Trying To Survive!!

[soulsearcher]

Hello Friends hope yous are all doing well. I have stayed away for a little while because I have been struggling terribly. Depression and Anxiety are through the roof.
In the past weeks I have had to endure being around 3 of my abusers and try to be Merry for my kids.
Christmas at my parents I tried to be invisible but walking through that house and remembering what went on inside that house. Didn't matter what room I went to it brought back the bad memories and feelings (eg my head put through a wall in the hallway, being knocked down the stairs, sitting under the pool table covering my little brothers ears so he wouldn't have to listen to our older siblings being beat. Going in the downstairs bathroom and remember how cold the toilet tank felt on my bum as my brother sexually abused me, going out on the patio and remembering being pinned down having my shirt yanked up and my father burning my back with cigarettes.)
This pain inside of me is getting to be to much to handle. I tried doing my coping skills but they were NO help.
So stupid me went on a 36 hour binder with drugs and alcohol. I feel a little bit less stressed now but I know that is not the answer.
If anyone could share how they get the poison out from inside of you.
I strongly believe that I will not die by suicide but from suffication of the pain on the inside coming out.
I am sorry if it sounds dark but I am in a very dark place right now. Not sure what to do or where to turn.
Any advice that you can enlighten me with would be greatly appriciated!!
Thank you for taking the time to listen!

 

[bluebird]

It sounds like a horrible time... I am glad you are not there anymore. How often do you visit your relatives? Perhaps it would be better to avoid them, until your coping skills get better, or to cut all contact, if being with those, who used to abuse you, is causing you too much pain. There is nothing weird if it is - anyone would have felt terribly in your stead.

Are you in a safe place now?

 

[soulsearcher]

Not sure what you mean by safe place. I am at a friends. Everyone is past out, I am the only one still awake.

 

[bluebird]

I meant being with somebody you can talk to... I know how bad it is to stay alone with such feelings. But I guess any place is safer then the one you've been to recently. It's good that you are writing in here...

I don't really know if I have some advice for you, but I just want you to know that I am here to listen, that you are not all alone in that. I've been there, too. Now I don't come near my abuser; I have learned to protect myself, with the help of my best friend; it was simply too much to deal with. I understand you want your children to be with their family; but you are the most important member of it. And I honestly think that your kids need a happy mother more than anything else. You do not deserve to suffer.

Are you in therapy or do you have somebody close to you, somebody you can talk to in real life about this issue?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

How do you get the poison out? You get away from your abusers and you keep them out of your life.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I also describe feeling poisoned inside, like acid is flowing through my veins. It is very distressing. I too used drugs and alcohol to numb the anxiety and depression. It didn't work. I reluctantly spent four days with my mother over xmas. My main abusers, my father and grandfather are both dead. That leaves my siblings. I held my ground and told my mother I did not want to see my sibs, and if she invited them over at the last minute like she has in the past, that I would leave and not return. She's pretty messed up with me getting stronger and not allowing my abusers to have access to me. She didn't abuse me per se, but I did talk to her about never being protected. She had no response. Complete fantasy land in her brain.
My children have a different history than I did. I never left them alone with my abusers. They have cousins that they enjoyed growing up with. My brothers son is PTSD due to being raised by my brother. My sisters daughter is a heroin addict for the last fifteen years. Any time she is near my sister she screams and threatens her. Ad nauseum. I have washed my hands of them even though I know they invite my children to events.
They are what they were and I am not going to waste anymore time with them. I totally relate to your story.

I haven't admitted to my therapist that I have burn scars because most of them are where the sun doesn't shine.

 

[Queen Boudica]

@soulsearcher that was a terrible burden to endure being back in the house of your abuse and seeing your abusers. You are triggered and down now because of it.

Personally I could not go back to my nightmare house again and I cut off all ties with my mother. That is too much what you described you went through to have to be with these people. Anyone would be feeling as you are feeling now.

I would cut all contact and not put myself through that. These people sound like monsters.

I hope you can get some therapy and have friends to talk to. That is extreme abuse you went through and you shouldn't have to face it every Christmas.

Your kids need you and what you have been through you are so triggered now that you must get help. Here is a start but if you have a therapist please ring them or anyone who can support you more and help you with your kids at this time.

I know you must be feeling like someone has ripped the insides of you out, but you are not alone and your kids love you and need you. So be strong it will pass but you must get professional help.

 

[Powder]

The pain of what you went through and the betrayal that people who should have had your best interests didn't is worse than venom or poison. That, my friend, can be pumped out of your tummy with a charcoal solution and never be in your mind nor body again. There is no poison I'm aware of that can give someone anything as lasting as PTSD.

Even when you cut ties and stay away, the IV drip of PTSD continues, so don't refill the bag. Just don't do it. Replace your family with new and better people. Tailor made family is a better fit for you and your kids. Even if those abusive types improved, it's not enough, not near enough to repair anything.

You still don't realize what you survived, probably. If you did, you would not be going back. A little more of you dies, every time. That's what you're saying with "suffocation from the pain on the inside coming out." Only when you cut ties will the pain surface and actually leave you. As long as you keep the relationships with them, the pain will increase and build up inside.

Pain can come out and leave you, and it will not harm you to release it once you know you are not going back for a "top up." Memories will still be there, but won't take over and ache so bad after you see you can let it out and them them all go, the people and the things they did to you. It will all become farther away from you.

Next holiday, you can be healing this and enjoying what you want how you want to.

This is my 4th anniversary of NOT having any contact with my parents and siblings. I am much more happy and better off. The first few months are the hardest. A clean and total break is best.

 

[soulsearcher]

I can't help but feel if I pull away then it will hurt my kids, not seeing their grandparents aunts, uncles, and cousins. I won't let them go alone either because I want to protect them just in case.
I have an appointment will my therapist on Wednesday, I don't know how to explain to her about the incidences or the feeling of suffocating.
Thank you everyone for your support, I appreciate every ones insight and sharing. I don't feel so alone in this dark place!!

 

[Queen Boudica]

Have these people changed drastically, because they don't seem like the sort of people who should be exposed to kids.

It is more important that your kids have a healthy mother who is not being triggered and having major flashbacks. In the end that is what is important your health.

You could maybe expose the kids to some of the better relatives by meetings at other places or outside for excursions or walks or at your own place, but going back to that house with the abuse you suffered is just going to make you symptomatic and as you have described. You could actually risk losing your kids if you continue to binge drink and use alcohol and your kids don't want a mother who drinks and is using drugs.

That is exposing them to behaviour they should not be exposed to and teaching them to do the same and whilst I understand why you reacted that way, continuing to go back to that situation and then reacting that way could mean your kids actually end up being looked after by that family who put you through that abuse.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@soulsearcher I understand your predicament. Cousins can be great fun and even my parents that were assholes spoiled their grandchildren. At my fathers funeral my sister got up and told the people that in her next life she wants to come back as my fathers grandchild because he would beat us for the same things he allows his grandchildren do. I almost swallowed my tongue! I couldn't believe she outed him at his funeral!!!!

 

[Powder]

Same as divorce predicaments; what's best for everyone and especially for the child(ren)? I'm glad you will talk to a counselor because it is for you to decide what's best, even though it seems pretty obvious just from posts what needs to happen.

For me, I saw others lives as examples of my alternatives. It made my decision simple.

I was blessed to meet a woman who told me her story. Her husband was beating her sometimes and also emotionally, she was slowing dying inside. She was afraid to make the big break and take her two young sons, so she asked her pastor what she should do. But she stayed because he didn't beat her two sons and she was told to stay be her pastor, who she thought was wiser than her, to stay if he was "good to the boys."

Now, she thought it was best for the boys, so she did everything she could to make it work for the boys. She thought she could sacrifice herself for them and it would work.

She now says that she divorced anyway, and now her two sons are beating their wives and think it's normal. They have no respect for their mother and do not care that she thinks them beating their wives or girlfriends is wrong. Her life choice told them minute by minute, day by day, that it is okay to beat your wife and that she had no self-respect.

She didn't see that coming as they were such good boys. They grew up to be their father and she helped that to happen. :( Very sad. She learned her lesson way too late.

Don't let your sick family seem "normal" to your kids, because even though they are "better now" they are just better at being sick, and like the abusive father, better as feeding their poison, sugar-coated, to your next generation.

If you go over there with them, your actions speak louder than words that you give your blessing to your family and everything they stand for.