In a matter of days, I will turn 49. The past year-plus has been amazing and intense, and I have a feeling I'm just getting started. So, here we go!
I stumbled upon this page after it popped up in response to my googling, "How to uncover repressed memories." I don't know if I have that issue, but I do know that I have PTSD. Disclaimer - I am personally not comfortable with the term "sufferer," preferring instead, survivor, but will use it here since I believe it refers primarily to the clinical diagnosis. Still, I'm a survivor and proud of that.
Nonetheless, my struggles continue, especially as I connect the dots of my past. It's been a long while since I shared it, but I want and need to now, and feel immensely grateful that I have this space to do so. Thank you.
The short version is - adopted as a baby, bullied in school, abused at home. But there is so much more involved... I just can't recall everything. There are holes in my memories, especially from certain ages. Here is what I do know:
I was adopted as an infant. From the outside I'm sure it looked like we were that classically happy American family. But on the inside, it was chaos. My mother (I will refer to my adoptive parents as mother and father) was and is an alcoholic and was prone to rages that at times dissolved into violence, which worsened when my father was away on business (which he seemed to be, a lot). My earliest memory is from somewhere around age 4, standing in the middle of my messy room while my mother screamed at me about not keeping it clean while throwing my stuff. Papers flying everywhere as I cried and screamed in fear.
From there, the memories are spotty. Random, and mostly from old photos I looked at during my life. But there are some, many of my mother raging while I cowered, cried, and, as a teenager, tried to argue back.
Complicating the situation further, especially for me, is that so many of the frightening recollections are paralleled by happier times on family vacations. But mostly my childhood comes to me in fragments, as if there is a veil between me and the memories of growing up.
What I can remember is my mother passed out cold on the couch after drinking at least a bottle of wine on her own. I can remember her becoming bitter and weepy with one of my cousins during a holiday visit. I remember feeling embarrassed by her on numerous occasions, her opinionated views, her easy judgment of others.
But because she could be friendly, funny, and seemingly kind, my friends often thought she was "pretty cool," which completely invalidated my suffering. I'd try to tell them about a particularly difficult incident and they couldn't reconcile that with the nice lady they'd met the last time they were over, so I stopped talking about the abuse.
Some friends saw her dark side, but because my own personality had been shaped in a home of instability, questioned whether I was an instigator as I could be pretty fiery, myself. They didn't realize it was a defense mechanism.
My brother (also adopted) and I alternated between being the best of friends and the worst of enemies, the violence from my mother carrying over into our relationship. I remember him trying to break my arm, and also recall me trying to kick him hard enough to do damage. It was what we learned and what we knew...
Meanwhile, in spite of my family's wealth and material prosperity, we had few actual friends in our hometown. I now understand that people likely knew my mother was "difficult," and chose to distance themselves. I'm still bitter on occasion when I stop to wonder why no one ever attempted to help me or my brother, instead of just labeling us as "that family."
Fast forward through high school and college, and I became a young woman completely lost. I was as fragile as fine crystal, but also desperate to be loved. My sensitivity, combined with that deep desire to belong, made me an ideal target for not only bullying, but serious and severe manipulation. A prime example: on a junior high school class trip I was coerced into letting a boy I liked put his hand in my pants.
Having had no conversations with my parents about sexual behavior, I was truly without a clue and had no idea he was, in reality, assaulting me. The guilt I felt about this action tore me up inside for more than a year. When I did decide to try and talk with my mother about it, instead of caring for me and reassuring me that I was not in the wrong, she flew into one of her rages and reduced me to a sobbing mess. You can understand why, when I was date-raped in college, I said nothing.
What brings me to this place, this site, now, is all at once simple and not. I've been on a major spiritual journey for the past few years, a journey that picked up intensity and speed during the past year. It began with a seemingly routine decision to see an alternative healthcare professional for an issue I was having that had me in immense pain.
That decision to take care of myself became the catalyst for unbelievable healing. But I'm realizing that in order to really be free, to heal fully, I must go into the darkness and remedy the traumas of my past.
Tonight was a HUGE breakthrough. While reading through Louise Hay's "Heal Your Body," I started to understand the pattern behind my suffering. I saw clearly how her own suffering became mine. But I am filled with so many questions! While there is a physical side of the abuse, as well as emotional and mental, I am concerned that there might be a sexual side, too. That's why I was looking up the repressed memories thing.
See, sex was not something we talked about in my house EVER. When I was caught masturbating as a little girl (oddly, something I did when I was pretty young), I was not only punished, but verbally dressed down and made to feel like I'd just committed the most offensive act around. I was forbidden to be alone with boys, to sit on my boyfriend's lap in high school, or to ask any question of a remotely sexual nature. Even simple affection between me and whoever I was dating was frowned upon.
It was a highly off-limits topic of conversation. Period. End of sentence.
But now I'm seeing other pieces of the puzzle. How as a girl growing up, with the exception of kindergarten, I was made to keep my hair short. Like a boy, which some people thought I was (and the kids took delight in teasing me about). I was not allowed to follow fashion unless it meant that I was covered pretty much from head to toe. I was told that I was fat, even though I was far from it. A bikini was out of the question, and when I wore one as an adult, holy crow you'd have thought I wasn't wearing anything. If I came downstairs in a nightshirt, nightgown, or pajamas without a bra I was sent straight back upstairs to change (even though I was a AA until college). It was all about my "modesty."
Any time my femininity showed beyond mere girlishness, I was either insulted, diminished, or chastised. Even now, comments are made about what I wear, what I weigh, and how I keep my hair (now short by choice).
I know there was abuse in my mother's family. Her father was an alcoholic. Comments she's made have alluded to one or both of her parents being abusive. One of my uncle's was horrifically violent. There is a pattern there. But how does the sexuality issue play a part? Was I sexually abused by someone in the family and she couldn't handle it, and so lashed out at me? Or was she abused and projected her own self-loathing onto me?
I don't know, but I do know that it's time for me to stop stuffing all this down. It's time for me to stop feeling guilty about EVERYTHING, especially my family.
I appreciate this forum and the people in it, and any insight you have for me.
Love,
Solace.
P.S. I have been in some form of therapy most of my life, primarily talk, and most recently talk with some behavioral. I'm not in therapy now, and am okay with that, mostly because there aren't many sound choices where I live, and partly because I have a support system in place that is helping. (Cost is also a factor. My parents are well off. I am living paycheck to paycheck.)
I stumbled upon this page after it popped up in response to my googling, "How to uncover repressed memories." I don't know if I have that issue, but I do know that I have PTSD. Disclaimer - I am personally not comfortable with the term "sufferer," preferring instead, survivor, but will use it here since I believe it refers primarily to the clinical diagnosis. Still, I'm a survivor and proud of that.
Nonetheless, my struggles continue, especially as I connect the dots of my past. It's been a long while since I shared it, but I want and need to now, and feel immensely grateful that I have this space to do so. Thank you.
The short version is - adopted as a baby, bullied in school, abused at home. But there is so much more involved... I just can't recall everything. There are holes in my memories, especially from certain ages. Here is what I do know:
I was adopted as an infant. From the outside I'm sure it looked like we were that classically happy American family. But on the inside, it was chaos. My mother (I will refer to my adoptive parents as mother and father) was and is an alcoholic and was prone to rages that at times dissolved into violence, which worsened when my father was away on business (which he seemed to be, a lot). My earliest memory is from somewhere around age 4, standing in the middle of my messy room while my mother screamed at me about not keeping it clean while throwing my stuff. Papers flying everywhere as I cried and screamed in fear.
From there, the memories are spotty. Random, and mostly from old photos I looked at during my life. But there are some, many of my mother raging while I cowered, cried, and, as a teenager, tried to argue back.
Complicating the situation further, especially for me, is that so many of the frightening recollections are paralleled by happier times on family vacations. But mostly my childhood comes to me in fragments, as if there is a veil between me and the memories of growing up.
What I can remember is my mother passed out cold on the couch after drinking at least a bottle of wine on her own. I can remember her becoming bitter and weepy with one of my cousins during a holiday visit. I remember feeling embarrassed by her on numerous occasions, her opinionated views, her easy judgment of others.
But because she could be friendly, funny, and seemingly kind, my friends often thought she was "pretty cool," which completely invalidated my suffering. I'd try to tell them about a particularly difficult incident and they couldn't reconcile that with the nice lady they'd met the last time they were over, so I stopped talking about the abuse.
Some friends saw her dark side, but because my own personality had been shaped in a home of instability, questioned whether I was an instigator as I could be pretty fiery, myself. They didn't realize it was a defense mechanism.
My brother (also adopted) and I alternated between being the best of friends and the worst of enemies, the violence from my mother carrying over into our relationship. I remember him trying to break my arm, and also recall me trying to kick him hard enough to do damage. It was what we learned and what we knew...
Meanwhile, in spite of my family's wealth and material prosperity, we had few actual friends in our hometown. I now understand that people likely knew my mother was "difficult," and chose to distance themselves. I'm still bitter on occasion when I stop to wonder why no one ever attempted to help me or my brother, instead of just labeling us as "that family."
Fast forward through high school and college, and I became a young woman completely lost. I was as fragile as fine crystal, but also desperate to be loved. My sensitivity, combined with that deep desire to belong, made me an ideal target for not only bullying, but serious and severe manipulation. A prime example: on a junior high school class trip I was coerced into letting a boy I liked put his hand in my pants.
Having had no conversations with my parents about sexual behavior, I was truly without a clue and had no idea he was, in reality, assaulting me. The guilt I felt about this action tore me up inside for more than a year. When I did decide to try and talk with my mother about it, instead of caring for me and reassuring me that I was not in the wrong, she flew into one of her rages and reduced me to a sobbing mess. You can understand why, when I was date-raped in college, I said nothing.
What brings me to this place, this site, now, is all at once simple and not. I've been on a major spiritual journey for the past few years, a journey that picked up intensity and speed during the past year. It began with a seemingly routine decision to see an alternative healthcare professional for an issue I was having that had me in immense pain.
That decision to take care of myself became the catalyst for unbelievable healing. But I'm realizing that in order to really be free, to heal fully, I must go into the darkness and remedy the traumas of my past.
Tonight was a HUGE breakthrough. While reading through Louise Hay's "Heal Your Body," I started to understand the pattern behind my suffering. I saw clearly how her own suffering became mine. But I am filled with so many questions! While there is a physical side of the abuse, as well as emotional and mental, I am concerned that there might be a sexual side, too. That's why I was looking up the repressed memories thing.
See, sex was not something we talked about in my house EVER. When I was caught masturbating as a little girl (oddly, something I did when I was pretty young), I was not only punished, but verbally dressed down and made to feel like I'd just committed the most offensive act around. I was forbidden to be alone with boys, to sit on my boyfriend's lap in high school, or to ask any question of a remotely sexual nature. Even simple affection between me and whoever I was dating was frowned upon.
It was a highly off-limits topic of conversation. Period. End of sentence.
But now I'm seeing other pieces of the puzzle. How as a girl growing up, with the exception of kindergarten, I was made to keep my hair short. Like a boy, which some people thought I was (and the kids took delight in teasing me about). I was not allowed to follow fashion unless it meant that I was covered pretty much from head to toe. I was told that I was fat, even though I was far from it. A bikini was out of the question, and when I wore one as an adult, holy crow you'd have thought I wasn't wearing anything. If I came downstairs in a nightshirt, nightgown, or pajamas without a bra I was sent straight back upstairs to change (even though I was a AA until college). It was all about my "modesty."
Any time my femininity showed beyond mere girlishness, I was either insulted, diminished, or chastised. Even now, comments are made about what I wear, what I weigh, and how I keep my hair (now short by choice).
I know there was abuse in my mother's family. Her father was an alcoholic. Comments she's made have alluded to one or both of her parents being abusive. One of my uncle's was horrifically violent. There is a pattern there. But how does the sexuality issue play a part? Was I sexually abused by someone in the family and she couldn't handle it, and so lashed out at me? Or was she abused and projected her own self-loathing onto me?
I don't know, but I do know that it's time for me to stop stuffing all this down. It's time for me to stop feeling guilty about EVERYTHING, especially my family.
I appreciate this forum and the people in it, and any insight you have for me.
Love,
Solace.
P.S. I have been in some form of therapy most of my life, primarily talk, and most recently talk with some behavioral. I'm not in therapy now, and am okay with that, mostly because there aren't many sound choices where I live, and partly because I have a support system in place that is helping. (Cost is also a factor. My parents are well off. I am living paycheck to paycheck.)
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