Trauma And Sadism

[sun seeker]

Mothers who are unstable tend to sometimes also shift between these rols, which is what makes it even more messed up.

Because of this, I have to not only stay away from my mother but the place where she lives and her friends. She projects such a great image of a sweet little old lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, and I've been told to "forgive and forget" and raved at about what a great person she is and how much she helps people (which she does). And don't even get me started on how the two images of who my dad was messed with my head. It doesn't help that some of what I remember is very fragmented and I go through stages of doubting it myself, and for sure wouldn't say it to anyone predisposed to doubt. So it's a whole group of people now that I have to stay away from. Being around this situation makes me feel like my head wants to burst with all the thoughts in it that don't fit together.

Anyway, I think under the circumstances, what you are feeling is normal and understandable. Anyone would get confused and unsure about who they really are when given those mixed messages. Maybe it takes time and a lot of positive messages to balance out the bad?

 

[Anarchy]

Radise, sending you best wishes.

Abusers project causation for their actions outward onto everyone else a lot of the time? They themselves are just SO innocent.
Your abuser just didn't want to own the fact that they felt like beating up a kid.

multi like button pressed!

and of course I never questioned his authority. More shame there.

I was discussing exactly this in a PM with another member. please search on youtube for "Cartman, Authoritah"

Cartman, one of the little Southpark boys has been invested with "authoritah" and people WILL BE MADE TO FEEL HIS AUTHORITAH!

Other member's and my own personal experience was that to challenge an abuser (whether when we were children, or as adults facing either private sector or most especially bureaucratic abusers) is to invite the full force of their vindictive rage.

I know that we all too often feel guilt and shame for not challenging that authoritah, but there are very good reasons why it was better not to.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@Anarchy i know that episode of South Park! Cartman screws everything up

 

[Nevermore]

I wonder about this too. Sadism. My mother was very cruel to me emotionally but she also had mental health issues so that made it very confusing.
One day though when I was seeing my therapist we swapped roles : I was my mother and she was me.
I was kind of shocked at the way it felt to say those things and actually worried about how my therapist would feel/ handle it.
It was a real moment of clarity - like oh, she really is pretty mean!
But still it's difficult to call her sadistic because I also saw her struggle with her own mind - psychotic episodes.
I don't know if she took pleasure, it seemed more like she didn't notice or couldn't care or it didn't matter.
I have a horrible memory of when I was 17 just before I left home. I was seriously depressed and couldn't stop crying. She just kept talking about the weather or other people.
I was banging my head against the wall saying stop, please stop, help me!
And she just kept going then she went out.
I lost part of myself that day. I moved out in a fog of confusion into the arms of a man who was quite proficient himself at emotional torture!
She seems so nice to other people. It still confuses me many years later.
I know it all happened. And a lot worse than that. I don't know if she remembers.
I have good memories of her too. I just think sometimes she was too young to be a mother.
She herself has said she shouldn't have had children/ didn't really want children.
It's confusing )-:

 

[Nevermore]

i actually have been wondering if I have borderline personality disorder as a result of all this. Don't know if anyone relates here - I was about to make a separate post about it.
The symptoms of the whe fear of abandonment/ fear of intimacy seesaw rings so true to me.
I hide these fears from others but they rage inside of me.
It is it just that cptsd.and bpd have similar traits?
Or is it just that the whole diagnosis system is kinda flawed and depends on who's making it?
Or should I really start another thread rather than railroadin this one (-:
(Sorry)

 

[shimmerz]

It is it just that cptsd.and bpd have similar traits?

I think this topic is a great one and deserves a thread of it's own. It seems super relevant on its own merit.

 

[joeylittle]

@jojo88 - a Borderline Personality diagnosis depends a great deal on how consistently and fully the required number of traits manifest in the individual. You also need to have enough criteria to qualify for a personality disorder before you can meet qualifications for a dx of borderline, specifically.

It's not an easy one to diagnose, and if I were you I'd not spend too much energy trying to figure it out yourself.

This has affected my brain so much that sometimes it turns against me and it tells me that I did in fact ask to be abused because I liked being humiliated.

Just wanted to say that I think I survived some sadism - in my case it wasn't over a period of years, just days - but I still wrestle with something similar to what you wrote, above. I think it comes out of one way of coping in the moment it was happening (at least for me).

 

[Weemie]

We do what we can to survive. There were many times in my life where I felt that I did want what was happening, that I did encourage it. It is brainwashing. Children want shelter, food, warmth, safety and love. That's it; that's all kids want.

Adults and abusers warp these perceptions and use them to manipulate us, by depriving us of the things we need to be safe and healthy. We start associating what we need with abuse. To be safe, I need to be in a position where an abuser is feeling good, and happy. An abuser feels good and happy when he is abusing me. If he's abusing me, he's not abusing my friends.

Do you know, how long it takes to unpack the thought processes behind that? How many years of shame, and misery, and disgust you have to face, even to recognize a physiological response to unwanted sexual contact? Humans, man, we don't talk about this stuff. It's not well-known.

You have to dig and dig and dig, and uncover, and uncover, and trace it all back and face everything and everyone who ever harmed you. Even if they're dead. Or gone. Disintegrated. None of us are evil. We respond to the situation at hand in the best way we know how.

 

[Anarchy]

None of us are evil.

anarchy makes loud sucking noise with his teeth...

Some seem to have more latent potential for it than others.
There is a euphemism used by some British police, to describe someone who lacked the internal resources, opportunity or external help to overcome what they were born into:
FFB
(F#cked From Birth)

Just a look around the board here shows plenty of people (I cant think of any evil board member here) who have faced the most horrible of circumstances, and who have whatever it takes to still be good people despite what happened or was done to them. People who absolutely will not become evil.

 

[Ronin]

It is it just that cptsd.and bpd have similar traits?

Ultimately both traits / personality thing, and symptoms / illness thing, are workable, though.

So if there's overlap in the two? The larger goal to be healthy with them existing is still something to ponder more, than their mere existence.

 

[Stickler]

...My dad was certainly evil.
My friend's dad is evil, he's a very high-functioning psychopath.

I worked to not be evil. But I did try emotionally abusing other kids as a child ( after all, all the adults in my life took everything out on me; surely it was a good coping skill?)...and I felt guilty, pained, and sad. Not relaxed and empowered like my dad felt after he'd beat up on me.
I'm too empathic, I think, to enjoy hurting people at all. Apparently well-endowed with mirror neurons or something...I hurt when people hurt. So causing it isn't fun.
OTOH? I have a helluva time extending that compassion to myself? As I am ( we are ) used to being the designated despiseable person(s). We often hate ourselves. We are failures.

@ Jojo not sure what diagnostic label to slap onto the push/pull thingie...the aching desire to be closer to people versus the terror of being closer...
To love someone is to hand them the power to destroy you.

 

[Nevermore]

Sorry radise - just realised I didn't even attempt to answer the question even! How do you reset your brain?
I have tried so many things. Meditation really helps me I have to say - I feel like at least I can give my soul some freedom, if not my mind and my heart.
I'm not sure if you can ever really eradicate what's been done - or I feel that for myself anyway. I think the guilt and shame and the feeling like everything is my fault and I deserved it will always be my Achilles heel. Awareness helps. When that cacophony starts up in me I try to kind of watch it form afar instead of totally living it out as I used to.
Creativity of any form really helps too. I have sometimes captured my own reality in a way that makes me see things clearly and it makes me like myself more, and that gives me freedom as well.
I can't seem to do quotes but what anarchy said about people here being "people who absolutely will not become evil" - Yes that's one good thing about it. I do think it's a choice. I'm certain I'll never make that choice!