So I am about 87% sure this is in the right place. I apologise ten times over if it is not.
I have been diagnosed with PTSD from child abuse (physically and emotionally) by my mother. I think the earliest event I remember occurred when I was four years old,and I finally moved out of her house last year a couple months shy of turning 16.
I am terribly afraid that I have made all of my "memories" up. Part of my mind knows that it happened, or else I wouldn't have such heavy PTSD symptoms today. There is that other part of my brain that calls upon the fact that I can't remember everything that happened. My mother, throughout all the years I lived with her, told me beatings and the bullying she put me through were normal to a family. Nobody outside of our family knew, and nobody seemed to suspect anything.
She had a habit of being "hot and cold." At least when I was younger (elementary school), she would pretend to be kind to me in public settings. I think once she helped when I fell off my bike and tore my stomach to shreds on the gravel and dirt road.
However, thinking about my childhood freezes my heart and my thoughts race and then seem to completely stop, like I am not longer able to function. When I think about my childhood, I can't remember every event that ever happened to me, but I remember a constant state of fear. I was always on edge, terrified of what was going on around me. I was always afraid that my teachers or anybody would start beating me for doing something wrong. I cried if I forgot my backpack or dropped a crayon and it broke in Kindergarten because I thought I was in the most grave trouble. I thought all of the kids and faculty hated me and always expected them to turn on me and hurt me.
I remember some things, some events. I remember what she used to call me and say to me. I remember how she would "charge" at me before beating me. I remember once I left a juice box on a table and she picked me up by the back of the neck and threw me across a room into a wall. I remember the one time I was proud of myself is when I successfully evaded her for a few precious minutes because I learned I was more agile than her, but she shoved my door down in the end. I remember the constant fear, the uneasy feeling in the stomach all the time. I remember the pain. I started self harming at the age of four. I remember how horrible she was to me.
But I'm always thrown off. She would act so hot-and-cold, I could never tell what was real. She worked at my school for part of elementary school and middle school. In the halls, she would (usually) pretend she was the best parent. My friends thought she was rad (until I told the closest ones the truth. Two of them were shocked, one didn't care, and one told me I was lying and I should kill myself), my teachers thought she was fine. At home, sometimes she would act like we were best friends (this was incredibly rare, usually she was a little drunk. Not drunk enough to hurt me, but not sober).
Whenever my therapist asked me if I ever had any bruises or visible injuries, I have to say no. I can't remember anything about if people could tell. I had an ace bandage wrapped around either my ankle or my wrist, but I can't remember how I hurt those. If she hit me, wouldn't it have been visible?? Is that proof I'm faking?
I try to comfort myself, saying that it's normal for the memories to be foggy. But it seems too unreal. I struggle so much because of my PTSD, but what if what I'm feeling is all normal? Or maybe I'm just genetically wired to feel this way? I don't know. If I look at the cold, hard facts of my mental stability now and what I remember, then I have no doubt of what happened. But I don't remember it all. She told me that she as normal, and that Child Services would laugh in my face if I called them. One of my sisters hates me because when I'm in the same room as her for family get-togethers, I can't breathe and I dissociate and involuntarily cry. That sister told me it was a normal tension between a normal family.
I'm just so afraid I'm making this up for attention. It took me years to even tell my dad how bad it was (he didn't believe me at first). It took me even longer to be admitted to get help. My PTSD therapist (who I haven't seen in a while because my dad hasn't the time to take me and I don't have a car) told me that he is going to do all he can for me, but (I'm paraphrasing because my memory is so bad) basically he has never seen a parent do this much mental damage to a kid/young adult and he doesn't know what being "healed" is going to be like for me.
I have been diagnosed with PTSD from child abuse (physically and emotionally) by my mother. I think the earliest event I remember occurred when I was four years old,and I finally moved out of her house last year a couple months shy of turning 16.
I am terribly afraid that I have made all of my "memories" up. Part of my mind knows that it happened, or else I wouldn't have such heavy PTSD symptoms today. There is that other part of my brain that calls upon the fact that I can't remember everything that happened. My mother, throughout all the years I lived with her, told me beatings and the bullying she put me through were normal to a family. Nobody outside of our family knew, and nobody seemed to suspect anything.
She had a habit of being "hot and cold." At least when I was younger (elementary school), she would pretend to be kind to me in public settings. I think once she helped when I fell off my bike and tore my stomach to shreds on the gravel and dirt road.
However, thinking about my childhood freezes my heart and my thoughts race and then seem to completely stop, like I am not longer able to function. When I think about my childhood, I can't remember every event that ever happened to me, but I remember a constant state of fear. I was always on edge, terrified of what was going on around me. I was always afraid that my teachers or anybody would start beating me for doing something wrong. I cried if I forgot my backpack or dropped a crayon and it broke in Kindergarten because I thought I was in the most grave trouble. I thought all of the kids and faculty hated me and always expected them to turn on me and hurt me.
I remember some things, some events. I remember what she used to call me and say to me. I remember how she would "charge" at me before beating me. I remember once I left a juice box on a table and she picked me up by the back of the neck and threw me across a room into a wall. I remember the one time I was proud of myself is when I successfully evaded her for a few precious minutes because I learned I was more agile than her, but she shoved my door down in the end. I remember the constant fear, the uneasy feeling in the stomach all the time. I remember the pain. I started self harming at the age of four. I remember how horrible she was to me.
But I'm always thrown off. She would act so hot-and-cold, I could never tell what was real. She worked at my school for part of elementary school and middle school. In the halls, she would (usually) pretend she was the best parent. My friends thought she was rad (until I told the closest ones the truth. Two of them were shocked, one didn't care, and one told me I was lying and I should kill myself), my teachers thought she was fine. At home, sometimes she would act like we were best friends (this was incredibly rare, usually she was a little drunk. Not drunk enough to hurt me, but not sober).
Whenever my therapist asked me if I ever had any bruises or visible injuries, I have to say no. I can't remember anything about if people could tell. I had an ace bandage wrapped around either my ankle or my wrist, but I can't remember how I hurt those. If she hit me, wouldn't it have been visible?? Is that proof I'm faking?
I try to comfort myself, saying that it's normal for the memories to be foggy. But it seems too unreal. I struggle so much because of my PTSD, but what if what I'm feeling is all normal? Or maybe I'm just genetically wired to feel this way? I don't know. If I look at the cold, hard facts of my mental stability now and what I remember, then I have no doubt of what happened. But I don't remember it all. She told me that she as normal, and that Child Services would laugh in my face if I called them. One of my sisters hates me because when I'm in the same room as her for family get-togethers, I can't breathe and I dissociate and involuntarily cry. That sister told me it was a normal tension between a normal family.
I'm just so afraid I'm making this up for attention. It took me years to even tell my dad how bad it was (he didn't believe me at first). It took me even longer to be admitted to get help. My PTSD therapist (who I haven't seen in a while because my dad hasn't the time to take me and I don't have a car) told me that he is going to do all he can for me, but (I'm paraphrasing because my memory is so bad) basically he has never seen a parent do this much mental damage to a kid/young adult and he doesn't know what being "healed" is going to be like for me.
