Childhood Trauma Validation

[cat]

Thank you Cate for your message of love & support its something we all need to get us through the confusion of cptsd. It doesn't matter how many times my psych tells me this is not my fault & i try to change my negative thoughts about myself they still win.

My Mum was my abuser, she died 3yrs ago & its only been the last 6mths that I've been able to talk about what happened. I wish I had the opportunity to hear her say she was sorry for what happened, I think it was her ignorance that caused it but I'd just like to know that I wasn't as bad a child as she made me feel & still do.

Good luck with your therapy Cate, you may find it will make you angry with your Mum as you work through it but it is important that you understand why it happened & heal from it. Connecting with our anger is hard work & can be distressing but your therapist, mum & all of us will be there to support you.

 

[Ellen]

I may be wrong here, but I think trauma for PTSD was originally defined as the death, violence that vets often see. It wasn't until years later that childhood physical & sexual abuse was included in the definition of trauma in the DSM. Emotional abuse still isn't recognized as "real" trauma for PTSD. So many people still think of PTSD as a military type of illness. The childhood abuse is so underrecognized because it's so seldom talked about, or if is talked about, the victims are told to shut up or quit whining, as so many of us have been told over and over again. There aren't a dozen of your war buddies as witnesses. Our battles aren't recorded in anyone's logs or journals. Often times it's just us and our therapists who are working though this mess alone and with no support. That's why it is, in my opinion, so much worse, and why the effects of prolonged childhood abuse by friends or family members are "complex" - our brains get almost permanently miswired. BTW, PTSD isn't an illness, it's an injury. We were injured. As one of my therapists once said, I "grew up in a war zone."

 

[winterose]

I think my own experience got validated on what happened to me in court. On somethings. It didn't, however, validate what I went through and what it cost to me. Prosecutors should very well know what words do since the whole study of prosecution is using words.. They can change an entire way of thinking. We wouldn't have cognitive psychology if it isn't recognized. For those who think media type of reporting things and emotional abuse isn't important or isn't a valid reason to feel abused, then the person is walking around fragmented. Just look at the words "child prostitute". Talk about invalidation of an abusive environment.

 

[Marlene]

just wanted to say how much this all resonates with me. Especially the huge damage that is done when the person you rely on to protect you (usually mum) stands by and does nothing to stop the abuse, and then often minimises the impact for years with words like 'it wasn't that bad', 'you'll get over it' etc. I often felt that in some ways this was as bad, or perhaps even worse a betrayal than the abuse itself. My mum is still in denial somewhat, and makes comments like 'i never knew what really happened, you should have told me' (I DID!!!). It hurts me still. Although my abuser is long gone, the pain of her rejection still causes problems today, because I still have a relationship with her and I love her. The irony is that in my recent episode of really crippling PTSD and depression, she has been very supportive. I'm in a weird double bind - on the one hand, she's the person who's helped me see I need to get help for my PTSD and deal with the root causes - on the other hand, the process of dealing with it all (starting therapy soon) is likely to bring all my anger and hurt towards her up to the surface. I am really fearful that this new, constructive relationship we have built is going to be shattered when I go into therapy and am forced to connect with all the anger and hurt I know I have got bottled up inside. Can anyone relate?

OMG...I could have written this paragraph. Can I relate? Oh yes!

I still deal with the anger towards my mother almost daily. Or pretty much whenever I think of her. As I told my therapist 'I love my mother and I hate my mother and I have no idea what to do about it'. There's such a complex relationship with someone who didn't hurt you, yet didn't stop the hurting of you...but then helps you when you're older and things come to the surface and encourages you to deal with all the past while they stay firmly in denial land. OMG...it's so complicated to think about it hurts my brain sometimes.

Lisa

 

[reallynow]

Marlene, I agree with what you said, whoever wrote that paragraph said exactly what I'm also struggling with. Only thing with me is that I never did tell my mother the whole story about what happened with me, but she also said that she doesn't want to hear any of it, because she thinks I ought to deal with it on my own since I'm an adult and she isn't strong enough to hear my issues (though she knows nothing about the sexual abuse). It makes me think that she has some idea of what issues I'm dealing with, but would rather pretend she doesn't or be in denial.

I hold resentment towards her for that, as well as for not protecting me when I was younger. And I still love my mom, but I also have some hate I'm ashamed to say. Well I feel super guilty because she did try to protect me, and thats what makes me struggle a lot, because regardless of how she did help me, I still resent her for not succeeding. SIGH thats where the struggle goes on....

 

[mariposa]

Trauma is bad at any age, and repeated trauma over time is worse at any age. But trauma to an unformed mind never gives that mind a chance to know anything BUT trauma, and that's the worst of all. Walking victim that I was from an abusive childhood, I was also gang-raped at age 18 and dumped out in a desert in the middle of nowhere in Mexico to die or find my way back to civilization. That rape was bad - very, very traumatic. But it was very obviously traumatic to me and to everyone I told the story too. Other people understood, at least to some small extent, and sympathized. The constantly repeated, daily doses of trauma from my childhood did far more damage. I didn't know anything else existed, and I didn't realize that my world was a weird and horribly twisted little perversion of the world other people lived in. I just didn't know I was missing most of what should have made up my existence. My trauma was so great that I had horrible bloody nightmares of people killing me every possible way from childhood through adulthood, and I had no idea that this wasn't "normal." THAT is what makes child abuse trauma so bad. We just think it's normal. We don't have any idea that we need help or rescuing. We don't get or look for help or sympathy. We just try to kill ourselves to make the terrors go away, and limp along through life thinking we're crazy or weird or warped or damaged goods, and never have a clue why. I was suicidal all my life, implanted and brainwashed with the idea that I didn't deserve to take up space on this planet from the day I was born, and I just believed that. I really did. A year ago I finally realized that i spent 37 years of my life being severely abused by my mother who kept me under her control by making me think she needed me to take care of her because she was sick. It was complete Stockholm Syndrome, and far worse than my father's physical abuse, than the rape, than the beatings of an abusive husband. Nothing even comes close to what my mother did to me before I even learned to talk. I really think war PTSD and severe child abuse don't even belong in the same category. The adult has many resources and a fully developed point of view to help cope with trauma. An infant has NOTHING.

 

[tch75]

Thank you Marlene!
I have the same problem with my mother, she wasn't the abusor, but she failed to see what was going on in her home! She is well aware now, and accepts it, but she says she was to naive, and had never heard of incest before. She helps me the best she can now, but it doesn't make things right!!!

This thread is so strong for me to read!


tch75

 

[azsummergirl]

Exactly! I couldn't agree more. An adult has a developed mind, personality, attitude and sometimes more support. As an abused child we had so very little. Had we been adults, we could have had more options in protecting ourselves, physically and emotionally (not in every case).

Our complete small world was destroyed when we were abused by parents, abusing us themselves or looking the other way. In some cases, they've done both. Coping skills we develop as children are lifelong, so deeply ingrained, and we may know nothing else.
I have a problem experiencing anger, for example. I was never allowed anger, from infancy. I know it is logical to feel anger but I have never experienced it in a normal way. This leads to much deeper levels of confusion with emotions. Also, CPTSD causes much deeper levels of confusion with family relationships, because of no normal relationships as a child. CPTSD brings deeper seated trust issues.

It is a missing foundation. I am constantly intruiged by relationships that people have with thier parents or siblings. Children are like little sponges. Rather than absorb normal healthy things, we absorbed fear and distrust. It may take a lifetime to figure out things we should have felt and learned as children.

Carrie

 

[Nicolette]

I still deal with the anger towards my mother almost daily. Or pretty much whenever I think of her. As I told my therapist 'I love my mother and I hate my mother and I have no idea what to do about it'. There's such a complex relationship with someone who didn't hurt you, yet didn't stop the hurting of you...but then helps you when you're older and things come to the surface and encourages you to deal with all the past while they stay firmly in denial land.

Been there, done that and tried all different ways to make it work with my mother still invalidating anything I felt was significant to me. I hate those words "someone else out there is always worse off than you"....so what, I care about my life and what is happening to me and do not want to diminish my suffering just because you can't deal with it (as in be a nurturing or at least caring mother or even just validate what I am saying) is something I would have loved to say to my mother many a time.

The only way I have been able to release myself from the struggle is to let the relationship with my mother go and despite her saying "you will regret this and that once I am dead" I honestly don't think I will. The anger and struggle ended for me when I no longer felt obliged to maintain the relationship (my choice).

 

[Deleted member 6617]

Wow...been reading this thread and am sitting here in tears. Why? Because just reading this brings up so many memories of being invalidated and helps me to feel validated. I didn't know it was so incredibly important to me that it would bring out such a strong reaction to reading this.

Thanks for the thread!

PH

 

[Marlene]

despite her saying "you will regret this and that once I am dead" I honestly don't think I will

Thank you for saying that, Nicolette. In my head only, I've said that I know, absolutely know deep down, that only after my mother dies will I be free from the past. I don't know how else to explain it other than she's my only link to my childhood. Other ties I've severed with, if not ease, at least it wasn't that difficult. My ties to my mother...they're all balled up in knots that I can't/won't sever. So I live in the absolute moment whenever I deal with her (to keep myself somewhat more sane) and forbid talk of the past even though it's always pushing at my back whenever I even think of her. Judas priest, if I wasn't in therapy I'd say I needed therapy!!!!!

My husband is close with his parents, has a good relationship with them and enjoys their company. A part of me jealous of that but a larger part of me has no idea what to do with it. It's so unknown to me that I feel lost even contemplating it.

Lisa

 

[Nora]

Abuse is abuse is abuse. Our society is so prone to victim-blaming because not only do we want to believe in a just world, we want to distance ourselves from the victims as if to say, "that can't happen to me because I'm not like them." It's shocked me when people have so much fear of simply thinking ill of my abuser, that they'd rather chastise me for not defending myself to protect their view of a just world. Very invalidating. This is the danger of black and white thinking, when the world is conveniently divided into heroes and Disney villains. It stops us from holding people accountable for their actions; if someone abuses me, it's irrelevant whether they're the Dalai Lama or a convicted felon. The act is inexcusable and speaks for itself.

I suffered mostly from emotional abuse, and it's hard to 'prove' that it happened due to lack of evidence. It was also tough to get validated because some of the stuff my mom did, as suffering from a myriad of personality disorders, just doesn't make any logical sense. It was much easier for people to believe (and I can't say that I blame them) that I was overreacting and was holding a grudge and had a distorted memory of the situation. One person said she didn't believe my mother had made a comment to me that I was recounting in an anecdote. I was stunned, but she said, "what kind of mother would say that to her own daughter on her birthday?!" Exactly. What kind of mother indeed.

The validation and support I've received from my friends and therapist has allowed me to make great strides against the crazy-making gaslighting I was subjected to for so long, especially in forgiving myself for the behaviors I engage in that directly reflect my traumatic upbringing. So many psychiatric disorders point the finger of blame at the sufferer, and PTSD is one of the few that acknowledges you went through something terrible and damaging to any human being. As a child, I was penalized for displaying emotion because I was an accurate barometer of the horrible situations I was in, and my sensitivity became my greatest vulnerability. I'd like to think that with these new experiences I'm turning it rightfully back around into one of my greatest sources of strength.

-Nora