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Being abused as a child vs being abused as an adult

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Gs172003

MyPTSD Pro
I don't have the best childhood by any means but it's nothing like most of you here. I had two bad marriages and the second one was especially so. That said I feel like because I was an adult and didn't have the issues so many of you all had as kids I am ashamed I'm here. I should have never stuck it out for as long as I did nor should I have issues from it. I should have known better.
 
@Zoogal - that's an easy trap to get into. I spent years thinking that my abuse was my fault, that I traumatized myself, that I was at fault for not getting out sooner. But it's the trauma talking - it's your brain trying to assert control over what was actually an uncontrollable situation. If it's your own fault, the world isn't such a scary place. Your trauma makes sense.

But what happened to us doesn't make sense. It's not our fault. The fact that we were adults at the time of our abuse doesn't make us complicit in our abuse. I know I had reasons for not leaving - and those reasons weren't my fault, either. Neither are yours.

You can talk back to the feeling. You may feel at fault, but the feeling isn't true. Sometimes I have to say aloud, "No, that's not true. I wasn't at fault." I find by speaking the words aloud I can sometimes let the feeling wash away.
 
@Zoogal don’t feel that way. I can’t speak for everyone on this site but i try really hard not to compare my life and trauma to others. What we share PTSD doesn’t discriminate based on age, type, occurrences or any of the million other ways we try to minimize or discount our challenges. You belong here just like the rest of us seeking support, a clearer head and someone to lean on. I am sorry that you struggle with PTSD like all of the other sufferers. Don’t let shame keep you from the support you need.
 
By comparing traumas you miss this truth: no abuse at any age should ever happen. PERIOD.

I should have never stuck it out for as long as I did nor should I have issues from it. I should have known better.
Your abuser should have never abused you. If you are going to should on anyone, should on them. Not yourself.

Think about the logic here: if someone has a non-traumatic childhood, they are immune from the effects of trauma that could occur in adulthood? If I was never abused as a child, I'll be fine/to blame if someone abuses me in adulthood? Ah, no. That's not how it works. A non-traumatic childhood doesn't make one immune to the effects of trauma in adulthood.

You are not so powerful as to be responsible for the abuse, and nothing you did/didn't do makes what happened to you ok. Self shame and self contempt by survivors of trauma is common and it's also a defense mechanism to try escape these painful realities. Don't take the responsibility and blame from the abuser. It's not yours. Give it back to them. Give it back over and over again.
 
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Zoogirl,

I think the self doubt of ’Standing for it’ is far more difficult for me to process than anything that happened to me as a child.

I’ll be honest; it's one if the things that makes me very. Uncomfortable with the discussions about the value if others’ trauma or ptsd defining stuff. I feel it's something we cannot know the extent if and it often feels like discrediting potential real sufferers of ptsd/ cptsd or victim shaming or blaming. noone should feel their situation is lesser because their abuse was ’less heinous’.

Zoogirl, anyone can sit by me and try and help each other feel better. ptsd is dreadful. How we got here us always dreadful enough.

.
 
By comparing traumas you miss this truth: no abuse at any age should ever happen. PERIOD
This.
That said I feel like because I was an adult and didn't have the issues so many of you all had as kids I am ashamed I'm here.
Childhood trauma is only one possible cause of PTSD.

Being ashamed for not having childhood trauma & those issues is really no different from being ashamed of not being in a car wreck and having those issues, or not being in combat and having those issues, or not being in an abusive marriage and having those issues, or not being raped and having those issues.

I had an amaaaaaaazing childhood. Should I be ashamed of being here, because I don’t have childhood trauma? Honest question.
 
I don't know. Especially when I drug my kids through it too.


I think I understand your dilemma here ( moral injury ?) but that they feel victim to you does not make you less victim of bad things. In fact it possibly at times compounded that you felt you had fewer options which might have been more terrifying. ( I don’t know I have not been in your shoes, K am just trying to think how it would feel if I were)
 
I was in your position, @Zoogal, and it is not like you can just leave. You know that. You are isolated with children to support. My abuser made me work because he was in law school, and that's how I was able to get out. I had no children and was able to move across the country. It still took a while to leave. They make you feel you deserve it. Minimization is a symptom of PTSD. You belong.

He drug your kids through it. He did it.
 
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