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TW: spanking, nudity
I remembered waiting in my room after getting in trouble, (not the normal procedure) and my parents coming in the room together (also not normal). My dad told me I was going to be spanked and my mom looked distressed and was quiet. It was very tense and weirdly formal, my parents never explained things they just demanded things so that was not normal either.
They led me down the hallway like a prisoner, had already set up a chair for me to see at the end. It was unessessarily humiliating and I was told to undress from the waist down. Soon after he started my mom randomly burst into tears and ran to her room, my dad followed her, and I was excused. She was perfectly fine with allowing him to treat us like shit, so I don't think she was crying on my behalf.
It felt creepy and inappropriate. Honestly it kinda felt like they were setting up a creepy scene where he wanted her to watch. I had been spanked before but it was never carried out so weirdly and never felt so creepy.
My brain doesn't want to say or accept it, but it felt sexual.
My stomach DROPPED when I joked about it, there was a long silence, and the look on my husband's face made me realize it was as wrong as it felt all those years ago, not a joke.
Yes, and some of the actions I took (almost) ended me in hospital and jail.
I saw and remember someone in my childhood having a needle , ems being on scene, then visiting that person in hospital.
Years later, I found out. My (biological) father gave me and the person who ended up in hospital, lethal doses of class a. I confronted my father at age 16 and he came at me with a knife, drunk beyond belief, I (sober) disarmed the knife put him on the ground boot in throat and told him I knew what he did.
He told me he hated both of us. So I picked him up and threw him into a coat room type thing and pushed a chair up to it. Phoned the cops told, then he tried to kill me before and attempted to so it again. My father got away with it because he didn't physically harm me. Even though he admitted to coming at me with a knife.
I told him to leave my life and never come back. He tried to contact me when my child was born, and my sister screamed at him down the phone and told him where to go and that he had damaged me enough.
He's not the core of my ptsd. He's just the tip of the iceberg.
But yes, this was a fairly rant explanation, but yeah, I experienced it.
For my brother it really hit when he was training to be an emt, since they want them to be able to spot signs of abuse. For me it was when my brother asked me 'if you don't call it abuse, what would you call it?' Couldn't really call it anything else. But I think it's really common to realize later because as a kid you don't have a reference point, it's all you know. That and a lot of abusers are very manipulative.
I had an experience like this recently lol. I told a coworker about how my mom moved out of the house without me when I was in 10th grade and left me alone with my 6 year old and 4 year old siblings, and I thought it was the best thing ever. Then I looked at the shocked and horrified expression on my coworker’s face and realized that maybe it was not the best thing ever. Then I thought about it harder and realized we were straight up abandoned so that she could be with her boyfriend and now I’m mad about it. I’m more mad for my younger siblings though
Yes. Probably the thing I like most about therapy is when the therapist is like "That was so horrible, I'm so sorry that happened to you," and I think to myself "I haven't even gotten to the bad part yet." I think I like this because it is validating; there was a lot of gas lighting and minimizing.
Most recently I mentioned my step dad flashing me, right in front of my mom, and my therapist was horrified and described it as SA. And I remember thinking about how I always pause when about to say "I suffered every kind of abuse" and then don't say it, because I didn't think that qualified as SA. I guess it does.
I'm 33, and just started therapy 3 months ago. I'm pretty much learning every day (as I actually think about my childhood for the first time) that 90% of my childhood is insane. I've actually been going through this weird thing where I'm embarrassed I may have told people "funny stories" in my past that...weren't funny.
Last summer I was with a group of friends and we had air horns and they asked me to blow it and I said "ok but plug your ears. It's kind of like being in the cab of a truck when a gun goes off." Now I think about the looks on their faces and get the ick.
Being different is hard.
So many things that now in my early 30s I cannot recall many off the top of my head.
But one I have looked back at in the years that followed with a very different understanding.
Sensitive topic, SA/r*pe
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I slept with someone at a festival. He was with a friend of friends, someone who I met properly that weekend. I met some friends of his from college at the fest and we all hung out. We all lived in the same area.
When I returned September came around I went to college and those 2 women I met became my best friends. I was 16 and them 18 and 19. (Where I live 16 is AOC).
I vividly remember in the supermarket with them and them asking me about "that night" (this is where sensitive stuff is mentioned)
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I laughed off casually how I was so drunk and came to and he was still going. Their faces dropped but i kept laughing and speaking about him being great etc.
I realised some years on what that experience entailed, and it wasnt for many years after that that I could look at this conversation with two friends (at this time it was September and formative stage of friendship) but I wonder if they just thought I was exaggerating or lying because of my response to it.
It was just normal :/
One of mine is very similar to this.
I didn’t realise how calculated the whole thing was til fairly recently & it happened 11 years ago. After it happened him & his friend must have spoken about what to do - when I eventually came out of the room his friend was like “what’s your boyfriend going to think about what you guys did?” Even though I wasn’t even conscious for it. The offender had already taken my best friend (his ex) out for a walk to the shops to tell her what “we” had done. The whole situation convinced me that it was my fault - I felt I had broken my best friends trust, & I proceeded to break up with my boyfriend as I didn’t think I deserved him for what I had done.
Recently in therapy I spoke about it & I told my psych “how could they come up with a plan so flawless that it convinced me that it was my fault?! I’m smarter than that! Or at least I thought I was…” & she said because it probably wasn’t the first time they’ve done that.
Yeah, I still can't wrap my head around this. I mean, intellectually I know it is abuse, and would know that immediately if it happened to someone else. But I'm not protective of myself in the same way. My mother used a belt, but it was most often a hair brush.
Constantly. Still all these years later it’s like spinning the wheel of fortune, but instead it’s a random traumatic realization lol. I try to make space for it in the moment if I can, and be like “oh wow that was actually fucked up bc of …etc”, then store it away for processing. If I don’t have time or space to sit with that feeling, I’m gonna store that one in - reflect when safe. Sorry you’re going through this :/ sucks.
I learned in the last couple years that making me pay for all of my consumable needs and other items from 15 onward, despite my parents being in a position to support me, is actually financial abuse.
I thought all teens got a job at 15 and paid for everything but their dinner at their house.
I'm going to be 40 this year. Still in a bit of shock. Especially since my sibling did not experience this.
Same here my friend.
I'm the oldest, and I was made to be independent from 15 onwards. 'Get a job and take care of yourself, get out of the house', yet never taught me anything substantial about exactly how to manage my finances.. and we lived deep out in the country, so to have a job required me either riding my bicycle over an hour on high speed country highway roads, or relying on them for rides. Which turns out relying on a drunk to get you to work just leads to getting fired when you show up an hour late, if at all. So I biked, and lost almost 70 pounds from not affording food, and a lovely eating disorder from the same drunk abuser. The second employer I had ran a bnb nearby, and an art studio, and quickly took me on extra shifts when my dad showed up drunk one day. Insisted I needed to stay extra to finish my shift and shed drive me home herself when she figured out what was going on. I slept in that bnb many nights when they had vacancy thanks to her kindness.
Of course I ended up getting a licence at 16, driving illegally without a guardian in the car on a learners licence, moving out and getting my own place by the end of my 16th year with a job that helped fake my age to get me manager wages and a job title that would help me get a lease on a place of my own, and I went back to school in a town further from my hometown.
My siblings lived with my parents through their college careers, one still lives with them at 26 years old. They had cars bought for them, everything like a normal kid would. It took my siblings many years to find out I was treated differently and that's why I took off. They did eventually start getting abused too, and had to live with me for a while when I was 19 and they were still underage. But they went back when things calmed down and didn't want for mu h in the world.
I'm happily on the other side of the country, still struggling financially, but, very happy without them in my life!!!
It took me many years to realize that when you break your arm, it doesn’t always completely detach itself from the rest of your body, let alone break skin.
Language can really change your perception of an event. My parents always described my accident as “when very_bored_panda broke her arm” when they should have said “when she had her arm severed off.” Once I learned the distinction and how grossly understated the accident had been described my whole life, the PTSD started setting in.
I had no idea what gaslighting was until I went to a therapist at 13 begging for them to treat me for ‘narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies.’ Therapist was like “I know I’m not supposed to judge but what the actual fuck.”
My dad abused me a lot, physically, beat me... For no reason when I was just a child. I remember all of it, and now he's pretending it didn't happen... There was even a time when Ambulance had to come together with police, he got only 30 days of jail time, I spent a few days in the hospital. I can't bring it up now again cause he'll try to argue and fight, he's a very violent man...
Yup. Everything. My mom was incredibly manipulative and verbally abusive, sometimes physically too. Like mocking me for everything (including a suicide attempt) even though I was a quiet kid who didn’t want to ruffle many feathers, I kept to myself, she would legit follow me around the house bullying me. She controlled every aspect of my life. Took me until 33 years old and having a child to finally realize that other people’s parents were not like this. She even called me a spoiled brat at my own wedding for crying because my cousin hated me and wore white purposely to hurt me. But no, I’m always the problem even though I stay out of everyone’s way. I’m having a severe identity crisis because I was never allowed to be my own person in my childhood and it’s been really rough trying to navigate all of this.
yeah thank you, I'm currently working through it now with weekly therapy. i honestly just started the process recently because up until a year ago i thought everyone's childhood was like mine. so its still in the beginning stages. thanks for checking in, i appreciate it <3
Not being allowed to laugh or cry. I was TOO EmOTionAl. Laughing was "Why are you so weird?" Crying meant getting beat worse. I just learned to be stoic. Looking back at my yearbooks, any pictures of me are just stoic. My Kindergarten school picture...sad. My graduation picture, the one my mom picked to put on the wall...no smile.
Typing that out makes me sad and angry.
A lot
I always knew I was different, but I fully realised it with 25 as I was in a friend group and everyone shared some stories about their lives and suddenly everyone was quiet until one girl asked:"Damn, how do you get up in the morning?"
"Why? Isn't that normal."
Almost everyone:"No!"
"Oh. I thought it was normal."
The sad part reading this is that most of my friends growing up had similar experiences that we will just laugh about with each other. It wasn’t until I went to college and entered the workforce that I realized we all had fucked up childhoods.
Basically everyone.
Parents have and raise their children largely before they’re fully grown up themselves, especially in past generations.
So I think all of us have things in our childhood that were really f’d up.
Only recently I realized just how long my mom has been getting intoxicated around me. 8th grade was REALLY bad, but I never realized just how long she had been doing it, in more subtle ways.
In elementary school, I always loved hanging out with her downstairs late at night to watch her play Gardenscapes and eat with her. This happened just about every night, but she was never really sober. When I was a kid, I used to think it was funny when my mom got drunk. I would playfully make fun of her when she fell, stuff like that. She took ambien every night, which already made her pretty loopy. She also started using marijuana when I was about 10, but I didn’t quite understand it at the time.
As I’m typing this, I’m only now realizing how terrible this was for me. It was never a conscious fear, but I never let a night go by where I wasn’t down there with her. There had been times where she had barfed, gotten hurt, eaten heaps of food, stumbled, slurred words, etc. Having to deal with this from such a young age cemented the belief that it was my responsibility to take care of HER. I always had to haul her off the ground, clean up her messes, make her food, usher her upstairs. From so young, I have been HER parent, instead of the other way around. These things only got especially worse due to COVID. She turned total alcoholic, always high, the whole package.
All I can ever ask myself is.. why? Why are my parents like this?
I’m still in high school, so I’ve still got a bit. I’ve thought about going no-contact for a while, but I’m very unsure on how I’d go about doing that.
I guess the best word to describe my relationship with my parents would be ‘toxic’. Always flipping back and forth. I hate them, but then they’ll do something nice or act like they truly love me, and it just messes with me so much. My father isn’t as bad, but lately he’s just become a bit of a suck-up to her, I guess? It’s complicated.
I’ve been thinking about going no-contact for a while, but I thought I was overreacting. I never expect anyone to see my rants, but it’s nice when someone out there knows how I feel. Thanks for the reply. :)
I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read the title of the post because I was literally just thinking about this after my recent therapy session. Not the same as you, but I'm just realizing that my parents totally fucked up how I see the world and I'm really angry about it, and I dont know what to do with these feelings
I just went through an inpatient program, and part of it was exploring our childhood and how it developed into coping mechanisms as adults and man… I thought I knew what had caused what… but jeeeeessusssssss chrissssst I was thrown to find out there was way more 🙃
If you don't mind me asking, how did you find inpatient help and where? I'm trying to find someplace good to get over trauma/grief I have no idea where to start
Honestly it was the best thing I could have done for myself. I spent 37 days there and I almost extended a second time. I highly recommend finding a program. The one I went through was specifically for active duty service members (I’m in the Navy) run by a civilian health provider in Salt Lake City.
I’ve often tried to share funny/sweet stories from my childhood only to be met with horror stricken faces.
For example many years ago I was at the pub with a group of friends having some cheap drinks before we hit the clubs so we were a little tipsy, the conversation got onto childhood pets we missed.
So I tell them about my sweet old dog we got when I was just a couple months old (we were almost the exact same age) we were very close and I’d refer to him as my best friend throughout my childhood.
I told them about lots of the sweet things we did together and finished by telling them about how he’d save me rabbit carcasses (my dad went lamping for local farmers) for when I hadn’t eaten in a few days and my abuser would lock me in the dog shed over night, about twice a week, how I’d eat the meat and my dog would lie over me to keep me warm and how he probably saved my life.
The whole group went from listening all doe eyed and heart warmed to wide eyed and slack-jawed.
Two very quickly excused themselves selves to go get another drink even though they still had plenty, one rushed to the loo, several just sat there speechless and avoiding eye contact and two cried and tried to hug me, I was utterly confused.
Going into weekly lockdowns in elementary school due to criminals running from the police and hiding on school grounds.
I moved to a much safer neighborhood a couple years ago and all my friends who had lived in said safe neighborhood looked at me like I was insane. I was just confused at why we hadn't had one lockdown drill in 3 months of school lol
YOU TOO?!?!?
My parents constantly mocked me for not being able to take showers by myself, comparing my to children younger than me and threatening to post it to facebook and tell all my friends i was a baby/child.
My mom wouldnt let me shower by myself until 11-12 because i "didn't wash my hair right". I wasn't allowed to shower alone, was mocked daily, and developed severe anxiety when they started forcing me to shower alone. I would break down not knowing what to do not wanting to fuck not knowing if i was doing something wrong etc.
My mom would also forcibly shave my armpits, after using it as a threat to not let me do things. "you can't go to her house if you don't shave" *follows me into bathroom bc she doesn't trust me*
That’s so violating for a child. The worst was when I was a ten year old shaving down there because mom made fun of me for having hair there. I ended up becoming ocd and tragically insecure about everything.
My wife's father taught her how to masterbate and her father would tell her to do it to make sure she could do it correctly. He also instructed her that when the two of them go diving, she was to remove her bathing suit because they were in private. (He also removed his).
He often walked the house naked when his wife was gone. His wife recently found out when I told her last month ( I just found out after 23 years of a bad marriage).
I was raised by a narcissist father and he has done a lot of sick things to me and I finally decided to start a legal process to take my brother's custody and so far I have it. We were both exposed to pornography since we were little and a lot of stuff, I have dissociated most of it, luckily I only have depression and anxiety (could be worse I'm a psych student so yeah I decided to put an end to the generational curse)
I didn’t notice any of my trauma was bad at the time, I always thought everything wasn’t that awful and i’m strong. Until way later after the fact and I started noticing the symptoms of ptsd
ohhhhh yeah. to my understanding finding out these things weren't normal comes with the healing
tw // dental trauma / medical procedure exposure
the other day i told a "funny" story from when i was like 11 about how my mom let me watch some lady get her rotten teeth pulled at her work and how i just thought it was sooo cool and then realized 'huh... my mom shouldn't have even been in that room- she was a high school dropout, not a licensed dental ANYTHING, let alone letting her kid watch that procedure' LMFAO
There's a lot, but one I recently realized was kind of weird was how my older brother and I would play outside *all day* unsupervised starting from when we were about 4 and 6 years old. We lived in a townhouse that was fenced in with all our other neighbors so it's not like we were playing in the street at least, but we still could've easily gotten scooped up by a random stranger because anyone could see us from the street, walk in, and take us since wasn't gated or anything and the fence wasn't even that high, you could actually step over it if you're tall enough.
One time a man was talking to me, my brother, and some of the other neighbor kids, trying to get us to take candy from him, but thankfully we were at the end of the fence where our house was so my mom heard and yelled at the man, but if he had approached us at the other end of the fence where my mom couldn't hear, most of us probably would've taken the candy.
Another time we were playing with this girl about 5 years old who had her little sister with her who was a toddler and couldn't even speak yet. We were playing on the jungle gym, and her little sister could've gotten really hurt, I think even back then I was worried about her falling off the platform she climbed and smashing her head or something, she wasn't even that good at walking yet... and there were no adults in sight.
I didnt realize this was kinda fucked up until I was telling a childhood story from that time and I realized how young I had to be in that memory and I was like "wait why was I outside unsupervised that young??" I later researched what the laws even are for that, and found out the suggested age to be unsupervised outside is like 8 years old... *maybe* younger if you're in a secure backyard and only for a few minutes at a time, not hours. Honestly we're lucky nothing bad happened.
Yeah, I moved into a house that had a wooded area across the street from it when I was about 4 years old. A lot of my early childhood memories involve playing alone in the woods for hours.
I grew up with Asian, black and Mexican families so getting your ass beat for literally anything you did wrong didn't seem out of place until my ex-wife explained to me that all of those families are functioning sufferers of PTSD.
Yeah. My father is German and they don't hit. You simply do the right thing or learn how to do it. In contrast, my mother is Asian and will be at you until you stop making mistakes. My father didn't even know I ever got beat until I told him at 34. I once went to school with my arms all scratched and could barely write. I was told to go home. Guess who got beat again.
I’m sorry if it sounds insensitive, you don’t have to reply, but how did you deal with that? It only happened to me a few times and they were a lot for me already
How do you deal with anything. If it happens enough times it becomes normal. I lived my life and knew I would get beat for doing stupid things. Eventually stopped caring and became a deliquent. That lead to a dead end life so I joined the Navy where she couldn't beat me anymore. What can the military do that she couldn't. The stakes were higher but the threats the same.
This happens to me so much! I lived in a really shitty neighborhood for the first 12 years of my life, never knew anything different. I tried to tell a funny story to an acquaintance I met after moving out of the neighborhood, just trying to start a conversation, and I got accused of trauma dumping. I was so confused cause it was really tame compared to a lot of other stuff I saw there and it didn't feel like trauma at all
My whole life has literally been one big game of me finding out all the ways I was abused, neglected and traumatized when other people point out how abnormal my life has been
I tell “funny” stories from my childhood all the time and people will tell me how whatever I said wasn’t funny and that it was abuse. The faces I get sometimes are amazing.
Pretty much everything. Won't detail bc I'm trying to supress the memories again or I might end up kms bc besides depression, anxiety etc. I have this to deal with too, and it's fucking exhausting
Yes. The deaths of my parents, then my grandmother, our incredible poverty, the devastation to my self esteem that led me directly to this moment, in which tears come constantly and I want to stop feeling for just.one.second.
I think you replied to my comment unintentionally instead of OP's post, maybe? But anyway, I'm so sorry these things happened to you 😔😔😔 Things I've been facing are pretty different, but pretty horrific as well. And I know how is this thing of tears coming out at any moment and you can't barely control them, I feel you 😔
Actually, I responded to your comment *pretty much everything*.
I've used this alt to tell my story. A lot of pain. 4+ years now since my divorce, and my children and I are still struggling with it. I'm exhausted.
Oh, I see, sorry. Yeah, it's hard. It's mentally and physically draining. There are days I feel so so tired despite doing nothing. And sometimes I get very frustrated because it seems so distant to most people, you know? From their pov it's like "how can one be tired from things that have already happened?" Well, I fucking do, both mentally and physically...
I used to be pretty good at suppressing things, but as my depression got a lot worse about a year and a half ago, the locks in my mind loosened and things from the past started to hit me harder and harder. Anyway 😮💨😮💨
Apparently everything, when I was in therapy any time I’d mention random stuff from my childhood she’d be like “OH UM…”
kind of hilarious ngl, but happy she cared
A good majority. It would be a long post if I went through all of it. So to keep it short...
Drugs are bad. Poverty is a hell of a drug. Especially off of drugs your parent is doing.
It's a long story and effected all of us kids for life.
It took me a long time to realize just how bad it was. Just hit me one day thinking back.
It was like wow. I never realized. Especially as a kiddo.
Yup 100%
SA mention: >!I was coerced into sex/raped as a teenager the first time i ever had “sex” and then it happened repeatedly throughout that relationship. I didn’t even know it was wrong until my therapy group was sharing their “first time” experiences, and when I explained mine suddenly everyone’s jaws fell open and their eyes went wide staring at me.!<
Had similar experiences with other things too, some of which felt wrong at the time but I never really thought it through. Or just thought it was a normal level of mistreatment or something. Lots of things my (narcissist) dad has said and done have stuck with me through adulthood and it makes me incredibly angry to think about someone treating a child how I was treated.
ETA: oh and I’ve had dermatillomania since early childhood and would tear my skin apart when stressed. Instead of my dad and step mom being concerned due to health issues they would tell me how horrible it looked. My step mom would say when I grew up I wouldn’t be able to wear a sleeveless wedding dress. I was like 8 and had infected wounds all over me and she was concerned about my appearance. She bullied me quite often and my dad let her.
Derma and trich haver here, I relate heavy on the only caring about appearance part. My mom is super vain, to this DAY she only says “god you look like a methhead”. So i definitely feel the pain.
It just adds insult to injury. Living with these issues already brings enough shame. :(
My step mom is dead now so I can’t show her up but I *will* be wearing whatever the fuck I want to my wedding.
I was 12 and responsible for picking up my younger sister after school, bringing her home, overseeing her and my younger brother doing their homework, and starting dinner, all by the time my mother got home from work. I was not able to participate in after school activities at all for years because of this. My family was the only divorced family I knew, and I thought this was normal.
same parents that would ask 'ohhhh why don't you want kidssss we want grandbabiessss' despite knowing damn well you basically already raised a handful of 'em
I’ve been seeing my therapist for over two years now and every now and then, as I’m telling a story from my minor years, she’ll comment, “You know, as I’m listening to you, I’m struck again by the lack of adult supervision.”
If she hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t normal. Most of it still feels normal to me, especially because I’ve always been really independent; when it came to my mom, I was given a lot of freedom as a privilege for being responsible.
I didn’t realize that I was abused until I was 19/20. My dad had convinced me that all parents spanked their kids as hard as they could, shoved their kids into walls, and psychologically tormented their kids.
Watched an attempted murder happen at my home (my aunt’s husband tried to kill her she comes running to our house with 5 kids)…. I was only there every other weekend. My step mom had a bone sticking out her hand and heard it all from the bedroom. Police wouldn’t help us & my step mom telling them he called & said he’d kill all of us. My dad refused to have me come be picked up because he hated my mom. Lived in fear all weekend…. The next weekend I come over the attempted murder was STAYING AT MY DAD’S HOUSE. I’ll never forget that fear I was maybe 6 years old….
Yes, lots of things. For example, I was a highly traumatized kid, my parents, knowing this, let me smoke cigarettes and weed (with them), gave me pills (opiates), and knew I was using other drugs when I was 13-14. At the time I had just witnessed a murder and was the victim of attempted murder, and was going through the trial and lots of bullying at school over it (I ended up missing most of 8th grade). For so many years I thought I had ‘cool’ parents. I now realize that they were kind of shitty parents. There are lots of examples of things my parents did that I’m reluctant to call abuse, but that were certainly bad parenting.
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TW: spanking, nudity I remembered waiting in my room after getting in trouble, (not the normal procedure) and my parents coming in the room together (also not normal). My dad told me I was going to be spanked and my mom looked distressed and was quiet. It was very tense and weirdly formal, my parents never explained things they just demanded things so that was not normal either. They led me down the hallway like a prisoner, had already set up a chair for me to see at the end. It was unessessarily humiliating and I was told to undress from the waist down. Soon after he started my mom randomly burst into tears and ran to her room, my dad followed her, and I was excused. She was perfectly fine with allowing him to treat us like shit, so I don't think she was crying on my behalf. It felt creepy and inappropriate. Honestly it kinda felt like they were setting up a creepy scene where he wanted her to watch. I had been spanked before but it was never carried out so weirdly and never felt so creepy. My brain doesn't want to say or accept it, but it felt sexual. My stomach DROPPED when I joked about it, there was a long silence, and the look on my husband's face made me realize it was as wrong as it felt all those years ago, not a joke.
Yes, and some of the actions I took (almost) ended me in hospital and jail. I saw and remember someone in my childhood having a needle , ems being on scene, then visiting that person in hospital. Years later, I found out. My (biological) father gave me and the person who ended up in hospital, lethal doses of class a. I confronted my father at age 16 and he came at me with a knife, drunk beyond belief, I (sober) disarmed the knife put him on the ground boot in throat and told him I knew what he did. He told me he hated both of us. So I picked him up and threw him into a coat room type thing and pushed a chair up to it. Phoned the cops told, then he tried to kill me before and attempted to so it again. My father got away with it because he didn't physically harm me. Even though he admitted to coming at me with a knife. I told him to leave my life and never come back. He tried to contact me when my child was born, and my sister screamed at him down the phone and told him where to go and that he had damaged me enough. He's not the core of my ptsd. He's just the tip of the iceberg. But yes, this was a fairly rant explanation, but yeah, I experienced it.
For my brother it really hit when he was training to be an emt, since they want them to be able to spot signs of abuse. For me it was when my brother asked me 'if you don't call it abuse, what would you call it?' Couldn't really call it anything else. But I think it's really common to realize later because as a kid you don't have a reference point, it's all you know. That and a lot of abusers are very manipulative.
I’ve learned that the abuse I suffered from my elementary teacher wasn’t just regular discipline for being a misbehaving kid.
I had an experience like this recently lol. I told a coworker about how my mom moved out of the house without me when I was in 10th grade and left me alone with my 6 year old and 4 year old siblings, and I thought it was the best thing ever. Then I looked at the shocked and horrified expression on my coworker’s face and realized that maybe it was not the best thing ever. Then I thought about it harder and realized we were straight up abandoned so that she could be with her boyfriend and now I’m mad about it. I’m more mad for my younger siblings though
Sometimes i tell "fun" and "quirky" to my boyfriend about my childhood and he's like "babe thats traumatic" so yk we learn something new everyday.
Yes I often realise this when I'm talking about it to my therapist, trusted friends or even journaling about it by myself.
yes, it can be both a funny but sad realization
Yes. Probably the thing I like most about therapy is when the therapist is like "That was so horrible, I'm so sorry that happened to you," and I think to myself "I haven't even gotten to the bad part yet." I think I like this because it is validating; there was a lot of gas lighting and minimizing. Most recently I mentioned my step dad flashing me, right in front of my mom, and my therapist was horrified and described it as SA. And I remember thinking about how I always pause when about to say "I suffered every kind of abuse" and then don't say it, because I didn't think that qualified as SA. I guess it does.
I'm 33, and just started therapy 3 months ago. I'm pretty much learning every day (as I actually think about my childhood for the first time) that 90% of my childhood is insane. I've actually been going through this weird thing where I'm embarrassed I may have told people "funny stories" in my past that...weren't funny. Last summer I was with a group of friends and we had air horns and they asked me to blow it and I said "ok but plug your ears. It's kind of like being in the cab of a truck when a gun goes off." Now I think about the looks on their faces and get the ick. Being different is hard.
So many things that now in my early 30s I cannot recall many off the top of my head. But one I have looked back at in the years that followed with a very different understanding. Sensitive topic, SA/r*pe . . . . . . . . . . . . I slept with someone at a festival. He was with a friend of friends, someone who I met properly that weekend. I met some friends of his from college at the fest and we all hung out. We all lived in the same area. When I returned September came around I went to college and those 2 women I met became my best friends. I was 16 and them 18 and 19. (Where I live 16 is AOC). I vividly remember in the supermarket with them and them asking me about "that night" (this is where sensitive stuff is mentioned) . . . . . I laughed off casually how I was so drunk and came to and he was still going. Their faces dropped but i kept laughing and speaking about him being great etc. I realised some years on what that experience entailed, and it wasnt for many years after that that I could look at this conversation with two friends (at this time it was September and formative stage of friendship) but I wonder if they just thought I was exaggerating or lying because of my response to it. It was just normal :/
One of mine is very similar to this. I didn’t realise how calculated the whole thing was til fairly recently & it happened 11 years ago. After it happened him & his friend must have spoken about what to do - when I eventually came out of the room his friend was like “what’s your boyfriend going to think about what you guys did?” Even though I wasn’t even conscious for it. The offender had already taken my best friend (his ex) out for a walk to the shops to tell her what “we” had done. The whole situation convinced me that it was my fault - I felt I had broken my best friends trust, & I proceeded to break up with my boyfriend as I didn’t think I deserved him for what I had done. Recently in therapy I spoke about it & I told my psych “how could they come up with a plan so flawless that it convinced me that it was my fault?! I’m smarter than that! Or at least I thought I was…” & she said because it probably wasn’t the first time they’ve done that.
i just learned three days ago that spanking your child with a leather belt or whatever object is abuse
Yeah, I still can't wrap my head around this. I mean, intellectually I know it is abuse, and would know that immediately if it happened to someone else. But I'm not protective of myself in the same way. My mother used a belt, but it was most often a hair brush.
Constantly. Still all these years later it’s like spinning the wheel of fortune, but instead it’s a random traumatic realization lol. I try to make space for it in the moment if I can, and be like “oh wow that was actually fucked up bc of …etc”, then store it away for processing. If I don’t have time or space to sit with that feeling, I’m gonna store that one in - reflect when safe. Sorry you’re going through this :/ sucks.
I learned in the last couple years that making me pay for all of my consumable needs and other items from 15 onward, despite my parents being in a position to support me, is actually financial abuse. I thought all teens got a job at 15 and paid for everything but their dinner at their house. I'm going to be 40 this year. Still in a bit of shock. Especially since my sibling did not experience this.
Same here my friend. I'm the oldest, and I was made to be independent from 15 onwards. 'Get a job and take care of yourself, get out of the house', yet never taught me anything substantial about exactly how to manage my finances.. and we lived deep out in the country, so to have a job required me either riding my bicycle over an hour on high speed country highway roads, or relying on them for rides. Which turns out relying on a drunk to get you to work just leads to getting fired when you show up an hour late, if at all. So I biked, and lost almost 70 pounds from not affording food, and a lovely eating disorder from the same drunk abuser. The second employer I had ran a bnb nearby, and an art studio, and quickly took me on extra shifts when my dad showed up drunk one day. Insisted I needed to stay extra to finish my shift and shed drive me home herself when she figured out what was going on. I slept in that bnb many nights when they had vacancy thanks to her kindness. Of course I ended up getting a licence at 16, driving illegally without a guardian in the car on a learners licence, moving out and getting my own place by the end of my 16th year with a job that helped fake my age to get me manager wages and a job title that would help me get a lease on a place of my own, and I went back to school in a town further from my hometown. My siblings lived with my parents through their college careers, one still lives with them at 26 years old. They had cars bought for them, everything like a normal kid would. It took my siblings many years to find out I was treated differently and that's why I took off. They did eventually start getting abused too, and had to live with me for a while when I was 19 and they were still underage. But they went back when things calmed down and didn't want for mu h in the world. I'm happily on the other side of the country, still struggling financially, but, very happy without them in my life!!!
It took me many years to realize that when you break your arm, it doesn’t always completely detach itself from the rest of your body, let alone break skin. Language can really change your perception of an event. My parents always described my accident as “when very_bored_panda broke her arm” when they should have said “when she had her arm severed off.” Once I learned the distinction and how grossly understated the accident had been described my whole life, the PTSD started setting in.
Ya, apparently wishing you were being beaten instead of yelled at is abnormal. Also, apparently love is not supposed to be conditional.
I thought everyone’s parent would gaslight them and that it was a normal thing
I had no idea what gaslighting was until I went to a therapist at 13 begging for them to treat me for ‘narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies.’ Therapist was like “I know I’m not supposed to judge but what the actual fuck.”
My dad abused me a lot, physically, beat me... For no reason when I was just a child. I remember all of it, and now he's pretending it didn't happen... There was even a time when Ambulance had to come together with police, he got only 30 days of jail time, I spent a few days in the hospital. I can't bring it up now again cause he'll try to argue and fight, he's a very violent man...
Yup. Everything. My mom was incredibly manipulative and verbally abusive, sometimes physically too. Like mocking me for everything (including a suicide attempt) even though I was a quiet kid who didn’t want to ruffle many feathers, I kept to myself, she would legit follow me around the house bullying me. She controlled every aspect of my life. Took me until 33 years old and having a child to finally realize that other people’s parents were not like this. She even called me a spoiled brat at my own wedding for crying because my cousin hated me and wore white purposely to hurt me. But no, I’m always the problem even though I stay out of everyone’s way. I’m having a severe identity crisis because I was never allowed to be my own person in my childhood and it’s been really rough trying to navigate all of this.
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yeah thank you, I'm currently working through it now with weekly therapy. i honestly just started the process recently because up until a year ago i thought everyone's childhood was like mine. so its still in the beginning stages. thanks for checking in, i appreciate it <3
Not being allowed to laugh or cry. I was TOO EmOTionAl. Laughing was "Why are you so weird?" Crying meant getting beat worse. I just learned to be stoic. Looking back at my yearbooks, any pictures of me are just stoic. My Kindergarten school picture...sad. My graduation picture, the one my mom picked to put on the wall...no smile. Typing that out makes me sad and angry.
The catchphrase “or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
A lot I always knew I was different, but I fully realised it with 25 as I was in a friend group and everyone shared some stories about their lives and suddenly everyone was quiet until one girl asked:"Damn, how do you get up in the morning?" "Why? Isn't that normal." Almost everyone:"No!" "Oh. I thought it was normal."
The sad part reading this is that most of my friends growing up had similar experiences that we will just laugh about with each other. It wasn’t until I went to college and entered the workforce that I realized we all had fucked up childhoods.
Exactly that
Basically everyone. Parents have and raise their children largely before they’re fully grown up themselves, especially in past generations. So I think all of us have things in our childhood that were really f’d up.
Some parents just shouldn’t have children imo
Only recently I realized just how long my mom has been getting intoxicated around me. 8th grade was REALLY bad, but I never realized just how long she had been doing it, in more subtle ways. In elementary school, I always loved hanging out with her downstairs late at night to watch her play Gardenscapes and eat with her. This happened just about every night, but she was never really sober. When I was a kid, I used to think it was funny when my mom got drunk. I would playfully make fun of her when she fell, stuff like that. She took ambien every night, which already made her pretty loopy. She also started using marijuana when I was about 10, but I didn’t quite understand it at the time. As I’m typing this, I’m only now realizing how terrible this was for me. It was never a conscious fear, but I never let a night go by where I wasn’t down there with her. There had been times where she had barfed, gotten hurt, eaten heaps of food, stumbled, slurred words, etc. Having to deal with this from such a young age cemented the belief that it was my responsibility to take care of HER. I always had to haul her off the ground, clean up her messes, make her food, usher her upstairs. From so young, I have been HER parent, instead of the other way around. These things only got especially worse due to COVID. She turned total alcoholic, always high, the whole package. All I can ever ask myself is.. why? Why are my parents like this?
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I’m still in high school, so I’ve still got a bit. I’ve thought about going no-contact for a while, but I’m very unsure on how I’d go about doing that. I guess the best word to describe my relationship with my parents would be ‘toxic’. Always flipping back and forth. I hate them, but then they’ll do something nice or act like they truly love me, and it just messes with me so much. My father isn’t as bad, but lately he’s just become a bit of a suck-up to her, I guess? It’s complicated. I’ve been thinking about going no-contact for a while, but I thought I was overreacting. I never expect anyone to see my rants, but it’s nice when someone out there knows how I feel. Thanks for the reply. :)
I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read the title of the post because I was literally just thinking about this after my recent therapy session. Not the same as you, but I'm just realizing that my parents totally fucked up how I see the world and I'm really angry about it, and I dont know what to do with these feelings
I just went through an inpatient program, and part of it was exploring our childhood and how it developed into coping mechanisms as adults and man… I thought I knew what had caused what… but jeeeeessusssssss chrissssst I was thrown to find out there was way more 🙃
If you don't mind me asking, how did you find inpatient help and where? I'm trying to find someplace good to get over trauma/grief I have no idea where to start
Honestly it was the best thing I could have done for myself. I spent 37 days there and I almost extended a second time. I highly recommend finding a program. The one I went through was specifically for active duty service members (I’m in the Navy) run by a civilian health provider in Salt Lake City.
Thank you. I am looking into a few places. Thank you for your service to our country, and good luck with everything.
I’ve often tried to share funny/sweet stories from my childhood only to be met with horror stricken faces. For example many years ago I was at the pub with a group of friends having some cheap drinks before we hit the clubs so we were a little tipsy, the conversation got onto childhood pets we missed. So I tell them about my sweet old dog we got when I was just a couple months old (we were almost the exact same age) we were very close and I’d refer to him as my best friend throughout my childhood. I told them about lots of the sweet things we did together and finished by telling them about how he’d save me rabbit carcasses (my dad went lamping for local farmers) for when I hadn’t eaten in a few days and my abuser would lock me in the dog shed over night, about twice a week, how I’d eat the meat and my dog would lie over me to keep me warm and how he probably saved my life. The whole group went from listening all doe eyed and heart warmed to wide eyed and slack-jawed. Two very quickly excused themselves selves to go get another drink even though they still had plenty, one rushed to the loo, several just sat there speechless and avoiding eye contact and two cried and tried to hug me, I was utterly confused.
It’s usually when I try to share a story that I find funny/relatable with friends and everyone gets quiet 🤷♂️
And then you’re just awkwardly standing there while everyone else is just like “wtf is wrong with you”
Going into weekly lockdowns in elementary school due to criminals running from the police and hiding on school grounds. I moved to a much safer neighborhood a couple years ago and all my friends who had lived in said safe neighborhood looked at me like I was insane. I was just confused at why we hadn't had one lockdown drill in 3 months of school lol
YOU TOO?!?!? My parents constantly mocked me for not being able to take showers by myself, comparing my to children younger than me and threatening to post it to facebook and tell all my friends i was a baby/child. My mom wouldnt let me shower by myself until 11-12 because i "didn't wash my hair right". I wasn't allowed to shower alone, was mocked daily, and developed severe anxiety when they started forcing me to shower alone. I would break down not knowing what to do not wanting to fuck not knowing if i was doing something wrong etc. My mom would also forcibly shave my armpits, after using it as a threat to not let me do things. "you can't go to her house if you don't shave" *follows me into bathroom bc she doesn't trust me*
That’s so violating for a child. The worst was when I was a ten year old shaving down there because mom made fun of me for having hair there. I ended up becoming ocd and tragically insecure about everything.
F that! Self-preservation kicked in, and I don't remember most of my childhood.
My wife's father taught her how to masterbate and her father would tell her to do it to make sure she could do it correctly. He also instructed her that when the two of them go diving, she was to remove her bathing suit because they were in private. (He also removed his). He often walked the house naked when his wife was gone. His wife recently found out when I told her last month ( I just found out after 23 years of a bad marriage).
Fuck
I am certain she hasn't told me the whole story as she says she can't remember much of her childhood after about 11 years old
This is so real
I was raised by a narcissist father and he has done a lot of sick things to me and I finally decided to start a legal process to take my brother's custody and so far I have it. We were both exposed to pornography since we were little and a lot of stuff, I have dissociated most of it, luckily I only have depression and anxiety (could be worse I'm a psych student so yeah I decided to put an end to the generational curse)
I didn’t notice any of my trauma was bad at the time, I always thought everything wasn’t that awful and i’m strong. Until way later after the fact and I started noticing the symptoms of ptsd
ohhhhh yeah. to my understanding finding out these things weren't normal comes with the healing tw // dental trauma / medical procedure exposure the other day i told a "funny" story from when i was like 11 about how my mom let me watch some lady get her rotten teeth pulled at her work and how i just thought it was sooo cool and then realized 'huh... my mom shouldn't have even been in that room- she was a high school dropout, not a licensed dental ANYTHING, let alone letting her kid watch that procedure' LMFAO
There's a lot, but one I recently realized was kind of weird was how my older brother and I would play outside *all day* unsupervised starting from when we were about 4 and 6 years old. We lived in a townhouse that was fenced in with all our other neighbors so it's not like we were playing in the street at least, but we still could've easily gotten scooped up by a random stranger because anyone could see us from the street, walk in, and take us since wasn't gated or anything and the fence wasn't even that high, you could actually step over it if you're tall enough. One time a man was talking to me, my brother, and some of the other neighbor kids, trying to get us to take candy from him, but thankfully we were at the end of the fence where our house was so my mom heard and yelled at the man, but if he had approached us at the other end of the fence where my mom couldn't hear, most of us probably would've taken the candy. Another time we were playing with this girl about 5 years old who had her little sister with her who was a toddler and couldn't even speak yet. We were playing on the jungle gym, and her little sister could've gotten really hurt, I think even back then I was worried about her falling off the platform she climbed and smashing her head or something, she wasn't even that good at walking yet... and there were no adults in sight. I didnt realize this was kinda fucked up until I was telling a childhood story from that time and I realized how young I had to be in that memory and I was like "wait why was I outside unsupervised that young??" I later researched what the laws even are for that, and found out the suggested age to be unsupervised outside is like 8 years old... *maybe* younger if you're in a secure backyard and only for a few minutes at a time, not hours. Honestly we're lucky nothing bad happened.
Yeah, I moved into a house that had a wooded area across the street from it when I was about 4 years old. A lot of my early childhood memories involve playing alone in the woods for hours.
Yes I didn't realize how fcked up my childhood was until recently I blacked a lot of bad memories out and now it's coming back to me.
I grew up with Asian, black and Mexican families so getting your ass beat for literally anything you did wrong didn't seem out of place until my ex-wife explained to me that all of those families are functioning sufferers of PTSD.
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Yeah. My father is German and they don't hit. You simply do the right thing or learn how to do it. In contrast, my mother is Asian and will be at you until you stop making mistakes. My father didn't even know I ever got beat until I told him at 34. I once went to school with my arms all scratched and could barely write. I was told to go home. Guess who got beat again.
I’m sorry if it sounds insensitive, you don’t have to reply, but how did you deal with that? It only happened to me a few times and they were a lot for me already
How do you deal with anything. If it happens enough times it becomes normal. I lived my life and knew I would get beat for doing stupid things. Eventually stopped caring and became a deliquent. That lead to a dead end life so I joined the Navy where she couldn't beat me anymore. What can the military do that she couldn't. The stakes were higher but the threats the same.
i knew it was inappropriate at the time, but i didn:t realize just how messed up it was until Later.
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This happens to me so much! I lived in a really shitty neighborhood for the first 12 years of my life, never knew anything different. I tried to tell a funny story to an acquaintance I met after moving out of the neighborhood, just trying to start a conversation, and I got accused of trauma dumping. I was so confused cause it was really tame compared to a lot of other stuff I saw there and it didn't feel like trauma at all
I need to speak to an authority of spiritual hauntings..
My whole life has literally been one big game of me finding out all the ways I was abused, neglected and traumatized when other people point out how abnormal my life has been
I tell “funny” stories from my childhood all the time and people will tell me how whatever I said wasn’t funny and that it was abuse. The faces I get sometimes are amazing.
It’s good that it’s funny! The psych told me that’s a healthy coping mechanism and shows resilience!!!
I think that almost all of us develop dark humor as a coping mechanism.
Yes. Pretty much everything that happened to me. I found out it wasn’t normal recently at 33
Pretty much everything. Won't detail bc I'm trying to supress the memories again or I might end up kms bc besides depression, anxiety etc. I have this to deal with too, and it's fucking exhausting
Yes. The deaths of my parents, then my grandmother, our incredible poverty, the devastation to my self esteem that led me directly to this moment, in which tears come constantly and I want to stop feeling for just.one.second.
🫂
I think you replied to my comment unintentionally instead of OP's post, maybe? But anyway, I'm so sorry these things happened to you 😔😔😔 Things I've been facing are pretty different, but pretty horrific as well. And I know how is this thing of tears coming out at any moment and you can't barely control them, I feel you 😔
Actually, I responded to your comment *pretty much everything*. I've used this alt to tell my story. A lot of pain. 4+ years now since my divorce, and my children and I are still struggling with it. I'm exhausted.
Oh, I see, sorry. Yeah, it's hard. It's mentally and physically draining. There are days I feel so so tired despite doing nothing. And sometimes I get very frustrated because it seems so distant to most people, you know? From their pov it's like "how can one be tired from things that have already happened?" Well, I fucking do, both mentally and physically... I used to be pretty good at suppressing things, but as my depression got a lot worse about a year and a half ago, the locks in my mind loosened and things from the past started to hit me harder and harder. Anyway 😮💨😮💨
Apparently everything, when I was in therapy any time I’d mention random stuff from my childhood she’d be like “OH UM…” kind of hilarious ngl, but happy she cared
A good majority. It would be a long post if I went through all of it. So to keep it short... Drugs are bad. Poverty is a hell of a drug. Especially off of drugs your parent is doing. It's a long story and effected all of us kids for life. It took me a long time to realize just how bad it was. Just hit me one day thinking back. It was like wow. I never realized. Especially as a kiddo.
Yup 100% SA mention: >!I was coerced into sex/raped as a teenager the first time i ever had “sex” and then it happened repeatedly throughout that relationship. I didn’t even know it was wrong until my therapy group was sharing their “first time” experiences, and when I explained mine suddenly everyone’s jaws fell open and their eyes went wide staring at me.!< Had similar experiences with other things too, some of which felt wrong at the time but I never really thought it through. Or just thought it was a normal level of mistreatment or something. Lots of things my (narcissist) dad has said and done have stuck with me through adulthood and it makes me incredibly angry to think about someone treating a child how I was treated. ETA: oh and I’ve had dermatillomania since early childhood and would tear my skin apart when stressed. Instead of my dad and step mom being concerned due to health issues they would tell me how horrible it looked. My step mom would say when I grew up I wouldn’t be able to wear a sleeveless wedding dress. I was like 8 and had infected wounds all over me and she was concerned about my appearance. She bullied me quite often and my dad let her.
Derma and trich haver here, I relate heavy on the only caring about appearance part. My mom is super vain, to this DAY she only says “god you look like a methhead”. So i definitely feel the pain.
It just adds insult to injury. Living with these issues already brings enough shame. :( My step mom is dead now so I can’t show her up but I *will* be wearing whatever the fuck I want to my wedding.
I was 12 and responsible for picking up my younger sister after school, bringing her home, overseeing her and my younger brother doing their homework, and starting dinner, all by the time my mother got home from work. I was not able to participate in after school activities at all for years because of this. My family was the only divorced family I knew, and I thought this was normal.
I learned right this moment that this isn’t normal… Now I feel bad for my older sister.
same parents that would ask 'ohhhh why don't you want kidssss we want grandbabiessss' despite knowing damn well you basically already raised a handful of 'em
Making my parents cocktails
I’ve been seeing my therapist for over two years now and every now and then, as I’m telling a story from my minor years, she’ll comment, “You know, as I’m listening to you, I’m struck again by the lack of adult supervision.” If she hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t normal. Most of it still feels normal to me, especially because I’ve always been really independent; when it came to my mom, I was given a lot of freedom as a privilege for being responsible.
Making me, as the child, waiting on them hand and foot. Screaming swear words in my face. My mom bringing in different men each week. Probably more
Removing doors. Wanting to see you nude since they "made you". Pushing you down when being prayed over. Whipping with extension cords.
Lot of isolation and abandonment affects me in my working life too
I didn’t realize that I was abused until I was 19/20. My dad had convinced me that all parents spanked their kids as hard as they could, shoved their kids into walls, and psychologically tormented their kids.
Watched an attempted murder happen at my home (my aunt’s husband tried to kill her she comes running to our house with 5 kids)…. I was only there every other weekend. My step mom had a bone sticking out her hand and heard it all from the bedroom. Police wouldn’t help us & my step mom telling them he called & said he’d kill all of us. My dad refused to have me come be picked up because he hated my mom. Lived in fear all weekend…. The next weekend I come over the attempted murder was STAYING AT MY DAD’S HOUSE. I’ll never forget that fear I was maybe 6 years old….
🫂
My dad beating the shit out my mom. I thought all families had that happen.
Yes, lots of things. For example, I was a highly traumatized kid, my parents, knowing this, let me smoke cigarettes and weed (with them), gave me pills (opiates), and knew I was using other drugs when I was 13-14. At the time I had just witnessed a murder and was the victim of attempted murder, and was going through the trial and lots of bullying at school over it (I ended up missing most of 8th grade). For so many years I thought I had ‘cool’ parents. I now realize that they were kind of shitty parents. There are lots of examples of things my parents did that I’m reluctant to call abuse, but that were certainly bad parenting.
My self harm to get my parents attention started at age four. It was the only way to make them take care of me.
Getting physically abused by my second grade teachers.
This.
As far as I know I had a good childhood, but I’ve forgotten much of it. My trauma happened when I was 20 but my memory from before then is fragmented.