Re-evaluating The Past...

[J_trustno1]

I did decide to let go of the anger and hate for them (perpetrators ) because it belongs to them.

However, I am now trying to reevaluate the child labor today after watching this show on tv about child labor. It was about children being made to overwork to fulfill their parents financial needs. All these greedy parents making their children work overtime for the sake of money.

Now relating back to my 12 year old self, I was forced to work at the restaurant, cleaning toilets, tables and working 8-10 hrs per night to earn only $20 each night with free humiliation and swearing from mum's narcissistic brother. My mother had no say in it because she brought us to this country from her abusive husband and our father. We were immigrants and she was under work visa with her brother and this bastard hated me to core. He berated me on my 13th birthday in front of 50 people calling me "dumb cow" and an idiot. He treated each of my birthday with hate and called it my funeral as a result I stopped celebrating my birthdays from the age of 16 on wards. I simply couldn't take the crap anymore.

Going back to being 12, when I was forced to work I actually had no say in it. Whenever I refused to work my mother would stand with a long metal rod and threaten to beat me up if I didn't go to work. I grew up hating myself , felt unloved , was called selfish and felt unwanted.

The self hate was growing more and more by the time I reached 16 when I started losing sleep each night. This was the first time I was diagnosed with depression and was given antidepressants for the first time.

Oh , i forgot to mention that my mum's asshole brother kicked me out of work by the time I reached 14 and made statements that no one will hire me. However, I did manage to get a job at the supermarket where I was paid $5.60 per hour whuch was left to $5.00 after tax. I worked my weekends and during weekdays I was studying and doing house chores.

By the age I reached 17, my mother decided to buy a restaurant of her asshole brother. She asked for money from me and my brother. I saved $20000 from working at the supermarket and doing extra shifts during school holidays. I gave all my money to her. I also used to give her my money when I worked for her asshole brother. Note: my brother and I helped her pay the house rent and house expenses.

In 2013, she let her bastard brother stay at our house to return the favor of him allowing us to come into this country. He was building his 2million dollar house then and he couldn't live at his parents house. That asshole treated me like crap each day he lived at our house. I relapsed into depression. My mother never stopped him but me. She only took his side Because he did more favors on her than me.

I have been in therapy for a year now and finally reaching inner peace but I have so many unanswered questions. I don't know if all those steps taken by my mother were necessary? Do I need to have self pity or regret my childhood because normal kids and especially their kids were NEVER treated this way. I don't know what my reaction to all this is supposed to look like now. I have spent more than a year crying about my childhood labor , neglect, verbal , physical , sexual and emotional abuse. All that affected my mental and physical health. I don't know what I should feel now. All I know is that I want to heal my innet child.

Any suggestions are welcomed. I am looking for help. Thanks.

 

[ms spock]

I think you can be proud at how brave you have been, how you have followed your therapy through and how disciplined you are at exercise, self care and study.

You have done some good, solid growth and change.

So lots of positive self talk would be my suggestion.

 

[J_trustno1]

@Ms Spock: Thank you for encouraging me. Thanks for always being there to cheer us up :hug:s :)

 

[ms spock]

I am glad that you feel cheered up. :D :hug:

I am quite serious though. You have worked really hard at it all. You consistently put one foot in front of the other and give it a go. It is not easy I know.

It is important to note the successes @J_trustno1. You have been successful. It is really important to write all your successes down, so you don't forget them. So when you have a tough time you can look at it and go yes I can do this. And you can, and you do.

 

[J_trustno1]

Thank you @Ms Spock. This was very helpful. I will be bringing up some of the issues I have with my T so she can help me understand things a lot more than I currently am. :)

 

[joeylittle]

@J_trustno1, to me what you are describing is what happens when a piece of the traumatic past has been processed and accepted into the mind as part of the whole brain/memory, and not an isolated part. It reads like you can look back on this really upsetting time in your life with appropriate sadness and regret, but it is not causing extreme upset the way unresolved events do.

Do I need to have self pity or regret my childhood because normal kids and especially their kids were NEVER treated this way. I don't know what my reaction to all this is supposed to look like now.

No - you aren't required to do any of those things. But you are used to carrying that burden, those intense feelings, and so it's a little strange that they are gone. You will get used to it, but it does take a little time.

It's ok to be sad about things that were sad - but in a manageable, fadeable way, instead of the trauma response of unbearable sadness/pain/anger/etc. Accepting that those things happened and they are part of your past, not your present. Sounds to me like you are doing really good work and it is paying off.

 

[Nam]

Healing takes on a weird path. I have to revisit certain events because I didn't quite digest it all. It's like reading a horrific account and you reread it after the shock wore off. Then, you might read it again to get the logistics in it. Author jasmin Cori says that healing takes a spiral like path. You work on what you can at that time. Then it's put away for a bit. Each time you revisit it, you will heal a bit more and the memory will have less power.

As for the child labor...I don't know my feelings on this. You were certainly abused but if you were expected to work but wasn't verbally abused would you still think it was abusive child labor? Working at home was a given at our house and farm. It wasn't chores per say. I got paid for it. And somehow it was tax deductible or something? The dynamics are weird for sure because one, you don't feel like it was a mutual agreement. Both parties can't end the contract when they want to and for any reason. Two, an authorative figure separate from the labor was making money. Three, it's hard to tell if the jobs given were a punishment. (Once I had to clean out a barn full of pens of calf bedding and poop. There were 18 pens. It took me all day. The pitchfork was too big, and no one helped. I could not decide if it was punishment or not.)

Maybe you're just a head of me on healing this one? There are times that I thought it was very unfair but I have a work ethic now that is pretty great. But maybe I have that in spite of my upbringing?

I choose not to overwork my kids. They have simple chores that take less than 30 minutes to complete. So I must have found fault in how my parents handled child labor.

As for the anger? Put it where it belongs. You have a right to be angry. Then, let go of it. Don't carry it with you. I hope that writing it out helped with that.

 

[scout86]

I'm going to throw in a couple thoughts on child labor too.

A point my T has made a few times is that what might be considered "abuse" in one culture would be considered "normal" in another, in some cases. Not to minimize anyone's experience or perception. If damage was done, it was abuse, either intentional or otherwise.

But, at least where I grew up and where I live now, many kids were/are expected to work. I live in a rural area. When I was a kid, it was quite common for kids from dairy farms to get up at 4AM to help milk cows so they could get done, eat breakfast and get off to school. They were expected to help again when they got home, That's just one example. If your parents ran a grocery store, you worked in the store, Some kids got paid money. It was quite common to be told "You're living under this roof and eating food at this table, so of COURSE you have to work to help provide it." That was normal. I never thought of it as abuse or exploitation and never heard anyone else speak of it that way either. It was just the way things were. The idea was both that children were expected to make what contributions they could, because everyone did, and how else would they learn? Because of that, asking you to work in your uncle's restaurant, on the face of it, seems perfectly normal to me. I've since come to find out that there is a different standard and different expectations in different places. I don't know that there's a right or wrong to it, it's just an interesting difference, as far as I'm concerned.

Do I need to have self pity or regret my childhood because normal kids and especially their kids were NEVER treated this way.

"Need to"? No. In fact, it's hard to see where that would be helpful. Sometimes we learn valuable skills through adversity. Are there any positive things you gained from that experience? I'd say to focus on the positive aspects, if you can. It will do you more good in the long run.

 

[illusionist]

Heal what needs healing, I'm doing this at the moment. I worked from age of 12 after school and at weekends..handing over my wages but while I was working, I was away from the abuses. So I didn't see it as exploitation, although it was, I still see that work, at that time, as a positive thing in my life. Yes I worked long hours, yes I was tired but I had an escape from my abuses....so nothing to heal there.

 

[J_trustno1]

The legal age to work is 14 in this country. That man always verbally and emotionally abused me. He used to throw ruthless statements at me saying that "she will run away from home and become a hair dresser", "you'll become a nun or a nymph". He called me bitch and put me down any occasion he got. He used to make weird faces at me when I was 12 , would make me cry in front of the entire family and even strangers. Then he would chase me to my room and mimic my crying out loud outside my room. I grew up being scared of this bastard.

He had different standards for his children. He always said that my kids don't need to work or stand behind a cue. They were pampered, given facilities like sports, leisure activities, traveling around the world and hotels yi live in. He didn't let them work until they were 20 and that too at video stores. I am not asking for his money or those leisure activities from him but have anger for the treatment I was given. Why was I treated as a third class citizen while his kids were given first class treatment? I know that I have enough skills and two hands therefore I can earn. I don't need to depend on a mercy of some asshole BUT my only question here is why his kids came before me? I don't want his love but it pisses me off when people have different standards for their progeny and ruthless standards for other people's kids!

 

[illusionist]

The legal age to work in my country was 15 and you needed a work permit. It is totally understandable that you are pissed off, totally! But for your own good, you have got to find a way of bringing that down to a level that is not eating you up, and snowballing. You will get there. Sometimes we just don't have the answers to why's.

 

[J_trustno1]

I suppose he is a narcissistic moron who feeds on other people's misery. That's all i can conclude out of it.

Lastly , I'm not as terrified as i used to be by those memories. Hardly many emotions left for them. I'm kinda emotionally numb towards them. For some reason I only don't have tolerance for my abusers but I'm fine. Not as bad.