Childhood The Start Of Grieving Little Me, 1 Of 2 Reasons Im A Monster!

[lostforgottensoul]

Ok, so before I post this first; for anyone that hasnt read it, here is my introduction https://www.myptsd.com/threads/my-story-me.58064/ but it has holes; before today, no one but my therapist knew about this. Please be advised that I already think Im the worst person that walked the planet, so if anyone posts anything that paints me in a bad way, it will hit a huge trigger; probabaly about the biggest; but I feel so deeply inside, not sure why or where its coming from, that I have to grieve that "child self" thats still with me, to get better. Part of that is shedding the self rage and self hated; the thick chocolate coating covering a piece of candy; the rest of my emotions; which due to this "thick chocolate coating" i cant get to the the other emotions, the "candy". Im hoping that through a series of posts, i can shed that self rage and harted a little bit to get to my other emotions; especially if i read this to my therapist outloud tomorrow. So read my story first, in the link above, if you havent already, to understand, but heres one of the few missing pieces. By the way, im now 34, not married, and medically and physically cant have children due to what happened to me as a child.

When I was 14, I was babysitting a 10 month old baby boy. I baby sat him for a bit without anything going wrong, a few weeks. Feeding, changing, laying down for naps, watching tv, even singing him to sleep rocking him. But while i was in the middle of my hell, one day i had a thought. He was sitting in my lap in an easy chair watching tv, his back against my stomach just hanging out. The thought was, I wonder if a baby could get an erection (no experience with kids at age 14) and if it feels good for them. I decided to put my hand in his diaper and molested him. Only did this for about 5 mins or so and i so clearly can remember how he looked up at me, it was a look of "i dont like this" and "this is wrong", and i understand a 10 month old doesnt know that was wrong but i swear he knew he didnt like it. I quickly picked him up, put him in the playpen and went to go throw up. I dont know if the parents had a nanny cam or if it was coincidence but that was the last time the parents let me babysit. I found the posted ad on a bullitin board, they didnt know me, i didnt know them. They had a small interview with me before i started to sit for them and my mom and step dad said as long as it didnt get in the way of my prostititing for them and i gave them the money, they were ok with it. I always wondered if the parents knew but if they didnt press charges due to my age or something. I came home that day, made my parents so mad at me on purpose to get triple the punishments; i deserve it after what i had just done; which i never told them about. I continued the punishments all that night myself. I have never had a thought like that of a child since. Because of this, in 2001, when i was 20, my friend had me stay with her for free if i would be a live in nanny but what i didnt know is i would be his stand in mother for 4 months from day 1. He was just a few weeks when 9/11 happened which is how i remember the time frame. I had the hardest time bathing him, i didnt want to touch his private areas even when bathing, even though i had no sexual thoughts at all, due to what i did; i didnt want to even have my hand near that area of a child. What i did deserves punishment, jail time, why do i get a pass and others dont? Even though ive never had those thoughts again i hate myself so much for it; even though i was being severely abused and this was my new normal, i still deserved punishment. My 14 yr old self is sick. She was getting bullied to the point of rocks being thrown at her head but what she did was disgusting! She deserved to go to jail! Why would she ever deserve to be happy? What if that was my child or your child? No one told any one, not even my parents. We were going to "family therpy" in a christian youth center cuz thats whom i named; wrong name; my parents had good world faces and people believed and still believe that they were good parents and so it was a bash me time; the "honor thy father and thy mother"; "he's NOT my father!" I said. I got punished for that. Hint to what was going on there, punished. Say anything wrong about them, punished. Punishment is all i ever deserved. Not even my actual birth father cared about me as a small child, yelled at me, called me a clutz all the time, took my brother places but not me and the only way i could spend time with him was to pretend i liked football games and lay with him. Though we now live together, he pretty much treats me the same again (he was way nicer when i got back in contact with him when i was 19). What would i expect, its what i deserve, right? I cant look into mirrors, i cant see whats there because whats there is disgusting! I never remember anyone loving me, liking me as in friends, i was hated at home, hated at school, hated at work. Do i deserve anything else? I often wonder, did i just f*ck someone else's life up? Is it now a supressed memory for him to heal from? Do i really deserve anything but to be punished for this?

 

[Friday]

Do i really deserve anything but to be punished for this?

You deserve my admiration for coming to a decision that goes against everything you were ever taught. And my condolences for the weight you have to carry, from learning your limits by crossing them. Regret? Remorse? Are the heaviest burdens I carry.

Spoiler: The long version

Kids who are sexually abused often sexually abuse other children.

- Sometimes because they have become, or are becoming, abusers themselves. (Rare... Also not what you're describing)

- Most of the time because that's their normal, and that's what humans do: we copy what's normal. There's a whole bunch of fancy psych terms for it, but monkey see monkey do, happens to be my favorite. From the toddler who gets hit in the head with a toy one day, and turns around hits another kid in the head with a toy the next day (or five minutes later)... To buying a pair of cowboy boots when you move to Texas, because everyone else has some. We're absolutely, 100% wired to copy what's normal. That's how we acquire language... And every single other thing in life that we ever learn from someone else.

Does it mean we have to do what we've learned is normal? Nope. In fact, you gave a absolutely great example of trying something and deciding that you were morally opposed to it. You decided to rebel against your version of normal.

Sexual abuse of children was your normal. You had a perfectly normal thought in that environment "I wonder if?" You tried it. You hated it. You decided it was wrong, & never to do it. And because you weren't the victim in this scenario? You get to make that choice. Being the victim yourself? You never had that choice. Not once.

We often blame ourselves for what was done to us. As if we were in control, when we weren't. As if we had that choice, when we didn't.

It's hardly surprising that most victims don't become abusers themselves; when finally presented with a choice? If they're old enough to be aware of that choice... They choose what is right for them. Like you did. ((If not old enough? Children often abuse other children for years before they become self aware enough to make a moral choice and choose who they want to be. That's one reason why there aren't strict age guidelines on child on child abuse. Self determination usually happens sometime in the teen years. But when? That's different for everyone.))

Stats aside... Reading your story... I'm not really surprised you chose to rebel against your normal. You have little sparks of rebellion throughout your story. From hiding the kitten first in your closet, then their grave elsewhere... To right here, where you decided that even though you were being treated sexually by others your whole life that you weren't going to do that with other children.

Am I saying it was okay to molest the baby? Nope. I'm saying that unlike most people, you had to learn that the hard way. From being taught it is okay your whole life, to deciding on your own it isn't.

 

[Stickler]

You've been carrying that guilt a long time...will carry it, I expect, even if you were compulsively re-enacting your abuse and were a kid and not really all that capable of taking responsibility.
Kids do not have great impulse control. They just don't.
:(
I think the crime carries its' own punishment here.


You don't deserve ANY more punishment, though...you have had enough.
I wish you would get in contact with a domestic violence shelter, see if you can get help to get away from your abuser. It is VERY bad to be back living with him.
If I read your post right?
He's either sexually abusing you again or possibly grooming you for same by daily verbal abuse...Yeah, domestic battery can be a type of grooming for abuse.
Also being very nice in order to suck you back in? That is called " hoovering.". Expect it again.

 

[shimmerz]

They had a small interview with me before i started to sit for them and my mom and step dad said as long as it didnt get in the way of my prostituting for them and i gave them the money, they were ok with it.

You were highly sexualized as a child, obviously. I agree with Friday. You made a choice to stop what others had taught you you were (a sexual being) at WAY too young an age.

I admire you for having worked through that at so young an age. Clearly you are not a child molester or you would not have stopped this behaviour.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

He's either sexually abusing you again or possibly grooming you for same by daily verbal abuse.

Many people get this confused. My mother and STEP father was the abusivers after my biological father left at age 12 (well when MOST of it started though my stepdad started grooming me when he met my mom when i was 6 or 7), my biological father was abusive when i was a kid, NEVER sexual, but he was somewhat physically and very much verbally and emotionally abusive and emotionally and physically absent; thus how my stepdad got an in; be a "daddy figure"; when i was 12 and my dad left me there alone, when all the bad cult stuff REALLY took off, i was then isolated from him. Now my biologcal dad is 40 yrs older than me and was diabetic and didnt know it for yrs when i was growing up and i know, from times he did, when diabetics dont take their medicine, they are VERY mean. This is generally why I think he was how he was when i was little. When i got back in contact with him at age 19, he was SOOOO much different. He was nice, respectful, had energy (always laying down when i was a kid), gardening etc. Since my accident in '09, my dad has helped me so much thats no way i could ever repay him and i think part of the issues we have is me, my VERY high anxiety and not being as toleratant as i should that though im 34, he's 74. He does now take insulin and meds for diabities and has for yrs but his disrespect and sometimes almost cruelness fules hgiher anxiety, plus half of him doesnt believe me and its my mom's word against mine (stepdad now dead); they had a bonfire the day before i moved out and burned all of the pictures, the videos, the "bibles", any writings, and even mu art which had nothing to do with it all. Basically all the evidence that it happened is gone therefore becauae its so "out there" or hard to believe, my entire family believes my mom whom says im lying (obviosuly) and so i had thought my dad believes me, at least he and my step mom believes me, but i found out that a large part of my dad doesnt believe me, making it even harder for me.

All of that staightened out, yes my dad is abusive at times, other times its just old age grumpiness and my anxiety and the anger i show kicks in and bom, its a fight. My pain pill, xanax addicted step mom whom i think tries to pen my dad and i against each other cuz she wants him to move out as my dad and i get along fine when she is away. He's also been resently checked on a brain MRI, he doesnt have dementia (it runs in his family)

I dont know if its doing more harm than good right now but my dad and i have work to do together; hopefully he can get to a place where he sees his part in it all, being physically and emotionally absensent and verbally and emotionally and at times physically abusive as a kid, regardless of unknown diabetis, opened the door for my step dad and he said no to me at age 9 and 12 and left me there alone but took my brother. My therapist knows what happens in my house the week it happened, but he knows we need to go to sessions together. However, i am at a point that i am ok if they move out and feel i have the abilty to not huff (2 yrs ish clean but they moved back in when i had just stopped)

I think this often gets confused because i never use names on here. My mother and i have not had contact since i was 19 and my step dad is dead.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

You deserve my admiration for coming to a decision that goes against everything you were ever...

I think i will need to re-read your long verison over a long time frame, over and over (its the same stuff my therapist has said, it seems to not matter to me but if i can pound it me, maybe?) but the real test; can i read my post to my therapist today and connect with the feelings that will come (which isnt anger; its hurt. I felt it in the middle of writing it but it was after 2am and so was easy to not avoid it with cutting by going to sleep with the help of meds). Im like a brick wall, so disconnected with the past and so strongly brainwashed that its impossible for my therapist to change it. My thought is, if i can feel that pain in therapy and SHOW IT (i only cried once in 6 yrs going every week in therapy, when he was reading a scripture from the bible about how god loves you and sees you but it was for only a few mins), i need something that breaks that wall and im not chocking down tears which i have done a lot. Allow and let myself feel that pain in a safe space and not run from it. Thats the test.

 

[Friday]

Im like a brick wall, so disconnected with the past and so stronly brainwashed that its impossible for my therapist to change it.

One thing I've learned is that it's impossible for anyone except me to change the way I think.

<chuckling> Doesn't mean other people are pointless. Far from / almost the exact opposite. It means I have to first let myself be influenced by other people, and second actively change my own thinking, bit by bit.

I am extremely careful with my mind/the way that I think. I've been broken before, I accept change very very slowly, if I don't accept it instantly. Even though one of the breaks was a good thing* (the other weren't). Because I know it can be done? I guard against it happening, even when I want it to happen, and even when I'm the one doing it. :facepalm:

* I was being tortured and they pushed me too far / lost control of me. Up until that moment I would have done anything for them, anything to make it stop, even for a moment. Breaking? There? Taught me to laugh. To really, truly, laugh. And to know that no matter how much someone else wants me to feel something, except for pain, I actually have to agree with them. They could try to scare me, & I wasn't scared. They could try to intimidate me, & I wasn't intimidated. They could try to insult me, & I wasn't insulted. Instead? I could be resigned, amused, bored, confident, etc. My feelings were my own. No one can make me feel anything. If I get scared, angry, insulted, etc.? It's my choice to. Always.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I admire you for having worked through that at so young an age. Clearly you are not a child molester or you would not have stopped this behaviour.

No, im not but it doesnt make me any less of a monster in my own head. Like i told friday, the real test comes at 2pm today, if i can read what i erote outloud to my therapist and connect with the feelings that come (which suprised me last night, isnt anger, it was hurt) and not run from it. Its sort of a 3 way post, make it simi-public (shame), shed the anger (which obviosuly worked as i felt pain half way through it), and reading it outloud, sayinf things is an issue for me, allow that hurt to be there in therapy and not run from it.

 

[Stickler]

Ah, I sit corrected.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

One thing I've learned is that it's impossible for anyone except me to change the way I think...

I didnt mean for him to change it, i just mean no matter what he says, how obvious he makes it that what i was taught was wrong and it wasnt my fault, my brain says it was right and it was my fault and im stubborn and stick to it even though we go back and forth, like a court room, him making me defend my position and it doesnt make sense in my rational mind, it still makes sense to me. People have a big factor in my feelings, and i get that i allow it, but i dont know how not to.

This post was a HUGE step in the right direction and im hoping it breaks just one brick off that wall today.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Ah, I sit corrected.

Its ok, you arent the first and likely wont be the last. And since i dont ise my step dad's name on here, very much understandable.

 

[Ronin]

You learned.

Which is the most important part of this.

You made the right choice in seeking healing. In understanding some things are wrong. In actively going against it. Keep making that choice, don't go back, and don't punish yourself for the past you had no way of knowing better, in. Punishment won't help you grow and the way I'm seeing it, you've got a lot of growth ahead you can get to, and know how to get on that track, so don't lose it.