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Childhood Now I Have My Own Child I Can't Stop Remembering Awful Things (triggers)

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Ariel_h

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I'm not sure how to start this or how much to put here. I feel like I have oceans of anger and emotions that haven't been expressed in so long, if ever.

at age 19 i finally got out of my parent's house and went through counselling for a few years, and had dealt with, i thought, my childhood abuse issues. it mainly concentrated on my dad. but didnt' address the fact he sexualised my sister and I, to a degree sexually abused us and ogled our friends.

Now that I have my own child and am protecting her in appropriate ways (from my father, from bullies at her kindy), I am bombarded constantly by bad memories.

And I am so angry at my mother, who treats me with little respect as a parent even though she failed to protect me from my father, my sister, and all the teachers and kids that bullied me.

My father had two main ways of physically hurting us. The first way was disguised as being "playful". Every night my mum would leave at 7pm and not return til after we were in bed. My father would rough-house with us but far too rough. He would force us to rough-house with him, we didn't have a choice. He wouldn't let us go for hours it seemed. He'd sit on us, squeeze our chests til we were out of breath, give us chinese burns, and sometimes smother us with pillows until we turned blue. Sometimes it would be only one of us, sometimes two of us. Sometimes one would try and "rescue" another only to be pulled in to the "game".

I remember standing at the door as my mum left, begging her not to go this time. She'd smile and say she'd be back soon.

My father would also give us severe thrashings as punishments. These severe thrashings seemed to happen every few months or so, for fairly minor things. When I was 5 he sat me on his lap and formed difficult words in a word-maker for me to spell. Every time I got one wrong I was struck. Over the years the thrashings got more severe. I can remember my head bashed against the wall (by my hair), beltings, being forced to stand naked while my father sprayed me with freezing cold water with a hand-held shower hose.

A lot of times my mother was around for the severe beatings. She didn't try to stop it or comfort us afterward.

At school I was shy and often picked on by the other kids. I remember thinking the worst when kids spoke to me, thinking they were going to be cruel to me. My sister was older than me, and often tormented me at home.

My mother child-minded other people's children in our home after school. We rarely had her attention after school. Most of the other kids were picked up by 5.30. My Dad got home from work at 5, when Mum would start making dinner. At 6pm she and he would eat dinner in the lounge watching TV while me, my brother and sister ate in the dining room with the door closed. At 7pm on the dot she left for the gym.

On weekends we had to do what my father wanted. Some days he and my mother would lock us out of the house for whole days, and put sandwiches and drinks on the back step at lunchtime.

I am so angry at my Mum. You don't have my respect you worthless piece of s@#t. All those years you called me a sook. I was simply a child demanding attention that should have been given. Instead I was labelled the whinger of the family and everyone had a go at putting the boot in.
 
Hi Ariel i'm so sorry to hear what you've been through. You have every right to feel angry at your parents.

It is good that you are able to protect your child from being hurt, I can understand why you have these new memories and feelings. When you see how much you do for your own child to protect them and look after them and give them love you realise just how much your own parents failed you and hurt you. Both your father for actually hurting you and your mother for failing to stop him.

I hope you can find a way to work through these feelings. Is it possible to get some more counselling?
 
I think it's pretty common to be really angry at the people who could have helped but didn't...adults that were too chicken. That can easily be just as invalidating and degrading as the abuse.

You are lucky to be so aware and want things radically different for your own child, but the triggers make sense (I think I specifically triggered loads of my mom's abuse and she was NOT aware and dumped a load of terror and shame onto me). Sometimes we are re-triggered later in life, maybe after years of thinking everything is okay. But our lives require a new layer of complexity and we have to find new ways to meet the challenge. Are you doing any sort of trauma therapy now or is that something you'd be able to consider?

Sorry for what you have been through and how challenging it is right now. Good for you for reaching out!
 
My parents never have admitted to the abuse and neglect they inflicted. I am sure they rationalise it all by saying they had the best intentions and everything they did was in an effort to save my soul and all of my protest was the work of the devil.

Now, almost 40 years later, they took my forgiveness of them as an opportunity to put their sick ideas into my kids heads. I wish I had never forgotten what I knew to be true when I left home at 14, that they were lost to their religion and I was a survivor of their oppression. Forgetting it lead to their attempts at sucking some of the joy from my kids lives and I can't forgive myself for that.

They are a thing of the past now, unwelcome at the homes of their children and grandchildren.

If your parents are unrepentant, I urge you to separate the rest of your life from them as I have. It is just too dangerous to risk the abuse going forward into the next generation. Even with the best of intentions, anyone willing to do what is widely seen as harm to another person is a danger not worth having around. If they abused you and never got help or admitted guilt, they are best left behind in my opinion.
 
*Hugs.* I find being around kids in any fashion to be triggering. Like if I go somewhere that has kids like a hamburger restaurant I'll leave. For a long time I thought I just hated kids until I finally realized I hated the memories and emotions they stirred inside me.
 
I understand completely where you're coming from. When we're small we have no way to protect ourselves or safely express our anger and hurt at the hands of those who are supposed to protect us. When I first began therapy, and to an extent still, it was easier to be angry at the people who stood by and watched than the people who doled out the more sexual and violent traumas.

Those people are almost untouchable in the feelings they provoke, for me at least, I couldn't be angry at the people who sexually abused me and beat me within inches of my life.

I also was very angry with my mom for standing by and allowing her boyfriend to sexually abuse me for years, because on some level she clearly knew, it seems like denial is the only way anyone with some capacity for empathy would be able to watch their child be abused. I don't fully understand people who stay with pedophiles, I don't know what brings a person to that in life. I feel sad for her now mostly. There is definitely still anger, but mostly just sadness.

PTSD, especially for complex trauma, can come and go. Sometimes it comes in waves. Just because you are having a lot of symptoms now doesn't invalidate the work you did previously in therapy. If you feel like it's going back, therapy might help you to process some of these memories. Or at least make them less intrusive.
 
There was a time when my parents seemed to be unsure if they were welcome in my home, about the time that my kids were 12. That was my age when they started their systematic upheaval of my life and orchestrated destruction of my spirit and intellect (brainwashing).

I was determined to prove to them that my life was fine without their religion and that I was a strong enough person to forgive and forget and I foolishly swallowed back my anger as I had since leaving home at 14. When they started in on my kids, I was the one that stood by and let it happen this time around. They didn't get far with them. I was sure that my kids had a clear view of how oppressive my parents religion is and of the dangers of blind faith in a leader that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and there never was a even a low level acceptance of their religion, thankfully.

but for whatever reason, I allowed the danger that had damaged my life so deeply to get near my kids. I was very close to being the enabler myself, wasn't I?

My desire to prove that a normal, non cult following lifestyle was better than the limited existence they have chosen for themselves and tried so hard to get me to follow overwhelmed the very normal self preservation instinct that had pushed me out from under their roof at 14 and the instinct to protect my children from all dangers when they were at the same vulnerable ages. I live with that shadow on my psyche daily and only let myself off just a little bit because I was right, my life is better than their cult worshipping lives are and I am stronger than they are intellectually, in every way really.

Except they left me with PTSD and the inability to trust even my counselors and therapists. If your own parents do so much damage to you, where else do you turn for trust? If you can't feel like you are being protected by the only people on earth that have an obligation to protect you, feeling in danger is a normal thing.

They went on to show me that even after being warned to leave my kids alone they were willing to push and see just how far I would accomodate them and how much of their cult they could expose us all to, I ended all contact with them and haven't seen them or heard their voices on the phone for several years.

My kids can see them if they want too, they are all adults now, but they don't.

Thats maybe both the reason I sleep at night and the reason I don't all in one big messy knot.
 
While I do not have any wise words - I do want to say that I so relate to your story - be kind to yourself and enjoy your safety! I have been unable to completely sever the ties to my mother - so I admire you for having been able to do so !
 
I just came upon your thread as it links to something on my mind lately too and came up when I began a similar post.

I also can unfortunately relate. Having a child of your own brings up so much - I mean for anyone, abused as a child or not. That instinctive need to protect your child above all else causes lots of emotive confusion regarding what may have stopped our own parents from protecting us when we deserved it. We deserved so much more.

I am so glad that your daughter has you to protect her and keep watch over potential harm. It's incredible to me, that we as children did not learn what we lived. Instead we learned from it. Be very very proud that the book stopped with you and you are an amazing mum. I wish you could have been my mum. The difference between an overprotective parent and an underprotective one, can be the difference of a great parent - I heard this somewhere several days ago. My psychologist recently told me I have trust issues when it comes to who minds my son - I don't care! He's my son and I'll be damned if I place blind trust in anyone when it comes to his wellbeing.

Anyway, sorry to rant. Your thread really helped me though.
 
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