Sufferer Old Man; Implict And Explicit Complex Ptsd

[Red Feather]

I can't understand everything written here (concentration issues). My dad never hugged me at all. My whole childhood. I think he did it once and it was the most awkward thing in the world for me. Now we skype, and he says "I love you," at the end of the conversation. He would NEVER do that while growing up. When he says it I flinch inwardly... It's so wierd.

I remember when I was a kid there were people dancing in our living room. And he took my hands, and we danced for around 10 seconds. Then he dropped them, and I was like wait!!! Let's dance some more! And he refused. This was real hard for some reason. I'm still not over it. How sensitive children are !!! Just a few days ago, I realized how intense the emotions are, and they are still hiding.

And I dont understand myself. I dont have any memories of being sexually abused as a child. But my whole life, I have been frightened of it happening and would get triggered by sexual situations. I never understand my behaviour, it was just the way I was. And then I went full straight ahead into a religious marriage at 19 years, although I wasn't developed sexually at all or ready for it. After the years of physical and psychological abuse, I ended up becoming a doll that willingly prostituted herself for fear of being left alone. Mind control is something I am terrified of.

I would really like to understand myself. I always thought there was something wrong with me. If there are implicit memories still hiding regarding this I would like to find them. But also I am not ready for that either. It's the same pattern!

 

[TeddySue]

Bitzer said: " The day I realised Mother never loved me and never would was so painful, and yet so liberating."

I adopted 7 children because I never wanted to have the blood of my biological children tainted with the blood of my so-called parents. I knew I would see something in them that would trigger me and that maybe I wouldn't love them. I find it very easy to adopt and love as my own.

The day I realized my so-called mother never loved me and never would... It was 18 years ago, and I had had enough. I wrote a letter to her and explained every single thing that mothers do not do, and she had done them all. I realized I would never do to my children what she did to me, because it was so warped and wrong. And the 2 1/2 years I didn't see them WAS liberating, but I gave in because she was old and I wanted her death to remind me that I had been a dutiful daughter. She went on every vacation my so-called husband and I and the children went on... she would rant and rave about how bad her husband treated her so she must go with us to get away from him. And I never said a thing.

Do real mothers marry their 15 year old daughter off? I was a child. I was not prepared to marry another child, but I wanted some type of freedom from her total control of my life. It was a horror show that she fed into and developed for me. And then she told me he was no good and I must divorce him; which led to her taking me to a lawyer and paying for the divorce. No thought to my feelings at all, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Do real mothers lust after a young man who their child is dating? She told me she wanted us to sleep upstairs so she wouldn't have to worry about me out on a country road; later telling me how she would listen to the bed squeaking upstairs. They went on the front porch and talked; later she told me he promised to take care of me so she agreed he could marry me. He was a drunken pervert who wanted to teach me all kinds of things... and when I got the chance, I loaded the car and went home.

Do real mothers give their drivers license to the boyfriend so it could be altered to show their daughter was 21? Years ago we had paper drivers license and it was very easy to do.

Do real mothers and fathers move each year and drag their child from school to school; going in the first day of that child's attendance and making sure the powers that be were made aware of the daughter's problems? Do real parents alienate their daughter from the rest of the family for years; telling the daughter, when an uncle died, that the family did not want her at the funeral?

Do real fathers sexually molest their daughters from a toddler on, until that child, at five, confides in the mother and the mother makes that child's life miserable from that day forward? Did that child really ruin a marriage?

Do real parents give their child a plate of food and tell her to go watch tv while they laughed and whispered in the kitchen? But to the daughter's face the mother spent time each day telling the child how horrible the father was?

And when the daughter tells the mother about her brother sexually molesting and constantly pursuing her, do real mothers say, "DON'T cause trouble because he's all I have left?" And do real fathers say to the mother, "she probably egged him on?" And do the mothers go to the daughter and throw that comment in her face?

I say, NO!

 

[TeddySue]

Nadia said: "I remember when I was a kid there were people dancing in our living room. And he took my hands, and we danced for around 10 seconds. Then he dropped them, and I was like wait!!! Let's dance some more! And he refused. This was real hard for some reason. I'm still not over it. How sensitive children are !!! Just a few days ago, I realized how intense the emotions are, and they are still hiding."

Children are very sensitive AND smart enough to know when a token amount of attention was really not for them, but to prove a point! Probably to "show" the others he was this loving daddy... UGH!

My so-called father would make over and smile and be so kind to every other child on the planet except his own. There are some very deep wounds from that time in my life that have never left me. HUGE trigger! For me, betrayal and rejection go hand in hand. When my sister died, he got my ex-husband, the drunken pervert my so-called mother had lusted after, to be a pall-bearer at her funeral. We visited when no one was at the funeral home, and went to a secret memorial that those parents were not told about or invited to. My 8 year old son sang Amazing Grace while we all remembered my sister.

 

[bitzer]

Nadia, I've numbered these so you can keep track of which one you're trying to concentrate on.

1. Nadia said, "...concentration issues". Extreme neglect and engulfment can lead to concentration issues.

2. Nadia said, "...I flinch inwardly". If you experienced more hurtful behaviour from your father than loving behaviour, then maybe flinching is how you experience your "love" for him. More likely is that you find him telling you he loves you upsetting because of the pain he caused you by not really loving you. When it comes to a choice between what people say and what people do, I believe the truth is in what they do.

3. Nadia said, "How sensitive children are !!!". No, I have to disagree with you there. For me "How insensitive grown-ups are" is nearer the thruth.

4. Nadia said, "...the emotions are still hiding". That's your unconscious protecting you. Long-term talking therapy with a therapist that has faced their own demons will provide you with a healing relationship. Traumas caused in relationship need a healing relationship to effect a cure.

5. Nadia said, "Mind control is something I am terrified of". My parents were in my face the whole time: do this don't do that, be the bad object, don't have needs, try not to exist. And people wonder why I see plots and agendas everywhere! If your parent(s) were over-controlling, you probably have inherited a parent-like need to be in control, and a child-like familiarity with being controlled. My wife calls me a control freak because I hide the biscuits from her (parent-like need to be in control). I can sit in front of the TV all night (child-like familiarity with being controlled).

6. Nadia said, "I always thought there was something wrong with me". No. The child is innocent and perfect. It's the grown-ups that are ****ed-up.

7. Nadia said, "...I am not ready for [awareness of implicit memories] either". I get that. Take it at your own pace.



TeddySue, my heart goes out to you. I wish I could be physically present so you could see the tears in my eyes.

It's horrible the way insensitive, uncaring, stupid, ugly, talentless, worthless abusers get together in a family to turn on the one family member that has anything going for them, so that they can try and stamp that ray of sunshine out and make the world the grey, dull and pointless place that they inhabit.

TeddySue said, "I adopted 7 children". I guess you know that adoption tends to cause rejection and control issues...

 

[TeddySue]

Bitzer said: "I adopted 7 children". I guess you know that adoption tends to cause rejection and control issues..."

I'm not sure I understand, but would like to hear what you have to say about adoption and the rejection and control issues it causes.

I home schooled my kids for 11 years and they are now excelling in college, while my two youngest are struggling some in the public school. I believe my desire to home school was part of my OCD. I'm learning to let them go a little at a time so I see that I have acknowledged my OCD and am trying to be more middle ground with things in my life. BUT, LOL, some times my OCD is a good thing: My diet is going rather splendidly.

Rejection is the biggest pain and most prevalent trigger in my life right now. I see it wherever I go. I even feel it for others. If someone does something I perceive as rejection (for one of my children), I react as if it were against me.

 

[bitzer]

This material is copyright 2007 Andrea Sheehy and is reprinted with permission. The original article was written from the mature adult adoptee's point of view and doesn't necessarily apply to younger adoptees:

"Society generally accepts that adoption is a good thing. The baby is perceived to come from a family that either do not want him or can not care from him, the adoptive parents are seen as a ideal couple who would like to give a baby a good home, and the baby is perceived as being lucky enough to have escaped from his dysfunctional roots and have parents who chose him. In other words it is win-win all round.
Actually, the adoptee child loses. There are five ways in which he is harmed:

1. Primal Wound: He experiences the traumatic loss of his mother, often at an age where he has no separate concept of mother.

2. Chosen Baby Story: If the adoptee is told, as most are, around the age of two that they were 'lucky' to have been 'chosen', this is experienced as another trauma because it discounts the Primal Wound.

3. Oedipal Complex: Resolution of the Oedipal complex is a necessary step in any child's development, but this is not possible for an adoptee because he has no contact with his natural parents.

4. Genealogical Bewilderment: He is stripped of his birth certificate, usually his original name, and he is cut off from his heritage, his medical records and his genealogy. Without this knowledge (that most of us take for granted) the child who is adopted is programmed for a difficult life. If the gap between the adoptive parents genealogy and the adoptee's genealogy is sufficiently wide, the adoptee's instinctive etiquette will be in constant conflict with the that of the adoptive parents, and the consistent adaptation to non-instinctive behaviour causes a trauma.

5. Fracturing: Adoptive parents will naturally discount the natural mother because they want to think of the adoptee as their child. This discounting will take place at least at the subconscious level, additionally, society sees a mother who has surrendered her child to adoption as deficient in some way. This means that the adoptee is surrounded by ulterior messages that their natural mother is not OK.
Because of the separation from mother as an infant, the adoptee will have to make himself not OK in order to protect his natural mother.

As the adoptee enters the age of cognition and hears the ulterior messages, he is presented with an impossible task; he has to adapt to the adoptive parents in order to survive and must therefore consciously think of his natural mother as not OK, and at the same time, and at a pre-verbal level, he must keep her as OK.
Faced with an impossible task, the psyche of the adoptee fractures and the unacceptable feelings are repressed."

I offer this material in friendship. I do not want you to think that I am discounting you or your actions in any way. If you have negative feelings toward me because I have shared this material, I am happy for you to express those feelings and to stay in the process with you. I value the connection with you, and I don't want anything to get in the way of that.

 

[TeddySue]

Bitzer, I've heard all of this for years since I truly care about my children and wanted to know what it is like for them. I tried the adult adoptee forums and took their hatred toward me for several years in order to understand adoption from their side, until I had had enough. I think I did myself a lot of harm by staying so long in those forums and pouring my heart out to them.

1. As a survivor of childhood abuse, neglect and sexual abuse; never bonding to my biological mother but feeling responsible for her happiness, also helped me understand my children's non-voiced feelings. But nothing can ever make up for what they lost... the same as with myself.

2. I laugh at the chosen baby story. My approach to this was to be open and honest; my kids have always prayed for their biological families which I felt was the right thing to do instead of bashing them. And what was not mentioned here was, "you would have ended up a beggar on the streets if not for me." UGH! Didn't even go there; may have thought it, but didn't express it.

3. Oedipal Complex: psychosexial stages of development... Even puberty goes on and on although the child may be miles from the biological family. Just a thought.

4. My children were stripped of all these things, but were informed of them at appropriate times. Some of their birth-dates were changed because of the non-thoughtful processes in the adopting third world countries they were born in. Bitzer wrote, "and the consistent adaptation to non-instinctive behavior causes a trauma." I'm raising my children alone, not by choice but because of choices that were made by the so-called adoptive father. I have NO relatives that have made contact with us the entire time since the adoptions. We are seen as beneath them; this was programmed into their minds from my so-called parents... their loss.

5. I have never, nor will I ever discount the biological parents and family of my children. We have kept this completely out in the open. I share all information I have with them.

6. Fracturing... I will say that my children and I have bonded together for some of the same reasons: rejection; I have had to adapt to them for the almost same survival. "The unacceptable feeling are repressed." I do understand this as my own feelings were repressed for years upon years until I allowed myself to bring them forward and examine them. I believe age and maturity are needed for some things to be explored without fear. I've seen several of them dig into these feelings at a younger age and back right away from them as they were not able to handle them yet.

I have no hard feelings toward you. I have been bashed to the floor and stepped on for my actions, many many times. Until I finally realized that the adult adoptees, who were abused in the adoptive home, could never accept me as different than their own experiences. I allowed them to punish me for exactly what you are stating here. I felt a need to be punished for adopting my children and bringing about all these. But no more... I do not accept these words as punishment because that only feeds into my extreme PTSD.

 

[bitzer]

I tried the adult adoptee forums and took their hatred toward me ... I have no hard feelings toward you ... I do not accept these words as punishment

I've been on tenterhooks since I posted. I felt you had a right to information that I thought was not readily available, but I was afraid that you would feel rejected and push me away. I feel very relieved.

Yes, there are a lot of negative feelings towards biological mothers among many adoptees, and adoptees can be very abusive when they push people away.

I'm so impressed that you took the time and effort to find out how it must be for your kids. When people are suffering, it so easy to focus on that and not pay attention to what's going on for others.

Mainly I am so glad that we are OK.

 

[TeddySue]

I've been on tenterhooks since I posted. I felt you had a right to information that I thought was not readily available, but I was afraid that you would feel rejected and push me away. I feel very relieved. Mainly I am so glad that we are OK.

Do you know what it means to have someone WANT things to be right between us? My first reaction (and I do react) was the tiniest of a shudder that lasted only 3 seconds before I decided to take more time and NOT react. Thank you for caring if I felt rejected (I didn't); that it meant something that I didn't push you away. I've never experienced this in my entire life. NO ONE cared if I left or stayed; all the time I was looking for a tribe of people who would find something in me that made them not throw me away.

I believe I spent 5 years getting into the minds of abused adoptees... at times it was very, very harsh, but it only made me toughen in and allow the reactions to roll off of me, instead of the instant rage that engulfs me at times. I can't go back, but I did learn all I needed to know about my kids (for now) and how the abuse by their so-called adoptive father affected them. We share a lot of grief.

To hear someone say they don't want me to reject them is so much the opposite of what I've been dealt in life for years. And you're right, we DO push people away. They hurt us... now, if we can only NOT allow them to do this. I accept you because of the rapport we have; in the trench together and able to remain without feeling our boundaries have been infiltrated.

We are a peculiar tribe who speak the same language; it's as if we must nurture each other because no one else did.

 

[bitzer]

Do you know what it means to have someone WANT things to be right between us? My first reaction (and I do react) was the tiniest of a shudder that lasted only 3 seconds before I decided to take more time and NOT react ... I accept you because of the rapport we have; in the trench together and able to remain without feeling our boundaries have been infiltrated ... it's as if we must nurture each other because no one else did.

Do I know what it's like? IT'S SCARY AS HELL. It is very frightening when someone truly cares, because you know that to reciprocate you have to make yourself vulnerable. To the run-of-the-mill human being that doesn't matter much because they don't get that hurt by rejection, but to me there's no worse feeling in the world. I find it very difficult to have friends because "earthlings" don't feel rejection the way I do; it's not a level playing-field - I'm always running up a steep slope.

Let's drink a toast to nurture. It's scary and painful, but it just feels so right.


I'm not happy about it, but I believe that the people that abused me are alive and well and living inside my psyche (I call them the "Toxic Twats"). I'm not happy about it, but sometimes I unknowingly act them out. I'm not perfect.

Let's accept that maybe we will make mistakes and get it wrong for each other, but let's commit to staying in the process - expressing the negative feelings in the knowledge that the other will process those feelings without escalating (as you say, taking the time to react before deciding to take more time and NOT react).

I apologise for making you shudder TeddySue. Perhaps I need to learn to be more gentle.

 

[TeddySue]

Let's drink a toast to nurture. It's scary and painful, but it just feels so right.

1. OH, to be nurtured as one worthy of that nurturing. For a lifetime my soul was listening to the words that were echoing in my mind: YOU SORRY CHILD! And so, I lived my life as if I truly were a sorry child, not worthy of even small attempts to receive nurturing. I have pushed so many people away and all the time I was screaming, DON'T throw me away; SEE something in me worthy of them not throwing me away. And the one thing that has made me see a portion of worth inside myself is my love for my children.

I have diabetes Type 2 and I nearly killed myself by not caring if I lived or died (not suicidal). And when I got so low that I now have to take insulin, suddenly I was given a reason to live: just eating and studying diabetes takes a huge portion of my day concentrating on me... just me. I feel a sense of victory each Monday when I get on the scales and see a significant weight loss. I've lost 17 pounds and have another 130 pounds to go. Mind boggling? No, a reason to live.

My toast to nurturing: raising a glass of skim milk HIGH above my head I speak: To all of us who do not have a specific definition of nurturing, may we begin with ourselves and pray that it will someday spread to others like us. We must fight from within.

I'm not happy about it, but I believe that the people that abused me are alive and well and living inside my psyche (I call them the "Toxic Twats"). I'm not happy about it, but sometimes I unknowingly act them out. I'm not perfect.

2. Are you saying that you act-out or mimic the "Toxic Twats?" Can you tell me more about this?

Let's accept that maybe we will make mistakes and get it wrong for each other, but let's commit to staying in the process - expressing the negative feelings in the knowledge that the other will process those feelings without escalating (as you say, taking the time to react before deciding to take more time and NOT react).

3. This was the first time I've done this and found it positive. First off, I understand where you are coming from and will try to avoid ever triggering you. I find it easier to be kind to one from my own tribe than to those who are on the outside looking in at us. I guess the "Golden Rule" would work here (not for religious purposes): Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I try very hard to separate my faith from what is needed from me here; sometimes it doesn't work. And as you say, "I'm not perfect." Neither am I.

I apologise for making you shudder TeddySue. Perhaps I need to learn to be more gentle.

4. Do you realize that the people at church who snubbed my daughter and were remorseful enough to completely change their ways of interacting with me, didn't even say I'm sorry? NO ONE ever said they were sorry for the incredibly wicked ways they have treated me down through the years. And here, I read from a person I hardly know that they FEEL an apology is necessary. I must tell you that you were in no way harsh with me about the adoption information. I was so pleased that someone would care enough to offer information, even if I already knew it. I didn't FEEL inadequate! This is a huge victory for me, and you brought it about. Thank you.

 

[bitzer]

Are you saying that you act-out or mimic the "Toxic Twats?" Can you tell me more about this?

I believe we introject emotionally significant events - we record the emotional significance, what the parent did, the sense we made of it, and, if it was significantly uncomfortable, we also record what it is we lost (e.g. a sense of felling safe in the world, a sense that we can trust people, a sense of being in control of our own destiny). If it was significantly uncomfortable and happened when we were very small, we tend to make sense of the event in terms of maladaptive needs, beliefs and values (e.g. it isn't safe to have needs, there's something wrong with me, I need to be more aware of rejection).

I think we store this in an ego-state dyad; think of it as overlapping Parent and Child areas. Depending on the situation we might cathect the Parent part (e.g. push someone away) or the Child part (e.g. feel rejected). Because it is based on a single event or a sequence of similar events the Parent and Child are bound together.

The "Toxic Twats" are the Parent parts - it's a bit of an over-simplification, because the Parent and Child collude (as did the original actual parent and actual child). But, when I find myself cathecting the Toxic Twats I do two things: I tell them to shut up, and I know that the Child will be feeling re-traumatised by them and so I soothe the Child.

I'm glad you're caring for yourself.