Hello.
This is all very new to me. My name is Felicity and I recently turned 30. I suffer from C-PTSD from childhood abuse and neglect. My sister and I were raised by a narcissistic woman who treated us like toys instead of children. The only consistent thing about my childhood was it's inconsistency. My parents went through three terrible breakups through the course of my childhood (when I was 5, when I was 8 and again when I was 16). I cannot tell you how many houses I lived in before I was ten. Half of the places I stayed at were not truly our houses, just temporary accommodation with people my "mother*" found cool and exciting.
From when I was 8 to when I was 12, my "mother" had custody of me and my sister. She had a boyfriend that she coddled and pampered, all while neglecting us. This person never worked, he just smoked weed and gambled our money away. Every 6 - 8 months they would break up. Not just break up, but fight so badly that walls, windows would be smashed and the police would be called. We would get kicked out due to property damage or not paying rent and have to find emergency accommodation (while he went back to his Mummy). Me and my sister, as young girls, would have to baby this woman through her break up while she cried and pined after a person who treated us all like shit. We would move, change schools and try and start a new life.
Everytime, however, she would take him back. There would be promises that things would be better, but in six to eight months time, it would happen again. The house would be wrecked, the neighbors would gawk at the fighting and the crying children and call the police. We would have to hold the hand of a grown woman who was acting like a little girl who just got dumped for the first time. We would find a new place, a new school etc etc.
When she was with him, we didn't matter. We were fed shit, I was sent to school with dry noodles and weetbix and nothing to drink. We never had fresh food and the only time I got new clothes they had been on lay buy so long they no longer fit. For the bulk of the time we were just left in our rooms to rot. I think she kept us because a single parent pension and two young girls were bait for the type of men she liked (disgusting ones). At night his mates would use speed and carry on in the lounge room. They would get into fights and once it spilled into my bedroom scaring the piss out of me. Sometimes I would barricade myself in my room.
Before this, when I was very young, when she first left my father, she hooked up with the son of my Dad's workmate. I think he was 16. She coddled him too, neglecting us. He overtly hated us, but she thought it was all just a joke. I have very little memory of this time, but I know I have some memory bombs in my head just waiting to go off.
She broke up our education. I have to think about how many schools I went to, and the only way I can remember is to count the uniforms that I remember wearing. As you might be able to tell from my writing, my schooling suffered. I was a quiet and polite student, so the teachers gave me a free pass on a lot of things. I also can't tell you when I stopped bothering to make friends. I was bullied at every school. Every single one.
My sister was a bit older and alternated between living with us and my Dad. I did not, and I am ashamed of this, because I fell for her smear campaign against my Dad. She had me convinced for a long time that he was a terrible, abusive man. I would visit him, but I always wanted to come back to her, thinking I was safer. Today this makes me sick that I fell for that. I stopped falling for it when I was twelve after she destroyed my birthday party and humiliated me in front of my friends because I was having fun. I moved in with my Dad and the next four years were safer, but somehow worse.
My Dad is not a bad man, and he never abused me. But he never got me help for the abuse I suffered from her. I think he was so scared of being labelled an abuser himself that any sign that I was sad or not coping or depressed he would make me feel terrible like I was doing it to upset him. I honestly believe my Dad wanted me to be happy, but he had a godawful way of trying to make it happen. Today I have a good relationship with him and he knows I feel this way, and he was apologized. But the damage was done. It feels like it was during this time that I really started to disassociate and shut down. I was scared of everything and all I ever wanted to do was run. But I was too scared to even do that.
Today I have no focus. No concentration. A very patchy memory and I cannot for the life of me make emotional connections to anything or anyone. I have a partner who has been with me for 13 years who claims he will help me beat this, but he is overwhelmed. I am depressed. My favorite thing to do is just stare at something and zone out. I used to have a rich fantasy life in my head that I planned to write stories about, but I have even lost that. I pushed it all away because it felt childish.
I just feel like a shell. My brain plays it's own game of whack a mole with bad emotions, and I have no control over it. I can go for a walk and have run the gauntlet of wanting to kill myself, to overwhelming sense of optimism that I can beat this several times before I reach my destination. It's just chaos. I enjoy nothing. Not food, not company and my sex life is non existent. I cannot connect with people on any level. No matter how nice someone is to me, I just want to turn and run away from them.
My psychologist suspects I have ADD among all this, but my heart cannot handle the medication so focus is something I can only dream about right now. I am trying to study horticulture, but after 8 months I have made it through one and a half units and I think I will have to quit.
I only recently got help (I have seen councilors in the past only for depression) and I see my psychologist once a fortnight and I start on lexapro tomorrow. I have taken lexapro in the past when I thought I was just depressed, but I am hoping that now I have more of an idea what is wrong I can utilize them with my cognitive therapy. I now seek out positive people to inspire me, and I am trying to learn mindfulness, although after disassociating so heavily for so long it's not easy and I feel very silly. As I said to my partner today, it's like bringing down a brick wall with a butter knife. I walk a lot and I try to do Yoga, but I think I miss the point of it sometimes. I can only sleep if I get stoned first and I need to have the television on. I still feel like my lounge room is full of smack heads even after all this time.
I work in customer service, which isn't completely ideal, but I get a chance to try out some new ways of trying to connect with people. The place I work at is quiet and rarely gets busy, and my boss knows what is wrong and has been immensely supportive and I understand how rare that is. I am extremely grateful for her.
I have come here to try and connect with other people who understand and try and focus on my healing. I am also very anxious about taking lexapro. I felt terrible last time I started to take it and I am not looking forward to the next few weeks, but it might lead to something better down the road. Today I spent the afternoon planning to kill myself by taking all of them at once with my heart medication, but I cried on my partners shoulder and called my sister instead. Now I am here instead. Better decisions, better paths.
I apologise for the wall of text and the possible TMI, but I can never really succinctly describe what made me this way. There was very little physical and sexual abuse, it was mainly the neglect that haunts me. I hope to stick around and learn some coping skills and take the heavy burden I have been placing on my partner. I struggle to stick to things, I will admit that now, but I will try to stay.
Thank you for reading.
*I call her 'mother' for ease of reference. I think calling her that insults any woman who ever gave half a shit about their child. She does not deserve that title. I have not seen her in years. She crashed at my house, caused a drama, met a random on the internet and flew to NZ to hook up with him a week before I was going to have surgery on my face. I have not seen her since and I have ignored most of her messages since. I actually thought (hoped) she was dead, but unfortunately she recently tried to make contact with my sister.
This is all very new to me. My name is Felicity and I recently turned 30. I suffer from C-PTSD from childhood abuse and neglect. My sister and I were raised by a narcissistic woman who treated us like toys instead of children. The only consistent thing about my childhood was it's inconsistency. My parents went through three terrible breakups through the course of my childhood (when I was 5, when I was 8 and again when I was 16). I cannot tell you how many houses I lived in before I was ten. Half of the places I stayed at were not truly our houses, just temporary accommodation with people my "mother*" found cool and exciting.
From when I was 8 to when I was 12, my "mother" had custody of me and my sister. She had a boyfriend that she coddled and pampered, all while neglecting us. This person never worked, he just smoked weed and gambled our money away. Every 6 - 8 months they would break up. Not just break up, but fight so badly that walls, windows would be smashed and the police would be called. We would get kicked out due to property damage or not paying rent and have to find emergency accommodation (while he went back to his Mummy). Me and my sister, as young girls, would have to baby this woman through her break up while she cried and pined after a person who treated us all like shit. We would move, change schools and try and start a new life.
Everytime, however, she would take him back. There would be promises that things would be better, but in six to eight months time, it would happen again. The house would be wrecked, the neighbors would gawk at the fighting and the crying children and call the police. We would have to hold the hand of a grown woman who was acting like a little girl who just got dumped for the first time. We would find a new place, a new school etc etc.
When she was with him, we didn't matter. We were fed shit, I was sent to school with dry noodles and weetbix and nothing to drink. We never had fresh food and the only time I got new clothes they had been on lay buy so long they no longer fit. For the bulk of the time we were just left in our rooms to rot. I think she kept us because a single parent pension and two young girls were bait for the type of men she liked (disgusting ones). At night his mates would use speed and carry on in the lounge room. They would get into fights and once it spilled into my bedroom scaring the piss out of me. Sometimes I would barricade myself in my room.
Before this, when I was very young, when she first left my father, she hooked up with the son of my Dad's workmate. I think he was 16. She coddled him too, neglecting us. He overtly hated us, but she thought it was all just a joke. I have very little memory of this time, but I know I have some memory bombs in my head just waiting to go off.
She broke up our education. I have to think about how many schools I went to, and the only way I can remember is to count the uniforms that I remember wearing. As you might be able to tell from my writing, my schooling suffered. I was a quiet and polite student, so the teachers gave me a free pass on a lot of things. I also can't tell you when I stopped bothering to make friends. I was bullied at every school. Every single one.
My sister was a bit older and alternated between living with us and my Dad. I did not, and I am ashamed of this, because I fell for her smear campaign against my Dad. She had me convinced for a long time that he was a terrible, abusive man. I would visit him, but I always wanted to come back to her, thinking I was safer. Today this makes me sick that I fell for that. I stopped falling for it when I was twelve after she destroyed my birthday party and humiliated me in front of my friends because I was having fun. I moved in with my Dad and the next four years were safer, but somehow worse.
My Dad is not a bad man, and he never abused me. But he never got me help for the abuse I suffered from her. I think he was so scared of being labelled an abuser himself that any sign that I was sad or not coping or depressed he would make me feel terrible like I was doing it to upset him. I honestly believe my Dad wanted me to be happy, but he had a godawful way of trying to make it happen. Today I have a good relationship with him and he knows I feel this way, and he was apologized. But the damage was done. It feels like it was during this time that I really started to disassociate and shut down. I was scared of everything and all I ever wanted to do was run. But I was too scared to even do that.
Today I have no focus. No concentration. A very patchy memory and I cannot for the life of me make emotional connections to anything or anyone. I have a partner who has been with me for 13 years who claims he will help me beat this, but he is overwhelmed. I am depressed. My favorite thing to do is just stare at something and zone out. I used to have a rich fantasy life in my head that I planned to write stories about, but I have even lost that. I pushed it all away because it felt childish.
I just feel like a shell. My brain plays it's own game of whack a mole with bad emotions, and I have no control over it. I can go for a walk and have run the gauntlet of wanting to kill myself, to overwhelming sense of optimism that I can beat this several times before I reach my destination. It's just chaos. I enjoy nothing. Not food, not company and my sex life is non existent. I cannot connect with people on any level. No matter how nice someone is to me, I just want to turn and run away from them.
My psychologist suspects I have ADD among all this, but my heart cannot handle the medication so focus is something I can only dream about right now. I am trying to study horticulture, but after 8 months I have made it through one and a half units and I think I will have to quit.
I only recently got help (I have seen councilors in the past only for depression) and I see my psychologist once a fortnight and I start on lexapro tomorrow. I have taken lexapro in the past when I thought I was just depressed, but I am hoping that now I have more of an idea what is wrong I can utilize them with my cognitive therapy. I now seek out positive people to inspire me, and I am trying to learn mindfulness, although after disassociating so heavily for so long it's not easy and I feel very silly. As I said to my partner today, it's like bringing down a brick wall with a butter knife. I walk a lot and I try to do Yoga, but I think I miss the point of it sometimes. I can only sleep if I get stoned first and I need to have the television on. I still feel like my lounge room is full of smack heads even after all this time.
I work in customer service, which isn't completely ideal, but I get a chance to try out some new ways of trying to connect with people. The place I work at is quiet and rarely gets busy, and my boss knows what is wrong and has been immensely supportive and I understand how rare that is. I am extremely grateful for her.
I have come here to try and connect with other people who understand and try and focus on my healing. I am also very anxious about taking lexapro. I felt terrible last time I started to take it and I am not looking forward to the next few weeks, but it might lead to something better down the road. Today I spent the afternoon planning to kill myself by taking all of them at once with my heart medication, but I cried on my partners shoulder and called my sister instead. Now I am here instead. Better decisions, better paths.
I apologise for the wall of text and the possible TMI, but I can never really succinctly describe what made me this way. There was very little physical and sexual abuse, it was mainly the neglect that haunts me. I hope to stick around and learn some coping skills and take the heavy burden I have been placing on my partner. I struggle to stick to things, I will admit that now, but I will try to stay.
Thank you for reading.
*I call her 'mother' for ease of reference. I think calling her that insults any woman who ever gave half a shit about their child. She does not deserve that title. I have not seen her in years. She crashed at my house, caused a drama, met a random on the internet and flew to NZ to hook up with him a week before I was going to have surgery on my face. I have not seen her since and I have ignored most of her messages since. I actually thought (hoped) she was dead, but unfortunately she recently tried to make contact with my sister.
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