Shan-Nav01
Bronze Member
I am generally pretty useless at keeping diaries, but here goes anyway!
I think of my life and don't think of anything particularly bad happening, but I think that I have just stopped remember the hurt and pain that certain events caused me. Most of what follows might not be very coherent, but I'm just focussing on writing what I feel helps...
I don't remember much of my life from roughly age 11 and younger, the small bits I do remember are hardly positive - my gran ran away for a night and my cousins/aunt ended up staying round ours, I didn't understand what was happening at the time, I still don't really know what happened, but after that my mum really stopped liking her, to the extent that even though she lived a mile down the road we would rarely see her.
I used to have a recurring night mare that people that I knew were skinned and their skin left in one piece where they were killed.
When I was roughly 7, I started pulling out my hair (mainly eyelashes), much much later I learnt that it is a medical condition called trichotillomania (TTM for short). This really messed up my life, in quite a subtle yet persistent way. My mum never believed me when she would ask me why I was missing eyelashes, I started off with telling the truth, but she would say it wasn't possible to pull eyelashes out with your fingers (it's very possible!) which in turn meant that I would lie to her about my methods, to be something that she could believe. She never understood that it wasn't a choice, I couldn't help it, and when she told me to stop, and I didn't she would threaten me with being "sent to the doctors" *insert know absolutely hating the thought of going to the doctors as it was used as a form of punishment then!*
One particularly vivid memory - I'm not sure how old I was, somewhere between 7 and 13 - I'd pulled out more from my eyebrows that normal, and mum lost it, she went and got a razor from the bathroom and tried to shave my eyebrows off. As you can imagine it was a very pleasant experience, I remember sitting at the table with my hands clasped to my face so she couldn't get to them. This was the closest to physical abuse that I can think of from either of my parents, but it was the emotional blackmail, for want of a better word that got to me. Being told I was letting my parents down everytime I pulled out a hair, them begging me to stop, but never listening to me when I tried to talk about it.
When I was 14 my parents divorced, mum had been cheating on dad for about 4 months when it happened. I was told I had to choose which parent to live with, which was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, and a decision I have regretted for the rest of my life. I chose to live with my mum, on the basis that my brother was living with my dad, so it made it fair. Since I got TTM I don't think I've trusted my mum, so some things just didn't really surprise me or shock me any more, as there was no trust to break, I was already broken I just hadn't realised it. The person she cheated on my dad with moved in one weekend while I was away with Guides, she asked if it was ok when she came to collect me, as if I had a choice... Him living there was actually surprisingly nice, they didn't argue, and he didn't seam like a bad man. In the end though his wife took him back.
A couple of months after that her new boss moved in, well he stayed for one night and never really left. He is now my step dad. He seamed alright at first, but he soon earned himself the title of step-douche from me, he had a very short temper which when sparked would remind me of when mum would have a go at me about my TTM, something that I couldn't control. Him and mum *ahem* created my half brother! and then he went to prison for GBH, which came completely out of the blue to me, it turns out he had been going through all this prison related stuff when he first hooked up with mum, but they never thought of actually giving me a heads up until about a week before he was sentenced.
After he came out of prison they got married, they had gone away for a few days and then phoned me to tell me they were married, it was all done in complete secret and no one knew before hand. There was so much other little stuff happening at the same time, some people have PTSD caused by one or two significant large events that have happened, where as for me it's from an amalgamation of everything growing up, without having the time or space or support to sort stuff out in my head. We moved house almost every 6 months due to being in rentals, I went from walking 2 minutes to school, to having to get a bus which took nearly 2 hours to get into college, leaving at 7.15 in the morning, and would still arrive in late for lessons. At one point my brother had an argument with my dad so moved in with my mum and step-douche, I went away for a week and came back and he had moved out, I still don't know what happened there, he moved in with my grandparents. It was one of those things that was just never spoken about, to the extent that after 2 weeks I asked mum where he was, she essentially said he had moved out, and that was that.
At somepoint in all this I became a Christian, when I told my dad the first time that I was going to church he laughed at me, and when it came up a few months later with my mum she acted as if it was pointless and silly, and obviously a way for me to spend less time with her (my church was closest to my dad's house) I started living between their houses, depending on what I was doing... When I had hockey training, matches or church I was at dads, the rest of the time at mums, which meant I was pretty much alternating between houses each night.
From this time something I remember very vividly is coming home from college to my dads and just sitting in the lounge in the corner with the lights off and the curtains already shut and just curling up and wishing life was different, then feeling really guilty because nothing obviously sucky had happened in my life, and confused at why I felt the way I did.
I moved into a friends house just before I finished college because I couldn't take being the blame of all the arguments between my mum and step-dad, and being blamed for things that weren't my fault. One day I was sitting in a computer room at college, it was the day before we were moving house again, and mum phoned me and every other word was a swear word (she doesn't swear very much ever so came as a shock) apparently I had said I would be back early, so she didn't have her house keys with her and it was my fault.
By the time I got home I was all prepared for a massive argument, but it never happened, she was acting like the perfect living mother, and pretended the phone call never happened. Cue major confusion
I started uni and thought I'd managed a fresh start, then I realised that my child hood wasn't as good as most peoples. The nature of my degree means I often need to trust those I'm working with (rock climbing and what not), but that's something I really really struggle with. In my second year I started to really loose control of life, I handed all my work in late (which means that when I finish now I will be looking at best at a 2:1, and that's if I work ridiculously hard to bring my grade back up next year) I stopped going out with friends, I started thinking about what the best way to commit suicide would be. At the same time my bike was stolen, it was one of the only things that had been a constant in my life over the previous 6 or so years, and I thought of it almost as if it were my child. I realised I was in a bad place when I couldn't muster any emotion to it being stolen, and saw the mental health advisor at uni, who diagnosed me with PTSD, and recommended that I get therapy, I've had therapy in the past (while at college) and it has never helped, with my third therapist telling me I didn't need it because I had a strong social base and talked things through with friends, and he knew I didn't want to be there.
That was a year ago, over the summer I was date raped by someone I thought I could trust, it's a bit complicated here. The first time was definitely rape, without a shadow of a doubt, but the second and third times I just don't know what to call them, I know I consented but I know that I didn't want to do it, I just couldn't say no because I had finally found someone I felt comfortable being around who got that life was complicated, and I didn't want to ruin it by setting too many boundaries, as well as thinking along the lines of we've already had sex once, he will be expecting me to put out in the future too.
I know that I need therapy again, even if it is just to talk through the rape and subsequent encounters, but I also don't feel ready yet, it's one thing being able to type about it, it's another to talk about it and actively search out the emotions around it and what not.
This first post is just a brief outline of what's happened in my life, I say brief in the loosest possible terms (apologies for the length, and congratulations to anyone who made it to the end of the post!). Some goals I would like to set myself:
- forgive my mum for stuff she has done, mostly without thinking about it, which has affected me more than she realises.
- stop having a mini panic attack everytime the phone rings
- accept that sometimes life isn't as black or white as I would like to it be
- allow myself to rest, really rest, more than just a lie in now and then!
I think of my life and don't think of anything particularly bad happening, but I think that I have just stopped remember the hurt and pain that certain events caused me. Most of what follows might not be very coherent, but I'm just focussing on writing what I feel helps...
I don't remember much of my life from roughly age 11 and younger, the small bits I do remember are hardly positive - my gran ran away for a night and my cousins/aunt ended up staying round ours, I didn't understand what was happening at the time, I still don't really know what happened, but after that my mum really stopped liking her, to the extent that even though she lived a mile down the road we would rarely see her.
I used to have a recurring night mare that people that I knew were skinned and their skin left in one piece where they were killed.
When I was roughly 7, I started pulling out my hair (mainly eyelashes), much much later I learnt that it is a medical condition called trichotillomania (TTM for short). This really messed up my life, in quite a subtle yet persistent way. My mum never believed me when she would ask me why I was missing eyelashes, I started off with telling the truth, but she would say it wasn't possible to pull eyelashes out with your fingers (it's very possible!) which in turn meant that I would lie to her about my methods, to be something that she could believe. She never understood that it wasn't a choice, I couldn't help it, and when she told me to stop, and I didn't she would threaten me with being "sent to the doctors" *insert know absolutely hating the thought of going to the doctors as it was used as a form of punishment then!*
One particularly vivid memory - I'm not sure how old I was, somewhere between 7 and 13 - I'd pulled out more from my eyebrows that normal, and mum lost it, she went and got a razor from the bathroom and tried to shave my eyebrows off. As you can imagine it was a very pleasant experience, I remember sitting at the table with my hands clasped to my face so she couldn't get to them. This was the closest to physical abuse that I can think of from either of my parents, but it was the emotional blackmail, for want of a better word that got to me. Being told I was letting my parents down everytime I pulled out a hair, them begging me to stop, but never listening to me when I tried to talk about it.
When I was 14 my parents divorced, mum had been cheating on dad for about 4 months when it happened. I was told I had to choose which parent to live with, which was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, and a decision I have regretted for the rest of my life. I chose to live with my mum, on the basis that my brother was living with my dad, so it made it fair. Since I got TTM I don't think I've trusted my mum, so some things just didn't really surprise me or shock me any more, as there was no trust to break, I was already broken I just hadn't realised it. The person she cheated on my dad with moved in one weekend while I was away with Guides, she asked if it was ok when she came to collect me, as if I had a choice... Him living there was actually surprisingly nice, they didn't argue, and he didn't seam like a bad man. In the end though his wife took him back.
A couple of months after that her new boss moved in, well he stayed for one night and never really left. He is now my step dad. He seamed alright at first, but he soon earned himself the title of step-douche from me, he had a very short temper which when sparked would remind me of when mum would have a go at me about my TTM, something that I couldn't control. Him and mum *ahem* created my half brother! and then he went to prison for GBH, which came completely out of the blue to me, it turns out he had been going through all this prison related stuff when he first hooked up with mum, but they never thought of actually giving me a heads up until about a week before he was sentenced.
After he came out of prison they got married, they had gone away for a few days and then phoned me to tell me they were married, it was all done in complete secret and no one knew before hand. There was so much other little stuff happening at the same time, some people have PTSD caused by one or two significant large events that have happened, where as for me it's from an amalgamation of everything growing up, without having the time or space or support to sort stuff out in my head. We moved house almost every 6 months due to being in rentals, I went from walking 2 minutes to school, to having to get a bus which took nearly 2 hours to get into college, leaving at 7.15 in the morning, and would still arrive in late for lessons. At one point my brother had an argument with my dad so moved in with my mum and step-douche, I went away for a week and came back and he had moved out, I still don't know what happened there, he moved in with my grandparents. It was one of those things that was just never spoken about, to the extent that after 2 weeks I asked mum where he was, she essentially said he had moved out, and that was that.
At somepoint in all this I became a Christian, when I told my dad the first time that I was going to church he laughed at me, and when it came up a few months later with my mum she acted as if it was pointless and silly, and obviously a way for me to spend less time with her (my church was closest to my dad's house) I started living between their houses, depending on what I was doing... When I had hockey training, matches or church I was at dads, the rest of the time at mums, which meant I was pretty much alternating between houses each night.
From this time something I remember very vividly is coming home from college to my dads and just sitting in the lounge in the corner with the lights off and the curtains already shut and just curling up and wishing life was different, then feeling really guilty because nothing obviously sucky had happened in my life, and confused at why I felt the way I did.
I moved into a friends house just before I finished college because I couldn't take being the blame of all the arguments between my mum and step-dad, and being blamed for things that weren't my fault. One day I was sitting in a computer room at college, it was the day before we were moving house again, and mum phoned me and every other word was a swear word (she doesn't swear very much ever so came as a shock) apparently I had said I would be back early, so she didn't have her house keys with her and it was my fault.
By the time I got home I was all prepared for a massive argument, but it never happened, she was acting like the perfect living mother, and pretended the phone call never happened. Cue major confusion
I started uni and thought I'd managed a fresh start, then I realised that my child hood wasn't as good as most peoples. The nature of my degree means I often need to trust those I'm working with (rock climbing and what not), but that's something I really really struggle with. In my second year I started to really loose control of life, I handed all my work in late (which means that when I finish now I will be looking at best at a 2:1, and that's if I work ridiculously hard to bring my grade back up next year) I stopped going out with friends, I started thinking about what the best way to commit suicide would be. At the same time my bike was stolen, it was one of the only things that had been a constant in my life over the previous 6 or so years, and I thought of it almost as if it were my child. I realised I was in a bad place when I couldn't muster any emotion to it being stolen, and saw the mental health advisor at uni, who diagnosed me with PTSD, and recommended that I get therapy, I've had therapy in the past (while at college) and it has never helped, with my third therapist telling me I didn't need it because I had a strong social base and talked things through with friends, and he knew I didn't want to be there.
That was a year ago, over the summer I was date raped by someone I thought I could trust, it's a bit complicated here. The first time was definitely rape, without a shadow of a doubt, but the second and third times I just don't know what to call them, I know I consented but I know that I didn't want to do it, I just couldn't say no because I had finally found someone I felt comfortable being around who got that life was complicated, and I didn't want to ruin it by setting too many boundaries, as well as thinking along the lines of we've already had sex once, he will be expecting me to put out in the future too.
I know that I need therapy again, even if it is just to talk through the rape and subsequent encounters, but I also don't feel ready yet, it's one thing being able to type about it, it's another to talk about it and actively search out the emotions around it and what not.
This first post is just a brief outline of what's happened in my life, I say brief in the loosest possible terms (apologies for the length, and congratulations to anyone who made it to the end of the post!). Some goals I would like to set myself:
- forgive my mum for stuff she has done, mostly without thinking about it, which has affected me more than she realises.
- stop having a mini panic attack everytime the phone rings
- accept that sometimes life isn't as black or white as I would like to it be
- allow myself to rest, really rest, more than just a lie in now and then!
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