[VanGore28]

ive not had a proper relationship for four years now, had too much on my plate. I don't know quite where to start and if anyone will follow a big long post. But I ended up with a really possessive sometimes controlling person. I got really ill at eighteen and my mental health problems wreaked havoc.
I was with a man who wouldn't let me leave basically. I told him I didnt love him, but he used to say that I was lucky to have someone like him and I needed him to look after me. I lost all my friends and he was the only person who stuck around, I used to do the I hate u, but don't leave routine. I just wanted a friend I could rely on. But with him it was all or nothing and It was just a downward spiral. Its so hard to think back and how much I relied on a person yet despised them at same time. Everyone thought he was a saint that's why I stayed, fear, id lost my zest for life, just a shadow.....

We will listen to what you want to share.

Are you ready to put yourself out there with someone? Do you see a therapist?

I really hope you share more...it's a terrible thing to have your self-esteem broken at such a young age.

Hugs. Post. Hang on.

[VanGore28]

Thanks sopiesmom!
I would like to share some of my story even though its difficult and is like opening up an old wound.
I'm ready to hold out for someone special, I think I could handle a date.

So I will have to go back and forth but I never had a supportive family growing up. My mum preferred my brother and hated my biological father, I felt they both just used me as a pawn to get back at one another. I was ashamed of my father as he never worked all time I knew him, he had underlying depression most likely he lived in the past and felt sorry for himself had an inferiority complex. When I got my first full time job he just sneered and criticised me saying it was a lazy option so we fell out.
My mother had a fiery temper. Ill always remember when I got my exam results and she just ignored me. Her and my step dad tried to get me to join the army at sixteen . A teacher told them to save for university and they told me to **** off to the forces as I should thank them for putting a roof over my head. So u can deduce emotionally I never got what I needed . They drunk in the pub four times a night and never had money for me or sibling.
I had some fighting spirit in me and held onto the fact that one day I might be something despite the VERBAL ABUSE I endured. Its sometimes harder to shake verbal abuse. I have stories to tell but this is an intro. I need to go meeting friend but I will carry on later.
Thanks for the encouragement sophiesmom!

[VanGore28]

My bipolar symptoms began when I was 16/17. I scraped by though. People left me alone because I was supposedly intelligent. I grew up believing I was poor, I still harbour a resentfulness for my mum. That I really need to work on but i would have to speak to therapist without her as i also don't want to upset her. well saying that i cant hate her that much if i care about that. She would buy my brother clothes saying boys needed more .and when my bro got nits she said that i had them too but just the eggs just so her blue eyed boy wasn't victimised, of course its impossible to have just had eggs without insects and i knew she lied and it was an awful thing to do to me.
When i got school reports they would pick out the bad parts, and use them as ammunition. Oh your so brainy you can figure out how to get a new school jumper etc. You think your so perfect (i was a straight a student) they never praised me, never got pocket money and only enough lunch money for two days. My mum laughed at me when i said i wanted to be a teacher.
We went on one sunny holiday and my mum got so drunk and yelled at me non stop for not being grateful and a Glaswegian came upstairs and told her to leave me alone and hit her with a baseball bat!
My next door neighbour would come in asking if we wanted anything from macdonalds and my mum would say i didn't deserve anything and get herself a large banana milkshake.
She never stuck up for me when i fell out with a friend and her mum phoned. She said i was for certain no angel and it was prob all me. I wasn't a trouble maker, i was really quiet.
I guess i better mention my step dad. Well he treated me and my brother the same. But he could be an ***. He was beyond strict, and woukld hit us and had a short temper. He was self centred. But its my mum who hurt me more, she was never supportive, or there for me.
When i fell ill at eighteen do you know what he said?? He said it was a shame i hadn't got ill sooner, at least my we could have put her into care! He didn't think people who went to psyche wards ever got better, how ignorant. He also said while drunk that in hospital i reminded him of a "pitiful" excuse for a human being. But ive found a way to forgive him, but not my mum i don't know.
She always told me to ask my unemployed dad for things when i needed them (a schoolbag, trainers, etc.) he obviously had no money! It was such a humiliating ritual. In high school she gave me ten pounds to buy uniform. So i ended up with couple of tea shirts n old gear, that's about all i got in an entire year.
Once my real dad realised i wasn't going to be a scientist he couldn't give a flying monkeys about me. I was an intelligent kid and i was expected to do well. My mums like, its no wonder he doesn't want to know theres something wrong with her now. Treating me like a defective piece of machinery

okay i need a breather

[VanGore28]

Henceforth i became SELF DESTRUCTIVE, self sabotage u name it

So at 17 i ended up in a really risky sexual episode. It was part rebelling, part of me being self destructive, part because my friends bullied me for being a virgin. My friends always had their own agendas so we often split up. So i got speaking to a co-worker. He offered me a lift, we went back to another guys house. I was drunk and mentally messed up. Had sex with one guy and he said will you give my friend a shot. And reality hit, what did i just do, I'm in danger. But too late. This gut tried to force me into things but i was strong and i was a blackbelt so i fended him off and they let me be. I was so drunk id pissed the bed while having sex, i used to get in such terrible messes with alcohol. No drugs thank god. But word went round that id willingly participated in an orgy and the guy had actually recorded us having sex and i didn't know. Soemone said i should have jumped out the car. I was screwed up and this just made everything worse. One "friend" ahem, took great joy in calling me naïve saying i had a lucky escape. Where about six years later some guy went past me in the pub and shouted "slut" in my ear. This was partly why i left my possessive boyfriend and moved away.

I hope i don't get judged for this. But i don't want pity either.

And no my drink was not spiked. Was alcohol and one ecstacy tablet. I didn't tell the police i was raped even though i was deeply ashamed of my actions like many girls do. And i feel no resentment to theses guys who obviously have wonky moral compasses

[VanGore28]

I was on a slippery sloop downwards which ended in "ward 4" (psyche ward) as id had a psychotic breakdown at eighteen. The only person who stuck by without judging me was my then boyfriend, ill call him freddy.
I did some crazy things. Ending in a suicide scrawl over my bedroom wall. I was going to hang myself. For some reason i had some kind of defence mechanisms kicking in. The nurses would leave my meds at the sink, as if they were scared of me. I was now officialy dubbed a "psycho"

People told my boyfriend i wasn't worth it, run a mile, think what people will say. My doctor thankfully never diagnosed me as a schizophrenic. My parents think i am bi polar to this day, i doubt ill ever tell them. The doctor was actually very nice, and I'm thankful it was her, but they seemed to forget i was an adult.

So my life has been a chaotic mess for ten years. I don't know how i ever managed to be lucid

[VanGore28]

My boyfriend, and i spent every night together after that. I longed for freedom and independence, for friends, for a future with a proper career but here i was at he helm of my demons trapped in the humdrum.
I met with some friends every Friday at a pub, a bit of a dive really but i wasn't close to them and we eventually drifted apart. From then on i spent time with my boyfriends friends but he burned his bridges with them, as they must have been wary of me. I tried to make him keep in touch, as i knew how much i was lost without friends. He had a big family so we spent a lot of time visiting and hanging out with them. It was enough to keep me going.
Meanwhile i was speaking to girls online. Lying that i had a decent job. I read all the time, on a mission,
He had no trouble convincing me that my parents really didn't care about me. So i broke away from them. i was unbearably lonely and i escaped into books, music.
Me with my health problems made the power dynamic in our relationship all wrong. I was dismissed from three jobs, before my trial was up. Then i was offered a job from employer who dismissed me in a different role. I sustained this for four years. I'm grateful for that women to this day. even though she said i was difficult. They wondered why i never went to university like the world was my oyster cause i was young.

I moved in with my boyfriend at 21. We bought a house. I never earned enough to be on the mortgage. And he changed.
We fought all the time. So one day he took a newspaper home with an article about a women abusing her husband and hit my face saying that's you. When he was the controlling one.
I took an overdose, as i needed a way out of this cage that had engulfed me. I tried to get away from him, but my parents used my bedroom for something else and never said i was welcome back well hed turned me against them - coerced me to, i know I'm part of it.

I had no one

I understand perfectly about non-physical abuse... The ideas that parents put into your head are indeed damaging. They are what makes us who we are today.
It took me much longer than you to connect my dots. I applaud you for figuring it out and, so, making steps to overcome it.

You're doing an amazing job at looking at your life with compassion and objectivity.

This last relationship you were in seems to have served as your life changing event....

[Rose76]

When it comes to parents, it's a lottery. You had a losing ticket. If you can possibly avoid it, don't move back in with them. Develop a plan to make yourself self-supporting. Nothing gives self-esteem a bigger lift than knowing you can take care of you.

I disagree with the notion that we need to forgive those who've hurt us in order to make ourselves whole. Mainly, we need to reduce how much time we spend mentally re-living the abuse and neglect. Scale back on that. There were issues in their own lives that made your parents the miserable creatures they became. It probably goes back generations. Learning the dynamics of that might help you step back and see them with eyes less clouded by emotion. That doesn't mean you have to be where they dump their personal angst. You have no obligation whatsoever to make yourself available to them, so they can mistreat you.

Do all you can to get away from them and stay away from them. Don't rely on some guy to provide you with refuge. As you've experienced, that can be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

You may be eligible for some income support on the basis of your psych history. Keep in touch with a source of psych treatment. If you are prescribed medication, take it. Build a paper trail documenting that you struggle with emotional issues. I'm not a big believer in psych labels, but a psychiatrist has to give you one. And it should come from a psychiatrist, not just a therapist. With the amount of adversity that you have to overcome, you will - from time to time - have periods of feeling overwhelmed or devastated or unable to cope. You want that documented.

But you will have your victories also. You're intelligent. You extricated yourself from a terrible relationship. You have an ability to make friends. (Choose them with care.) Do not go moving in with another guy, until after you have known him for at least a year.

Your parents were rotten to you. You have a right to assert that and have that validated. They are never going to be sorry. They are never going to make up to you for the past. (Maybe your dad is kinda of sorry, but I wouldn't be too impressed with his remorse.)

If you are still living with your parents, you have to put up an invisible psychic shield around yourself. But living with these two will always be toxic for you. I might go to a homeless shelter first.

Men who are abusive can identify women who have been abused. It's like you have a neon sign on your forehead, saying "I'm used to being crapped on." So be very skeptical of why a man takes an interest in you.

If you can possibly get into a vocational training program, it might help you unlock your potential that has been been stifled. Going part-time might be best. I think partial hospitalization programs can be very helpful. (I got a lot out of one.) Then there are Psychsocial rehab programs, though they tend to focus on clients who are functioning at a pretty low level.

You have a lot of psychic wounding to heal from. Don't dwell on the pain of the past. It was what it was. Don't let it define you.

[MickeyCheeky]

Hey.. remember that we're here to help

[VanGore28]

I only have a psychiatrist . I wish I had a shrink or counsellor to sort out my past as I cant shake the memories

My psychiatrist put me to a shrink but he left and the next one I got was female and I found it hard to open up. I think it has to do with my mother. I've always been more comfortable around guys. I mistrust women even though I'm a gay girl. So I stopped seeing her. One because I was working and it was too hard to juggle the "homework" she gave me, and I maybe wasn't quite ready to reveal what makes me a "troubled" person.

I have spent more than my fair shy of time in a psyche ward believe me. I was under a section for seven months as I had "suicidal ideation." I will ask my psychiatrist if I can be re referred to the shrink, ive nothing to lose by asking.Even if I have to wait ages.

I did see a private counsellor. She was first person that I actually said out loud "I'm gay." This has taken a back seat in my problems list none the less (nervous laugh)

[Rose76]

Im glad you have a psychiatrist following you. You really deserve to be referred to a therapist, and you should have the right to specify the gender you are comfortable with. Sometimes, it takes a number of false starts before you are ready to work well with a T.

[VanGore28]

Am I a terrible person? Someone reassure me
I was with a person for six years even though deep down I knew I was gay.
When I fell ill I told them I didn't want to be with them, but they persisted.
I needed sum1 at the time, who was always there for me not judging me.
But I tried to break up with them, after a few years, I was speaking to girls online, but they tried to say I was ill again and I would never find someone like them, I was lucky they stayed and they made me feel indebted to them. So for six years I felt like I owed them something. Its like some Chinese proverb where the person who saved your life becomes your slave. Except he never saved me, just isolated me even more.

So am I the bad one, for living a lie/a charade knowing I was gay??

[Erebos]

Your not/werent a bad person. You were trying to survive in a terrible situation. When your drowning you cling to anything to stay afloat. You kid yourself as much as you kid those around you.
Let it go. Cut yourself some slack. What's done is done, he could have left at anytime as well remember,
but he chose to stay just to abuse you.

Now is the time to begin healing, be gentle with yourself and take care.
I Might lay off dating for a little while longer.
Your nervous anxiety and need for reassurance might attract the wrong type of guy.
Take care, go to college, find some interests that introduce you to people with solar interests.
The right guy often turns up when you least expect it.

All the best.

[VanGore28]

Thanks. I haven't had a relationship for four years now. I enjoyed being on my own truth be told. But yes a little longer won't do any harm since i've waited this long anyhow.
That is wise words, he could easily have left too

[Rose76]

Absolutely. He was there because he was getting something out of being there. After all that time, he knew you a lot better than you realize. You weren't fooling him into anything.

A person who says, "Stay with me because you're not good enough for anyone else." is the manipulator. That's the person who is orchestrating a charade. What orientation you are is kind of beside the point.

You owe nothing. That person stuck around to get what he was getting - sick as that might have been.

Now here is an important thing for you to understand. There's no such thing as "trying to break up." That really means waiting for permission from the other party. That means, "I can only do what he'll let me." Having that mind-set means you can't make any decisions. So there's no trying; there's just waiting . . . for what will never come.

The only way to break up is to break up. You leave. And you accept that what becomes of his life is his business, not yours. So long as you let there be strings keeping you tethered, your life isn't your own.

Often people think that the longer they've been doing something, the more necessary it is to keep doing it. That's not true. Sometimes it can take years to figure out that you got into something that was bad for you. (I've been there.) That only means that you have less time you can afford to waste.

Reach out to the world around you, and don't wait to be given permission to live your life. Give yourself the permission.

[VanGore28]

"A person who says, "Stay with me because you're not good enough for anyone else." is the manipulator. That's the person who is orchestrating a charade. What orientation you are is kind of beside the point"

He was very manipulative and there were people who knew that. He would say I could never find someone like him like this was as good as it gets.

I felt desperately alone a sure fire sign it wasn't meant to be.

He'd say I couldn't handle a job with stress. and it was no wonder I had no friends left as I was in the psyche ward, it was easy to see why they left.

When I passed my driving test he just tried to put me off saying :I could drive the car but there's no way I could afford to fix it if I crashed so is it worth it. He really knocked my confidence. As he wanted me to remain a shadow of my former self.

"when your drowning you cling to anything to stay afloat."
This makes perfect sense too

I struggled to escape the stigma, I was so ashamed of my self. I couldn't hold down a job, I was dying inside.

All I wanted to do for six years was run away and never come back but I assumed responsibility like a respectable adult, paid my bills, and i soldiered on despite this huge weight on my shoulders.

But you can only fool people for so long...and others begin to sense that overwhelming sadness that surrounds the soul. why wasn't I out with friends and did EVEYTHING with him.

I tried to make him happy I really did. I tried to get him to join football team to find new mates to go drinking with. It wasn t my fault that he burned bridges with his friends. He thought he was a martyr for choosing me over them. One of his pals said he was glad we stayed together but the others must have disapproved or thought I was just a weirdo. So my ex would say I "gave him the life of a dog". When I was the one who would push him when he complained he was bored to do things.
He would try and say that I was the abuser when he took a newspaper home and slapped it in my face with a story of a woman who abused her husband. But its not in my nature. God I hate being the victim

It didn't help that I had a grudge against my family. I blamed them for me not going to university when I also made a choice to not pursue it. So when I moved out, they didn't say I was welcome back anytime and they converted the flat back to two bedrooms instead of three.

So when me and ex finally split up- I ended up homeless. I only left him because my granddad died and something in my head convinced me that life was far to short to live the way I was and I needed to go. I ended up at my grannies but she was impossible to live with. I bent over backwards for her yet all she did was grumble and ***** to people. I was never out at the weekend and people were getting suspicious.

I cut down my meds (I will never do this again) and my old symptoms returned so I ended up in psyche ward for three months and had to declare myself homeless and admit to staff that my family verbally abused me so I could get my own tenancy.

Recovery was a long long process. Today I have made amends with my mum and stepdad. I have a handful of friends, better than nothing. I am at college, as mature student and next year I may do an open uni course or art course.

Every cloud has a silver lining, but you may have to survive the hurricane beforehand

[Rose76]

That's a lot of progress you've made. Good for you!

[VanGore28]

I just thought about my mother today. How she never told me I was clever or pretty once even though any old fool could have told I was struggling with esteem as I grew up. I grew up to hate her, I know it is a strong word but I honestly did.
I was sort of indifferent to my step-dad because he treated me and my brother(his son) the same so my rage was directed at my mother. Ill never forget how she would scream at my biological father every time he came to pick me up.
I read some stupid American psycho babble book and started to think my step dad was to blame for me staying with a violent boyfriend. My choice justified it said because he made me feel protected as he was tough and as a child I felt helpless to my step dad. He was REALLY really really strict. One time him and my mum both attacked me, made me stand in front of the mirror, belittling me saying I was a liar because my face went red went I spoke. Look at yourself your a liar.
My brother came down with depression a couple of years ago before his son was born. He started on medication. But some of it is bio chemistry like me. But I bet our up bringing has affected him too.
I remember being at my martial arts class (I was only allowed to join because my brother asked I wasn't allowed to do anything costing money) and the knees of his suit were worn away to shreds. My parents never got him a new suit but they could afford to go to the pub four nights a week. GRRR. He was a talented golfer but he must have felt a bit down as he nevr had the designer gear or the proper shoes. I forget he must have been affected too.
I rebelled as a teen, how much of a cliché!

[VanGore28]

I remember being at his work party one year at a place called the loft. We fell out because his boss didn't ask me if I was still working at a launderette, he asked if I was still part-time at a launderette. It got to me, and I felt that my then boyfriend must have been complaining of the financial hardship or emphasising how I could only manage part time. Coming from a working class family this is an insult, this is laziness. In truth my employer tricked me into signing a new contact. My boss found me "difficult" to talk to. Would say maybe I had SAD. I just had no life.
At the party we both got incredibly drunk, and he kept trying to snog me at the table and I was trying to make him stop. So someone recued me and we danced. Under the watchful gaze of my boyfriend.
He stormed outside and I went to see him and he started punching some wooden barrels and saying I was a "*****" and a "slut."

[Rose76]

I'm glad to hear you got your own "tenancy." I take that to mean you have your own flat. If that's the case, you are off to a great start. You need to become more and more autonomous. Don't let yourself be a person who needs to be rescued. Rescue yourself.

I'm sure all kinds of negative influences weighed on your brother and you. As children, we are dependent on our parents. However they want to treat us, we have to suck it up. But you're grown up. Don't spend a lot of time dwelling on your unfortunate past. You've got better things to do with your time.

No more waiting for others to "let" you do as you wish. Live alone. Keep living alone for a good while. Get used to running your own show. Sounds like you have now a chance to be more "autonomous," more in control of the environment you exist in. Walk away from drama created by others. You never signed a contract to keep starring in their show.

[VanGore28]

Im getting my own place away from my parents aswell. It wil be hard when i leave college as ill have no loan and have to pay rent. Minimum wage is all i expect.
I was remembering when i worked somewhere for four years . One woman said my abusive ex must just be using me for one thing as i had no personality. I had crept back into my shell and lost my confidence i had in late teens. Is that not a diabolical thing to say?

[Rose76]

Yeah, that sure is. Here's the upside of that. The woman who made that remark showed you what she is about. It's good to know what people are about. Someone who would say that is someone who does not deserve to be listened to about anything. What she said reveals more about her than it ever could about you.

[VanGore28]

For some reason it really stuc with me, who turns around and says your bf is only using you for sex as you have no personality.
Since I'm pondering down these lines, I remember telling my boyfriend that I wanted to write a book because believe me I had a really really bad psychotic breakdown it was EPIC. He turned around and bluntly said "well you can have a hobby but there's no way you will get published, what makes you think your so special"
what makes you think your so special? you don't tell someone you love this. you believe in them, I'm thinking he was speaking from the limitations of his own capabilities

I trained with the British Olympic team for a while. I have been called talented. But my illness fu***d up my life. There was no one there who was willing to wade into the storm and rescue me, but some people stuck their neck out for me when it fitted them

[Rose76]

You are more than capable. Find something to pour that talent into.

The big choice you have now is between being focused on the present and the future verses keeping yourself immersed in memories. What you've been through is awful. Know that you can change your circumstances and do so.