this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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sexual abuse from my mom at the age of 5
spoiler
(She held me down and forced me to watch a homemade porno of my dad getting a bj from a hoooker)my friend being murdered in second grade, her dad shot her and her sisters and her grandmother.
my mom kidnapping me when I was 8 with her friend and then hiding me in her friends trailer for a year and the only time I could leave was to go to church. Eventually people find out as my dad's side of the family was looking for me and lawyers got involved but my mom still managed to get custody of me.
mom gets mad at me for lying about something miniscule, goes fucking ape shit, picks me up, and body slams me into a picnic table in the back yard and her friend has to come out side and beg her to stop beating me with a towel. That was when I was 8.
church stuff continues until I'm like 14
finally get away from church and live with dad until I'm around 16 and I get incredibly sick. I'm living with my dad at this point who refuses to take me to the hospital for an entire week until he finds me on the floor in pain. Turns out I had something called twisted gut and was rushed to ER when we got to the hospital where I had surgery and then spent like two months in the hospital recovering.
Few months go by and I'm all healed up and doing things with my friends. I come home one day and my dad is getting some photos off a digital camera for me. Then he tells me I could be a model. Then he talks me into posing for what is pretty much borderline cp jailbait shit.
eventually people find out about the website and cops come to my high school to interrogate me. They recorded me without my permission and asked me to cover for my dad or else I'd have to be put a home cause I wouldn't have any parents to live with. Basically they intimidated me into lying so my dad wouldn't get in trouble for it if I took the blame even though it wasn't my fault.
word is out at the school and I'm forced to drop out. Lose pretty much all my friends in the process except one who already left for college.
life continues to be miserable after that until I meet a guy online and convince him to move to Florida and we live together as a couple, unfortunately still with my dad until finally the guy agreed to help me run away. I literally crawled out of my window and we got in a car and drove to a bus station where we took the bus all the way to California where I lived with him for 3 more years.
that relationship ends because he cheats on me. I move to Portland, OR homeless with no friends and like $500 in my bank account which quickly went away.
manage to get on my feet by 26/27 but end up dating a really abusive guy who eventually tries to choke me to death on my birthday in 2018. he doesn't succeed because he blacks out during it as he had been drinking heavily, like always.
a little later find out this guy was cheating on me for most of the relationship and that when I started seeing him, thinking that he was single, he was actually cheating on a different girl with me until he switched over to me and got me to move in.
That.. is pretty much the end of all the truly terrible times in my life? I'm still left with no friends except the one who went to college and I only get to hear from them sometimes as they live on the other side of the country from me still.
Most of my life has been incredibly depressing and traumatizing. I'm not suicidal anymore but I don't really know why I'm even here breathing other than I have a cat now who I consider to be my best friend and I want to take care of him.
edited to add a spoiler for the really insane stuff
This is just gut wrenching. I’m sorry you had to endure so much shit… but seriously, where would we be without cats? They are my favorite. My wife and I have 5 of them.
Here’s a couple photos to help brighten things up a bit.
sploot
He does this all the time.
They’re not very good players but are great at knocking pieces off the board.
OMG the one of them playing chess!! here's mine watching tv with me. He looks so profound.
Haha so deep in thought. He must’ve been really invested in whatever you were watching together. A couple of our cats will catch sight of something on the TV and get fixated. Splooty Mac likes to try and grab stuff too with his big mittens.
We have a smaller TV mounted by their cat tower that I’ll often put 8-10 hour cat videos on from YouTube.
That's amazing! You know sometimes I feel like my cat is trying mimic my behavior. When I moved in here, he started scooping his kibble and eating out of his paw. And for awhile when I was teaching myself how to roller skate, I'd catch him trying to like slide across the kitchen floor!
And is that cat named Mac too?? Mine's named Macaroni but I call him Mac for short.
Lmao so his name is Mac, yes… and we call him Macaroni all the time 😂. What are the odds?
The kitchen floor story lmao. I’m picturing a cat sliding around on its tummy. I’ve seen cats do similar, or they’ll lay on their side and pull themselves around by the paws on the side of a couch or something.
I wonder that sometimes. We have another orange cat named Momo and I say his name all the time. When he meows, he always does a dual meow that sounds vaguely like “Momo”. It makes me wonder if he’s meowing in the same way his name sounds.
Last time I took mine to the vet there turned out to be someone else there who also had a cat named Macaroni! I didn't realize it was such a common cat name.
I have hard wood floors so he'd speed up and then I'd see him stop and just ride the rest of the way out sliding on his paws and belly. I wish I could have caught him doing it but when he sees my phone he gets upset and meows at me lol
Hey, does your cats let you pick them up? Mine lets me, but she sometimes make a high pitched meow like she's annoyed when I pick her up for too long. Idk if cats like it. Do they?
My cat also lets me touch her belly, dispite many internet people warned me not to, lol
I can even touch my cats tail! 😸
A couple of our cats will accept belly rubs. Some like to be held, but Toph, our tortie, does not like to be held at all. It really varies from cat to cat. Our oldest cat is super sweet and loves to be carried around the house over your shoulder. I’ve indeed encountered the “don’t pick me up” squeak lmao.
That are many very traumatising things you have been through. I admire your strength and ability to survive this. However, I wish you had a live where you did not need to be that strong.
Yeah, me too. I don't feel strong.
At least its kind of better now? Like overall, everything is good now. But it doesn't feel good.
I can understand it feels that way, but that does not make it untrue.
I think the stuff you have been through is far worse than the stuff I have been trough. However, some stuff happened to me as well. I was not able to feel better until I was able to process what happened. And I could only start processing stuff when I felt safe enough to do so.
Even though I was in fact safe and I knew it, my body and parts of my brain did not know it. I needed some help from a psychosomatic physiotherapist who helped me to be in a more relaxed state. Then I really started feeling all the pain of what happened to me. It was almost like it became real suddenly. That was horrible and painful. But I found that if I just cried a lot and wrote a lot and just let it wash over me, it would go away. And once it was gone, I finally felt relaxed, safe and I even started feeling good about myself some of the time. I would suddenly feel a lot lighter almost.
I am not there yet, and I still have some processing to do. The physiotherapist left, so I have to find someone else now to help me. But it really helped and I can enjoy life now, at least some of the time.
Maybe something similar is going on with you. I do not know of course, but it could be. Maybe if you are able to process what has happened to you, you might be able to feel good also.
What does processing it really mean? I've heard this before but no one seems to be able to explain to me what that is exactly, and what exactly it would do for me.
It is a bit abstract, which makes it difficult to explain. For me, it basically means that I the experience goes through my mind with all details and the feelings that belong with it. The feelings usually increase until they are at their top and then they reduce again. After that, that feeling with the experience might not be as prominent, but I might have new feelings and thoughts about it, for which I do the same. This happens until I feel more at ease with the experience and it troubles me less.
For example, when I am processing the loss of my sister, I might think about when she was suffering a lot. Her pain is painful to me. So, I might cry about it and feel hurt myself. But after a while, that passes. Next, I feel guilty about not having been able to help her better. I might feel really bad about myself and almost wanting to hide. And I might feel like that for a time, until I think about that she never wanted me to feel guilty and she would never want me to beat myself up in this way about it. And that helps to comfort me. This goes on, until, in the end, I am somewhat more at peace with it. I might think, for example, something like that her suffering has been in the past and that at least she is not suffering now.
So, to me, processing is going through the experience in my mind and feel all the feelings that belong with it as freely as possible. There are like layers of feelings and you go to a deeper layer each time. This changes it in such a way that it is easier to live with.
I do have PTSD. For PTSD memories this is much more difficult. There I seem to get stuck in this process and never go to a next layer of feelings and it does not improve by just trying to process it. What does help for me is EMDR treatment for these memories. Often, after the treatment, I am able to process it much better.
I am not sure whether it is the samen for you, but this is how it works for me and I think for some other people as well. Processing things is not easy during the process, but for me, it makes my life much better once I am done processing. If I do not do it, I get stuck and I feel anxious and down.
Does this explanation help you?
Ah, this sounds like what I have been doing on my own my entire life without the help of therapists/psychologists. I've gotten a lot of pushback on this of course telling me that it wouldn't be possible to have done that on my own or that I didn't "really" process my trauma.
I don't really know if I believe that though. I think I did process it and my trauma itself - all the stuff I posted, that doesn't bother me anymore.
What bothers me is the aftermath. I'm a successful person with a full time job, my own apartment, and I'm responsible with paying my bills and getting everything taken care of like I'm supposed to. But I do that all alone. And while I keep trying to make friends, its like there is this disconnect cause I'm just not like other people.
Everyone has trauma and all that but most people weren't isolated from society by a cult. And most people weren't the victim of CSA in the way that I was.
I feel like I'm okay with it though cause I can just casually talk about it and it never really bothers me, but I do see it makes other people like wildly uncomfortable. So I don't talk about it unless its something like this where people are sharing that sort of thing. But that's just cause I don't like making other people uncomfy. But if people weren't uncomfy, I could talk about this in depth. Even most therapists get uncomfy when I mention these things though. Which is alarming to me.
I actually did try to see an EMDR specialist who turned out to be full of shit and didn't really practice EMDR. She made off with at least $300 from me. Kept telling me for months that we would get to it and we never did. I was already seeing a different therapist at the time who was also confused as to why this women kept putting it off - but that therapist just kept telling me to be more assertive about it?
Well I was assertive about it and the woman had to admit that she doesn't really do EMDR but we could try to "process" my trauma and then she dropped me as a client. And of course where I live, there aren't many EMDR specialists and of course that scam artist was the one that was available for clients. The other ones aren't taking new clients and don't even have waiting lists.
All that said, your comment was very helpful because I think it breaks down what processing really is.
I am just unfortunately a weird case that most people don't seem to know what to do with.
I believe you. And that you have been able to process this already, shows again that you are strong.
I am familiar with the feeling of being disconnected. My trauma is different from yours, but also difficult to understand or imagine for a lot of people. However, I found that other traumatised people are sometimes at least a lot easier to talk to, even if they do not understand completely. They are just not that scared by it, without minimizing what happened. I do have a couple of good friends now, who are very kind and very willing to talk with me about these things. Even if they might not completely understand, they do accept me. That helps a lot. I hope you will find people in your life like that as well.
I agree that it is very alarming that the therapist was uncomfy with what you were telling them. That should not happen. They should have been trained to be able to deal with difficult stuff. That is very unprofessional of them. The same is the case of the therapist that told you to just be more assertive and even more so for the scam artist. It is incredibly mean to try and scam people who are traumatized. You need to be a deeply pathetic person to do that.
I am in the very fortunate situation that I live in a country that pays for the costs of any EMDR and therapy that I need and we have well educated therapists here. So, fortunately, for me it is very easy to get that treatment. I can understand that for you it might be much more difficult to arrange this. However, if you ever get the chance to do real EMDR, it might be good to try. I am not sure whether you have these intrusive images, or sounds or feelings etc from your trauma, but for me it worked especially well for that. Of course it does not work for everyone, but it might be worth the try.
I am no therapist, but if you need a listening ear sometimes, just send me a message. I have had different life from you, so I might not immediately understand or I might not always say the right thing. However, I am not easily shocked or uncomfortable.
Thank you! You have definitely been very helpful to talk to. Way more than most people lol
I have encountered various people who had trauma that while not the same as mine, was probably on par with what happened to me. Some of those people didn't have issues with me talking about my trauma but then there were usually other issues you know? Like we didn't mesh well as people. It seems more like a communication mismatch. I tend to have a lot of nuance in the way I speak and use sarcasm a lot. I've always kind of enjoyed being sarcastic since I was a kid. But I've come to learn that a lot of the general public doesn't get it. Or they see it as mean.
Then I have met a lot more people I would say, who also had trauma, and they did not want to hear about my past because it was triggering to them and they called me out for trauma dumping. I have a seamstress I message sometimes to get things altered or ask about other things and because I know her from going to parties back in the day, she still calls me a trauma dumper. So there's definitely some kind of weird stigma where I live with trauma.
What's scary to me is that it was more than one who like visibly reacted. And their tone changed. Usually therapy would turn into just them telling me how strong and accomplished I am which often didn't make sense considering I started going to therapy on a sliding scale fee more than a decade ago now. So like I wasn't doing well at all. I barely had money to pay my rent and any food had to be paid for with food stamps, so like government food only.
I don't really have intrusive thoughts about my trauma from my childhood but sometimes the more recent stuff, like my ex that tried to choke me out. But that's only because I have no idea if he still lives in the same city as me and it would be terrifying to run into him again. Where I live cops don't really help in those situations. I should probably just go get a pre-emptive restraining order just in case.
I've also done my own research and learned about thought tracking through doing bullet journals which I found pretty helpful but unfortunately it fuels my obsession problem.
You've been incredibly lovely to talk to and I will definitely take you up on that sometime. Obviously, I can be a little long winded.
That is okay, I can be quite long-winded as well! Thank you also for saying that I was helpful to talk to. I like talking to you too.
Understanding each others trauma is not enough for a friendship, I agree with that. You need more than that. Personalities that fit well together, same level of intelligence, same sense of humour.
I am not that sarcastic myself, but my sense of humour can be a little bit dark sometimes. Especially me and my sister could make some dark jokes together. I miss that. Some people might be offended a little bit by some jokes, but if they are not really hurt by it, just slightly offended, that is even funnier sometimes to be honest. I think humour is a very healthy way to cope, including sarcasm. It can be a way to still find joy or to reduce tension or put things in perspective. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe you need to have experienced dark stuff to get the sarcasm and dark humour?
I think accusing people of trauma dumping is a very unempathic way for people to create a distance between them and the things you are telling them. They are scared by it and this is their way to cope. My boyfriend had a fairly normal childhood and life. I used to be quite open with him about what happened to me and he would just almost shut down and not respond (some of the time, other times he was supportive). We had some issues with that, because I was really hurt by that. He used to say that it was just too much for him to deal with. And I actually would get a little bit angry about that. I had to deal with these things that happened to me. I had to and and I could, while at the same time even only hearing about it was too much for him. I just could not understand. However, after a lot of discussion, I now think that what you can cope with depends very much on what you have had to cope with. I can deal with the things that happened to me, because not dealing with them was not an option. They were happening and I had no control. My boyfriend, however, does not strictly need to hear about my trauma, so he has the room to be unable to deal with it. He also had not something worse than that happening to him, teaching him how to deal with this stuff. So, he just did not respond and tries to ignore it.
In short, your seamstress probably cannot or does not want to deal with it probably for similar reasons and is mean to create a distance. It could also be that it is a trigger for her and that is why she creates a distance. Traumatised people can also just be assholes.
I addition, I told you you were strong as well. It is very obvious from your story. However, I am not a therapist and a therapist should dig deeper than that. Things are not magically solved because you tell people something positive. You actually really need to get to know them and know what they need and try to provide that. These therapists seem to lack that basic skill. I am sorry to hear that the therapists are so bad where you live. A good one can really help a lot, but bad once only cost money or even do damage.
If your ex still could be a threat to you, then it is quite functional to be scared. It might help with protecting yourself. A restraining order might help with being and feeling more safe again.
I have not heard about thought tracking (but maybe that is because English is not my native language). What do you do exactly?
I also like to talk to you! Definitely let me know when you want to talk. :-)
I totally agree! Sometimes I feel like I'm asking for too much out of other people because I need someone who understands a lot more than the average person.
I agree with you about the people who say things like "trauma dumping". It really comes across like they just don't want to deal with it which always left me confused in the past until recently - I know I'm just sharing things with my past but it made people uncomfortable so they put a label on it as a way to get me to stop talking about myself. Because you're right. They didn't want to get that close to me.
Thought tracking is kind of fun. Basically, anytime I had an intrusive thought, I'd write it down and then try to figure out what actually led me to the thought in the first place or if it was truly an intrusive thought that came out of nowhere.
Turns out most thoughts were being triggered by something and now I just backtrack my thoughts naturally if something weird pops up in my brain.
I have to learn lemmy more but I'll find some way to message you!
Jesus. That was difficult to read but I can imagine it was even more difficult to live through. I'm really sorry all that happened to you.
If I may ask, what was the reasoning behind the first thing you mentioned? That just sounds so insane. Was she just trying to show you that your dad was cheating on her to turn you against him or was it more like she got off on it?
oh you know what - I think I meant to put that part under a spoiler! Welp.
You're right though, I believe her motive was to show me that my dad was cheating on her with some hooker.
Oh my god. I can't even comprehend. I really hope the next 30 years turn out to be better for you.
lol yeah I'm trying.