[anonymos133]

Hi,
I will try to join a discussion in progress. But I need a New Thread in the remembering stage 1 topic. I am not sure if this will help me if I cant see honest replies from the forum. If I need a specific new topic Ill try to think of one.. I feel like my experiences are similar to others. Right now I am experiencing Anger and resentment, maybe a thread about this.. not sure.. Let me know if I can have access. Thanks!

[DianaJoy]

Just let me know if you'd prefer a different title for this thread!

[Emms]

I think anger and resentment is something we have all felt a lot of. We all hear what you'e saying. I'm not as angry with the world as I onve was, met a few good ppl, but not that many. As for those who abused me, the anger is there as strong as ever and will never leave me. I just don't think about it that much these days, but it's there.

[anonymos133]

I just posted a large block.. I have not felt good at all today and typed too much.. it kicked me out and deleted it. I dont feel like retyping it now. I feel like changing the name to "Throwing Away the Past". Since this is not like my normal coffe cup blog I lost my focus.. Episodes with family trigger intensive feelings with me also.. Ill try to post more tommorow and try to get out and have a better day...

[littleb]

anonymous133 - thats happened to me SOOOO many times and I HATE it!!! I try to remember now to copy my posts before hitting submit just incase ive sat there typing to long n it kicks me out .

Also sometimes, if that happens and you hit your backspace button soon enough it will go back to that page n still have your stuff. But there only a 50/50 chance it will be there, ive done it before n sometimes its there n sometimes its not.

Its SO frustrating tho, n it sucks when you already feel down n out n ALREADY wrote it....dont want to do it again.

Hope things are better for you as the day goes.

[anonymos133]

I am feeling a little better today.. but not great. I am still out of work and hoping one of my contacts call me back soon. But the job market is tough.

I havent talked to my mother in about a month. I chose not to call her because she always blows me off, only makes me feel worse about my bills. It made me mad when instead of calling to check on me, she sent me an email. Then never called. They are always doing inconsidrate stuff like this to me. I never replied to her, on purpose. The only person I have talked to was my brothers wife. She tolerates me, but we are not best friends. I didnt mind talking to her, but I am sure it was my mothers doing. She praises my brother and calls them all the time. I get one email a year lol. She told me my mom was sick with phenomonia and in the bed for a week. I think this was a con. To either get attention from me, or make me feel guilty. I miss having family contact and visiting my brothers family, but I dont know how to deal with actually trying to have communication. Plus when Im feeling low I know calling my mom is not a good option. Ive put up with abusive attitudes for years without knowing it, Ive got to start learning ways to deal.

[anonymos133]

Since I posted on here last I read the manual. To use this for its functional purpose will help me the best. However i cannot afford my therapy bills now. Its wierd reading this now since my last episodes with my mother. I tried to dig up some old info from her about things that went on in our family in the past. She is usually more harm then good to me it seems. I tried to pull up some old court documents regarding my dad that has me in it.. I was told i would have to take someone with me to the little town corthouse to get them. No one in my family will do plus I dont want them to. I have a feeling they are hiding it from me, I know there has to be more trash out there for me to find. Now that I am old to to get it and understand it, it would be hard to be around them. Especially if I can get records from a DFACS office. I have decided before I attempt to do this I am going to get a therapist help, plus Im not getting them envolved. I am a little scared of what they will try to do to me. I am feeling a little more normal about realizing that its not my fault and my feelings are normal. But my family has a long history of covering up trash. People in the town know me and what happened, so I might even need procted body gaurds or something. I cant take the snubs and dirty looks i usually get from these little office clerks, especially back in that hell whole town. So, I am reading materials on codependence of alcoholics abuse and trying to find meeting that support not being an adult victim to similar relatioships. When I am able to work again, health insurance will be paying for my therapy. I Know I am going to need it. I found a few of my old old friends that talk to me, but for the most part nobody has ever been envolved directly with the issues I deal with. So we will see...

[Crazyville]

No one has posted here in ages but I just found this site today and the title is just so me right now.

I'm filled with anger and resentment….worse yet I resent that I'm filled with anger and resentment (yeah, that makes sense).

I grew up with a mixture of physical abuse, being demeaned, and neglect. I assume it started early in my life because one of my mom's favorite "you were such a horrible child" stories is about when I was 1 she put me down to nap while she paid bills. Turns out I climbed out of the crib trekked across the house, somehow got outside and was found in sitting on the curb by a passing taxi driver. My moms focus in this story is on how much I embarrassed her, it's been about 40 years since this happened and I can still feel her rage coming through about how vile I was.
I see it differently, like what would it take to make a baby that young climb out of one of those huge old wooden cribs, I must have fallen from a pretty good height….why didn't she hear me. Why didn't she notice me crawling past her? The house was raised about 4 feet off the ground how did I open a door and get out? For a child that age that was a long difficult trek….I think I was running away.

I wonder if my rage is just a coping mechanism, a way I learned to deal with the anxiety? I'm overjoyed at finding this resource yet even just reading the 1'st two chapters has churned all this up.

I wonder if I feel more anger and rage because my parents try to say it never happened. My mom told me the other day whipping me hurt her more than me because her hand stung so much from the force of hitting me…..yeah, she actually thought that was logical.

When I bring up her whipping me with the leather belt (she used to beat me like a run away slave) she looks into my face and tells me I'm sick, I've got a mental problem, that never happened. Truthfully, I think she has the "truth" to what she wants it to be; yet she remembers that on the one occasion she decided to help me study she did it with the belt in her hand. Questioned about that instant, she remembers hitting me with the belt whenever my attention wandered…..Granted, her attempt to help me with my lessons was because I was failing 1'st grand and when she went in for the conference the nun told my mother "Maybe you should take a night away from dating and help your daughter." Needless to say mom was ticked and needed something to beat.

It's worse right now because mom let slip some things that she didn't realize would set me off. One was that she thought that I might be having sex with my step dad….you'll notice she didn't say molested…because of course I would have asked for it. Granted, my step father NEVER touched me inappropriately, he was the only parent I had. My natural parents are either narcissist or sociopaths, my step mother is just pure evil, my step-dad was a human being and in my sick world that made him a treasure.

The thing that bugged me the most about this is that my mother, on several occasions hung me out to dry in sexually, unsafe situations. This is the same woman that used to go on tangents about me plucking my eyebrows because "only whores plucked their eyebrows". The dichotomy of constantly and unfairly being put down as a whore by a mother that was trying to prostitute me out is just overwhelming.

To find out that she used to go party in another state for weeks to a month and left me with a man she believed was molesting me….I suppose she figured I was dealing with the "wifely" duties so that she was free to go play at the yacht club. What type of f…up filth does that?


If anyone even sees this thread I doubt they'll get through it. I'm the one that gets started on tangents when the anger hits. I'm just so tired of it all, I've been actively trying to heal for 42 years and I'm worse now than ever….and guess what I'm angry and resentful about that :)[img][/img]

[aikanae]

Well I just asked for a thread on anger and hadn't seen this yet (or remembered it was here). Whatever ...

I've been flying into rages lately and I don't know why. They seem like such minor things later that it's got me really confused. I know it's based on my past - but I remember very little of childhood.

I know I'm remembering, but can't remember what I'm remembering later (if that makes sense). It's so removed from me that I have a hard time relating to the fact I was angry. This is causing some major upheavals and disfunction's. I can't get anything done.

Later I just can't relate to being angry even when I know what made me mad. It's just not there. Nowhere.

Then *boom* I'm angry again, over the same stuff, over and over again. It never seems to dissipate, just increases. Usually there's a tiny piece more of the story added in. But I hate feeling this way and it's really a tough way to remember. It'll take the rest of my life and then some to continue on like this and it's spreading into other areas of my life.

If I sound a little desperate, you got it. I really want to be all "forgiveness, peace and love" - anything but this way and I don't seem to be progressing - in addition no one can explain what I'm going through to me or why. I'm very confused.

[bellaconstantine1592]

Well at least she admits to hitting you, Crazyville ... I'm sorry, I deeply sympathize with your story and thus have been recently been getting angry as well. My father, who would slap me so hard welts would form on my cheeks before I was 4, flatly denied to my therapist, my mother, and me that he ever did such a thing.

My mother corrected him and he just said "you sure I did that ... I don't think I did that" ... And all the b.s.

I have actually learned not to resort to anger, over the years, until it is only a last resort. Growing up my father would get in such huge, random fits of rage (set off by ridiculously small things like me leaving my barbie clothes on the carpet) so that he would slap me until I was 4. After I entered kindergarten he started spanking me. When I reached 10, whenever I did something wrong he would literally scream at me for an hour about what I did was wrong. He then (which I remember vividly timing multiple times in my youth) would lecture me, in a more calm but nonetheless condescending and one-sided tone for at least 2 hours about how I made the wrong decision.

I thus have learned not to immediately succumb to blowing up to huge random fits of anger but I still don't understand him. I inherited his road rage and racism toward Asian people (despite him being Filipino), though lol.

[Emms]

I'm so sorry you two have been through all this pain. No wonder you're angry, both of you.

I still feel the anger, I just control it better now and sometimes I find I don't get that angry at all now, but it still comes and goes, esp anger towards myself and what I consider my own stupidity, if you get me.

My mother was a liar and would never admit to the things she did. She knew very well what she was doing, she was like a manipulative child who just had to have her own way and if lying, beating me or blaming me for things she had done would get her what she wanted, she would do that. She would also fake illness and enjoyed making me ill too when I was a child by making me drink salt water to make me vomit. All about control and getting her own way with my dad. I don't do forgiveness with her as she also knew about the sexual abuse I suffered and covered that up too cos it suited her to do so. But as her father was one of my sexual abusers, I imagine he abused her too in that way. I know he was a real bastard. So perhaps that explains some of her behaviour, and I've not exactly done everything right all my life, but I know what it's like to be filled with so much anger and to see my mother angry, so angry that she would beat me, yet I also saw her as a scared little girl, screaming and crying because on some vary rare occasions my dad had chosen to go to work and leave her when she was pretending to be ill. Life wasn't good, so believe me, I know the feelings and the damage that can be done.

[pandabear1]

Hi. I read your post and can really relate to it. My mom (prior to passing away) denied any abuse ever happened and also accused me of sleeping with my stepfather- which never happened. She liked to use the words slut and whore when referring to me also. But none of that was true about me. I think she did it to devalue me. To justify the abuse. To make me believe I deserved it.

I remember thinking that if I confronted her that some healing could begin. I thought she would acknowledge the abuse. How wrong I was!

I think sometimes parents are used to being in such control that they forget children grow up and remember and can confront them about these things. I think they are often taken aback when they realize that we remember the things they did to us. So it's easier for them to say we are nuts or wrong than to accept what they did and try to make it better. They thought so little of us to begin with that it seems easier for them to continue to devalue our feelings vs. accepting what really happened.

Don't let your mom keep that power over you. You remember these things and you are not wrong or crazy. This is the reality of what happened and what would be more concerning is if you didn't remember it and couldn't be sure it really happened. But it seems that you are sure and that you do remember. So use that as power. That's how I try to think about it. It's powerful that I remember. To me it makes me feel like I must be able to handle it- otherwise I would block it out. No matter what they call me or say- they can't take the remembering away from me. I know what happened.

I think my experience in confronting my mother was probably similar to yours. I can still remember the look on her face. The words that came out of her mouth were saying it never happened. But her eyes told the true story. I could tell she knew exactly what went down. I just felt more powerful telling her I knew and that nothing she could say would make me take it back. I am glad I confronted her before she died- otherwise I would be carrying it around with me

So I understand how angry you are about her response. I felt the same way. But I think in time you may be able to see it as a powerful thing. It took about 5 years for me to say this but now I realize my mom became terrified of me when she realized I knew. It was like I had taken back all the power she had held over me as a little child. I knew she couldn't hurt me anymore.

Anyway, I hope you feel better and can channel the anger into something positive.

[Emms]

You know, many years later, before my mother died, I think she was afraid of me too, that was why she continued to lie and to try to hurt me. Yes, these controlling parents can't see what they have done wrong, they don't want to see it and it does scare them when they realize we do know and we just might have told someone who might possibly believe us.

[pandabear1]

I have a unique situation where my father abused me and kicked me out of the house but kept my brother at home with him. My brother and I have somehow managed to have a relationship but it is difficult because my brother seems to be blocking the true story about what happened from his memory. It is very difficult for me because he has minimized my feelings several times by saying things like "there are people out there who have had it worse" and that "it didn't happen that way".

He still has a relationship with my father who was my main abuser whereas I have not spoken to my father in many, many years. He was about 13 when I was kicked out and I realize he may have been told a completely different story about what happened by my father and step mother. However, it is very hurtful when he minimizes what I went through and talks about what a "great guy" dad is. Has anyone else been able to deal with this type of a situation in a positive way and still maintain a relationship with a sibling?

He lives in a different state and when I last went to visit him, we got into an argument about this. I was staying at his house and had to threaten to leave in order to get him to drop it.

He is in a total state of denial and the worst thing is that I know he suffered abuse at the hands of my parents as well- although not nearly as much as I did. It's almost as if he was brainwashed into believing that what we went through as kids wasn't that bad and/or was normal. Which it absolutely was not.

Anyone have any luck with a similar situation? Advice?

[DianaJoy]

My sibs and I have different takes on our childhoods, too. We tend to not talk about it much, which may or may not be ideal, but there it is. When things to come up I try to state what I think/believe/remember, without insisting that they agree with me, and try to hear what they think/believe/remember with the same honor and respect.

There have been times, with my father and my siblings, that I've chosen to absent myself that to let a conflict continue. Wow, that's much easier to say than to experience! I make a point of always being able to readily leave when I visit my family. I don't /usually/ need the escape route, but it's wonderfully helpful to have it. It reassures me that I choose to be there, and that, at any moment, I can choose to leave.

Really, that element of choice is a huge thing for me. Knowing that, at this point in my life, I choose how much contact to have with my birth family helps immensely. It's easer to stand up for myself when I'm in a situation my choice.

The book The Emotional Incest Syndrome is a really good one. Not only does it discuss dealing with broken family systems, it spends time explaining what a /functional/ family looks like. That's information a lot of us survivors simply don't have. it was a huge revelation for me :)

Good luck!!