[jahrderglad]

At first when I left my mother's house, I felt good--happy. I had a great first summer away, and started college feeling like I had done the right thing and was now free to enjoy life and make a life for myself. Then, after a pretty arbitrary amount of time, I started getting worse. Spring of freshman year, I went into therapy through my college. It didn't help. I went back the next year. Still no improvement. Since then, I've been getting progressively worse. What's been getting worse? My feelings of remorse about the whole situation with my mother.

I find myself asking the following questions: Did any of it even happen? Was it really "abuse," or was it just normal discipline that I found unsavoury? Was I the abusive one? Was it wrong of me to become some sort of delinquent runaway by leaving my mom's house without telling her where or why? Should I attempt to make amends? Did I bring her behaviour on myself by being a juvenile delinquent (I never did anything illegal, and never had any sort of disciplinary problems outside of my home)?

Logically, I know the answers to these questions. I was abused. My mom's rules and punishments were completely unreasonable. She caused me a lot of emotional pain. Perhaps I have some things to apologise for, but so does she--and she never will. Emotionally, though, I feel that the exact opposite is true. And no matter what my logic says, I can't get it to influence how I feel...and thus, I feel just awful.

I feel guilty about leaving. I feel like a bad person because I have no parents. Everyone else I know has parents. No one just cuts all contact with a parent, or leaves without telling them, right? That's inconsiderate. I'm a bad person because of it. I'm cut off from my whole family. All things considered, I'm doing very poorly in life. Logic says I'm doing poorly due to the psychological impact of the abuse. Emotion says I'm just a useless, good-for-nothing waster.

My emotional reactions tend to mimic what my mother said to me; she's not around to emotionally abuse me anymore, my own brain has taken over. And I hate it. But try as I might, I can't make it go away.

I spent three hours yesterday looking up information about how to write a letter of apology--with the intention to write and send one to my mother. I haven't written a word of it...yet. Part of me finds the idea of writing her a letter apologizing for leaving, for being "abusive" to her like she said I was, utterly and offensively stupid. But part of me thinks I'm a terrible person for not having done so ages ago. I don't know what I should do.

There's also the problem of my refusal to fully believe that my mother--or any mother, for that matter--could behave in such a way toward their own child. I can't understand how someone could be an abuser, especially a mother. I can empathise to an extent (due to Asperger's, I have to TRY, but I've mostly learned how) with murderers, serial killers, even Hitler (I could never see myself doing what they did, but I can understand why some of them may have, and can see that they're still people despite their mistakes--even Hitler thought he was doing good)--but not with people like my mother. I find the ability to abuse one's own child simply unfathomable. And yet...I am terrified that I will become just like her someday. But for now, I simply cannot accept that any mother could be so cruel and ill-intentioned toward her own child. I try to see the good in people--in everyone, even my mother. I just can't accept that people can exist who have that little goodness and love inside them. I don't want to. I don't want the world to have people in it like that. Just the thought of hurting a poor, defenseless child--even a really annoying kid who belongs to a stranger--breaks my heart. I don't want to believe it's even possible, let alone that it happened to me.

tl;dr: Why do I feel guilty about being abused and subsequently leaving home? Why do I refuse to fully accept that any of the "abuse" (if that's really what it was) even happened?

Anyone who can commiserate, empathise, or offer any words of comfort or advice, please comment. I will appreciate it more than words can express.

it's all a part of the healing process

What is so perplexing is the evolution of the thought processes of victims who experience unimaginable trauma at the hands of an abuser. After they have escaped, the victims start questioning themselves and their role in the abuse. Even children somehow may come to believe they brought the abuse upon themselves.

In psycholoy, the Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.

Does something similar occur to children subjected to heinous abuse? This ability to hold conflicting ideas about the same thing is known in psychology as cognitive polyphasia. Cognitive polyphasia thus refers to a state in which different kinds of knowledge, possessing different rationalities live side by side in the same individual or collective.

Victims may both hate their abusers while at the same time view them as sympathetic figures. I truly believe the assistance of professional help is critical to making sense of what happened and relieving the victims of any guilt they may feel.

[NuckingFutz]

Brainwashing...when an abuser repeats the same distructive messages over and over again, sooner or later they stick with you. So when you left, you took those messages with you . We'll call them old tapes. When you are not feeling strong, they automatically play. The job of your therapist is to help you replace those old tapes with newer healthier messages. Abusers do not appologise. They deny the abuse ever happened. You wrote about Hitler and his followers. The men and women who stood trial at Nurenberg for their role in crimes against humanity, all stated that they did nothing wrong. The defense the guilty used is now well known as the Nurenberg Defense: "I was just following orders." that just does not cut it for me. I owe my abusers nothing. Good luck on your journey.