Stuck in fear

Hi there,

I've been dealing with PTSD, dissociation, social anxiety and other related issues for years. I still find myself stuck in fear.

After a lot of work in therapy and on my own, I've finally been able to determine that what I fear is that 'my dad will come and hit me'. I left home years ago but this fear remains unresolved for me, and it's spilling into every interaction with people that I face! This is really making my life very hard..

When I ask myself 'What do I need to get past this' I hear 'someone to tell me that YES, bad people DO exist, but not everyone is like that'. Could someone confirm this for me? Sometimes, I just need to hear these bits of wisdom from someone other than myself..

Hi ((n.d.y)),

Good that you have figured out a core issue that you struggle with. When abuse like this takes place in one's history with a parent, it really can leave very deep challenges, especially in trusting others and also in trusting self to be equiped in how to be personally strong and confident around others. Therapy is helping you identify your core issue/hurt , the therapist is there to validate/witness with you that "yes" what your father did was wrong and you did not understand how to deal with it. However, you did find a way to remove him from your life. The "key" to gaining and slowly empowering yourself instead of thinking of yourself as one who is not able to be strong that has the ability to defend your personal boundaries, is to recognize your "hurts" and then work on building up an inner language where you gain on your ability to "self sooth and self empower".

Also, learning to recognize that when a parent or anyone is abusive verbally or physically, they are showing you their own lack of having good communication skills with others. People interact the way they "know how", if someone is abusive, that is all they "know" how to be because they themselves did not get what they needed to develop good people/relationship skills.

When we are children we are designed to look to our parents for nuturing and guidance.
So many who grow up with a parent that doesn't have good parenting skills/knowledge, make the mistake of feeling like it is "their fault" when the parents don't "know how" to be a good parent. That is like having someone teach you to read when they themselves don't really know how read and then they get angry and tell you it's your fault if you are not able to read, it's was never you that did anything wrong, it was the other person, understand?

To answer your question, yes, there are people out there in the world that do know how to be nicer/healthier people. There are also people out there in the world that "don't" know how, no one spent time with them and helped them develop that skill and personal confidence or to have the ability to respect others.

Hi. It sounds like you're talking about validation. Have you had any contact with your father or someone that reminded you of him that might have triggered you?

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Its hard to learn that there are nice , normal decent people in the world when that's not what we experienced early on. But its true - they are out there , and they can be found

Hi all. I'm new to the forum.

I think most people are nice and decent. But everyone has their buttons, have bad days, have biases, etc.

I've always been "different," kind of geeky (and it's only cool for men to be geeky nowadays, not women) with ADD so I even think differently. People who are different can bring out the worst in otherwise nice, decent people and my experiences with this has caused a lot of social anxiety in me. I too struggle with past abuse from family, but it's exacerbated by my past experiences with how badly otherwise nice people can treat a "square peg." It's not enough for me to tell myself that "this person I'm trying to connect with isn't my alcoholic mother." People are just so unpredictable, in general.

-Ceara1010