There Must Be Something Wrong With Me

[Holdingontohope]

My apologies in advance that this post is so long.

I have been working in therapy on not blaming myself for being sexualy abused as a child. I thought I was making some progress on it, but I seem to be hitting a wall. I might be able to tell myself that what my grandfather did to me as a child was not my fault, but I keep getting stuck on the thought that there must be something inherently wrong with me for all the things that have happened in my life to have happened.

Things started before I can even remember. My mom told me that my step-grandma tried to kill me as an infant. My grandpa sexually abused me as a child from as early as I can remember until I was 12. My uncle sexually abused me when I was 3. When I was in elementary school, there where several instances that my mom physically abused me. Eventually we ended up moving because my mom was being investigated for child abuse. When I was 11 stuff happened with one of my older cousins (I don't think that would classify as abusive though because I never said no and encouraged things at some times even). When I was 14, I went to a party and my boyfriend was drunk and threatened to kill himself if I didn't have sex with him, so I agreed to have sex with him. Then he decided to let his friends watch. Then his friends wanted to take their own turns. It was scary and traumatizing even if it wasn't rape. I was scared and crying the whole time. I didn't want the other guys to be there or to have sex with me, but I didn't fight back because I didn't want my boyfriend to hurt himself. As a teenager, my step-dad was physically and verbally abusive. When I was 16 he touched me inappropriately when he was drunk and I ended up moving out.

When I was 19 I married a man I had only dated for 2 weeks. He was very abusive at times, hitting me, choking me, threatening to kill me. He would bring other men home and wanted me to have threesomes with them. If I didn't agree to he would become violent or verbally abusive. So I went along with it. During one of these "threesomes" he had to go downstairs for something and said to wait until he came back to get started. After my husband left the room, the other guy shoved me onto the bed and forced himself onto me. I didn't really fight back though, I just froze and went somewhere else in my mind. My husband was furious with me and beat me afterwards. When I was pregnant with my third child, my husband beat me and I lost my baby (It was still early in my pregnancy so I hadn't told him I was pregnant yet. If I had told him he wouldn't have done that, so it was my fault my baby died).

After that, one of the guys that my husband brought home said that I should take my kids and leave with him, that he would help me. I was stupid and desperate and I left with him. One night he wanted to have sex, but I was on my period and said no, so he raped me the other way (though I don't know that I can call that rape either because I didn't scream or anything because my kids were sleeping in the same room and I didn't want them to wake up and see). After that I still stayed with him and had sex willingly other times and ended up pregnant. Once he found out I was pregnant we went to another state to visit some of his friends in a big city. He wouldn't tell me his friends address and had me park at a store then he went to meet his friends somewhere. He never came back. The next day I got a call from someone saying that they had him and were going to kill him if I didn't give them money. I was alone and pregnant in a big city and I was scared and didn't know what to do so I called the police. It ended up he faked his kidnapping with his friends to try to get money from him. I never saw him again.

So I had 2 kids and was pregnant again. I was living with my parents, but then they kicked me out and I had no money, no job, no place to live, so I called my husband and he let us come back and live with him. He was very verbally abusive while I was pregnant and told me I had to put my baby for adoption. I agreed and had everything set up for it, then right before she was born he had a "sudden change of heart" and said he wanted to be a family again and that I should keep her and he would help me raise her and be her dad. So, I didn't go through with the adoption and I kept my baby. It ended up that he wanted me keep her just to manipulate me. He started saying that I owed him and that I had to do whatever he wanted since he let me keep her. He started bringing over more men and told me I had to do what they wanted or he would take my kids away from me. I was very depressed and had severe post-partum and ended up in a hospital. My husband ended up with custody of the kids because I was "emotionally unstable". He told me I had to get pregnant again with his child if I wanted to be any part of my kids life, so I got pregnant

So, there is a huge chunk of my evidence that I am a stupid, worthless person. I mean, seriously, I let all that happen. How can I ever forgive myself for all that? There really must be something inherently wrong with me as a person. How can I not hate myself? How can I not blame myself when it was all so very evidently my fault?

My T says that it all goes back to being sexually abused when I was young. That the abuse "programmed" my brain differently than if I hadn't been sexually abused. He says that it is okay to offer myself grace for things that happened, and I can work on "reprogramming" my brain. I don't deserve grace or forgiveness though.

I don't know how to move forward from here. I feel stuck.

 

[hodge]

I totally agree with your T. I don't blame you for your choices because you were never educated to know otherwise,. You were not exposed to healthy values from the youngest age, but only the worst ones.

However, you are an adult now and you can make better choices. And I am soooo glad to hear you have a good T. You CAN move forward in a positive way and make it so your children do not go the way you did. You have a priceless opportunity in front of you! Take it, and we will support you every step of the way.

I know it's hard. My history is not like yours in some ways, so I won't pretend to say I know what it's like for you, but I do know what it's like to try to move forward from bad circumstances. And I know how hard it is to forgive yourself for things you really weren't responsible for. Hang in there.

 

[Justmehere]

I'm going to be a little blunt because I deeply care and seeing you take on so much shame just breaks my heart.... Please know I mean these words in the best way possible. If my post isn't helpful, just disregard. (Or feel free tell me it's not helpful - whatever is best for you.)

I have been working in therapy on not blaming myself for being sexualy abused as a child. I thought I was making some progress on it, but I seem to be hitting a wall. I might be able to tell myself that what my grandfather did to me as a child was not my fault, but I keep getting stuck on the thought that there must be something inherently wrong with me for all the things that have happened in my life to have happened.

Have you ever seen someone victim blame a trauma survivor? It's very painful to see happen. Do you know why people sometimes engage in victim blaming others? Because it's a way to cope with pain. A way to find control.

The same is true when we blame ourselves or something about ourselves for the actions of others. Self blame and shame a way to find a sense of control and a way to make sense of what happened to us....

The problem is that it's simply not true and it does tend to leave us stuck in a very deeply painful place.

YOU are not damaged or broken. You have been hurt and victimized. You were taught the wrong messages as a child, "programmed" like your therapist says, and in order to psychologically survive what was happening, you internalized your abuser's message that there was/is something inherently wrong with you. Your abusers were wrong, and you are wrong to agree with them now... but your act of believing the message from your abuser that it was your fault is a common way to survive overwhelming pain.

Struggling with this is not a sign there is something inherently wrong with you - it's a sign you did the best damn job you could to survive, and that it's going to take time and a lot of safe experiences to undo the thinking style you adopted as a child to survive.

So, there is a huge chunk of my evidence that I am a stupid, worthless person. I mean, seriously, I let all that happen. How can I ever forgive myself for all that? There really must be something inherently wrong with me as a person. How can I not hate myself? How can I not blame myself when it was all so very evidently my fault?

Think about it this way: how would it feel if it was not your fault? Probably pretty hard to face. Most survivors struggle with the reality that we were helpless to stop what happened to us.

I don't see any evidence ANY of it was your fault. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Let me make this clear: you are not that powerful as to control others in such a manner. I'm being blunt because I want to be very very clear. YOU are NOT at fault for THEIR behavior. If you had such power to cause people to become so evil, to commit horrible acts of criminal abuse, just because of some inherent thing broken in you... damn... you basically would be more powerful than anyone else on planet earth.

Do you see my point? Only one person is responsible for criminal behavior: the perpetrator of the abuse. You can not be responsible. No flaw in you is responsible. That's the horrible/wonderful truth about trauma. It was never in your power or control.

My T says that it all goes back to being sexually abused when I was young. That the abuse "programmed" my brain differently than if I hadn't been sexually abused. He says that it is okay to offer myself grace for things that happened, and I can work on "reprogramming" my brain. I don't deserve grace or forgiveness though.

Think of small children you know. Is there anything they could do that would cause you to perp against them? No. Why? Because YOU are an adult, and you are responsible for you. Same with other adults. Children can not control other adults. I don't care what they do...

Same with adults around you. Anything they could do to cause you to abuse them? Probably not. Why? Because you are responsible for you.

Children do often engage in distorted thinking, especially when trying to survive trauma... they try to find control. So you blamed you. And like many trauma victims, myself very much included, there were later trauma re-enactments/new traumas that reinforced the messages of the past.

Your therapist is right you deserve grace. Even more, you deserve to stop taking on so much responsibility for others and start taking responsibility for the inner child in you that was so deeply wounded and needs you to start DISAGREEING with child abuser and other perps and start DECLARING that their behavior is their fault.

Not yours. Not your fault at all. You are ONLY responsible for you, and that's where the focus should be. It's time to celebrate all you did well and right to get through the hell you were in.

In fact, I am downright impressed with how well you have done everything you could to survive the very best you knew how and to make the best choices you could with the crappy cards you were dealt in life. It's great you are in therapy too, facing these hard things and this deep shame. I wish there was a simple way out of it. I'm fighting and clawing my own way out of the pit of shame that comes with this type of repeated abuse...

I hope that even just for a moment today you can let go of responsibility for others, and begin to grab on to a little responsibility to start being kind to you. You have had more than enough crap in life, you don't need to dump more on you. If kindness feels like too much, start with neutral statements about yourself. I was in a place where even one kind word from myself or others would send me into a spiral of negative self talk and shame, so my therapist had me start with neutral statements.... and it took a good long while before I could begin to find anything kind to say about myself. It's still hard, but getting easier.

Maybe you could even start with simply agreeing to try to disagree with your abusers. They were wrong.

The truth is that you are perfectly imperfect, just like the rest of us. :hug:

 

[hodge]

Love @Justmehere's message a million times. You said it all better than I could, girl. @Holdingontohope, her message is golden. Please try to take it all in as best you can, even if it's by littles day after day.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Thank you for your responses. @Justmehere your reply was very helpful.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed and triggered by writing all that out (I mean my original post, not referring to your responses in any way) so I think I'm going to try to color or clean or something for a while and then come back and read the responses again later and reply to them.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post. I appreciate it.

 

[Canticle]

My apologies in advance that this post is so long.

I have been working in therapy on not blami...

With hope all things are possible. With love; the sorrow is soothed, and the shame fades. You have never lost the hope and therefore you have the love within.

You protected yourself, your children and you loved true along the way. You are a kind hearted warrior and damn the downfall of humanity for fading down your light.
Believe me I am hurting deep for the burdens that they put on you. Please know that you are not alone and that you are loved, respected and honored beyound measure.

I understand that you do not feel worthy. It is the way of the true beautiful ones. We would rather carry the burden then crush down on those that destroyed our safety and desecrated our sacred breath. However; we must find a way to love our way back into the light and be at peace.

So I will say hell no; to those that want to fade down on me, and I will raise my spirit to the sacred place and love like the rising Son. We are worthy of the heart smiles and the true love.

Humanity will always have it's dark side within this paradigm of time; but, we are free of their burdens. We do not have to welter their stones of sorrow. Please listen to my heart and understand my words. We are beautiful, we are free, and we are loved.

 

[GrayOwl]

I'm sorry.
I didn't have time to read all the posts.

But I can tell you that at any given moment, any time, any where, you can press the restart button. It doesn't erase the past, but it allows you to move forward without the baggage of guilt and everything else.

It's not easy to do or to accept. But it's true.
Yes, you have been "programmed wrong". Your natural tendency from that may be to make bad choices. Or to place yourself in harm's way.

From this moment forward you can change that. Minute by minute, hour by hour, you can work with your T, with positive people if any exist in your world, or post and ask questions here.

It is hard to change ourselves, but we can.
We absolutely can. It can be as slowly as possible, but we must take those hard first steps and make those hard first decisions, and do the hard work of believing in ourselves - and staying positive!

Your post was beautiful. You describe a wonderful but hurt person who needs help and encouragement to change. You can be a miracle. You can do it.

There are many many wonderful people here who understand and will be willing to listen to you and help. Please come around as often as you need to.

I hope you can find what you need.

 

[Muted]

I'm going to be a little blunt because I deeply care and seeing you take on so much shame just break...

Extremely well said and well worded!!!!

 

[Beks]

Like everyone has said here, it really wasn't your fault; you've survived so much torture, it's time to rest and heal and learn.

It may be a very gradual process to believe in yourself, and get to the stage where it actually feels that you were not given a choice - being brainwashed to justify the actions of abusers is maybe the most cruel part of it. Many of us here (inc me) will be at various stages of this process.

Learning how abusers play their manipulation game does make it easier to spot them in the future (including people you already know but didnt see it before), and how to stay away from them - the 'reprogramming'. Found it hard to believe at first, but its slowly happening.

You keep fighting for you, and keep in touch...

 

[Holdingontohope]

@hodge I really do have a wonderful T. I really want to make changes so that my kids can grow up differently than I did. When I question if all this work is worth it, I think about my kids. I might struggle with whether or not I deserve anything good, but I know without a doubt that they deserve it. So I keep pressing on because I want to do the best I can for them.

@Justmehere some of the things you said sound like things my T keeps saying! That's kind of funny, but it also helps them resonate with me. I have seen people victim blame before. It saddens and angers me at the same time. I have even seen it from professionals. I hope that I would never intentionally do that someone else. My T has often said to me that if I wouldn't blame someone else and would have grace and compassion for others in similar situations, then why not for myself. The only answer I can come up with is "it's just different with me". When you talked about control and the way a child's mind makes sense of things in order to survive, those things make sense too. (Again, my T says the same thing. It's nice to know that others see things that way too, helps me doubt it less.)

I hope that even just for a moment today you can let go of responsibility for others, and begin to grab on to a little responsibility to start being kind to you

This is what I'm trying to work on. Maybe I am getting stuck on it because it is hard for me to separate things out. Plus, the few times I've allowed myself to say maybe, just maybe it wasn't my fault/it wasn't in my control, I start feeling so angry at the other people involved. And not just angry at the people who hurt me, but angry at people who I wish had helped or I felt like had the opportunity to help but didn't. That anger was so overwhelming, it seemed better just to go back to hating myself.

@Canticle @GrayOwl @Beks Thank you guys for your kind words too. I will continue to try to take these steps and make positive changes in my life. It might be slow progress, but even now I can see that I am in a better place than I was a few years ago.

 

[Canticle]

@hodge I really do have a wonderful T. I really want to make changes so that...

Wow sweetheart your words regarding the anger really rings true in my soul. I can not face the intensity of my anger their. I know that it is not my fault; but, I am so angry with myself. I am afrraid andunwilling to direct my anger towards the ones that hurt me deep. I love them to much to darken their world.

I wish I could somehow carry that burden for you. I have ccarried my burden all my life and have survived the terrible storms and endured the heavy stones of sorrow. I would carry your burden and see your heart smile. I wish with all my heart and soul, that I could protect all the beautiful ones from the dark side of humanity and evil intent.

I am working with a very gifted T and she is helping me to finaly face the cycle of trauma in my life. She is blessed with true compassion and wisdom. It is my hearts desire to heal my phycological wounds and protect the beautiful ones with heart smiles and love. I still have a purpose to serve and a heart blessing to share with this world and myself.

Thank you for helping me to connect with that part of me and teaching me to love my way back. Your post was very honest and real to me. Thank you for being brave enough to share it. Shine on beautiful one. Love is the greatest blessing!