A Place to Let it Out When I Need to...

That day I cried in a rage only to be mocked and laughed at. My parents did that a lot.

Also my mother would purposely dress me in hand me down clothes with holes and stains. She dressed me until I was 12 years old. I'd want to wear my nice new clothes to school but she'd force me to wear stained old faded garments.

She also dressed in pants that were way too tight and shoes that hurt my feet. When I'd tell her of the pain she'd say just put some water on the front of your jeans and they'll stretch. Of course they never did.

I'd find myself hiding and unbuttoning my jeans to relieve the pain. I'd have deep red imprints from the clothing. Then I was told I needed to lose weight.

When I did grow up I felt ugly or fat anytime I was in a bad mood or ate too much (hence the way I feel today). Even as my mom wasted away from stage 4 breast cancer she would remind me to moisturize my "rough" skin (I have acne scars) and lose some weight. It wasn't until she was on her death bed that she admitted that she'd been cruel to me all those years.

So even now many days I just feel ugly and fat. I know why. It wasn't right and it was cruel. Very cruel. I just needed to get that out and off my chest.

@unassumingSummer6022

That sounds such a painful experience Summer. Im so sorry your mother treated you in such a way. Sadly these sort of messages stick with us, especially when theyre repeated often enough, and at a time were becoming aware of our own identity as we grow up. And to come from a parent, who you might generally expect to be supportive and loving towards you, its an even more painful message. I dont know why your mother would do that to you, but she was wrong. She admitted her cruelty, so you heard that from her very mouth. Try to accept that message from her. She was cruel, and you didnt deserve any of those labels. I hope in time you can start giving yourself new messages? That you might turn that inner dialogue into positive messages, and come to believe in yourself, regardless of the way your mother treated you.

@DeborahUK

Sorry for such a late reply( life is staying very hectic as of now), but thank you for your input and support. Many days I do realize that it was all her wrong doing and not me. I think that this feeling of disgust/ugliness happens a lot when I I'm feeling down in general. Then I start to feel ugly, self-loathing begins, etc. I'm feeling a bit better about that aspect of myself at the moment at least. Again, thank you.

@unassumingSummer6022 Thank you for sharing your story. You sound like you're starting to identify what was normal and what wasn't. As a kid, it can be confusing if someone gives us messages that aren't true: You then grow up with that incorrect standard. It's hard. It's really, really hard to undo something done at that young age.

It makes sense that you feel fat and ugly on regular days. It's not true, but I can see why you would believe those things. I hope you can continue to realize what thoughts are healthy and which ones are unrealistic. We are here if you need to talk it out.

@Blinkk

Thanks for your reply and sorry I'm so late to reply back. The older I get the more I realize just how absurd those standards she held for me were. I am realizing more and more with time just how negative and abusive she was. I hate to say this about my own mother, but since she passed I've been improving a lot when it comes to my self esteem and body image due to the fact that I don't have someone to constantly scrutinize and berate my appearance anymore. Of course I do feel bad a lot of days still due to so many years of abuse but I am trying to adopt healthier attitudes about my body and self in general. Thanks again for your reply.

I feel guilty just posting this. But I'm just gonna say it. I think I'm triggered. By what I'm not so sure. I haven't felt right for days. But this is my "cycle" so to speak.

I feel weird. More antsy, anxious, and awkward than normal. I will find myself having a harder time being social. I'll feel more self conscious than normal. Then I start worrying about every little thing I say. I worry I'll be confronted, attacked verbally, bullied. I'm afraid for no good reason. I'll start to over analyze every aspect of my life...how will so and so react. Will so and so hate or abandon me? Abuse me? Try to suffocate and change me?

And then it goes deeper. If they do harm me, are they right? Am I really just too sensitive? Crazy? A failure? Maybe I should just "toughen up"? Maybe the problem was me all along.

Then the physical pain. I feel extremely lethargic, ashamed, self loathing, and loathing for all the bad in the world and why I am this way.

Then it goes even deeper. I feel my past, my parents, my childhood. The bad dark things. They feel so heavy. I feel like a sick individual. Why can't I be strong like my friend who's a soldier? I bet he's been through a lot. I don't see him crying. Or why can't I be smarter like the professors I know. They've used their mind to go far. But here I am. Damaged. Broken. Stuck.

@unassumingSummer6022

(Continued....triggers of abuse ahead.)

​Then it gets deeper and darker. I want to hide. I hate the bright sunlight shining in through my windows. Every dog bark, car door slam, or bump outside makes me want to hide that much more. I feel completely on edge. Jumpy is an understatement. I have physical pain, muscle aches, and lethargy.

I usually hole up in my bedroom. I often curl up in the floor with a blanket because it makes me feel safer somehow. I begin to feel like a scared little girl, no longer an adult woman.

​I remember being small. I feel my dark abusive past. I begin to feel terrified, feeling like I will gag and vomit. I can hear screaming sobs of a child in my mind. I can remember what it feels like to suffocate and to be hit in the back of my skull.

A part of my mind feels the need to go there just to get it over with. I feel as if I can almost remember all the things I don't, but I never do. I know enough. I found out enough. It's pointless to push myself. I already know.

​Eventually the feeling passes leaving me feeling ashamed and in a strange type of what I can only describe as a hangover.

​Then after a while I feel better as if someone has hit a reset switch in my mind.

​Im somewhere in the middle of all this right now. I know I'll be better again. I just wanted to articulate what was going on in case someone can relate.

@unassumingSummer6022 Hi. I can't tell you that I understand everything you're going through, my family background is completely different. But I do understand your feelings and I'm feeling like that often. Questions like "why am I not as strong as others? They seem to be going through their life without unnecessary overthinking, why do I always have to analyze things and just bring myself to frustration, sadness, anger, bitterness, hatred...?" We all have issues, problems, pains... And we all cope with them in a different manner. Just because someone looks like they are not suffering, I think they're just better at hiding it. You know, it's better to let your emotions out. Your emotions and feelings are important, although incredibly confusing. It's okay to feel those things. You are not weird, you're not a sick individual. I get how we sometimes can feel like monsters underneath our skin, and we feel this intense discomfort in our own skin, leaving us with a feeling of disgust. But those are all just illusions. Our views of ourselves are very distorted most of the time. They're influenced by opinions of others and even worse, our own thoughts. But when you think about it, we're all so brainwashed by this society. How can we have clear thoughts? Thoughts are very destructive and decieving constructs of our minds, nothing else. They can lie. And your feelings, although they are signaling something you need to deal with, therefore they are somehow true in my opinion, they don't define you. They are not you. They are not what you're made of. You are a magnificent work of art let me tell you that. What's truly sad is when we don't understand how devine and perfect we are. Everything is the way it's supposed to be. You are as well. You're wonderful and really fucking strong. You've gone through so much. It's okay to be hurt about it. It's okay to feel miserable, it's ABSOLUTELY ALRIGHT to doubt yourself. You don't have anything to be ashamed of, or feel like a failiure about. You're a true warrior not only in my eyes, but also in the universe's. What happened to you is not your life now. I know you sometimes feel stuck because of it, like it's always gonna be there with you, and I'm not saying you will forget about it. You can't. But you will learn how to look back and see why you had to walk through hell and how amazing you are for getting through it. Your mother was not a bad person. She did what she knew to do, never bothered to open her eyes and mind. Maybe she came from a horrible family background as well? She didn't know that there's a better way to express love. Maybe she saw her own features in you and she felt like they are hideous flaws, so she felt the need to change them? But what she saw isn't what you have to see. What she thought isn't what you have to think, you are better than that. She was brainwashed by society as well. Her way of thinking was wrong, you were always right. I send all my love to you and I know you see yourself as just a wave, but every wave is a wild, infinite, beautiful ocean.

@laurasupernova

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm struggling more now than I have in a very long time and I am glad to have read your reply. I've read it over a few times to remind myself that it's gonna be okay. Thank you. I needed this so much. I'm still hurting but it helps.

Okay...One of my managers was kind enough to give me an extra day off from work today. I'll try to utilize it to the best of my abilities. I've been in a terrible mental space obviously. Also physical issues combined. Feeling attacked at every angle with coping skills being drained to the limit. Hence why I've made this diary in the first place.

This month has been shitty as hell. Death in the family, friend had a death in hers so I was trying to be there for her and my husband (it was on his side of the family). Been getting involved with a church I enjoy attending, so prior to my nervous breakdown or whatever I had made some comittments. Not to mention house hunting has been a failure thus far. Two sellers completely bailed on us, not even having the basic human respect to tell their agents to contact our own and just say "hey, not interested in dealing with you". And there goes a whole month down the drain. Waiting on people who didn't follow up or even care to. Faith in humanity minus one hundred more points lol.

But seriously, thanks to those of you who read and reply. You guys are very kind.I'm sorry I can't be there to really help anyone here.

It's just that I feel like I'm not capable of that now. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread.

Logically I know it will get better. I know it will pass. I'm just riding it out and helping myself as much as I can, including journaling here.

Just a few thoughts...

Whew...just taking some time to myself. Allowing myself to be lethargic and NOT productive for a change. It's a good thing really...I realized I was beginning to get overwhelmed and I reacted accordingly. I'm taking some time to simply chill...

It's a subconscious message that I learned in childhood. Be useful or get lost. Well screw all that. It's okay that I'm being stationary for a day. It's okay that I'm not punishing myself with endless demands.

I'm relaxing and that's okay. My personal conversion to anglican(episcopalian) has helped me alot. They are just so accepting and offer the UNCONDITIONAL love that I so sorely lacked in my childhood. I'm grateful. They offer my need for spirituality/God and my need for community/family. Have never judged or condemned me. Not saying I believe you HAVE to believe a certain way...just works for me...LOVE works for me...for ALL...

Trauma sucks but on the bright side I feel I can connect and show compassion for others. I know how it feels to feel worthless..but NONE of us are worthless...we are VALUABLE!!!

I was in a really dark place not so long ago. I'm feeling a bit better now. I'm trying to listen to my gut and honor myself as best I can. Honor that little girl inside me who was robbed of her innocence. She needs it.

@unassumingSummer6022

And about that girl..She was terrified beyond all means...

Me. That girl was me. (Possible trigger warning)

She woke up one Saturday morning when her favorite cartoons were on. She was on the loveseat. She never slept on the loveseat unless there was company. Usually, anyway. Don't remember who was there besides dad and mom.

She woke up..her abdomen so painful she hunched over when she walked to the dining table for breakfast. Mom was serving pancakes and breakfast sausages...but she could barely eat. It felt as if her insides had been ripped out...

..blankness...

She found blood spots in her underwear. Mom gave her a very serious and somber talk about her ability to become pregnant now at only 10 years old. Mom let her stay home from school the next day and buy gifts at the mall...Mom NEVER did that. Mom seemed guilty.

The sixth grade physical came up. She wasn't allowed to go with her classmates. Mom kept her out of class that day. Took her privately. Asked the nurse to give her a pregnancy test. It was negative. Whew.

Mom kept telling her to watch out around her uncles. Not to let them touch her in certain ways. She seemed upset.

She woke up one morning with purple bruises on her top. Mom was worried. Mom said it was her bra...The underwire. But she knew that never happened no matter how many times she wore it. The little girl was scared but puzzled.

That girl was me.

@unassumingSummer6022

I'm rambling...I need to...(Possible trigger warning--graphic! !!) Sorry this is to simply get emotions out.

Her uncle saw fit to watch porn in front of her..A very small girl...Mom blessed him out ... Then all goes blank.

He left books open...sexual books...full female genitalia exposed for the little girl to see. She became aroused...too young to realize why...maybe 6 or 7? Not sure...

Little girl hid under beds...playing secret inappropriate games with her dolls...She didn't even know why...Lost, lonely girl...

Even her father became suspect in her mother's eyes. The little girl never knew to this day if he'd committed the unforgivable. Mother was unstable after all. And father didn't seem the type...but he got so drunk and so often...

No one could be trusted. And paper towers crumbled again and again. Warm promises always dissolved like mirages in the desert, and mysteries became only more mysterious.

The aunt was obvious. The little girl remembered enough. Even the old, jolly, seemingly innocent uncle. But the forbidden...

One time she saw father so drunk he defecated himself. Fell in the floor and did so. She was only 6. Mother cried.

Mother Was Admitted In The Psyche Ward When She Was About 7.

Noone was trustworthy. Nobody.

Thanks for all who read. Needed to release this. Take care and best wishes. Now time to take care of me some more.

@unassumingSummer6022

Geeze, I'm on a roll tonight..I suppose it's necessary though.

I hope to someday be as sweet and helpful as many of the wonderful souls of this site are. Thank you. Just...Thank you...for giving me a space to breathe and vent and share ALL of me, warts and all.

There is beauty in my journey...as everyone's. I will never fully recover from the loss. But I will cope and heal. I will be purposeful in the remainder of my life.

Thanks to my horrific experiences I will choose not to be petty, jealous, or egotistical to the best of my abilities. But I will be wise enough to realize I can be all of these things if I let myself.

To know that my enemies are the model of what I aspire not to be, and my heros are those who I do. That the "infinite now" is the most important, as it is reality, and we must be who we are destined to be, love as much as possible, and love ourselves as much as possible.

That we are all interconnected through love and equality, through this messy, confusing experience of heartbreak and love. This is enough. This is now. Remember that you are enough. Peace be upon us all...

Whew. that felt good to let out...

@unassumingSummer6022

The experiences you describe are simply horrific, and Im so sorry this has been your experience. Im so glad youve found writing it down here to be cathartic, and I just wanted you to know I heard you. Im lost for words re what to say, but I heard you.

I hope youre safe now. Whilst experiences you describe arent just forgotten, I do hope youre managing to find some peace of mind, some security, and some closure as you move forward in your life. The trauma community are here to offer support, with many of our members having lived through abuse of one type or another. You survived it Summer, now time to thrive.

@DeborahUK

Thank you for being there and for listening. It means a lot. I'm having a lot of ups and downs lately due to a lot of life changes. It's a real struggle but I'm glad to have this place to let things out.

@unassumingSummer6022 - I have been reading along and wanted you to know, just so you know someone has been reading and cares about your story and is watching it unfold into something beautiful and victorious. Even if that someone's just me.

"There is beauty in my journey...as everyone's. I will never fully recover from the loss. But I will cope and heal. I will be purposeful in the remainder of my life. […] The "infinite now" is the most important, as it is reality, and we must be who we are destined to be, love as much as possible, and love ourselves as much as possible. - @unassumingSummer6022

@wontsleepwontwake

Thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate it. It really helps when things feel terrifying and overwhelming.

@wizeakre

Thanks so much for your time and compassion. I appreciate it and I'm glad I do have such a great place to vent because life has been a bit rough as of late. Letting things out does help, however.

Well my life is certainly hectic and on the outside things are looking up. On the inside I'm a wreck. I think it's because the past few years I've really been faced with the core issues that are causing all my pain.

I'm way more easily triggered by even the smallest thing, and then I feel totally silly for being so sensitive. I know it's the past abuse speaking and not me, but man it can be brutal.

Also, as many here may have experienced, I wasn't really allowed to be more than an obedient shell of a person for much of my life, so I'm very stunted, finding out a lot about who I am very late in life. And finding myself absolutely TERRIFIES me! Because once I know who I am, I'm afraid I'll be bullied or abused because of it.

And I'll admit it. I'm avoidant as hell when it comes to getting close to people. I am terrified that the more they know, the more they'll find out about who I really am and they'll hate me for it.

I feel lost a lot. Like I don't fit in anywhere. I see so much anger in others in the world and I'm terrified of confrontation at this point.

Even in adulthood, I've been attacked at times(even physically) for standing up for myself, making a mistake, or having an opinion. It sucks. It's scary.

I get so depressed over who I am at times because of this. It hurts. I feel like I'm too much of a cowardly to express my opinion on anything with much confidence. I feel so low about my own thoughts and I end up in confusion through self doubt.

@unassumingSummer6022

And I'm trying to be so correct and knowledgeable all the time. Trying to see every angle of everyone else's perspective but my own. I'm trying to be perfect or something I guess. I think it's because growing up I was knit picked apart about everything by my mother to the point that I literally developed a habit of over explaining everything. And overthinking. And did I mention obsessing? Ugh...

It's hell, really. I do remember a time when I was younger that I didn't try to look to everyone else for validation to such an extent. But, eventually I got beat down to this point. I don't even know if I feel real emotions sometimes. Like I'm either obsessively afraid, depressed, or angry. I do have happinessat times, but it feels so watered down and not nearly as colorful or vibrant a feeling as I remember.

It's like some days I see the light shining through the dark tunnel, but other days I'm simply stuck in the dark, if that makes sense.

I am trying though. I do want to be myself AND get close to people. To still have empathy for others but not be a freaking PEOPLE PLEASER.

I just want to enjoy this journey and start to have more good days then bad again.

Okay..end of venting session...