[Emms]

Welcome, Avalon, hope the site helps you.

I'm not surprised you isolated yourself and have issues with trusting and getting close to ppl, you've been through so much. I know that feeling of anger too but you have NOTHING to feel shame for, nothing at all, none of what happened was your doing, it was not your fault. Your mother sounds like she wasn't a strong woman and got in with a drunken psycho, Im glad to hear he's in jail to be honest. You weren't proteced from these ppl, you were just a child and very vulnerable, this was not your fault so please don't feel shame.

I also understand why you couldn't talk to the social workers, I went through something like that when asked about my family when i was a child and a teen and was also made to believe it was 'family' business and was scared to tell anyone anything in case my parents found out, lied about me and then no one would believe what I'd said. I was also scared of getting onto trouble for talking about my homelife and we were tought to keep our secrets to ourselves. Most of us here will understand how you've been feeling. You really need to talk this over with some kind of therapist, you need to read the steps on the site too (if you haven't already) and start living the rest of your life. You deserve to have a decent life now, things have been bad enough, you've sufferered more than enough already, as most of us did. Always rememebr you're not alone here.

[Dannii]

It is so very difficult admitting this has been a problem in my life, I have never talked about it really. I tried once when I was a child and was ignored and always thought it must be normal or my fault.

I want to say immediately that it wasn't that bad, but I was scared a lot of the time. I experienced physical abuse, it wasn't extreme or all the time. But I felt scared a lot of the time. I didn't know necessarily what would set it off and sometimes just being myself as a child would set it off. Perhaps being hit wasn't as bad as being screamed and shouted at. I often didn't really know why, or couldn't understand what I'd done that was SO awful.

As an adult now I can see it was just a very stressful household and as a family we had no way to deal with that or to deal with a normal child's behaviour.

I am scared that if I had children and was really stressed and tired I would hit them or shout at them too. I used to hit my younger brother when I was angry at him and then I felt I was as bad as the person hitting me. I think he's still really angry at me. I'm not really still angry, I can see why it happened but I can't get rid of the feeling of still being scared and alone.

If anyone gets even a tiny bit angry at me now I hate it so much, I want to do anything to avoid it, it feels so unsafe.

For a long time I forgot all this had even happened, which is so strange. I didn't forget totally but kind of.

I still feel ashamed really. I feel ashamed of how sad I get. I pretend I am ok a lot of the time when I'm not, or I need to do a lot to keep myself feeling ok sometimes.

I am starting to realise that in intimate relationships if someone is great and seems to have no problems I can't work out why they'd like me, I don't feel good enough.

I would imagine none of my friends have much idea what goes on in my emotional life.

I don't know what to do to start feeling better and moving on....

[NotSoAverage]

There was a time in my life where I thought everything was normal. That I thought everything I experienced was common for everyone... A time where I felt like I actually belonged to the world and could relate with the world. That time is long gone and I am left with this overwhelming intensity that needs to somehow be let free and seems to only be possible if I can tell the [i]real[/i] story of my life. Something I have yet to be able to do... Could I please get a thread for this? Thank you in advance for any help!

[NotSoAverage]

I was only 4 years old when I had my first near death experience. I was spending the summer with my father and grand parents, like I had the year before. My father by this time was already an alcoholic and had just started steadily using methanphetamines. Shortly after my grandfather passed away my fathers hateful remarks and small hints of abuse unfolded to reveal what they really were. He was a monster. Forcing me to partake in a game of russian roulette with his friends. I tried to beg him to let me leave, let me play with my cousins and brothers but he would not have that. When the tears started, it began a game for him. I sat and watched two ment spin the gun. Each nervously picked it up put it to their heads and pulled the trigger. The click from the gun seemed to make the walls shake it was so loud and tense. After the second man spun the gun it landed on me. The room exploded in laughter. Beer was splashing everywhere and they were all beginning to tease and taunt me. I tried to run but was forced to stay. My father grabbed the gun and slid it in front of me. He had a crazed look on his face and I knew what was expected of me. I didn't want to. I didn't know what a gun was at that point but common sense or TV one taught me that I did not want to do what I was being forced to do. I let out a sob and tried to fight it but ultimately was forced to put the gun to my head and pull the trigger.

I don't remember the next moments. I don't remember much of that summer or the coming years. In that small clubhouse that my father had built as a place for the children to run and play in, I developed a coping strategy that takes away my pain and memories of that pain. My mom has told me over the years the stories I went home and told her. But I do not recall those stories nor telling my mother of them. I was hospitalized at the age of 7 for a severe kidney infection. The doctors were insistant that I was being sexually abused at this time due to the young age and the severity of the infection but my mother refused to listen. She asked me, she would never label me as a liar since she herself was labeled as such when telling her stories of her childhood, but I did not know what to tell her. I didn't know how to explain at that time that I couldn't remember things. I tried, I tried over and over to tell her that I couldn't remember but she would tell me "You would remember if something like that happened to you". She was not aware at the time of my memory issues. Now she looks as my mental disorders as just another story to tell but that in itself is another story to tell.

The summers were spent in a severely unstable environment following my father around on his crack binges. We were shot at, my brother nearly died from an alergic reaction that my father refused to seek help for, so much abuse and hatred from him. Especially aimed at me since I was the constant reminder of my mother whom he could no longer have.

It also didn't help that the summer that I turned 5, the summer of russian roulette, my mother decided it was time to meet someone new. What a delight it was to meet him! Tim... I will never have such a strong anger for anyone like I do him. For 6 years he was there. For 6 years I lost more time that imaginable. For 6 years I spent the majority of my time in my room recovering from the welts he would give me. I would do everything in my power not to upset him but it never helped. Every day he would find a new reason. Every day. I remember even as a child wishing I could go just one day without being hurt. He would send me to my room and tell me to wait for him. I knew what was coming. I could hear the belt slapping from the living room. His way of taunting me before the mess. He would come into the room and make me undress. No underwear, no shirt, nothing. It all had to go. I had to be on his lap. I didn't remember it much after he would come into the room. At that time I thought I couldn't remember because I was falling asleep or something, didn't realize it was because I was blacking out. I would wake up so sore sometimes I couldn't walk. I would be in bed for days and he would tell my mom when she got home from work "She's been bad so I had to ground her, I told her she can't see you tonight because she's been so bad" and my mother would go along with it.

He would make me skip school, when I had an otherwise PERFECT attendance. I would have to skip school to follow him to the bowling alley to watch him gamble all of our money away, money that could have been used for clothing for us kids since we were being teased at school non stop for being so "strange" and outdated in our clothing. They did not understand. Money that could have been spent on food so we didn't live off of ramen and frozen pizzas. When she finally left him he begged to come back, even tried begging me and my brothers. Thankfully my mother left the decision to us and we begged her NOT to take him back. She always says what a shame it was he had to be that way since she loved him so much. I'm sorry mom, that my emotional and physical state was a little more important to me than your sexual needs.


Well than there's my brother. Who I have long forgiven but did not help. With all of the abuse from my father AND step father, my brother who was suffering middle child syndrome, hated me. He would beat me on a daily basis leaving me bruised or bloody. It was a constant battle between him and myself, me fighting to find a phone trying to call my mom while he chased me around the house throwing things and punching me. Nothing was done to stop it but could anything have been done? She was working 3 jobs at the time.

So the 4th grade rolls around. Things are hard. Like always. I had a substitute teacher... A man who had a criminal background for being a child molester. I've always said if there is an abuser within a 100 mile radius, he will find me. This case I was lucky though. A classmate noticed the way he was behaving toward me and confronted me about it. I cried and told her what he had been doing and of course it spread like wildfire between the students. We were only in elementary school but gossip knows no age it seems. None the less that type of gossip became my savior because the principal found out and took actions immediately.

Still finding a way to put one foot in front of the other, a year later and I lost a good friend. I was in the fifth grade and a friend of mine from my basketball team passed away. The school felt it nessesary to give us details of how she passed. She was raped and smothered. Her mother came home from work to find her boyfriend nude on their chair and her daughter dead in bed nude as well. This really struck home with me. She was my friend and I knew things were bad between my mothers boyfriend and myself but didn't know how bad. I still knew something was amiss.

For years, all the way until I was about 11 years old I was molested (but not raped) by someone very close. I have not been able to share this secret. It's been the secret weighing on me for years and years. It wasn't just a playful touch, or a "innocent" gesture, full on contact but not penetration.

I must stop there with that one...

Fastforward to 14 years of age. Finally was I able to free myself of my father on my own, with no more forced visits to him during the summers. The mothers boyfriend long gone. I was dealing with a lot of emotional baggage that had built up over the years. Made the horrible mistake of drinking with people I didn't know thinking it was ok because I had a female "friend" with me... She was no friend... He kept touching me. I was 14 he was 18 and his friend was 22. She was 18. Again I was 14, I did not know what I was doing, I did not want a sexual relationship with anyone, I did not have a pleasant experience with it up to that point.


I pushed him away. I was drunk but I clear as day can still see myself at that moment saying no. (This could be because of the flashbacks of the night) I kept telling him "I don't want this, I'm drunk I've never done it, I'm drunk no! I can't! No! I'm drunk I don't want to! No! I can't do it! Don't do that! No!!!" Blackness...
Yet another void to take place in my life. I came back from the void 6 hours later. Blood everywhere. My blood. I was a virgin up until that point, as far as I knew. I still do not know what Tim did to me, but I know that up until I was 14, I was a virgin in my own mind. I had not yet realized that I had memory issues that were not normal.

There was blood on the recliner that I was sitting in. The place where I insisted that he stop. There was blood everwhere. On the head rest of the recliner even. Blood on the floor... A lot of blood. When I came back from my blackout wondering what had happened they all just laughed and I was made fun of and tormented until I gave in and cleaned the blood myself. They couldn't hold their laughter in and didn't even try the entire time I cleaned up. I didn't realize where the blood had even come from at that moment. I didn't know that you would bleed from that. I hadn't even started to feel sore until the next day. That was probably due to the alcohol. But once I returned home and woke up the next day, I cried every time I had to pee. I cried in the bath from pain, I cried falling asleep from pain. I knew what had happened but I wouldn't let myself believe it. I ended up creating a false memory on my own of what happened. I convinced myself that he did stop that night, that he didn't go through with it. I even spoke to him after that night. I "fell" for him in a way. I guess it was my minds way of making what happened OK. I would tell him "I know you didn't get what you wanted that night but one day when I'm ready you will". I hate that I was that easy to him after what he had done to me. The hardest thing to admit is that eventually I did willingly go to him, about a year later and blackout free "willing" but wasted beyond belief. I told him "Now you can do what you didn't get to do before". He would always look at me strange when I would say those things, he even asked me at one point if I remembered that night.

So much pain had surrounded my life up until that point, I guess I just wanted to think that one person could want to be with me without wanting to hurt me. I guess I had to convince myself that he did not hurt me and do things with him the "right way" to get some form of temporary comfort but that comfort was just a mask. It made things so much worse for me after. It made me doubt whether I had been abused by him the first time or if it was my fault.

Shortly after the second interaction with the man my mother moved us. Probably the best thing she ever did for me and didn't even know it. It was about 2 weeks after I had given in to him that we moved 3 hours away and I didn't speak to the mad again. That's when my "healing" phase began. I started dating a cheater/emotional abuser and lost my mind. My brothers were confronting me on my history with the man whom took my virginity since they knew mutual friends they heard through word of mouth what had happened the first night. They kept telling me "If mom knew what you did you would be in so much trouble!" And I would tell them "What do you mean? I don't remember! Tell me! I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know what happened!" and they would believe I was making it up, that I did know what happened but wouldn't admit it. They refused to tell me what they knew saying "You know what you did and if you do this I'm telling mom". Well eventually they told me. Apparently when I lost my virginity the two men that were there told everyone about it. Not only that but they told everyone (including but not knowing who they were talking to, my two brothers) that they would get a 14 year old drunk and have satanic orgies with her. I still don't know if both men were involved, I'm only certain of one but that comment, and knowing that there was a void in my memory being with them, knowing about the blood, knowing everything... It just all clicked into place. I didn't get my memories back of the night but it all finally made sense to me. I finally understood the missing pieces. I knew what had happened. It sent me on a terrible downward spiral where very shortly after I was voluntarily hospitalized.

I stopped self mutilating after the hospital. I went in there with over 70 fresh wounds inflicted by myself and came out cured of that so it was definately beneficial. I was still on a destructive path however and at the age of 18 (just 2 months after my 18th birthday) I was married to an abusive man. I was aware of his abuse before we got married but I looked at it as my only way out of my life. Out of the pain that constantly surrounded me. Away from the mother whom I love but insists that everything involving me is minor and of no real significance. The mother whom I love but is flawed. Away from the memories that I had with my brothers, the memories of all of the abuse we endured over the years. I just needed to escape me. So I ran into an abusive marriage at full speed. I was married to him for 4 years before getting the courage to leave. I packed my child up and we moved across the country. My family turned their backs on me and I had to live in my 2 door hatch back for 6 months through the entire winter. It hasn't snowed in this state since 1989 but sure enough it snowed that winter. But I was finally free! I was on my own! I had my little girl but I had no one to control me. For the first time in my life I didn't have to answer to anyone while being afraid. For the first time in my life I could breathe!

I wont lie, it's been so hard. It's been 2 years and I'm still struggling. I have problems with my memory still. I have emotional problems but I'm working on it all. I feel free now, something I've never known before and guess what?! I'm dating someone now. I actually met him very shortly after leaving my abusive ex. This man is incredible. He showers me with praises, he adores me and showes me how much he adores me, he does everything he can for me and he's never uttered one single harsh word to me or about me and has never put his hands on me in an aggressive way. He's helping me so much to understand that I don't have to cut everyone out of my life to avoid the abuse, I just have to be more aware of those who are in my life and what purpose they serve in my life...

So this is the shortest version of my story I could give. The story of an anything but ordinary American girl

[Emms]

I hope writing that all down has helped you too, NotSoAverage, you've had some very bad experiences. I'm so glad your mother did decide to leave though, she obviously loved you and your brother enough not to go back to the man. My father was the weak one and he always chose my abusive mother over me, always would have, even now I think he would even if he knew EVERYTHING she did and the sexual stuff her father and one of her men friends did to me, he'd still eventlay choose her now if he was still alive, he always did. So at least you have that thought, your mother did care enough and had some decency in her. I'm also glad you have someone loving in your life, all the best.

[Beaky]

Its been a really long time since I've posted here. I haven't had internet access. I really need to get some things off of my chest. Its hard to figure out where to start because the last few months have been a mess so sorry if everything is a bit scrambled.
Shortly after my last post I began to not be able to get intimate with my boyfriend. The thought of sex or even being touched scared me to death. He never forced me to, but I would always try to have sex when he wanted to. Then I became afraid that if I didn't have sex with him he would either start forcing me to or cheat on me. (Both stupid thoughts. He has never hurt me in any way.) I began to force myself to have sex with him. I would hide my tears from him and pretend I was enjoying it. He caught on though and made sure that I was aware of the fact that he didn't want me to do anything I couldn't or didn't want to do. And he apologized a million times for not realizing sooner that I was just doing it for him and that I was actually hurting every time. It took a while but I'm now able to have sex atleast 2 times a week. Any more than that and it hurts, any less and I get nervous and panicky when we try and it brings back bad memories. (Sorry if this is tmi.

I also recently got up the nerve to admit something to myself and to my bf. A year and a half ago I went to the beach with my best friend and all of her family. Her cousin started flirting with me and I told him to stop because I had a bf. It stopped for a while but one night we my friend, her cousin, and I got drunk. She passed out and I stayed up talking to her cousin. When I drink I get depressed. Her cousin and I were laying in the same bed (it was a queen and we were as far apart as possible) watching a movie when he asked what I would do if he kissed me. I said no, I have a bf. And then I started thinling about how much I missed my bf. I started crying and rolled over because I was just going to go to sleep. (We were going home and I figured to sooner I went to sleep the sooner I would see him). My friends cousin leaned over and started kissing my neck. I told him to stop and rolled over to face him. I told him again that I had a bf and didn't want to ruin that. He grabbed me and started kissing me and put his hand up my shirt. He then unbuttoned my pants. He tried to convince me to have sex with him and I kept saying no. He tried to put his hand in my pants and I pushed him away. Yet he continued to try to fondle me. I don't remember why he stopped but I'm pretty sure that it was because I was sobbing and asking him to stop very loudly and he didn't want anyone to hear.
To prevent any trouble with my best friends family I told her and her mom that I liked ben and I had cheated on my bf with him. When I got home I even told my bf that. Ben came in and I was forced by my best friend to go on a date with him. It was awkward. I was still with my bf. He had forgiven me for my "mistake". And I was sitting across from a guy who I was pretty sure would have raped me that night.
Recently I told my boyfriend the truth about that night. He held me as I cried while reliving the events and told me that I could have just told him in the first place. But I've realized that in some ways I didn't even want to admit to myself what had happened.
After going through that some guy decided to get in my business and say he new I'd cheated on my bf and called me a whore and a slut. I told him he didn't know the circumstances and he said he didn't care, he just wanted to let me know that he knew what I truely was. I called him heartless for not even caring to stop and think that maybe he didn't have all the info and that maybe he would cause me pain. He told me I was heartless for doing such a horrible thing to my boyfriend and not caring whether I hurt him or not. This tore me up. I cried for hours. And I had a nightmare that night. This guy didn't realize that by saying these things he was hurting me. For the first time in months I had flashbacks and woke up crying in my sleep.
I've been getting better a little bit at a time. My progress is kind of messed up now thanks to the arguement with that guy but I'm not going to let that stop me from continuing to improve.
Sorry that was so long. And I know that none of that may seem important but it feels so good to talk about everything where I know I won't be judged.

[Emms]

If it's important to you, then it's important! Sounds a bit like the way i was when i first got with my hubby, I hated having sex and I pretended too, used to fake it for his sake. he has also never forced or hurt me, he's a good man and your bf sounds like one too. As for the situation with the other man, you're not the only one who's got into this kind of trouble after a few drinks, loads of us have done it and it's no one else's business and doesn't make you a slut. No one has the right to say that to you, but it happened, it's over and your bf knows and has forgiven you. So you've coped well, so has your bf and I hope you continue to grow on your journey to healing from your past abuse. It's gone now, the damage has to be repaired and that's hard, but no one is abusing you now except the man who is saing nasty things about you. As for him, he's not woth bothering about, let him get on with it and get on with your life too. Post and talk here as much as you like, no one minds and no one will judge you.

[secrets123]

Ok, I don't even know how to start...I'm 27, married with 3 children, and feel like I'm finally being honest with myself and others for the first time. I'm still coming to terms with everything in my past and it's a difficult journey. My husband and I recently moved far away from our families to make a better life for our kids and ourselves and that is when this whole process has started for me, I guess. Luckily, my husband is a wonderful man who really has been my entire support system through this whole journey. Our marriage started very rocky because we both had traumatic childhoods and a lot of baggage but I feel like finally we are headed in a positive direction. Anyway, after talking with him and doing my own personal research I decided to start doing psychological testing because I thought something was pretty wrong with me. Boy, did I open up a closet full of skeletons. Come to find out I was diagnosed with severe ADHD, depression, and anxiety. I have also been meeting with medical doctors to rule out any physical issues I have. They discovered that I was practially blind in one eye and I haven't been wearing glasses since I was 12. I also had to be checked for colon cancer because they discovered that I have IBS but the doctors are really stumped because apparently they label you with IBS when they aren't sure what is wrong with you. Everything in my body appears to look normal but isnt functioning properly. So now I'm dealing with all these physical and mental health problems and thinking why am I so messed up? This doesn't make sense. I decided to continue therapy and learn as much as I could about my ADHD while also taking ADHD meds so that I could function a lot better. This is when things started to get really complicated in my mind. I started thinking about my childhood and doing some research. You see I've known without admitting it to anyone that my childhood was somewhat disturbing but I'd convinced myself until recently that I was being a drama queen and that it really wasn't that big of deal. It seems like all of the sudden I've started being awful honest with myself and others and now I'm not sure I want to be. It was like someone suddenly took the blinders off my eyes and the gag out of my mouth. I feel like in some ways I'm finally allowed to be the person that I was meant to be all this time. Like the person that I am now was just trapped inside of me all along and not able to get out. Until recently I was everyone's doormat. I have spent my entire life trying to please everyone even at my own expense....especially at my own expense. Through research and finally unblocking my memories and saying them out loud to my therapist and my husband I have finally allowed myself to see them clearly. Granted, I get on these forums and feel stupid because it still seems like my childhood wasn't as bad in comparison to others but it doesnt negate the damage it did to me. I was never sexually abused or anything but I still suffered. Even now I try to justify everything to myself. It's very difficult. My parents are bad people. They neglected and emotionally abused me. My mother especially...and she was really the only one I felt like I had because her and my bio father were divorced. I couldnt run to him either because he was a raging alcoholic...like drunk every second he is awake kind of alcoholic. My stepdad was abusive in that he was my mothers enabler and minion. She never physically laid a hand on me but he did swat/slap me when it wasn't warranted. Once he spanked me when I was 5 because I used too much tape. Like the clear tape you use to wrap presents with. The shit that cost like what a quarter? Another time he slapped the shit out of me at the breakfast table in front of his kids because I whispered too loudly in his ear. I had really been whispering this little code word I had that meant "I love you". I was probably 6 or 7. It sounds ridiculous when I even repeat it. Granted he didn't beat the crap out of me so maybe it's not abuse. I just don't know at this point. I'm still working it all out and it sickens me. Then when I was in 4th grade he used to come into my room and spank me over and over because I was always anxious and crying and couldnt sleep and apparently it made him and my mom mad because they couldnt get to sleep. This happened pretty much every night for a year straight until I trained myself to tell myself stories in my head to get to sleep and not cry. Throughout this whole time my parents rarely took me to the doctor/dentist/eye doctor unless they had too. I learned from a young age that you only ever go to those places if it's an emergency. My mom told me at 12 that I didn't need glasses or contacts anymore because the eye doctor told her my eyes had corrected. The eye doctor I go to now says thats not true and that I should never have gone out of glasses. Now my eyes are really bad. He couldnt believe I'd been managing for the last 15 years. My husband saw for himself when I read all the charts for the doc because he was in the room. He says I didn't hardly get anything right. I recently have been having to deal with dental work as well. My dentist says that the silver crowns in my mouth are temporaries and that they need to be replaced ASAP. I knew they were temps and only supposed to last a few years so this didn't surprise me. My parents had them put on when I was around 10 or 11. According to the dentist and the research my husband has done the crowns in my mouth are only supposed to last a couple of weeks until the permanent crown arrives at the dentists office because they have to order it etc. Once I was so sick as a teenager with bronchitis and a respiratory infection that I coughed so hard I felt like someone stabbed me in the chest. I was home alone and collapsed and was unable to reach a phone. Eventually my parents came home and I told them I HAD to go to the ER because I was in pain and having trouble breathing. The doctors found that I had coughed so hard that I seperated the cartilage that connects my rib cage in the center. There was nothing they could do to fix it and so it had to heal on its own but I was at least able to get the necessary antibiotics to treat the illness finally. These are just some of the things that I feel like my parents did to medically neglect me. It wasnt for lack of money as far as I understand. It was that my mom did not manage her money well even though she had a good job and decent insurance. It was not uncommon for me to come home to school and find that we had no electricity, gas, or water because she did not pay the bill. But she sure always had frivolous things that she wanted. Between the ages of 4 and 18 we lived in 10 or so different houses, many which I would deem unsafe for a child. We were constantly having to screen calls from creditors or pretend we werent home because an angry landlord or debt collector was knocking. We never had a safe vehicle and even those would get repossesed frequently. The conditions of the houses I lived in would always be unsanitary to a certain extent. I remember having red ants crawling all over my window, bed, and bedside table in one house. One of the houses we lived in was in such disrepair that there were exposed nails everywhere, exposed insulation, and plastic on all the windows instead of glass. In that particular house it was not uncommon to come home from school to the empty house and find birds flying in the house. I even found a snake in my play room. At one point there was also a wild animal living in the house that my parents could never seem to catch. They swear to this day that it was just a pack rat. I have a hard time believing it because they both lie and deny a lot of things and common sense tells me that it was more than likely a opposum. I was in 2nd and 3rd grade when we lived in that house. The next house was not better. By then my parents thought it would be a good idea to acquire dogs and cats. They never groomed them, trained them, or potty trained them. i never remember them going to the vet or changing the litter box for the cat on a regular basis. It was not uncommon for me to come home to piles of dog or cat feces everywhere. Our house always smelled like animals from then on. I used to love animals. Now I dont like being around them because the things animals do sickens me. I cant stand being around dog feces or the smell of cat pee. If i step in dog poop outside somewhere my first instinct is to throw the shoes away instead of cleaning the shoes off. i dont like going to peoples houses that have animals because of the pet hair etc. My parents never taught me any life skills to speak of. I basically raised myself for the most part. I taught myself how to shave and learned the facts of life from school and friends. I took myself to my first obgyn appointment at 16 and put myself on birth control. My husband helped me learn how to manage money, balance a checkbook, and write a check when I met him at 19. By then I had had a job and been taking care of myself financially since I was 16 but I was terrified of money and never having enough of it. As a child my room was always the cleanest room in the house. Now as an adult dealing with all of my emotional issues, raising a family, having ADHD, and everything else I cant seem to keep up with the housework and Im terrified of becoming like my parents. Part of the problem I think too is that I've become somewhat of a hoarder. I think "stuff" makes me feel secure. Im terrified of throwing anything away especially my kids stuff. But my husband and I have been working on it and its getting better. I think keeping stuff around me makes me feel safe and secure and I'm learning that I dont need the stuff to feel that way anymore. As a teen I was basically allowed to do whatever I wanted. They had pretty much completely given up on me by then. I started using drugs, alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and being promiscous. I came home a little as possible. I know that I am fairly intelligent despite all of the things that I did that would indicate otherwise so Im baffled as to why I would do some of the things that I did. What I do know is that my parents failed me in almost every way they could. There were several times when they knew that something was wrong with me physically or mentally and they chose to deny, lie, and ignore it all. I suppose they hoped that if they ignored it that it would go away and they wouldnt have to deal with it. On top of it all I truly believe that my mother is a narcissist. Everything always revolves around her and how bad her life is. She is the queen of the pity party. I have always felt like I had to take care of her and myself as well even when I was very little. The first time I remember trying to commit suicide was when I was around 5 by trying to suffocate and strangle myself. I just realized recently that that is probably not normal. I have tried to commit suicide many times in the past especially when I was a teen by either taking pills, doing risky things(like in my car), cutting myself, etc. My parents knew about many of these things and did nothing. I starved myself for most of my freshman year and became a walking skeleton and they still did nothing. I eventually became pregnant at 17 because of my risky behaviors and the fact that my mom had found out about my bc pills and convinced me not to take them. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I was so conflicted about what to do. I found out fairly early in the pregnancy and decided that the best choice was to terminate the pregnancy. I felt as if I was saving the child from a very bad life as sick as that sounds. I knew if my mother found out she would not allow me to adopt it out and that I would also be tempted to keep it if I continued the pregnancy because it would actually be someone that loved me and paid attention to me. In the end I felt like I had no other choice but to abort to save myself and the child. I paid for half and the father of the baby paid half and my best friend took me on a day off from school. We told our parents we were going shopping out of town and would be gone for the day and then I stayed at a friends house that night because I was horribly sick. My parents never suspected a thing because they were too wrapped up in themselves and it wasnt uncommon for me to be gone all the time especially on long weekends. Even when I bled for the 6 weeks after my mother never noticed. I continued running 5 miles a day for my cross country practices and hid the pregnancy and then the abortion from everyone. I guess Im lucky that I am able to even have children now because of the possible damage I did to myself by not listening to the doctors orders of no physical activity and a follow up visit. That was really the breaking point for me. The drug abuse went way up but at least I started staying away from men a little bit more. My parents had to know better on some of this stuff especially the stuff when I was very little. Even when I was a teen I never had to hide my behavior from my parents like my friends did. I dated men that were ten years older when I was a teen and my mother knew. She never cared to meet any of them. I came home high or drunk and never hid it from her. Ive had whole conversations with my parents while I was fucked up and they acted like they didnt know. Looking back they had to know because it was so obvious. My mother allowed me to buy very skanky clothes. I never hid the provocative things that I would wear or the fact that I started shaving my pubic region very young. Once I woke up on the couch in the living room of my parents house with a bunch of coke on my nose. How do you not notice that? The only thing my mother ever did was guilt trip me about shit that wasnt even important. She cared too much about what other ppl thought of her and still does. When I told her that my now husband had proposed to me she was mad but then tried to take over the wedding plans until my husband and I had to cancel it. We ended up not inviting anyone and got married in our living room with a justice of the peace and our two best friends there as witnesses. When she found out that we were pregnant with our first child she was furious and said awful things and then told me not to tell anyone. She didnt want anyone to know because we got pregnant before we were technically married because we had had to postpone the wedding (because of her). But then she turned around and tried to buy so much crap for the baby and me and tried to control everything I did with the baby once it was born. She had always overstepped her boundaries with my children. When she found out about my other pregnancies with my 2nd and 3rd child she told me that I needed to figure out how "this" keeps happening and "cant you get your husband to leave you alone" and "why dont I keep my pants up for once". She has openly told me now that she favors my oldest child. She basically ignores the other two for the most part. I believe she favors my oldest child because she is exactly like I was as a child in looks, personality, etc. I find this extremely disturbing. Now my parents live in another house because they just got their 3rd house repossessed. When my husband helped move them in he found broken asbestos tiles in their basement and told them about it. He also took a piece in a sealed bag to an expert and had it confirmed as asbestos. We were told what the legal procedures were that needed to be done to remove it because it is very dangerous to inhale etc. We told my parents and they flipped a lid and refused to do anything about it. So we decided that we would no longer go into their house until they had resolved the issue and they acted like WE were the crazy ones. At the time we had a 2 yr old, a 4 yr old, and I was pregnant with my 3rd child. My husband had already been exposed thanks to them! We even offered to pay half the costs etc. They quit speaking to us. They only remedied the situation and got it cleaned and air tested when they found out that we had decided to move out of state. That was almost 2 years ago. I refuse to go to their house or take my kids into it anymore because they have another dog that has made their home a health hazard. Im also considering going completely no contact with them but I feel such guilt and shame and feel like maybe Im wrong because shes my mom and Im supposed to love her and maybe Im just blowing it all out of proportion. IS my mom a narcissistic neglector? Any thoughts on any of my experiences? I feel stupid even telling some of these stories. Obviously theres a lifetime of these types of tales I could tell but I've just outlined a couple of them....idk. Im so conflicted. I always thought my childhood wasnt that normal and that it didnt bother me that much. I never understood why I was so depressed etc. I just denied denied denied to myself that it all affected me i guess. The only reason that I am a decent person today is because of myself, my husband, and my mother-in-law who has become my surrogate mother. Everything I do and everything I know is because I have taught myself or they have taught it to me. I've been clean from drugs for the past 8 yrs thanks to myself and my husband. I just sit here and try to blame myself completely for the bad things I did and then I think...maybe it's not all my fault like I once thought. I just dont know.

[pink elephant]

I'm new here. This is my first post. My experience is that the sexual abuse began at age 3 for me. I survived 7 years of incest including rape, molestation, and sodomy by my brothers and others. My sister would also pass me around to her friends. My one brother raped my mom, and me and my 2 sisters. My other brother just concentrated on me and one of my sisters. 3 years ago my oldest sister went into some terrible, horrific flashbacks and committed suicide. My other sister is an alcoholic with cancer. I feel like I'm the only one who lived through it. I'm the only one who turned out okay. My parents are in denial. I did the "Courage to Heal" for a year maybe 20 years ago. Since then, I've done self-help, one on one counseling, group therapy, research, and healing for the last 20 years, but I still get upset sometimes. I know that's normal. I just don't like it. I confronted a sister and a brother about 15 years ago. All you-know-what broke loose and everyone took their sides. My sisters abandoned me. One (suicide sister) didn't know I was abused so assumed it wasn't true, although the same thing happened to her. The other (alcoholic sister) knew and lied because she didn't want to be rejected by the family. So I was rejected. Alone. Ostracized for telling the truth. For pointing out the 'big pink elephant in the room'.
For some reason my parents do not love me. (They did not abuse me sexually. They just didn't protect me or believe me.) Them not loving me, and favoring my brothers who are predators, is just beyond my scope of normal. It hurts to wake up every day and through no fault of my own have to remember that:
1.) my parents don't love me.
2.) There's nothing I can do about it. And
3.) I don't deserve it, but that's the way it is anyway.
I am usually a Survivor, but lately I feel like I'm going through a 'victim stage' again and it's aggravating to make so much progress and then have to re-experience it deeper the next time around the mountain. I feel so very, dreadfully alone, and so profoundly sad. I'm usually a very, very positive person, but I'm hurting so bad today - and I'm just giving myself permission to not have to be Polly Anna today.

[pink elephant]

Secrets123, we're both new here. Reaching out and looking for healing and help, but also here to support and encourage each other. You asked for someone to help you sort out whether it's your fault. I believe with all my heart that there are horrible things that we do to survive abuse. Things that we'd be too ashamed to have to admit out loud, face to face with someone.
The textbook answer is that nothing is our fault. I believe that abuse is not our fault at all. That includes sexual, physical, emotional, psychological, and neglect. We tell ourselves things like, I'm not good enough. If I could just behave, be better, be stronger, be something else.. fill in the blank, then they wouldn't do this / wouldn't have done that. Part of our healing is identifying the lies and replacing them with the truth. We've lied to ourselves, to others, and we've bought in to the lies of our abusers. What we have to sort through is that yes, we've made bad choices and used poor judgment, and yes we probably wouldn't have been in the situation of (drugs, drinking, high risk behaviors, indiscriminate sex, subconsiously choosing abusers to perpeuate the abuse in our adulthoods) if we hadn't been abused.
But at the same time, we need to look at our choices - either what we've done later as adults, we're not responsible for because of the abuse ... or what we've done later - we made some mistakes, that we are accountable for choosing, we've learned it was wrong / or it hurt us, and we've changed our behavior. Because if nothing's ever our fault, then the same rule applies to our abusers and that's not true at all. It also doesn't mean that everything's our fault. Fault is a grave matter.
I would suggest to you that we set it aside for now. Fault demands punishment - and really, haven't we all been through enough? Fault demands more than any of us can pay right now.
Lets call it 'mistakes' and 'learning' and 'changing our behavior'. We're all adults here. We can admit that we've all made some mistakes, and that we have chosen to do that at that time, for whatever reason. We acknowledge that they were wrong, to whatever degree, and we've skipped over the punishment because we can all claim 'time served' at this point.
Now we move on to the looking at our lives honestly, and with something none of us remember having before - mercy. We can start a whole new cycle, but this time- it's not abuse, it's mercy.
Probably the hardest thing to do is to forgive. But there's healing behind that forgiveness. There's peace of mind and hope, instead of bitterness, hatred, resentment, depression and despair. We all have to make a choice for ourselves. Kind of like choosing the best produce possible in the produce aisle. We don't pick out rotten potatoes, bruised peaches or diseased apples. So we wouldn't purposely chose to kill ourselves from the inside out with the damaging effects of bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness. Someone once said - Revenge is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die. I think that truely relates to bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness too.
But the hardest part for me is to have to look at and understand what I'm forgiving, because I am empowering myself to choose to set myself free... I have to look at everything honestly and assign accurate values to things. This was all their fault. That was 90 percent their fault, and 10 percent mine. That was my fault; and I knew it was wrong; I wish I hadn't done that because of all the damage it did to me; I forgive myself; and I'm putting up a boundary there to protect myself from doing it again (changing my behavior, replacing the negative behavior with something positive, and healing, and good for me).
The bottom line is it's very hard to say what's our fault. It's very easy to assign everything to everyone around us. And, who doesn't rationalize a few million things a week? But when we bring mercy into it.. When we bring forgiveness into it, we now have this power to knock down walls that have isolated us, blinded us, and held us prisoners for so long. Walls of self-loathing, contempt, jealousy for all the people around us who had a normal life and didn't have to wake up - get raped or beaten, pick up the pieces and go on with their life. Sure, if they had to deal with that, they wouldn't look down their noses at me, right? Well, the simple answer is - maybe. Maybe they'd be compassionate, but maybe they'd be so hard and cold, and broken that they'd look the same. Sorry, I'm digressing.
It's difficult and painful to find the truth. The truth of what was done to us. The truth of how that shaped our development and judgment. The truth of just how much has been stolen from us. The truth that we've been affected, for sure, but we've made poor choices since then. The truth that those choices have hurt us. That truth that we don't have to continue to make those choices. The truth that we can change our risky behaviors and choose to have a whole new life that's worth living. The truth that we can forgive ourselves, but it's not easy, but it can be done.
Seriously, forgiving ourselves is not easy. But its worth it. And it's easier to spend hours or weeks or months on learning how to identify what we've done and forgive ourselves, than to spend the next 30, 40, 60 years bitter and filled with depression and despair. The healing begins with the truth and with forgiveness. Why do you think I chose my user name? I'm the one in my family whose always ticking people off by pointing out the big pink elephant in the room. I don't hide from the truth. I tell. Now, we all tell. Telling is correct. If a child came to you and told you they were being abused, you would tell them to 'tell an adult', or help them 'tell'. Because the secret only has power over us as long as its a secret. They keep us quiet if they can keep us ashamed. But we aren't quiet. We're big now. We're a lot stronger than we were then. We tell. We take away their beloved secret and expose the truth. We look at ourselves and deal with the truth. And we find forgiveness and healing waiting there for us.
Without the truth and forgiveness, there isn't any healing, just coping. Coping is good. But healing is better. Coping remains, but healing lessens the need for the coping.
The reasons I'm not doing my darndest to jump up and down and tell everyone that nothing we've ever done is ever our fault is because that won't help any of us identify the lies and discover the truth and change our lives for the better and heal. We don't need to beat ourselves up for making bad choices. So long as we stop, turn the other way, replace it with good. Then the sun comes up after a very long and painful darkness, and we can see again, and breathe again, and live again. And when we do the hard work of being accountable for our stuff, and owning it, and resolving it, then we can better discern accurately where the faults lie with our abusers. If we have no accountability at all, then they don't either. They can say, "I was abused too when I was young, so nothing's my fault either." That's not true. They hurt us. We need to make sure we are not hurting others. That we are not perpetuating any abuse. That we are accountable for our own mistakes (much, much smaller mistakes than theirs generally). And then - they are accountable for their stuff. Facing the truth with mercy, it restores our mental and emotional stability. It rights a lot of grievous wrongs, and begins to loosen the knots inside around the deep, deep hurts and woundings. But only we can do our own inventory. Does that help?
I've been at this for many years. The healing, identifying the truth thing, the turning my life around thing. It does get easier. Fogiving gets easier. Facing our stuff gets easier. Putting up boundaries (not walls), gets easier. Not perfect. But much, much easier as we do the work to work through it.
I tried to keep my intro brief. There's so much more that I've been through. I just didn't have enough time to put it all down. But I care about you, and everyone on here that's been so damaged and broken and we're all hurting. I've dedicated my life to healing - for myself, protecting others, and helping anyone who has been hurt. I'm not a doctor, but I'm here to listen and share like you. And I'm a good listener. And I always learn something new when I share my story with others.

[ca_anonymous]

I'm new here. I'm 21 yrs old. I'm physically and emotionally abused by my mother and father. One time I was also beaten by my brother and he strangled me. I almost died but my mom just let him beat me. I had scratch and bruises all over my face. My face was swollen for weeks. My mom also used to hit me with a belt and say nasty things to me. She used to say that I'm the black sheep of the family and I'm a bad girl. She said that I'm a problem child. She used to beat me in the morning and have bruises going to school. I remembered that she cut my long hair in different lengths and I still went to school. I was so embarrassed that day. I have no support system. I have few friends because I tend to avoid social situations as possible. I want to heal but I don't know how. Until now they verbally abuse me even my father. My father told me awhile ago that they are unlucky to have me as a child. The worst memory I had is when my mother threatened to kill me with a knife. She was holding the knife. It was dinner time. My dad and brother witnessed it. I remembered my dad threatened her to continue it. There are lot of times my mom beat me and my dad just threatened her to just kill me to end it. But most of times he just allowed her to beat me and do nothing about it. I remembered I tried calling the child abuse hotline in our country I was holding the phone and my dad threatened me that they will take me and not see them again so I ended up dropping the call. I hate my dad for not doing anything about it and now he adapts my mom's brainwashing that I'm a bad child. I often ask myself WHY and WHY ME? I'm not a bad person. My dad hates me because he believes that I'm scared to people but he is not aware why I avoid social situations. I need help I want to heal and function like a normal people. How? all I know is I'm emotionally abused until now.

[downtowndarling]

I know my story pales in comparison to some of the people on these boards, and it helps to see that people have survived far worse abuse. I feel like a whiner.

My mom was abused by my dad, he was BP and this was back when little was known about medications. He overdosed, I tried to wake him up and my whole life people told me I didn't see that, I was too young. I have really few memories about my dad, most of them good - I am starting PTSD therapy and I am terrified that I'll remember more abuse, or worse abuse. I know I was spanked for no reason (love taps, thats what mom calls them) and I know I grew up with very little supervision, no boundaries or rules.

The hardest part of this is having my family close, they still expect me to show up for holidays and pretend everything is happy. I get migraines from stress, I have been so stressed for the past couple years that I get migraines all the time. I have been disabled with migraines since I moved closer to my family two years ago, I never had them more than once a month prior to this cycle. My mother had migraines until medapause and I am angry that she makes no effort to see how I am feeling or let people know I am sick, I recently saw cousins and they were shocked that my mother had not told them I am sick. I know this isn't abuse, but it triggers feeling from never being believed as a child.


I get really overwhelmed at family events because there are no social norms, now I am the black sheep because everyone else embraces the chaos and my sister is so co-dependand with my sister that she pre-emps her needs, everyone wants me to be more like her but she never had friends because she was mini-mom, she raised me more than my mother did. I feel bullied, my mother is the master triangulator and tells people she has no idea why I am so "difficult" and that she can't "walk on eggshells'. She openly makes jokes at my expense, thats what the walking on eggshells is about - not making fun of me FOR BEING SICK is just too difficult for her. "it's always something" with me. There were plenty of somethings growing up, I was bullied at school and had my nose broken - I had sleep apnea and constant sinus infections growing up, I didn't see a Dr about it until I was in my 20's.

[Gnoj]

Today I had my first counselling session, 45 years I have carried this secret, and I have only mentioned it to a few people I trust. But now my whole life story just came bursting out- it was a fragmented story with mixed feelings of guilt-Why! and all the problems that I have encountered in life laid bare, my schizophrenia, the break up of my first marriage, my childrens disfunctional life, my disfunctional life, the relationships I have destroyed on the way- my religous faith which has carried me thus far-Love you Jesus. But it seems as though I have been covering up or running away, from my true self, someone said to me at my work when I appeared to be struggling just be yourself. I think thats what I don't have the courage to reveal, I am afraid to unload for fear of hurting the only true friends I really have, But what the the heck isn't there a saying the truth will set you free and thats where I am going now to pray something I find hard to do Lord hear my prayer.

[priscilla]

I was molested by my big brother. He was 7 years older than I. Before I was in the 3rd grade my brother was very menacing to me. He hated me and this was because once I was born my dad, who was my brother's stepdad, quit loving him. My mother told me this. My dad verbally and emotionally abused my brother and I was made to feel like it was my faulth. Anyway, before 3rd grade Tony would do mean things to me. Like pick me up, feet off the floor, by my neck. I thought I was going to die.
In front of his friends he would make me kiss his feet and they would all laugh. In a hotel swimming pool I was in my swim ring and he pulled the plug. We were alone in the pool and as the air left my ring I truly thought I was going to die.
After the 3rd grade ...not sure of my age....9 or 10.... he started coming to my bed in the middle of the night...woudl put his hands under the covers and all over my body. He would be at the house when I would get home from school and would make me stand while he kneeled in front of me and pressed his face into my crotch. I didnt understand it at all. But I was scared and ashamed. I remember feeling something wet and warm against my privates. I was much too young to understand it was his tongue.
He loved to touch me in front of people.... in front of my mom, my family..he would find a way to sneak his hand under my clothes where no one could see and I couldnt react or move. I think there is more that I just blacked out. I grew up terrified of my brother.
People....I have not told anyone this and I am 51 years old now. Please give me some feedback...to this day I feel low self esteem and a deep sense of shame. A feeling of being "less than" others.

Thank you,
Priscilla

[dakotagirl]

Hi,
I am new to this site..I have a pretty long story, so I will try to shorten it as best I can. I had a rough childhood, ever since I came here, I was adopted and came to the states when I was 5 1/2. I was left on the street in Korea, and came to america to a foster family. My mother hated me and did terrible things to me, left me in a mall for hours, and just treated me badly..I left there and went to another family, whom I have now. In my younger early teens, my father tried to have sex with me, numerous times. we would meet in the basement and he would want to have sex with me. This went on for sometime, not sure how many years. As I was growing up, in my older teens, and early twenties, i would let guys use me just for sex, over and over again, with no relationship involved. That's what I was used to..Since then I always held it in my mind, never dealt with it, just brushed it off like it was nothing. Never healed from it or really got thru it. A few years ago I finally decided to write my father a letter and told him how this all affected my life now. It came as a surprise to my mother, she was devasted..But i had to get this out. Before I got married I told my fiance what happened, but that was it, we never dealt with it. And now, 20 years later, 17 married with 2 boys, our marriage is falling apart. If my husband touches me a certain way it reminds me of my father. I can't let go of what happened to me all those years ago. I need to start healing from this and I don't know how. I tried therapy but never really stuck with it. So now I am back to where I have to find therapy and a support group. I know for some ppl may not see it as abuse, cos we actually didn't have intercourse, but just the thought of having my father try, I still consider it as abuse in my mind. So any advice or support I would really appreciate it. I always thought I was the only one that this happened to, and I can see, I am not the only one :(