Childhood If your parent neglected or abused you, please just say me too

[Warrior Chicken]

It’s all so very much in my face this weekend with a family reunion I can’t avoid (the secrets we hide and no one knows).
I get it.

 

[Rose White]

Thank you @Warrior Chicken
sorry you have to be in that mess right now

 

[Lost in the Woods]

Me too. Here I am 70 years old and still dealing with it.

 

[NotOkay]

My dad was very emotionally and verbally abusive while I was growing up. I cut ties with him a few years ago because of it. But mum was an enabler and is very good at gaslighting me about what happened. So yes, Me Too!

 

[Rose White]

Thank you @Lost in the Woods and @NotOkay

 

[beaneeboo]

Me too @Rose White ... you're seen, heard and understood....you aren't alone...

for me, the worst part is the gas lighting... my experience doesn't exist... not only to those who were abusive but those who weren't but should have protected... the nothingness of my experience (the invalidation and refusal to acknowledge it) is so very hard to over come now because there's still a refusal to admit...it's also internalised by me so i struggle with feeling valid that i was even abused at all... working on it though....

 

[Rose White]

@beaneeboo what you just articulated is SO HARD to convey. Even reading your words I could feel the stickiness and difficulty. And barrier inside myself from being able to fully understand, let alone spit it back out.

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with so much—how abuse by my caregiver seemingly severed some ability to communicate on my own behalf. And I can get through or past it sometimes, but it feels like a foundational problem—like someone said above the “constant work”—I think that was MovíngForward.

I’m going to have to reread what you wrote several times because it seems so important but my brain is struggling to get it in, or is putting a wall up idk.

 

[Rose White]

I think something that can go missing when a person experiences abuse by their caregiver is mutual or reciprocal love. It becomes one-sided. The child can’t help loving the caregiver and then has to untangle that puzzle. Does it take the whole life to untangle?

 

[beaneeboo]

[ And I can get through or past it sometimes, but it feels like a foundational problem—like someone said above the “constant work”—I think that was MovíngForward.

Yep I hear you and know exactly what you mean.

I’m going to have to reread what you wrote several times because it seems so important but my brain is struggling to get it in, or is putting a wall up idk.

I've had this so many times... for me it's a dissociative thing... part of me has an epiphany.. another part takes over and says nope that's too much... let's shut that down for now... and then it's like I go back to square 1 with the denial... it's not even denial.. it just doesn't exist, the abuse.... because my experience was never reflected or validated by anyone around me... and continues not to be... I'm just back in that nothing place feeling a bit confused... and back round we go...

 

[FMCA]

Me too. My parents and family dynamic is still perceived by outsiders as something like a fairy tale. It didn't happen. Fairy tales do not exist

 

[Rose White]

@FMCA thank you. You’re right.

 

[FMCA]

@beaneeboo,@Rose White , thankyou for articulating something I know but couldn't describe, a refusal to admit. I also have these epiphanies and feel like I have solved the puzzle but then go back into a place that doesn't fully understand the answer. Its like I know it in logic but no amount of thinking about it is embedding it into my brain. Like knowing the elephant in the room is there but not wanting to look up and really see it for what it is.