As a child, I suffered peer bullying and sexual/mental/physical abuse. My parents were teens when they married, so therefore had no clue how to raise me and my siblings in an attentive and nurturing environment. Mother was a strict, harsh disciplinarian that used brushes, belts, switches from the tree, wooden spoons. Pinches, hair pulling, slaps across the face. She had her favorite children out of us four....I was never one of them. Father worked long hours, so he wasn't around to really have an active hand in our daily routine. When he was, he was always yelling and angry.
This led to me being somewhat of an extremely emotionally volatile child, always acting out. Destructive and self-sabotaging and/or injuring. Lots of drugs and alcohol during my teens, so those years are somewhat of a blur....swiss cheese memory with lots of holes. My education pretty much stops at the eighth grade.
As an adult, I spent the prime years of my life with two abusive men, consecutively. One for five years, then thirteen with the other. I was in my late thirties before I finally realized that unless I changed some things, I was going to live the second half of my life in misery, or die by my own hand or at the hand of my then boyfriend. A few years after leaving my last abusive relationship I stopped drinking, gained some perspective and clarity....and the impact of it all hit me like a Mack truck. I had a mental breakdown last year and was hospitalized for a week. I have since been diagnosed with PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder and recently, Borderline Personality Disorder. I think the last diagnosis should be switched to C-PTSD.
This led to me being somewhat of an extremely emotionally volatile child, always acting out. Destructive and self-sabotaging and/or injuring. Lots of drugs and alcohol during my teens, so those years are somewhat of a blur....swiss cheese memory with lots of holes. My education pretty much stops at the eighth grade.
As an adult, I spent the prime years of my life with two abusive men, consecutively. One for five years, then thirteen with the other. I was in my late thirties before I finally realized that unless I changed some things, I was going to live the second half of my life in misery, or die by my own hand or at the hand of my then boyfriend. A few years after leaving my last abusive relationship I stopped drinking, gained some perspective and clarity....and the impact of it all hit me like a Mack truck. I had a mental breakdown last year and was hospitalized for a week. I have since been diagnosed with PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder and recently, Borderline Personality Disorder. I think the last diagnosis should be switched to C-PTSD.
