Potential Childhood Abuse?

[NicG]

Having been seeing my T for over a year now, we've delved into some stuff from my childhood that I don't ever think about. I know I was abused as a little kid by a variety of childcare workers (one after-school-care lady who used to terrify the crap out of us and occasionally locked kids in her car, a preschool worker who yelled at me to stop crying)...

But I've remembered one thing that I can't work out. I used to think my dad was trying to kill me.

Don't get me wrong, I love my father. We have a great relationship now, I work for him, and he's one of my mentors for my postgrad studies that I'm just starting. But when I was little he wasn't around much because he travelled a lot for work. I didn't really know he was my dad, he was just this man that sometimes showed up and I didn't like him much. I'd scream and cry when he tried to bathe me, to the point where my neighbor would shout from the next house "oh be quiet!!"

When I got a bit older (think like 5-8), whenever he'd put me to bed, I'd have to get up again secretly and check that he hadn't hidden anything under my bed to "get me". I was legitimately afraid that he'd hidden bombs under my bed to kill me.

I've never talked to anyone about this before. I don't know why I felt this way for a good portion of my childhood. It's not like he was ever cruel or anything. He's a lovely man. Perhaps I was scared of men in general? But I have no idea why. I don't want to start suspecting repressed memories without talking to my T but... surely this isn't normal??

 

[haltija]

Two things: You said that you were abused as a child and that your dad was not around much.

Being a child who was abused by childcare workers, people who were supposed to take care of you... like your father, do you think it's possible that your fearful feelings were misdirected towards your father? These were people that were responsible for you and your safety. They were meant to take care of you, just like he was. It sounds like you weren't given the bonding time to be able to fully trust him.

Was it only your father that you were suspicious of? Do you remember being suspicious of others as well? I'm guessing, of course. But it would make sense for any child to fear a caretaker or parent they lacked familiarity with, simply because they were abused by others responsible for them.

 

[Changing4Best]

I think there is a possibility that you may be superimposing your father's image onto the images of the ones that abused you. Maybe something about him reminded you of someone who abused you? There are many possibilities here. There is also the possibility that you were abused by someone before your memories started to solidify, so that the abuse was from when you were a baby, but we cannot really recall things from back then, other than maybe some vague impression of them. I seem to have these kinds of images of my grandfather abusing me, when I know he did later on, but I also get vague images of him doing so when I was still sleeping in my crib. I don't have an age for these times, but I know they were very early in my life.

 

[ghotiff]

Another possibility is that your mother (knowingly or not) said things about your father that created this fear. With the other abuse you suffered it wouldn't take much to cause you to be scared of a father you did not know well.