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I Want Compensation

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MT Johnny

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I don't expect to get it - but that doesn't negate my feeling that I should be entitled to compensation - to be made whole, to be put back into tne position I woukd have been had the events never transpired. There are problems with this, however - first and foremost the fact my abuser has been dead for 16 years. Ah, dear old dad, may he burn in Hell for all eternity.

The real issue is that I am becoming increasingly angry with the rest of my family, mother and older siblings. I used to view them as co-victims, which of course, they are. But I increasingly blame them for not stopping him - especially my mother, but my siblings were young adults when the worst of it happened, when I was a teenager.

Nobody did anything - and as a result my life has been profoundly diminished from what it should have been.

Not that I expect $ - I want them to acknowledge everything I went through and be sorry that no one stood up and did the right thing.

Valid?
 
My father feels that way, as do I, (the part about wanting the other family members to own up to not stopping it). Yet, later on, when his father raped me, he did not stop it either. Yet he later spoke of taking the old man and holding him upside down with his head in a toilet. He would talk, but there was no action. He says the old bastard beat him every day of his childhood as far back as he could remember. He never fought back. My father did not ever hit my mother, nor did he often hit us kids. Yet his brother did beat his kids. So at least my father was not so weak as to have carried on with such things. He had the strength to stop those urges. He knew it was wrong, but he did not stop his father from doing it to me.

My mother was the one who stopped the old bastard from molesting me and hurting me, yet my grandmother did nothing to stop it when she was the only one who knew about it before that. She was a victim too, of course. So I have forgiven her as I know she loved me. I loved her too, so I think about it all. I place myself in her shoes and wonder what I would have done if I were her. He threatened to kill us if we spoke of it, so what choice did we have? He was bigger, stronger and a lot meaner.

I was consequently the bullied kid at school too, because I had been "taught" by the old bastard not to fight back, to take it all and swallow my pride and accept it as my lot in life. I finally lost it during my sixth grade of grammar school. I beat the living daylights out of one kid that was picking on me. No one messed with me after that of course. I don't know what finally made me realize I had to fight back, but I sure am glad that I did.
 
Yes, I know these feelings well. My anger at my betrayers, my sadness for what I lost when they chose denial, my self hatred that I'm not the parent I want to be as a result...these are all things I'm starting to feel as I trudge along on this healing journey. I'm holding these feelings will change over time as I don't enjoy them.

For what it's worth, I have learnt that my desire for compensation and any corresponding feelings of entitlement are a very reliable indicator that I'm heading down to that dark place again...so it's at these thoughts that I start to priortise self care.
 
I doubt you will ever get either. You can want anything in the world, but its these wants that lead to suffering. (Buddhism.) I hope you can either get the acknowledgement you are looking for or be able to go of these wants.
 
You have heard the phrase, "you can't squeeze blood from a turnip." Well, that isn't just about money either! They may not have the emotional capacity to acknowledge the past, or their past or present behavior. I would hate for you to have an expectation and be let down.
Take care...
 
I don't expect to get it - but that doesn't negate my feeling that I should be entitled to compensation - to be made whole, to be put back into tne position I woukd have been had the events never transpired... - I want them to acknowledge everything I went through and be sorry that no one stood up and did the right thing. Valid?
I'm just gonna go with no, not valid.

What you've written here implies that someone else can do something to change you, make you whole (as you say).

Whether that person is your abuser or your therapist or your spouse, makes no difference. No one can shift, fix, change your reality except for you.

And it sucks sometimes, absolutely.

But:
  1. time does not run backwards and events do not un-happen, so any degree of wanting that is utterly, utterly futile.
  2. Nobody else can actually be your brain - you have to form the thoughts, make the leaps, do the neurological and psychological work that will make your brain better. You might as well think that someone else can do your push-ups for you. It's not physically possible.

Any time you spend wanting the past to erase/change, or someone else to heal your damaged mind - that is just time spent making yourself hurt more.
 
But I increasingly blame them for not stopping him - especially my mother
I really relate to this. I'm increasingly coming to see my mother as equally responsible for the daily madness that went on in our house, and even solely responsible for some of it. I mean just put yourself in her shoes--if you had kids, would you allow them to be treated that way? Would you neglect them to the point where they might as well not have a mother? Where's the excuse? I think women on the narcissist/sociopath spectrum play the victim very, very well, and people tend to buy it because they're women. Males will more often gaslight the victim, turn their arguments against them, and generally work harder to maintain their charade of faultlessness. All the female narcissist/SP has to do is put on a sad face. Easy.
 
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