it that. They sent me to the school librarian's home for two weeks and had my parents agree to two family therapy sessions, which were a joke. My mother snowed over the therapist - She was always anxious for everyone outside our home to think we were the perfect family. I'll never forget - it just sticks in my mind - that my parents delivered my clothes and personal items to me in a big plastic trash bag when the school asked them to bring what I'd need those two weeks. It feels symbolic.

I tried from junior high onward, btw, to be the perfect child. My parents loved that I got straight A's and won lots of awards and went on to an Ivy League school with scholarships, but the abuse never stopped. Also, I think my mom has bipolar like me - She has a huge shopping addiction and is generally impossible to deal with, but she's not treated. She drives me and my husband nuts because she doesn't respect our wishes where our kids are concerned.

I do have a great therapist but sometimes I just need some extra support. I can't stop thinking I'm overreacting or remembering things wrong,

Hello PinkPearl-

I was struck by some of the similarities in what you wrote and my own experiences. I too was tortured by my older brother and he too used what he learned in his self defense class on me. He was always held in high regard by my parents and when I tried to get help from them I was usually not believed or told that I must have done something to cause what happened. The only time they believed me was when they could see an obvious injury. He hurt me in many ways but one of the things that upset me the most was how my parents responded, or didn't respond, to me. I blamed myself for all the things he did to me, all the ways he hurt me. Even now, with all that I have learned, I still have a tendency to blame myself-for what happened with my brother and everything that goes wrong.

I can empathize with you and I want you to know you are not overreacting. You are not alone and I wish you all the best in your healing journey.

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by PinkPearl

Thank you, Open Eyes. You have it right I think. My therapist thinks I need to really feel and acknowledge my anger - Right now I'm questioning myself and beating up in myself and stuffing all the anger down. Wish I could be as compassionate to myself as I am to others. Take care and many thanks for your compassion and insight.

Unfortunately, many who struggle with being "kind to self" have been somehow taught to self punish. So, you need to slowly learn "how" to be kinder to yourself as you are with others. You may be more forgiving with others because you know what it is like to struggle, you need to slowly learn how to do that for yourself too. Having these memories is actually showing you "where" you have been hurt and what it meant to you in ways you did not realize until recently.

It is like paddling down a long river with challenging things along the way, things you had no experience with before and you did your best to get through each one. After a while as you are gaining in your experience of the journey, you will have a much better understanding of how to address these kind of challenges. You are at the point where you are looking back on some of the challenges and with so much more experience can see these challenges in a very different way. Some of the obstacles may feel scarey looking back too, it doesn't matter if you are remembering it exactly right, just that you are upset right now and you just need to work through whatever it is and "heal".