Childhood What Was Taken Away From You As A Kid?

[hodge]

My mother had a car accident when she was pregnant with me. She was also taking Lithium. I really wonder what effects those things may have had on me. I was a month premature, not bad, but I didn't have fingernails or hair, yuck. But now I have the strongest fingernails anyone would want and very good hair, so much so that I grow it out to donate it to people with cancer. It's currently getting to the point where I can't wait to get it cut off, but I have a few more inches to go.

 

[squeedle]

Basically the same things.:
I have no sense of safety. I've never felt like someone "has my back"
Trust. I can't seem to let people get to close. I've only had a few close friends in my life. I've had no romantic relationships . Zero. I can't express the amount of terror I have just thinking about it. Sure, I want the closeness. I need the closeness. But I just avoid anything that could even remotely lead slightly in the direction. I have incredible amounts of shame with this: I am a 53 year old virgin. They stole my ability to be close and my entire sexuality.

 

[Deleted member 29899]

@Vickster I never feel like anyone 'has my back' either. That's a terrible feeling. I have no sense of family. Hard time trusting anyone and serious abandonment issues which makes it really hard to get close to anyone or 'allow them in', this goes for female friends, men as friends (was taught they only wanted one thing and all us females in the family were taught we were only good for ONE thing). I did have relationships though but the walls were never completely down. Still- after all these years I find it excruciatingly hard to make friends. Just don't feel good enough.
I thought all this garbage and issues would have just 'disappeared' with the progression of time, with aging and maturing. No. What a heart breaking disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I haven't worked my *ss off in therapy for decades.... With each trauma all the crap has come back with a vengeance, as well as other stuff like isolation, etc.
I'm so saddened and depressed that this crap is so often carried with us for such a long time, or always.

 

[Deleted member 29961]

-My soul

-My childhood

-Me

 

[Deleted member 29899]

Yes.
Yes.
And yes.
I fully agree @Jigsaw Puzzle. So much. It's just so hard for me to understand why we can't somehow successfully recover and make it 'stick'. Several times in life I thought I'd recovered and it all came back. Or maybe I was preoccupied with good things at the time and it was an illusion that all the garbage was gone.

 

[Deleted member 29961]

Several times in life I thought I'd recovered and it all came back.

Yeah, this is my third relapse sense the first time I thought I had recovered. I am beginning to except the fact that this going to be the cycle of my life. and even if our recoveries are an illusion, I'll take it any day over my reality.

I've known several amputees in my time. they always talk about this phantom limb, their minds can still feel the missing limb and think it is still there. then they get an itch in it and they reach to scratch that itch and there is nothing there to scratch. they say that's when its the worst, when there is nothing to scratch.

I sometimes feel the same way, except I didn't loose a physical part of me, I lost a part of my psyche. Life is fine as long as my mind thinks it is all there, then I get that itch and reach to scratch it... and nothing is there.

that's when life get shitty.

 

[Fadeaway]

I never feel like anyone 'has my back' either. That's a terrible feeling. I have no sense of family

I find this terrifying. So much of my anxiety is rooted in this fact. I think if i had a sense of security that I had someone to rely on my anxiety would lessen. The thing is I think it is too late in life to ever develop that sense of security, even if logically I knew someone was there for me, emotionally I still wouldn't trust in it. I hope that makes sense.

 

[Deleted member 29899]

The phantom limb.
This is my phantom life. And when I reach out to have a look at it, analyze it - it's not there. I have no life. I pretend to myself that I do but when I reach out to scratch, I'm horrified that it's not there. I pretend to myself that I have a life, that it's worth it to keep going. When I stop once in a while to face the facts, face reality, I can barely cope. Don't want to cope and pretend anymore. What everyone calls their 'life', I have none of that. None.
Tonight seems to be one of those nights when reality is punching me in the face.
It will forever shock me that one sick person can destroy another innocent person. Permanently mess up their psyche. And it's evil.

 

[psychgirllost]

I've been at this healing thing for a long time. I was emotionally, physically and sexuall abused by both my parents. They took my ability to trust, my feeling of safety, my ability to feel love (or any feelings really), and they took my own body away from me (and not just with the sexual abuse. My mom controlled everything I did not did not put into my mouth. Told me I wasn't hungry when I was. Said I needed to eat when I wasn't hungry.

These things get better with time. I'm learning. I recently have started to feel loved and am learning how to be loved. I trust....

I still struggle with food and weight. I still struggle with feeling like my mom has control. Worst of all I have almost a complete inability to ask for help. I NEED to learn how to ask for help. I am so tired of doing everything alone and think that may be part of the reason why my last relationship failed. I couldn't ask for help. For anything. Not my car (he's a mechanic) not with little construction projects (he works construction and is good at it) not even saying "I just need you to be here". How do you learn to ask for help??? I even suffer with aches and pains and illness until it gets so bad I have no choice but to go to the doctor for help.

But on that note. Here is also what I like to remember....what has my abuse GIVEN me? Compassion for others.... I was a fantastic youth counselor. Humility. Independence and an ability to be alone...and one I value the most ... An uncanny ability to read people. That comes in handy for everything. :) Think of what you've gained and recovery will be easier.

 

[GWhizz]

The worst for me is losing the ability to reach my optimum potential (something like @Cj77 mentioned about sense of self/me). That and the fact that years on I'm still losing time.

The lack of connection or moreso disconnection is also one of the biggest losses imo. No amount of mindfulness or centering or other coping mechanism seems capable of ceasing it. What sucks is that as a child it served to protect me. Now my stupid brain seems unable to distinguish that it's no longer helpful.

To surmise, I guess the biggest thing was that trauma left a big fat wound that keeps dehising. Getting to the point of scarring and healing seems impossible.

But then I look at ppl like @psychgirllost and I can hold onto a hope that maybe I have gained more than was lost. Maybe we have more compassion to give the world than was otherwise possible. I like that. And I like the idea that hope can never be taken away from me.

 

[RussH]

I think that "I" was taken from me. The person I could of been, and perhaps should have been was taken away from me.

 

[EmmaDancing]

@imok i agree complexly with what you said about losing "me". I don't know who I am, not really. I have a thousend faces that I can put on, but no real face underneath. None of the masks are the real me but none of them are lies either; they are all equally untrue. I be who needs to be. I am never pretending because to pretend would mean to be something that I'm not, but I am not anything, so I cannot hide what I really am; there is nothing to hide. I am nobody; I am a twisting core of want and hate and greed masked over with smiles and tears that are equally fake.
There is no "Emma". There was, once, but I have forgotten her. She is dead. That is what has been taken away from me.