[Whiteroses02]

Just to be safe trigger warning......




Visiting my family tonight and my mother put on some old home videos, one of which was at a birthday party and I was playing in a game of football with my family that included my cousin. It took me off guard because he was at the age that I most remember the abuse. It also had my head spinning with how could I act so normal, why would I play the game with him involved, how could I be having so much fun with him right there? There is so much shame and guilt and confirmation that in some way it was my fault because I kept the secret so well. Just to see me behaving like a normal happy child like there wasn't this horrendous secret is mind boggling and disgusting.

Anyone have similar thoughts or experiences?

[unaluna]

This week at my apartment swimming pool, the dad of a family there asked me if i wanted to join in playing "monkey in the middle". I was like, no, i hate that game! My brother always made me lose! The kids probably thought this old lady was nuts, but i did feel like they saw me as more human than before. Like now they could sympathize with me?

[Fuzzybear]

mind boggling secret until I was "grown up"?
seen as "less than" human?
So wrong

[unaluna]

Idk - do kids see old people as human? I think they see us as things in their environment, like furniture or cars. Not unimportant, not "less than" human - just "not like them". Too often more powerful and very boring. This incident equalized us, made us both more open and likeable to each other.

[finding_my_way]

i saw home videos of myself over the years from age five to 12 or so. it was very strange. i realized that i was in survival mode all those years because i had to be....and since my abuse and/or trauma was not daily, there were normal times i had in between, and somehow i just got through it.

it struck me as odd too how i could be so normal, different than i remember, etc. i always remembered myself as shy, quiet, and not liking to be touched, hugged, etc. but then i saw a video of myself at five or so where i was sitting beside my mom's husband and was comfortable doing so. i was also seemingly okay despite having lived in a violent (towards family members, not me) home and appearing okay on the videos up until a certain age where i did not like pictures taken or being on video which was a theme my entire life, even now.

but i realized like i said above that it was all about survival mode...and i also started to dissociate around the age of five when my abuse/trauma started. i had a lot of different situations/people involved at various times, so for me it wasn't just one person. i guess it became kind of normal that almost everywhere i turned, someone hurt me somehow, sadly.

it was very triggering to see home videos of myself, one particular house i lived in.....remembering the inside of the house and the layout of it yet not remembering much that happened in the house the few years i lived there.

i guess as kids, we also kind of adapt to whatever is going on around us...and can temporarily forget/push things away when it's not happening or when others are around us yet an abuser might be there too as it might be a bit safer when others are there too.

[CopperStar]

I think you were just doing what most abused children do, trying to survive and find happiness in spite of everything.

I've seen home videos from my childhood, and the ones that always stand out the most to me are ones from when I was an infant. My parents would place me on the floor with no toys, and then wait for me to try to grab onto something, cords, houseplants, furniture, etc, and then yell at me and threaten me and spank me over it. This would repeat endlessly, because I just kept trying to crawl and find something to play with, no matter how many times I was yelled at or spanked.

But then fast forward some months, and I'm in a highchair in the kitchen, with a dull look in my eyes, and silent. And my mother keeps handing me a spoon and then yanking it away, chanting, "Baby's gonna scream!" into the camera. For over 20 minutes she tried to get me to cry and scream, until she seemed to grow bored and disappointed and shut off the camera, because I was mostly unresponsive.

And I feel like that sums up most of my childhood. With different things, I had different breaking points. Different pieces of me died or went dormant at different times. And it wasn't until I was in my mid-teens that I had shut down almost completely.

Just because you tried to keep your spirit alive for as long as you could when you were a kid, doesn't mean that you were to blame for anything.

[oliviaolivia]

I have been having a really hard time lately with seeing stories in the news about abuse - sexual, physical, death involving children - like more than an empathetic sorrow - it is a visceral deep pain and I can't stop thinking about them. It is almost like I am feeling pain from my childhood again - is this crazy? How do I stop the obsessive thoughts?? It is almost too much to bear!

[oliviaolivia]

copperstar This breaks my heart! One of my favorite things that I did during counseling was an activity led by my counselor - I went back and hugged and comforted the little girl that was me - may sound strange - but it really helped me!! She is definitely a separate part of me in my mind - like she is stuck forever in that 'survival mode'.

[cluelessgal]

Hey Whiteroses02,

Abuse during childhood is very difficult to understand - esp if it's introduced as "innocent games".

It's much later, after greater understanding about things in life, that we rethink what happened to us. We fear something if it's overtly scary, but most sexual abuse comes packaged as "secret fun".

Also, in childhood we only have a vague idea about what's 'right' and 'wrong' and what's 'normal' and 'inappropriate'....we certainly don't have the emotions such as guilt or shame to process abuse....all that comes with emotional development at which point we may recognize abuse.

It would be a good idea if you can talk to your family about the trauma you faced as a child. Maybe you'll find some support and can avoid such triggering situations.

All my love.