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Here & Healing

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asldjfasldjf

Learning
I've gone back and forth over whether to write this a million times. I'm extremely paranoid about everything I do, especially on the internet, because I often find myself humiliated. I'm very easily ashamed, of myself and my past, but that's ultimately why I figure I should go ahead and do this--I don't want to live in shame and fear anymore.

So.

Most people start at the beginning, but I'm going to work backward.

I only very recently realized that I was sexually abused as an infant. My partner is the one who helped me put the pieces together, although one therapist suggested it was probable before. I don't want to explain all of the reasons why, but I have a number of symptoms that point to incest/sexual abuse. However, I do not have any memory of it. I know a lot of people might be skeptical about my certainty, given that I haven't recovered a memory, however there are certain things about my past and my symptoms that can only be explained by infant sexual abuse.

I feel humiliated and sad. At the same time, since I came to the realization that this happened to me, I've seen an improvement in many of my symptoms.

I'm now 21 years old, but I've had chronic fatigue since I was 12/13. I remember when I first started to get tired. It was terrible. I couldn't keep myself awake. Not that I was narcoleptic, but I felt sick and just had to get back in bed. I'd already had depression for years, but suddenly I was sleeping all the time, 12-18 hours a day. I should've been blooming and having fun. Instead I was bed-ridden and missing tons of school.

That's all I'm going to post for now actually. I didn't realize it would feel this intense. Will continue soon. Thanks to anyone who reads this.
 
You are doing great. Taking rests when you need them is good insight. What you've written so far is familiar, unfortunately. I hope you continue to write. Congratulations on the beginning of your diary.

Love your title.
 
I feel you.

My first memories of being abused come no earlier than when I was 7 or 8. I was almost out of therapy when my mother ran across a picture that I drew in kindergarten, a self-portrait (just color in the lines sort of thing). The way this picture was drawn ... well, it didn't take a genius to realize that this was evidence that I had been abused even before my earliest memories of abuse. I don't remember it at all -- it probably happened when I was three -- but the effects were pretty clear looking back. For example, the recurring nightmares finally made sense.

Even now I'm still sensitive to shame -- I sometimes have to take a break from Facebook and Politics for that reason -- and I often feel alienated.

Good news is that it gets better. And the effort is worth it.
 
Over the past couple of days, I've been having a pretty rough time. It seems like I have up-and-down cycles. Progress also seems to be followed by setbacks, a la the old "two steps forward, one step back." (I think the saying is actually "one step forward, two steps back," but then I'd be going backward, and I like to hope I'm on an upward trend).

Anyways, where I left off in recounting my personal history, I was going backwards in time to the period of high school.

High school was a wreck for me. My parents are divorced and I had to live alone with my mom, who is mentally and physically ill. All my life, she had slept all day and been up at night. High school was no different. I would come home to an eerily quiet apartment. The only food we had in the house was microwavable. I'd eat the same old microwaved crap every day. When I fought with my mom, she would bare her teeth at me and tower over me, cursing at me and telling me how horrible I made her life. She would slam doors and scream to intimidate me. I also knew she was somewhat suicidal, and when I asked her if she was going to kill herself, she would respond, "Probably not."

Often when my mom went out for walks, I would follow her to make sure she didn't kill herself.

She used to tell me she preferred her dog because at least the dog didn't talk back.

I had to be quiet all day so that she could sleep, but then she would wake up between 9AM-12AM and start fixing herself meals or doing the laundry. It was a small apartment and impossible for me to sleep through all that. When I told her that she was keeping me up, she said I was making her a prisoner in her own home.

Because she has been chronically ill my entire life, she didn't get out much or have any friends. She also didn't date anyone. She would ask me to sit with her and hold her hand, or she would like in bed topless and ask me to give her a back rub/scratch. Maybe these things don't sound like a big deal, but they felt very sexually charged.

Years earlier when I was a pre-teen (and a pre-pre-teen), my mom asked to take naked pictures of me when I got out of the bath. I feel so stupid now, but I complied almost happily. I guess I wanted the positive attention. She also asked to see my body one day when I was a bit older so that she could see the changes I was going through physically (puberty).

When I hit puberty, my mom told me that I couldn't trust myself (and of course, neither could she) because my perspective was horribly skewed by mental illness and raging hormones. I began to wonder if anything I felt or thought was real and deferred to her as to what was and wasn't true about myself and reality.

By the time I went to live with her during high school, I was beginning to sleep like she did. I couldn't stay awake, hard as I tried. I even kept myself up for 24 hours straight hoping to reset my sleep-cycle, but it didn't work. I was getting sicker and sicker and no one knew why.

At the same time, my grandfather, who was like a third parent to me, began dying of cancer. I went crazy with grief.

When I think back on the pain that I felt back then, I remember it being unbearable.

I would shut myself in the closet, close my eyes, and try to will myself to die.
 
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