Did childhood trauma leave you feeling like you're a freak?

[Anana]

Yea...abuse is considered to be normal, and I'm abnormal freak. A lot of work has been done to exchange these issues and call them by its true names
It is called schema of defectivnness. One of core beliefs.
Among all the techniques the one when I had to split to a child, parent, husband, doctor and me adult and we all had a long dialogue considerably lowered this belief.
What is more now in real life I'm much more aware of the things that they suppose they know, but I don't consider them freaks, no ,just people who lack some knowledge and need some help

 

[Chris-duck]

Yes very much. I figured out how to play the game (what I called it in my head) when I started high school - I could be SO STINKING NORMAL that I out-normaled the normies, haha! Clued-in moms could tell, and tended to caretake me, but everyone else thought I was just as normal as could be. I never learned how to be anything other than faking it.

This was basically me too. But in actual childhood more than high school.

 

[The Albatross]

Nope childhood trauma didn't make me feel like a freak. I grew up lower class and understood that in most all families there was dysfunction and adversity.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Yep. And it led to some interesting choices. Mainly pushing away people who would be good to me and hanging out with people who were bad to me. Like, who would want to hang out with someone like me unless it was very obvious they had gone through the same things? Like if they were obviously a freak too? I looked pretty “normal” too compared to my friends. Wouldn’t get around to piercing things until after my abusive relationship hahaha.

But I’m unlearning it, and learning that my abuse is way more common than it is uncommon. Also that the people who don’t wear trauma on their sleeves still have trauma and issues. And accepting that I can be a good person and deserve to be treated well.

But yep!!

 

[TTC18]

This was basically me too. But in actual childhood more than high school.

Funny - in childhood I didn't even try. I *was normal* in 1st grade. I played at recess, and had friends, and had fun. I remember running around the playground, laughing, telling ppl abt my mom is going to get married, and abt my new stepdad-to-be, and how nice he was, and spelling out his last name in the dirt with a stick.. And then - I just buried my head in books and ignored the people. Kids would come to me for answers or whatever and I'd tell them what they needed to know, like a computer, and then back to the book. Didn't even try to 'normal' - and then in high school, there wasn't really time or space to bury my head in books, so I chose to bury my head in socializing/events/boys instead. It was a REALLY good distraction but took a lot of work to 'normal' all the time.

 

[Chris-duck]

@TTC18 I think for me it was cos so many people told me how to be normal :laugh: Like grandad and his crazy rulez for life, uncle S laughing and being like "Uh Chrissy, most kids your age dunno how to do that.." and I'd be like "cool, mental note, pretend you can't do that!" And obv dad with his "you're gonna go here, and you're gonna act like this.." So like I was basically just acting how I was told to all the time from as long as I remember to teen years.

 

[TTC18]

@TTC18 I think for me it was cos so many people told me how to be normal :laugh: Like grandad and his crazy rulez for life, uncle S laughing and being like "Uh Chrissy, most kids your age dunno how to do that.." and I'd be like "cool, mental note, pretend you can't do that!" And obv dad with his "you're gonna go here, and you're gonna act like this.." So like I was basically just acting how I was told to all the time from as long as I remember to teen years.

Wow - yeah no one at home even noticed my existence unless I broke something or missed a spot cleaning or forgot to do something or whatever and my mom/stepdad isolated pretty hard so I only saw family etc every year or 2 - just enough to remember what they looked like - and most of the family I never even met. My family wasn't big on the normal rules of society- they were big on the goofy micromanaged rules of our house. White glove inspections and all that. (Literally - they would break out these white gloves to look for dust/dirt - where they got them, I do not know)

 

[Deleted member 47099]

where they got them, I do not know

They bought them at The Store for Abusive F*cking Retards :meh:

:hug: :hug:

 

[TTC18]

They bought them at The Store for Abusive F*cking Retards :meh:

:hug::hug:

Oh yeah, i remember that store. We went there a lot.?

 

[Emotional girl]

I have always felt different and like I do not fit on anywhere.
I often call myself a freak and a weirdo.

 

[Tracee]

I very much relate to this. Both parental units were stone-cold alcoholics, and I’m absolutely positive had personality disorders. We weren’t physically assaulted or beaten like so many others, but were without a doubt emotionally and physically neglected and severely terrorized by our stepfather pretty much all of our formative years. I have no memory of my mother ever hugging me, saying she loved me, showing any interest in any school work, etc. The nights they were at the bar (which was pretty much daily), we didn’t eat. No dentist, no doctors, etc.

When I was 16, I fell off my bicycle and broke my leg. Wasn’t taken to the hospital for two days ... “Oh, it’s just a sprain, you’ll be FINE.” Cavity in molar so deep that the nerve was actually exposed. Took a couple of years to get that tooth pulled. Only time I ever saw a dentist as a minor. I could go on, but will save all that for another time.

Worse than hunger or pain, is the feeling of defectiveness, of being unworthy of love. It becomes a core belief, and I don’t think it can be fixed, at least not for me. If your own mother can’t love you, then there must be something wrong with ME.

There’s a line in an old Matchbox 20 song that puts that feeling of unworthiness into words better than I ever could...”I don’t feel like I’ve ever been really loved, by a hand that’s touched me.” I go on, but I feel like I was f*cking robbed of the ability to feel true joy in life.

Anyway, I feel ya. Thanks for posting.

 

[Tracee]

Sorry, had another thought to put out there. I believe that a compounding factor in childhood trauma is not just the trauma itself, but the seeing the other kids at school who (appeared?) to have had functional parents, sent them to school clean and healthy and well-cared-for, clearly lived their kids, picked them up from school, came to their school events, etc.

Then also seeing on television all of these happy, functional families that had dinner together and talked about their day, showed love and affection, etc. Triple whammy. Learn at home that you are a “goddamn mother f*cker” or a “goddamn son of a bitch”, forced to stay in your room at all times hearing that drunk bastard become louder and uglier the drunker he got, and the terrifying ranting was ALWAYS about “those little goddamn sons of bitches” living in his house, eating his food, etc. We were three little kids, 6, 9, and 11 years old, but apparently we were life-ruining mother f*ckers for existing on the planet and inhaling air.

So, the people at home hate you, the kids at school ostracize you because you’re poor and don’t wear the “cool” clothes and you live in a bad neighborhood and you use free lunch tokens, oh the f*cking horror! Message received. And then all of the messages received from society about how things are for lots of lucky people, but not me. Roll it all up into a big old ball of defectiveness, low self-esteem, self hate, unworthiness.

Some people should not procreate. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.