unvrsplysfvrts
Bronze Member
It's hard for me to figure out how long it took because I was very young when it started. Pretty much my entire childhood was a mess. A huge abusive mess. My parents split up when I was 2 and my mother was really abusive in the worst ways possible. I started having nightmares not long after my father moved out. No surprise there as my first clear memory is age 2 watching my mother throw things at my father as he's running out of the house and she wouldn't let him say goodbye to my brother and I.
Even as a toddler, the only time I really slept well, or at least consistently, was when I was with my dad or his family members. Until about first grade.
My dad was in and out of my life when I was really young because my mother was either keeping him from having his visitation or his economic situation took him to other cities to work.
When I was six I got molested by an older cousin. I've told maybe two people about that and none of them were family members or therapists. Just really close, trusted friends. I couldn't even admit that it happened until adulthood and no one in my family knows.
When I was 8 I was molested by a younger cousin who was stronger than I was. A few family members knew about it but instructed me to keep my mouth shut. I never told a therapist. My dad still doesn't know about it.
Until I was 9 and my dad was back in my life consistently, I was subject to my mother's abusive whims as well as those of her friends, her family, and whoever she happened to be sleeping with at the time. I would get pulled out of my bed in the middle of the night by my hair, stripped down, and beaten for sport. My mom and her friends thought this was fun. To beat up on a little kid. It was so sick and I felt so helpless.
When I was four, I remember climbing under the bunk bed I shared with my brother and wishing that it would fall on me and I would die. I also started getting migraines when I was four. I got the first one after we moved in with my youngest brother of my mom's kids (there are five of us all together but we don't have all of the same parents) and about a year after that, he molested me too. No one knows about that. Not even my little brother.
By the time I moved in with my dad when I was 10, I was damaged beyond repair. I was a child dealing with real life problems and I never got to be a kid. So I think I probably started getting the symptoms around the time it started, but as I said, I was very very young, so it's hard to say exactly how long it took. My dad tried to get me a lot of help and twice during middle school I was sent briefly to a psych ward for adolescents. In both of them I was sexually attacked by older children and verbally abused by staff.
Really, it's just been a huge roller coaster.
After I went off meds at age 15, by my own choice, I started improving on the night terrors and my insomnia subsided a bit. My dad and I didn't get along, but I knew he'd never actually hurt me, so I felt a lot safer. I got on this religious kick that kept me out of trouble and I think, for the time, was beneficial to me. No matter how ridiculous I think it was looking back.
But I was traumatized once more when I went to ministry school after graduation. No one ever hurt me physically, but we also weren't allowed to touch at all. It was really more of a huge mindfk and severe psychological and emotional abuse. Things that were seen as normal outside of this organization were abominable to god, or sinful, or just downright unnatural. Or however they decided to term it. When my semester was over I went home and I didn't go back and I cried most of the drive back to my hometown.
And the nightmares started back up again.
My most recent flare up is post-divorce. I was married to an horribly abusive man who pretty much treated me as though I were a pet/slave in a cage. I wasn't allowed anything. And at the beginning of this, just after I realized I was trapped, I got pregnant. And lost it. And that was a huge downward spiral.
So now, I'm an egg away from cracking and sought out this site to maybe find some moral support in all this. It's worse than it's ever been.
That was a lot. Sorry!
Even as a toddler, the only time I really slept well, or at least consistently, was when I was with my dad or his family members. Until about first grade.
My dad was in and out of my life when I was really young because my mother was either keeping him from having his visitation or his economic situation took him to other cities to work.
When I was six I got molested by an older cousin. I've told maybe two people about that and none of them were family members or therapists. Just really close, trusted friends. I couldn't even admit that it happened until adulthood and no one in my family knows.
When I was 8 I was molested by a younger cousin who was stronger than I was. A few family members knew about it but instructed me to keep my mouth shut. I never told a therapist. My dad still doesn't know about it.
Until I was 9 and my dad was back in my life consistently, I was subject to my mother's abusive whims as well as those of her friends, her family, and whoever she happened to be sleeping with at the time. I would get pulled out of my bed in the middle of the night by my hair, stripped down, and beaten for sport. My mom and her friends thought this was fun. To beat up on a little kid. It was so sick and I felt so helpless.
When I was four, I remember climbing under the bunk bed I shared with my brother and wishing that it would fall on me and I would die. I also started getting migraines when I was four. I got the first one after we moved in with my youngest brother of my mom's kids (there are five of us all together but we don't have all of the same parents) and about a year after that, he molested me too. No one knows about that. Not even my little brother.
By the time I moved in with my dad when I was 10, I was damaged beyond repair. I was a child dealing with real life problems and I never got to be a kid. So I think I probably started getting the symptoms around the time it started, but as I said, I was very very young, so it's hard to say exactly how long it took. My dad tried to get me a lot of help and twice during middle school I was sent briefly to a psych ward for adolescents. In both of them I was sexually attacked by older children and verbally abused by staff.
Really, it's just been a huge roller coaster.
After I went off meds at age 15, by my own choice, I started improving on the night terrors and my insomnia subsided a bit. My dad and I didn't get along, but I knew he'd never actually hurt me, so I felt a lot safer. I got on this religious kick that kept me out of trouble and I think, for the time, was beneficial to me. No matter how ridiculous I think it was looking back.
But I was traumatized once more when I went to ministry school after graduation. No one ever hurt me physically, but we also weren't allowed to touch at all. It was really more of a huge mindfk and severe psychological and emotional abuse. Things that were seen as normal outside of this organization were abominable to god, or sinful, or just downright unnatural. Or however they decided to term it. When my semester was over I went home and I didn't go back and I cried most of the drive back to my hometown.
And the nightmares started back up again.
My most recent flare up is post-divorce. I was married to an horribly abusive man who pretty much treated me as though I were a pet/slave in a cage. I wasn't allowed anything. And at the beginning of this, just after I realized I was trapped, I got pregnant. And lost it. And that was a huge downward spiral.
So now, I'm an egg away from cracking and sought out this site to maybe find some moral support in all this. It's worse than it's ever been.
That was a lot. Sorry!
