abuse is horrendous but for a very small percentage of abused children it is not a black and white question of bad parent and innocent child. by ther time i was 7 or 8 years old i no longer had innocence. that is when my behaviour went from just needy, neurotic, anxious, shy to bolshy, aggressive, bully.
i still had the same fears and anxieties- they made me a clingy neurotic nightmare. my dad was used to bullying and abusing us all. i was a sensitive highly strung child and he didn't know that i needed to be handled more gently than a NT kid.
yes his behaviour hurt me but he didn't know how to deal. he was a good man who did a bad thing to his family. on my sister and mothers behalf i feel sad and angry. it is clear they were nice people.
My dad said i didn';t have a conscience so i was different to other people. my MH workers say i have a conscience but am disturbed and that s why i am different to other people. i wish i was normal- nice self effacing, pleasant and sweet but i came out the womb kicking and screraming! :) That is just me.
and i am responsible for the feelings of resentment and bitterness i have aganst him. the Bible says we all have to take account for our part in it. My sister needs to be told she was innocent and to have her self esteem built up. and accept she was wronged and wronged badly. i, on the other hand need to accept my dad wasn't being unreasonable- he just hadn't been taught the right tools to discipline a sensitive difficult kid like me. he was a man who loved me trying to do the best with what he had- and he thought his brutal treatment of me would help. he couldnt have realised it would make me fearful, depressed, and anxious. i'm sure if he had any idea that is what it did to me he would have beeen upset and repentant. But he always told me i was thick skinnned so it didnt matter if he would tease threaten mock and belittle me. He says i just need to get over it and that i wasn't an easy kid to deal with
my father was a prophet and he told me God had told him i was faking my ptsd and just feeling sorry for myself. i kind of know the abuse wasn't really that bad but i have a need for it to be that bad if you know what i mean. i need to have a sense thsa tmy abuse mattered. so i pretend to the world and myself that it damaged me. i prefer to think of myself as a trauma victim than someone with BPD.
i probably was born sensitive to developing Borderline PD but that makes me feel screwed up to think that so i persuade myself the abuse must have caused it. i know this is disingenuous behaviour but as soon as my DBT therapist told me borderline is often linked to trauma i jumped on that bandwagon because i feel that it explained everything.
there is no question thast i was abused- legally it fits the criteria for abus ein my country and i later found out as an adult that some people had wanted to get intervention from authorities. i accept as a small child the abuse wasn't my fault and on some level must have hurt/affected me. however i chose to react badly to the abuse and i chose to feel sorry for myself. the buck stops with me. i could accept i have a mental illness
and would have had anyway even if i'd been treated like a princess. which is the truth. but i am unable to let go of the narrative that i ama true victim. i was always jealous of my sister not being to blame when it happened to her- she can give herself compassion and receive it from others and i wish i could do that.
i wish i had her "right" to do that.. but i am not her and when i learn to honestly accept my part in it and repent before the Lord maybe that is when my healing will start. But i don't feel i can accept that the problem was me. i cannot take blame for anything because it means losing my ego
I'd rather keep on pretending the abuse damaged me though. I'm just not ready to admit that it didn't damage me and that i used it as an excuse. i am ashamed that i need this "excuse" but somehow it helps me to keep living another day. if i had to accept that i was a bad person who was partly responsible that would break me.
i ahve always had a fragile sense of self that needs propping up and this "CPTSD" of mine is a way of gettting that validation i need to feel whole. it is like those people who ask doctors to amputate their limnbs because they need the identity of a disabled person.
i need the identity of an abuse survivor., i hate that i need this identity but i do. i contemplate suicide at the thought that maybe my dad wasn;t to blame and maybe i am overreacting. deep down i know i am overreacting to the abuse but this need to have the minor trivial abuses i went through validated drowns out that sense. i need to keep drowning it out.
