And remember kids, forgiving your abusers will never be a requirement of recovery.
me half the time: I havent even gone through that much trauma! lmao !!! trauma who? dont know her! i am completely fine! i just get sad sometimes!
me the other half: i feel so worthless and dead inside how does it feel to be stable? i dont know what its been like to feel ok in years, who was i kidding?
signs that your family is abusive:
- you feel the urge to hide from them whenever you’re vulnerable
- you cannot bear the idea of them seeing you cry
- when you’re hurt or in pain, you don’t go to them because you feel
they’ll tell you that you deserved it or that it was your fault- you don’t feel like you can confide in them, either because they don’t
seem to care, or try to control how you act, or yell at you and punish you, or
use the information against you- you feel very self-conscious around them and keep expecting criticism
and insults- you can’t tell them about your struggles because you already know
they’ll side against you- you keep things in your life secret from them because you have a feeling
they would ridicule, humiliate, and judge you if they knew, or take everything
away from you- you feel scared of letting them know when they hurt you
- you feel scared and guilty when you so much as think about them in a bad
way- you feel the urge to remind yourself of all the things they did for you,
whenever something bad comes up, to be sure that you’re seeing them the way
they want to be seen by you- you’re scared of being accused of being a burden to them
- you’re scared to hold them responsible for things they did to you,
because you know they would argue otherwise, and insist they had full right to
do what they did, or that you made it up- you have the inner sense of dread that nothing you ever do or say will
be taken seriously by them, and your life will always look like a joke to them- you dream of living far away from them and feel guilty for wanting to
cut them from your life- you don’t feel like you’re really important in comparison to them, it
feels like it’s better to just step aside and let them be important, your life
doesn’t matter as much anyway- you’re worried about how your every action might affect their life,
their reputation and social standing- you feel that they’re ashamed of you and you’re trying your best not to
bring further shame on the family- you feel like you’ll owe them for the rest of your life and nothing you
ever do will be enough to erase the debt, and this fills you with dread and
feeling of being trapped- you don’t count on their help when you’re in trouble, you’re scared of them
finding out and punishing you for being in trouble in the first place- you don’t count on them sharing their resources with you, you know you
have to be grateful for how much they’ve given you already and feel like you
have no right to ask for anything more, even if you need it- you can’t feel warmth or safety when surrounded by family, instead you
wish you didn’t have to be there, and seek a place to hide and protect yourself- holidays spent with family are just painful and something you try to
endure instead of enjoy- you can’t imagine a world where you’re free and not defined by these
people
“well I met your (abusive) family and they seemed nice to me”
well, yeah, that’s how they get away with abusing their kids
You didn’t deserve to be treated that way, remember that.
- sometimes i don’t really exist.
- sometimes i exist quite painfully.
that weird trauma dichotomy where you’ve always been considered more grown up and mature than your peers but now that you’re an adult you feel like you’re still a child emotionally
“As a toddler, the codependent learns quickly that protesting abuse leads to even more frightening parental retaliation. Thus she responds by relinquishing her flight response, deleting “no” from her vocabulary and never developing the language skills of healthy assertiveness. The future codependent also learns early on that her natural flight response intensifies her danger if she tries to flee. Later, when a child is older she may also learn that the ultimate flight response, running away from home, is hopelessly impractical and even more danger-laden. Many toddlers, at some point, transmute the flight urge into the running around in circles of hyperactivity. This adaptation “works” on some level to help them escape from the uncontainable feelings of the abandonment melange. Many of these unfortunates later symbolically run away from their pain. They deteriorate into the obsessive-compulsive adaptations of workaholism, busyholism, spend-aholism, and sex and love addiction that are common in flight types. The toddler who bypasses the adaptation of the flight defense may drift into developing the freeze response and become the “lost child.” This child escapes his fear by slipping more and more deeply into disassociation. He learns to let his parents’ verbal and emotional abuse “go in one ear and out the other.” It is not uncommon for this type to devolve in adolescence into numbing substance addiction. The future codependent toddler, however, wisely gives up on the fight, flight or freeze responses. Instead, they learn to fawn their way into the occasional safety of being perceived as helpful. They discover that a modicum of safety can be purchased by becoming variously useful to their parent. For the budding codependent, all hints of danger soon immediately trigger servile behaviours and abdication of rights and needs. Once a child realizes that being useful and not requiring anything for themself gets them some positive attention from their parents, codependency begins to grow. It becomes an increasingly automatic habit over the years.”
— Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker pg 130-133
“I helped myself.
wiped my own tears.
put balm over fresh wounds.
plastered parts of my heart that still were hurting.
gave myself time.
read books that soothed my soul.
heard music that calmed my nerves.
watched movies that made me smile.
bit by bit, piece by piece, I put myself back together again.
and I gave myself a second chance
because I know that if I didn’t, then no one else would.”— Ruby Dhal
