Childhood abuse lead to toxic adult relationships?

[BoyfriendqwithPTSD]

This is a really random question, but I was thinking about this earlier and I thought id ask on this forum for opinions/thoughts/insight/experiences.

If an individual has been through childhood abuse, could it be "more likely" that these individuals form abusive relationships in adulthood.
I was thinking perhaps because these sorts of relationships are familiar.

Any thoughts?

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

More likely to become pray to more predators cause the f*ckers sniff you out somehow.

Why?

 

[jmad]

From what I have read, the answer is yes. A wounded child often becomes a wounding adult. That's why so much of trauma is generational.

If I can share a bit about myself, learning about PTSD, as well as attachment theory, has led me to better understand my abusive father. He was never diagnosed with anything because he never sought help (other than the bottle), but I know his brother was killed in front of him during an armed robbery when he was 8 years old. He lost both of his parents before he turned 16.

Before I reflected on this, I only knew my father as an intensely jealous man who would lose his temper at any given moment. He put my mother through hell. He gave us a traumatic childhood that I and my siblings have dealt with in destructive ways.

I started to exhibit (it was a painful realization) many features that he had: I was intensely irritable, I could be set off by anything. I was jealous. I couldn't handle the thought of my partner being with someone else, past or present. I had many unhealthy relationships.

Once I became diagnosed, I took responsibility for my actions and my thoughts. But I also sought to understand them. To stop them. To set boundaries and recognize what is acceptable and what is not, but also becoming more sympathetic to my father and compassionate to myself, for we have suffered and are broken. But I want to stand strong. The buck stops with me. My children, god willing, will not endure we generations of men (and women) before had endured.

 

[Vee]

There is a great book about this called Toxic Parents by Susan Forward. It really explains how the family dynamics and abuse we had as a child affects our adult relationships.

 

[Finchlet2]

I think we find love more confusing experiencing it for the first time in later life and are more reliant/find it harder to let go for real of our first love as often that person can be the first true family and as such our only support network making us more vulnerable not just emotionally but financially and practically.

 

[Sweetleaf]

The trauma from my adult life is much worse than the stuff that went on when I was a kid, but I did have some things going on in my childhood. Maybe those things from my childhood set me up to f*ck up as an adult and wind up with an abuser, I haven't really talked about this with my therapist, or drawn any conclusions about how the things that were going on in my childhood may have influenced the relationships I got in as an adult.

My mother seemed mostly focused on my older sister, my father seemed focused on alcohol and not doing anything. He began to become a more belligerent type of drunk the further he got into his alcoholism. My mom and him would get into fights a lot, usually not physical though. He did some kind of f*cked up things like show me porn regularly starting at like age 9 or 10. He basically didn't give a shit about anyone. Eventually he didn't do anything except drink and lay in bed all day, pretty much. He was diagnosed bipolar at some point.

I haven't had any contact with him in 8 or 9 years, I have no intentions of ever changing that.

I suppose that as a kid, I was kind of attention starved, and I didn't feel like my accomplishments were very recognized. I had depression going on at some point as a kid, was basically saying "I wish I had never been born" and things like that. I don't really recall any of that. They put me on wellbutrin to try to treat that, I suppose it worked. One parental figure was more focused on the other kid, and the other parental figure wasn't doing any parenting. I don't view my childhood as "abusive" but things certainly could have been a lot better.

Another thing I just thought of - my mother would yell all the time at the drop of a hat. Anything wrong at all, and just like that *snaps fingers* she's gone ballistic. I would often just not come to my mother with things, or if I did I'd be filled with fear and expectation that I was about to be yelled at. She still has anger problems, and absolutely must have the last word at all times, and thinks she's always right. I'm pretty sure I've never heard her apologize for doing something wrong, ever. She's been supportive and helpful to me as an adult, but sometimes her personality just clashes so hard with my condition, because of the conflict/yelling.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I grew up to attract abusers. I should say I've had abusive friends all my life. I now have no abusive friends, and I feel so much better about myself.