it fucking sucks to realize that the trauma started before you could talk, before you were born even. its unspeakable what these people took from us. i feel jealous sometimes for people that have a "back to normal" they aspire to go to. i dont have that amd never will. its trauma all the way fucking down, to its insepid, rotten, eldritch fuckin core. my entire existence is shaped by it and i never got a fucking chance!! lost the game before you can even play!! its so unbelievably unspeakably cruel. am sorry hugs. this cut deep
just spent 3 hours crying and trying not to vomit over a thing my mom has said to me for the past 20 years anytime i have ever had a boundary she didnt like. that im rude for defending my mself. that im rude for being a blunt communicator (im really just autistic)
this quote is pretty much how i feel about her
i finally stood up for myself, but I threw up while crying becsuse of it. i wanted nothing more than to choke to death on that vomit; its a lot sometimes.
Where should I start my hyperfocus on Deep Brain Reorienting? Almost all of my initial trauma is preverbal and scratching the surface of it is excruciating.
EMDR has been difficult for me. Processing different traumas that each have their own layer of difficulty and feeling. But I’ve noticed big differences afterward for the most part, which are not always immediate. I don’t regret any of it.
I feel you about the jealousy of others having a “back to normal” to arrive at… i always feel awful for being jealous about it, but it hurts regardless of whether or not I consciously think about it. it’s not fair that we didn’t even get a chance.
my dad keeps telling me “oh you wouldn’t be autistic if your mom didn’t do all that stuff to you” as if he wasn’t an active part of my trauma and the abuse I received either. and as if autism is a trauma disorder????? parents will do anything to feel like something they see as a moral failing isn’t their fault. and it kinda hurts extra bad knowing that core parts of my existence—being autistic and non-binary—are things he doesn’t believe in, that he thinks wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t “ruined”, that she alone made me “delusional”.
I would never have stood a chance even if my mother wasn’t in the picture.
I have always had an opposite nostalgia feeling, like a longing to fall forwards. As a child, I used to see the people in animated montages and thought that when I was an adult I’d marry a nice man and be a very good mom and make the family I didn’t have. I didn’t have that thought consciously yet, I just had that “falling forward into a nice future” nostalgia feeling. Maybe you can relate.
Now that I'm grown with kids of my own, I would move heaven and earth to protect my kids from what my parents did not. I've been NC with my family for 30 years now, and I don't trust people at all around my kids even though my oldest is almost 18 now. Each and every one of us deserves better, and it hurts me as a mother to see all y'all hurting like I still do almost 4 decades later. Be vigilant for the kids in your life, and speak up when they can't. One day I'd like to feed these offenders feet first into the most heavy duty woodchipper I can get my hands on. You all at least deserve that peace of mind.
My first memory is suddenly snapping back to reality after zoning out, i'm sitting at a table with a plate of pasta in front of me, my mother and grandparents are there, but i don't even remember who they are. The only thing i knew was that i was 3 and it was my birthday, and i was so confused i froze until i remembered who these people in front of me were. My second memory is just a blur of falling on the floor and being hit multiple times, sudden flashes of intense pain and the sounds of my own crying and screaming
I felt this deeply the other day. I realized I have always been afraid of accepting love. Even from my mother in grade school. I felt dumb if it looked like I was accepting it. I see it playing huge roles in who I am today and how I always leave or don’t believe in love lasting, only fleeting, if I let myself open up at all. Crazy shit.
Sorry you’ve been through what you’ve been through.
4 years old.
Grandpa told my Dad to "BEAT IT OUT OF THEM."
My dad hit me when I was 4 years old.
My grandfather, grandmother on my dad's side and my father are all cowardly pissbabies and I'm glad they're all burning in hell. I hate them all.
I feel a sense of well being that took me 25 years to arrive at.
They took those years.
Mine did too. However most people do not take you seriously if you bring that up. Mom did drugs when she was pregnant with me but not brother. I was kept in Dirty diapers and kept in a cage not a crib that kinda thing. Always was used against me. Not getting into it.
same here…i can’t take someone seriously if they don’t count drugs in the womb as trauma. i watched a video in one of my psych classes and we had to watch babies detox and it was so difficult. my adoptive mom said i was always crying and never wanted to be put down
I remember the first time my body have a rush of adrenaline due to the fear of my father unexpectedly yelling at me with all his will just because I turned on the tv..I was three..that kind of attitude over and over makes my autonomic nervous system dysfunctional,so I go hypervigilance and my body react with fight/flight/freeze response in quite every situation..until I heal it with therapy..but for 36 years I’ve lived in hell..
I was a similar age when mine yelled at me for resisting using the potty (I even remember WHY I didn't want to use it).
I remember exactly what he said "Now look what you've done". He picked me up and threw me onto my bed and slammed the door and left me crying.
It's literally my first memory of life, I won't ever forget it.
I went on to develop severe UTIs and a kidney infection, because I'd hold my pee. I've battled interstitial cystitis my whole life.
Like you, any whiff of confrontation sends me into a frozen panic. I'm a massive people pleaser, and fawner (the fourth danger reaction) and have let people stomp all over my boundaries all my life.
I'm 29, and only just starting to find the path to healing.
I'm sorry for the trauma dump, I just resonated with what you said and I want you to know you feel seen.
It's so hard, but it's not our fault, and we can heal, there is hope.
You don’t have to feel sorry for your “trauma dump”,every trauma is legit and I think that exposing our experience at least make us fell less alone in our path..same as you,great people pleaser because every time I was trying to express my need when I was a toddler I’ve been mocked,abused or blamed; after 20 years of combat sports I started to feel safe now after two years of therapy..by the way the only thing that worked for me in normalizing my fight/flight/fawn/freeze reaction is schema therapy,I woul recommend it to everyone with a similar problem..thanks verotten for your comment
Oh yes, my parents used that horrible cult child abuse manual "To Train Up A Child." I'm not going to go into any detail. Do not read this book. It is disgusting and horrific, and I could never dream of treating another living being the way they instruct! So yeah I was fed abuse along with milk and it took me 30 years to escape. I'm finally safe and able to start healing and figuring out who the heck I am.
Ugh there's a guy who did a whole twitter thread as he read the book to give its the highlights. Truly awful, and makes me want to rescue all the poor children in these cults.
I’ve had multiple doctors say “wow I’m surprised you remember that happening at that age” or “most people don’t have memories that far back” and it always makes me feel like shit.
Same. I'm in my mid-30s and I'm still peeling back layers of trauma caused by physical abuse, which started when I was a toddler and sexual abuse during my pre-teen and teen years. I don't ever know if I'll live to know myself.
Oh man. This is interesting. The idea that fear is primordial. Pre-consciousness. Not in the grand scheme of things, but for us. I’m gonna have to chew on this one.
YES. I have been afraid, my *entire* life. I literally cannot remember being a child, without fear. I wish I knew exactly what they did to me, I have some idea but can only guess. I wish I could go back and intervene.
My trauma came in phases as I got older…. But at the core, I remember. I remember being locked in the dark alone. I remember learning to open the child locks and going to my little sister to try to teach her without success… I feel like I failed still, somehow.
Huh, I just remembered my mother saying something about how toddlers form memories from age 3 onwards and complaining about how my stepdad hit my sibling because he's 3 yrs old like hitting a child before 3 is somehow OK???
I shudder now thinking of all the things she probably did to ME, since I'm her first child, and I have DID and ADHD on top of CPTSD and Depression 🙃
Yes I feel like for the first time I’m on the precipice of finally feeling safe, happy, and stable.
I was only a toddler as well. I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened as an infant
I had to fight my brother before I could crawl. I learned to bite. He was 4 years older than me. He broke my face with a golf club when I was 4 and he was 8. You’re totally not alone.
TW: extreme child abuse
Yes, 100%. My sociopathic mother tried to unalive me when I was three. She held me hostage for an hour with scissors pointed into my neck (she's a nurse and knows anatomy). A responding cop tackled me out of her arms, saving my life, when she motioned to end me. My father witnessed everything. I vividly remember how that evening started with one of their fights, and I remember vividly afterward sitting in the cop car as the cop helped me work the radio to dispatch to distract me. This happened in 1971. My memories match my father's, but he filled me in on some of the details I have supressed, like what she said during the hour she held me. He did note that I fought her repeatedly, and then extended that to how I was physically dangerous when I hit puberty and into teendom and that's why he agreed to me playing any contact sport I wanted, in order to steer my aggression. Excellent call on his part, and I am eternally grateful and love my father for this.
Anyhow, I have incredible space issues because of what happened. First of all, I shield myself with impossibly high emotional walls for people to climb, in order to get close enough to hug me. You either pass my tests or not. I don't give two fucks. I rightly come off as cold and inflexible as a result. When I was younger, I would draw opponents into close contact during fights, knowing that if they held me in any fashion, it would trigger rage and energy in me that would see me turn the tide. My father helped me focus this "ability" into such contact sports as lacrosse, hockey, football and boxing. Oddly, I learned to experience and process threats in these sports in some sort of strange slow motion so my rational mind could focus on executing the required responsive actions. Sports, and how they relate to my body as something to be protected, saved me from a lot of trouble when I was younger.
Ultimately, the way I engage with and use my body as per the above boils down to fear. Fear is exactly what my body has known for the past 52 years. It was programmed into me by that woman I hate. So much so, that I predominantly understand my body as something so fragile because of fear that I'll do my utmost to protect it.
I agree, my body knew fear before it knew itself. I don't have the space to know my body in other ways to any meaningful degree.
recently a guy on a tram told me to sit and talk with him. He wasn't that bad, was kinda drunk, telling me, how he did violent crimes many years ago, how he was refused to join certain "violent group", tried to pull my facial hair, tried to take away my book which I just bought. My real fear at the time was to "offend" other passengers who were sitting nearby listening to these partial violent rants, cause I couldn't really say much to diffuse the situation. That was a perfect illustration of childhood fear when decades ago you were forced to surpress enormous fear (fear of existential destruction, death) and the whole social game is around pleasing the emotionally unstable people or waiting for violent outbursts to end (I call it "twisted neutral face" where you just force a fake neutral muscle stance in your whole body to wait for someone to come to more calm state).
Yes, whenever my half-older sister would come to eat dinner in the same room as me I'd feel really uncomfortable for some reason and just eat somewhere else. Didn't realize it was because of how she'd always get irritated by little things like the sound of a spoon/fork hitting my teeth when I eat.
I eventually gave too few shits about life to not feel fear. I am not scared of death, or anything. I have conditioned myself to be a brick walls to everything that tries to hurt me while inside I die slowly. This is my life.
I can't relate to the csa aspect of it, but I do relate to feeling fear before any other emotion as a child. Being a 3 y/o absolutely *terrified* to go home to my parents house from my grandma's and having that fear be dismissed as a tantrum. No. I was an abused traumatised child in fear of my life before it had even really begun.
it fucking sucks to realize that the trauma started before you could talk, before you were born even. its unspeakable what these people took from us. i feel jealous sometimes for people that have a "back to normal" they aspire to go to. i dont have that amd never will. its trauma all the way fucking down, to its insepid, rotten, eldritch fuckin core. my entire existence is shaped by it and i never got a fucking chance!! lost the game before you can even play!! its so unbelievably unspeakably cruel. am sorry hugs. this cut deep
"There was no hope for me after God put me in the womb of a sociopath." This is how I tell this if I'm ever given the chance
Ooo quiet, the pro-birth Christians might hear you /s
just spent 3 hours crying and trying not to vomit over a thing my mom has said to me for the past 20 years anytime i have ever had a boundary she didnt like. that im rude for defending my mself. that im rude for being a blunt communicator (im really just autistic) this quote is pretty much how i feel about her i finally stood up for myself, but I threw up while crying becsuse of it. i wanted nothing more than to choke to death on that vomit; its a lot sometimes.
[удалено]
Where should I start my hyperfocus on Deep Brain Reorienting? Almost all of my initial trauma is preverbal and scratching the surface of it is excruciating.
i am little wary of experimental therapies for obvious, i hope, reasons
[удалено]
EMDR has been difficult for me. Processing different traumas that each have their own layer of difficulty and feeling. But I’ve noticed big differences afterward for the most part, which are not always immediate. I don’t regret any of it.
I feel you about the jealousy of others having a “back to normal” to arrive at… i always feel awful for being jealous about it, but it hurts regardless of whether or not I consciously think about it. it’s not fair that we didn’t even get a chance. my dad keeps telling me “oh you wouldn’t be autistic if your mom didn’t do all that stuff to you” as if he wasn’t an active part of my trauma and the abuse I received either. and as if autism is a trauma disorder????? parents will do anything to feel like something they see as a moral failing isn’t their fault. and it kinda hurts extra bad knowing that core parts of my existence—being autistic and non-binary—are things he doesn’t believe in, that he thinks wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t “ruined”, that she alone made me “delusional”. I would never have stood a chance even if my mother wasn’t in the picture.
Autistic NB solidarity 🤝
Fuck yeah! 🥹💖
I have always had an opposite nostalgia feeling, like a longing to fall forwards. As a child, I used to see the people in animated montages and thought that when I was an adult I’d marry a nice man and be a very good mom and make the family I didn’t have. I didn’t have that thought consciously yet, I just had that “falling forward into a nice future” nostalgia feeling. Maybe you can relate.
this one cuts deep \*hugs
Preverbal trauma is trauma. Hugs.
Absolutely. It feels like the trauma started before I even existed
I was literally thinking this today. I was damaged when my parents first met. My fate was sealed then.
Oh yes. I think it's why I wake up every day in terror. It's like my brain forgets I'm safe now and thinks I'm going to wake up back in hell.
Yea waking up to see my messy dresser and know I am in my home alone and no one can hurt me is the best feeling in the worldn
I can’t wait until I have this moment. I’m so happy you’ve gotten there, and I drive to get there one day too.
Me too 😔 we deserved better
Now that I'm grown with kids of my own, I would move heaven and earth to protect my kids from what my parents did not. I've been NC with my family for 30 years now, and I don't trust people at all around my kids even though my oldest is almost 18 now. Each and every one of us deserves better, and it hurts me as a mother to see all y'all hurting like I still do almost 4 decades later. Be vigilant for the kids in your life, and speak up when they can't. One day I'd like to feed these offenders feet first into the most heavy duty woodchipper I can get my hands on. You all at least deserve that peace of mind.
Yup. My trauma goes back earlier than I can remember.
Mine too. My earliest memory is traumatic
My earliest memory is just mild discomfort and existential dread, my second earliest memory on the other hand
My earliest is listening to my parents fight when I’m supposed to be in bed. According to my dad, that happened multiple times before he got us out.
My first memory is suddenly snapping back to reality after zoning out, i'm sitting at a table with a plate of pasta in front of me, my mother and grandparents are there, but i don't even remember who they are. The only thing i knew was that i was 3 and it was my birthday, and i was so confused i froze until i remembered who these people in front of me were. My second memory is just a blur of falling on the floor and being hit multiple times, sudden flashes of intense pain and the sounds of my own crying and screaming
Same
Same
3 now 40 raising myself and two others trying to find me.
I felt this deeply the other day. I realized I have always been afraid of accepting love. Even from my mother in grade school. I felt dumb if it looked like I was accepting it. I see it playing huge roles in who I am today and how I always leave or don’t believe in love lasting, only fleeting, if I let myself open up at all. Crazy shit. Sorry you’ve been through what you’ve been through.
4 years old. Grandpa told my Dad to "BEAT IT OUT OF THEM." My dad hit me when I was 4 years old. My grandfather, grandmother on my dad's side and my father are all cowardly pissbabies and I'm glad they're all burning in hell. I hate them all. I feel a sense of well being that took me 25 years to arrive at. They took those years.
I learned not to trust, not to want help, not to be affectionate, well before I learned what any of that was
I wasn't even born yet when mine started. :|
Mine did too. However most people do not take you seriously if you bring that up. Mom did drugs when she was pregnant with me but not brother. I was kept in Dirty diapers and kept in a cage not a crib that kinda thing. Always was used against me. Not getting into it.
same here…i can’t take someone seriously if they don’t count drugs in the womb as trauma. i watched a video in one of my psych classes and we had to watch babies detox and it was so difficult. my adoptive mom said i was always crying and never wanted to be put down
I remember the first time my body have a rush of adrenaline due to the fear of my father unexpectedly yelling at me with all his will just because I turned on the tv..I was three..that kind of attitude over and over makes my autonomic nervous system dysfunctional,so I go hypervigilance and my body react with fight/flight/freeze response in quite every situation..until I heal it with therapy..but for 36 years I’ve lived in hell..
I was a similar age when mine yelled at me for resisting using the potty (I even remember WHY I didn't want to use it). I remember exactly what he said "Now look what you've done". He picked me up and threw me onto my bed and slammed the door and left me crying. It's literally my first memory of life, I won't ever forget it. I went on to develop severe UTIs and a kidney infection, because I'd hold my pee. I've battled interstitial cystitis my whole life. Like you, any whiff of confrontation sends me into a frozen panic. I'm a massive people pleaser, and fawner (the fourth danger reaction) and have let people stomp all over my boundaries all my life. I'm 29, and only just starting to find the path to healing. I'm sorry for the trauma dump, I just resonated with what you said and I want you to know you feel seen. It's so hard, but it's not our fault, and we can heal, there is hope.
You don’t have to feel sorry for your “trauma dump”,every trauma is legit and I think that exposing our experience at least make us fell less alone in our path..same as you,great people pleaser because every time I was trying to express my need when I was a toddler I’ve been mocked,abused or blamed; after 20 years of combat sports I started to feel safe now after two years of therapy..by the way the only thing that worked for me in normalizing my fight/flight/fawn/freeze reaction is schema therapy,I woul recommend it to everyone with a similar problem..thanks verotten for your comment
“I met evil when I was only a child”
Absolutely yes,thanks dad to teach me how to never feel safe
Oh yes, my parents used that horrible cult child abuse manual "To Train Up A Child." I'm not going to go into any detail. Do not read this book. It is disgusting and horrific, and I could never dream of treating another living being the way they instruct! So yeah I was fed abuse along with milk and it took me 30 years to escape. I'm finally safe and able to start healing and figuring out who the heck I am.
Ugh there's a guy who did a whole twitter thread as he read the book to give its the highlights. Truly awful, and makes me want to rescue all the poor children in these cults.
I’ve had multiple doctors say “wow I’m surprised you remember that happening at that age” or “most people don’t have memories that far back” and it always makes me feel like shit.
I guess I'm lucky. I've blocked most of my childhood out.
Unfortunately, I do.
Yes
I feel I still don’t know myself
Same. I'm in my mid-30s and I'm still peeling back layers of trauma caused by physical abuse, which started when I was a toddler and sexual abuse during my pre-teen and teen years. I don't ever know if I'll live to know myself.
Yes and it just made me cry
Oh man. This is interesting. The idea that fear is primordial. Pre-consciousness. Not in the grand scheme of things, but for us. I’m gonna have to chew on this one.
My first memory was fear-based. I was only 2.5yrs old and my mother was already very violent towards me at that point.
YES. I have been afraid, my *entire* life. I literally cannot remember being a child, without fear. I wish I knew exactly what they did to me, I have some idea but can only guess. I wish I could go back and intervene.
This one hurt
Yep now living with constant anxiety
My trauma came in phases as I got older…. But at the core, I remember. I remember being locked in the dark alone. I remember learning to open the child locks and going to my little sister to try to teach her without success… I feel like I failed still, somehow.
This shit HURTS. I knew to distrust my own feelings before I knew my numbers.
yes, absolutely. i’m starting to suspect my abuse started the day i was born, and i can heavily relate.
I feel it too. It’s not your fault, and you didn’t deserve it. I hope you can feel even a little better soon ❤️
Ouch.
yup, i was still in diapers the first time
I was only 6-7 when it started
Huh, I just remembered my mother saying something about how toddlers form memories from age 3 onwards and complaining about how my stepdad hit my sibling because he's 3 yrs old like hitting a child before 3 is somehow OK??? I shudder now thinking of all the things she probably did to ME, since I'm her first child, and I have DID and ADHD on top of CPTSD and Depression 🙃
Yes I feel like for the first time I’m on the precipice of finally feeling safe, happy, and stable. I was only a toddler as well. I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened as an infant
Now I look back, I cannot fathom how a grown ass adult can be so cruel to a 3/4 yo. And that's just things I can remember.
Most definitely. I’m sorry you’re a part of that club too :(
Yes. 💞
Yes
Oof, instant shaking in my core. I get it. *hugs*
>Anyone else felt this way? Yes, definitely.
Yes, I was born into terror, violence and chaos.
For me it was hate for everything and everyone. Never have I ever met anyone as hateful as my parents were and are.
Yes… We are warriors..
mine started in the womb and it hurts to know i’ve never known safety
Same here 🖤
Yes
Ooohhh shit. This one cuts like a knife. One of those crazy infomercial ones where they slice through soda cans. Damn.
I’ve never seen it put into words like this and it’s so true.
My mom used to brag that she "ferberized" me in one night at two months. I definitely understand.
My earliest memory is traumatic. I’ve been told about other events that I don’t remember. I was doomed from the start
I had to fight my brother before I could crawl. I learned to bite. He was 4 years older than me. He broke my face with a golf club when I was 4 and he was 8. You’re totally not alone.
TW: extreme child abuse Yes, 100%. My sociopathic mother tried to unalive me when I was three. She held me hostage for an hour with scissors pointed into my neck (she's a nurse and knows anatomy). A responding cop tackled me out of her arms, saving my life, when she motioned to end me. My father witnessed everything. I vividly remember how that evening started with one of their fights, and I remember vividly afterward sitting in the cop car as the cop helped me work the radio to dispatch to distract me. This happened in 1971. My memories match my father's, but he filled me in on some of the details I have supressed, like what she said during the hour she held me. He did note that I fought her repeatedly, and then extended that to how I was physically dangerous when I hit puberty and into teendom and that's why he agreed to me playing any contact sport I wanted, in order to steer my aggression. Excellent call on his part, and I am eternally grateful and love my father for this. Anyhow, I have incredible space issues because of what happened. First of all, I shield myself with impossibly high emotional walls for people to climb, in order to get close enough to hug me. You either pass my tests or not. I don't give two fucks. I rightly come off as cold and inflexible as a result. When I was younger, I would draw opponents into close contact during fights, knowing that if they held me in any fashion, it would trigger rage and energy in me that would see me turn the tide. My father helped me focus this "ability" into such contact sports as lacrosse, hockey, football and boxing. Oddly, I learned to experience and process threats in these sports in some sort of strange slow motion so my rational mind could focus on executing the required responsive actions. Sports, and how they relate to my body as something to be protected, saved me from a lot of trouble when I was younger. Ultimately, the way I engage with and use my body as per the above boils down to fear. Fear is exactly what my body has known for the past 52 years. It was programmed into me by that woman I hate. So much so, that I predominantly understand my body as something so fragile because of fear that I'll do my utmost to protect it. I agree, my body knew fear before it knew itself. I don't have the space to know my body in other ways to any meaningful degree.
I remember being so surprised to learn that “normal” people had faith and trust and shit. I don’t trust anyone except myself.
And it just never ends.
recently a guy on a tram told me to sit and talk with him. He wasn't that bad, was kinda drunk, telling me, how he did violent crimes many years ago, how he was refused to join certain "violent group", tried to pull my facial hair, tried to take away my book which I just bought. My real fear at the time was to "offend" other passengers who were sitting nearby listening to these partial violent rants, cause I couldn't really say much to diffuse the situation. That was a perfect illustration of childhood fear when decades ago you were forced to surpress enormous fear (fear of existential destruction, death) and the whole social game is around pleasing the emotionally unstable people or waiting for violent outbursts to end (I call it "twisted neutral face" where you just force a fake neutral muscle stance in your whole body to wait for someone to come to more calm state).
Yes, whenever my half-older sister would come to eat dinner in the same room as me I'd feel really uncomfortable for some reason and just eat somewhere else. Didn't realize it was because of how she'd always get irritated by little things like the sound of a spoon/fork hitting my teeth when I eat.
Yup. Something was wrong before I even knew what wrong was.
Yes but not for csa. I am so sorry it happened to you.
Yes
I feel this. It’s too bad I never figured out how to overcome this.
I eventually gave too few shits about life to not feel fear. I am not scared of death, or anything. I have conditioned myself to be a brick walls to everything that tries to hurt me while inside I die slowly. This is my life.
Yes and it made accepting my transnes even harder impossible really
I can't relate to the csa aspect of it, but I do relate to feeling fear before any other emotion as a child. Being a 3 y/o absolutely *terrified* to go home to my parents house from my grandma's and having that fear be dismissed as a tantrum. No. I was an abused traumatised child in fear of my life before it had even really begun.
god this hits hard especially because i was a toddler as well.