So...
I find this so hard to talk about.
Growing up as a victim of trauma and violence, I swore that I would never, ever do that kind of stuff to anyone myself.
I'm in my mid 40s now and thankfully, I've managed to keep that vow, as far as actively harming anyone goes.
However... I got retraumatised a few years back and that brought up a whole lot more childhood trauma and I spiralled really, really badly. I went through the darkest years I've been through in my entire life - worse than the childhood trauma itself, worse than doing the trauma therapy for it... This retraumatising incident was the one that truly broke me and I've been a pure mess ever since.
During this time, I've brought harm to others, via neglect. I don't think I can write the details cos it's so painful to me. So I'm going to pick two analogies, that are kind of similar. That's as close as I feel I can get to it. Example A: I work for a company, say a train company, I'm responsible for passenger safety, due to my mental state, I start drinking and go to work drunk and endanger people's lives. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I'm so desperate at this point, that I worry if I call in sick, I'll lose my job, making my desperate situation even more desperate. Example B: I'm caring for children and as my mental state deteriorates, I can't work out what to do - I don't know who to ask for help, without making everything worse. I want to ask social workers/ social services for help, but I'm so desperate and worried that I'm convinced social services will "take the kids away" so I keep postponing getting help, because I fear asking for help will make things even worse. During this time, I neglect the children to a degree that causes actual harm.
Yup... so those two examples are as close as I can get without sobbing and feeling like I should suicide, as a way of trying to get rid of this guilt somehow.
I feel so awful. I always swore that nothing like that would ever, ever, ever, ever happen to me, because of my own first hand experiences of trauma and neglect during childhood.
Things got so awful so fast and so massively tho, that all my coping mechanisms were gone, by the time I realised I had to somehow fix the problem.
I feel like I can never forgive myself for this, even tho it was "only" neglect and not active violence or anything like that.
This weighs so heavily on me. Knowing that any harm was caused by me kills me a million times worse than all of the harm that was caused to me at the hands of others, when I was a child. I'd gladly endure more trauma, if I could somehow atone for the harm that I ended up causing.
I don't know how to process this, don't know what to do with this guilt, other than to accept that I'm a flawed human too and that when I'm at my absolute limit, when something's so bad that it literally breaks me, to accept and acknowledge that I stop meeting my own standards of moral behaviour and that I fail, like almost all humans do in those situations.
It has also taught me some hard lessons about what mental state my parents must have been in at the time, when they neglected me as a child.
Ugh... I feel sure that I will take this guilt with me to the grave... That I'll never be able to truly lighten it's load.
I've been doing things since then (volunteer work) to try and make amends, but it will never be able to undo what happened.
I find this so hard to talk about.
Growing up as a victim of trauma and violence, I swore that I would never, ever do that kind of stuff to anyone myself.
I'm in my mid 40s now and thankfully, I've managed to keep that vow, as far as actively harming anyone goes.
However... I got retraumatised a few years back and that brought up a whole lot more childhood trauma and I spiralled really, really badly. I went through the darkest years I've been through in my entire life - worse than the childhood trauma itself, worse than doing the trauma therapy for it... This retraumatising incident was the one that truly broke me and I've been a pure mess ever since.
During this time, I've brought harm to others, via neglect. I don't think I can write the details cos it's so painful to me. So I'm going to pick two analogies, that are kind of similar. That's as close as I feel I can get to it. Example A: I work for a company, say a train company, I'm responsible for passenger safety, due to my mental state, I start drinking and go to work drunk and endanger people's lives. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I'm so desperate at this point, that I worry if I call in sick, I'll lose my job, making my desperate situation even more desperate. Example B: I'm caring for children and as my mental state deteriorates, I can't work out what to do - I don't know who to ask for help, without making everything worse. I want to ask social workers/ social services for help, but I'm so desperate and worried that I'm convinced social services will "take the kids away" so I keep postponing getting help, because I fear asking for help will make things even worse. During this time, I neglect the children to a degree that causes actual harm.
Yup... so those two examples are as close as I can get without sobbing and feeling like I should suicide, as a way of trying to get rid of this guilt somehow.
I feel so awful. I always swore that nothing like that would ever, ever, ever, ever happen to me, because of my own first hand experiences of trauma and neglect during childhood.
Things got so awful so fast and so massively tho, that all my coping mechanisms were gone, by the time I realised I had to somehow fix the problem.
I feel like I can never forgive myself for this, even tho it was "only" neglect and not active violence or anything like that.
This weighs so heavily on me. Knowing that any harm was caused by me kills me a million times worse than all of the harm that was caused to me at the hands of others, when I was a child. I'd gladly endure more trauma, if I could somehow atone for the harm that I ended up causing.
I don't know how to process this, don't know what to do with this guilt, other than to accept that I'm a flawed human too and that when I'm at my absolute limit, when something's so bad that it literally breaks me, to accept and acknowledge that I stop meeting my own standards of moral behaviour and that I fail, like almost all humans do in those situations.
It has also taught me some hard lessons about what mental state my parents must have been in at the time, when they neglected me as a child.
Ugh... I feel sure that I will take this guilt with me to the grave... That I'll never be able to truly lighten it's load.
I've been doing things since then (volunteer work) to try and make amends, but it will never be able to undo what happened.