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Childhood Found a way to stop trying to determine if what happened 'counted' as abuse?

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Keen

MyPTSD Pro
If you were abused as a child, do you ever keep reflecting on it over and over and try to determine if it really 'counted' as abuse?
I do this all the time. I'll even look up official definitions of physical, sexual, emotional abuse, and of neglect (educational, medical, etc), and I will see that what happened to me matches. But then I'll still doubt whether I was really abused or whether I just misinterpreted everything or was just oversensitive.
Just wondering who can relate, and also if anyone has found ways to resolve this and not have to keep doing it over and over. Has anyone came to a place where they can just stop questioning whether it was abuse or not?
 
For me, I logiced it out on paper. It was something like:
Do I believe that any child on the earth deserves to be sexually abused? Nope.
Do I honestly believe that I am somehow some kind of exception? That I’m the only child ever created who somehow deserved something different to every other child? Nope. Well, maybe...

Then it was a case of pulling apart the “Maybe”. Where is that coming from? (More warped beliefs that needed addressing), and figuring out what purpose those beliefs were serving (self-preservation- easier to believe that I’m the weird exception than it happened to me. So why is that?).

They aren’t easy questions to answer, and I think the answers are probably different for everyone.
 
I guess if you weren't particularly traumatized by something I would acknowledge it was abuse but try not to dwell on it excessively if you can. That's easier said than done I suppose. I don't like to feel like a "victim" so if it's something I didn't really feel disturbed by I try to let it go. Please don't feel like I'm blowing you off or being condescending. When you have a vast amount of abuse that occurred sometimes it's best not to dwell on the things that didn't really bother you or maybe try to work through them first. Like I suppose for an example my mom having sex with me doesn't really bother me that much. It wasn't violent. It's affected me in different ways but I still talk to her. I know she's mentally ill and I know she sexually abused my brother and I but I can separate that part of her from the rest of her. I still can't be around her much but it doesn't affect.me as much as the other things that happened to me. It might be dissociation.
I suppose you reach a moral gray area in that regard. What really bothers you? You need to process through those things. If it doesn't bother leave it where it lay. Life is too complicated to be trying to dissect every single thing.
 
My memories were incomplete or I stopped remembering at certain things. I thought I was 'different.' Because my thinking and memories were so fragmented I couldn't put it all together. Then in my 40's I was thinking about one of those 'things that went on' and I went and found my wife and said 'I think this means I was sexually abused?' That was the beginning.
 
I am curious why there is confusion. Maybe “like me” my older brother sexually molested me for years, there was no actual penetration, however without getting into the actual gorey details of what did take place, it WAS still sexual abuse. Did I fight him, no, I was afraid of him. That still does not mean I asked or was fine with what he was doing, I was 7 years old. He was old enough to KNOW what he was doing, it was well planned and premeditated. I hope this helps a bit. I am sure you did not ask for what was done to you, abuse whether it’s mental, sexual, physical is a power play. The abuser enjoys the power they have over the “victim” and keeping them quiet is part of that power play. Lessening what was done to the victim to confuse them is even further abuse to me. Yes, I think about it a lot because he still to this day tries to keep his power hold over me, I have to fight in my mind and remember I am the only one who can let him have that control now. I want to strip him of any further damage he tries to inflict. Hope that makes sense. It’s not easy.
 
I agree with @Sideways in that I often have to logic myself around with the whole "am I some kind of exception" thing.
My first therapist asked me if it would be abuse if it happened to someone else. I was like, yeah of course you absolute sicko, and he just grinned at me. I hated him for it at the time, but it's helped.
Sometimes I'm not really sure if I want it to "count" as abuse or not? Like, if it doesn't count then I can just stick my fingers in my ears and pretend it didn't happen, or I don't have to feel bad about it. But if it does count, then it's okay that I feel quite so off about it?
It's confusing.
@frogthroat one of the things I find about having multiple traumas and different kinds, is that I kind of rank what happened along my own f'd up scale? Like, this wasn't as bad as that, so let's give some bandwidth to the real issues and the minor ones aren't that bad. Never mind that one of the minor ones is big trauma to someone else, I'm good with those weak-arse little demons.
And yeah I get the whole misinterpreting/oversensitive thing. Just for the record, and I don't know you and I'm not qualified, but my guess is that that's fairly unlikely.
 
For me personally, I don't know what I'd call it, but avoidance would be worth thinking about. I think for me it's about trying to make sense of/come to terms with things by working out which box they fit in.
 
I kind of rank what happened along my own f'd up scale? Like, this wasn't as bad as that, so let's give some bandwidth to the real issues and the minor ones aren't that bad. Never mind that one of the minor ones is big trauma to someone else
Right? I do that too. I've only gotten help recently and my T is like "You'll be fine and you can have a life." to like "Wooooaaaahhh you can support yourself and work? Most people I see that went through less than you can't even function. People who are monstrously abused often don't cope well but you can have a better life."
I guess I get to where I'm like okay.. what is the expectation for me then? Which is it? Am I going to have a life where I'm only miserable 85% of the time? Cool I guess? It's hard to get psyched about that. It's like "Hell yeah. I can get to where I'm only half as f*cked up as I was. Maybe I'll be able to talk to people without wanting to die and go outside for more than a half hour someday. By the way people are completely flawed and I've seen and experienced so much violence I will never be able to fully experience the depth of what life has to offer and I'll probably die early due to the lifetime of stress I've experienced but goddamn that sunset was beautiful. Yay."
I have to rank my trauma because I can't handle all of it at once or I see the bigger picture and then I get really bitter like right now and then I remember that every comforting moment was ripped away from me and it will keep happening over and over and over so why get excited about anything or try anything new? You get to a point to where you're like does it even matter what it was? I just don't even want to be bothered by it anymore.
 
Right? I do that too. I've only gotten help recently and my T is like "You'll be fine and you can ha...

Yes, I found I was amazed that you can 'support yourself and work.' I know the actual circumstances of the trauma can be very different and have the same effects on different people, I, however, have not worked for years. It's embarrassing for me to think about what I was like when I had people around me and I was trying to function so, I think you are doing so well. : )
 
For me, I do something very much like what Keen described and it's not avoidance. My whole family system was built into telling me what was and wasn't abuse. And according to them, it wasn't abuse. And my family was very isolated so I didn't have a lot of healthy examples. The friends I made tended to be other troubled kids so they were often abused too. Another line my family fed me is that other children were spoiled and families were overly permissive and these kids were going to grow up into problem adults.

There was also a lot of comparing going on. Both of my parents talked about what was done to them and how some of that was abuse and look how much better I was treated. They would point out stories of abuse on the media and say how that was abuse and what right did I have to complain about anything, when I had it so much better. And it's so easy to fall into that thought pattern. It's so easy to look at posts here and hear stories on the media and think, my experiences were minimal and I shouldn't think of it as abuse and need to quit being such a drama king. I also have/had DID, so different parts hold different memories and opinions about my experience so it gets really confusing.

I still struggle with this, but have found two things that help me. The first is to let go of the label abuse completely. Instead of worrying about if it was or wasn't I focus on the impact... hmm... perhaps this is what others mean about avoidance? That if you are wondering if it's abuse you are avoiding focusing on the impact of what happened? The other thing I do, is think about if I would want to do to a child, what was done to me. If the answer is "no", that means there's a likelihood it's abuse... but see, I can already get into a thought muddle. Just because I wouldn't want to do something to a child, doesn't mean it's abuse. Gah.
 
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