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Ginger42
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Joined: 25 Jun 2021
Age: 23
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25 Jun 2021, 6:00 am

CW families/ abuse/ SH
So moved house three weeks ago and obviously am still in the settling stage where all of the change is hard to cope with. I am also suffering with some chronic illness that I’m undergoing diagnosing for so there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding that and had what was starting to be a progressive chat with my mum turned into a row. This morning something had caused me to SH again (don’t worry people know it’s all good) and so my mum comes home from after work to check on me by herself (we’ve moved in with her friend and her friends husband so I was glad she was alone) and I mentioned how I feel claustrophobic by her friend at times she can be very smothering and strong willed which can remind me of my dad’s personality but without the obvious abuse. Then it brought us back to the conversation about growing up with my dad etc and I said to her she’s not responsible for his actions but there is responsibility for her staying with him and for her actions regarding my mental health and this has been both in the past and recent. And tbh as a child I was vulnerable and brought up in a very dysfunctional environment and it’s hard to kind of let that go which my mum says she’s been able to do just by letting it go and I’m like why can’t I do that aha makes me feel like I’m at the entire fault for not being able to move on so easily, but what bothers me is she had every power and choice to leave him numerous times and it used to be a big arguing point when I was teenager because I was just so annnoyed that this man was making my mum cry and bullying us for no reason and I wanted her to find something better. Obviously leaving an abusive partner is hard I just as a child I had no power no say I was helpless and being undiagnosed as autistic there was just a lot of confusing and chaos for me. That’s not to say she hasn’t done good stuff for me she has like any mum I’m just trying to get her to understand everything and she says I’ve said sorry a lot of times but her actions don’t match up to her words. (Sorry if I’m speaking is all jumbled) like if she knew about me being autistic and anxious then moving house she would have included me and not given three weeks notice to just get on with it, and when I said her friend was giving me a lot of panic attacks she could have limited the contact to one day a week or gone over to her house etc it just upset me and she seems to think I think she’s awful when I’ve said that’s not it at all and that I’m not blaming you for what he did to us just that as a child she was the adult the only one who could protect me other than myself to an extent and whenever it’s vice versa where she says something and I say I feel hurt she says it’s not her intention and I have to accept that. Anyways it also led on to how she thinks I shouldn’t be in counselling for so long and that it should be a ten week thing when if I didn’t have therapy it would make me even worse in my opinion and it makes me feel incredibly anxious that I’m now doing the wrong thing it puts so much doubt in my mind as I’m that insecure aha and I invited her into a session with my counsellor to read her a letter which she agreed but then in later arguments states she never wanted to do it which I wish she had just said that to begin with. But then she says how she doesn’t like my counsellor because she doesn’t like her methods which is weird because in the session my counsellor told me beforehand that she wasn’t going to speak much and remained very neutral IMO nothing bad at all. When my boyfriend went for a session with me so he could understand me better he was fine no complaints and my counsellor spoke a lot more then. My mum thinks she’s just taking the money etc when the counsellor gave me a discount so I could go like she even helped me figure out a way to get some sessions for free like she’s not in it for the money she will do a free phone call to check up etc like ugh. Then states how I put up a wall and this was not an intentional trigger but my dad said the exact same thing when I was about 16, and I think in all honesty I just don’t come across so free flowing I’m guarded I know that. She got defensive and started pinning it onto me and how I should be able to let go and these things were small which is dismissing me but she gets annoyed if I tell her that. I also got annoyed about how she said every twenty year old has a self identity issue and I’m like I know but being newly diagnosed as autistic and adhd that throws me off a lot because I’m learning to try and not mask and I feel like I have to mask with her because whenever I be honest about my feelings she goes off and I always feel incredibly guilty and bad. I feel like how I am is all of my fault and that I’m not doing enough and I’m making it worse which is just really hard to deal with because I already have those kinds of intrusive thoughts so to hear it fuels them more I guess. She then states how she’s put me up and given a lot and I’ve always been grateful for her letting me stay but to throw it in my face makes me feel unsafe and worried that Im burdensome. It’s also she seems to think the stuff she said that I’m upset about is from years ago and some stuff is like when she didn’t believe I was depressed, refused for a long time to take me to counselling because it didn’t help her so she thought it would make me worse, when I had forgotten her birthday present (which I feel extremely guilty for and know that was my fault I was 15 didn’t have any of my own money my dad didn’t say anything and I should’ve remembered) and was very depressed and she said listening to me makes her want to cut herself which I know it was years ago I should get over it but I still remember it. That wasn’t what I was upset about mainly though back in January I confronted her about her friend sleeping over again and there being no kind of message or anything and me feeling uncomfortable and she’s said this numerous times if I don’t like it get out (fair enough) then she said I use my autism as an excuse which fueled the imposter syndrome when in fact it’s just accommodating to only seeing her friend once or twice a week with no sleeping over and this was during the lockdown as well so also illegal. Whenever I say im upset or uncomfortable she then quips back with well im uncomfortable too etc and im like that’s not what we’re talking about at all right now like tell me in a moment it feels competitive. Generally feeling awful and looking for some people who understand me :?



HeroOfHyrule
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27 Jun 2021, 7:50 pm

I'm genuinely very sorry you have to put up with this, I understand how frustrating and upsetting it is to have a parent act this way. I also do not think that you are being melodramatic at all. My mother is similar and becomes very angry whenever she has to deal with the fact that I am affected by my father's abuse against us, and essentially expects me to also "let it go". I can relate with a lot of what you're saying, so if you ever need to vent to anyone about this you can PM me if you want to.



Ginger42
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Joined: 25 Jun 2021
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28 Jun 2021, 5:09 am

HeroOfHyrule wrote:
I'm genuinely very sorry you have to put up with this, I understand how frustrating and upsetting it is to have a parent act this way. I also do not think that you are being melodramatic at all. My mother is similar and becomes very angry whenever she has to deal with the fact that I am affected by my father's abuse against us, and essentially expects me to also "let it go". I can relate with a lot of what you're saying, so if you ever need to vent to anyone about this you can PM me if you want to.


Thank you so much for your reply! It's comforting to know I'm not the only one feeling like this. Same for you if you ever need to vent or need a distraction :)



BeaArthur
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28 Jun 2021, 10:56 am

Something everyone needs to know about childhood abuse and family dysfunction:

When a small child experiences abuse, it changes their brain chemistry FOREVER. That is not to say you can't have a lot of recovery and a productive life, but to compare your mom "getting over" her abusive marriage to the impacts the abusive home had on you as a CHILD is missing the big picture. And you can tell her this, or you can keep it in the back of your mind and just use it for your own enlightenment.

I hope you feel better soon. I didn't read your entire post but enough that I wanted to make this point.

Here's a citation supporting my assertion above: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968319/

It's a long and difficult paper for the lay person to read, but you can just read the abstract, conclusions, and do a search for epigenetic.


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Ginger42
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Joined: 25 Jun 2021
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Posts: 9
Location: UK

28 Jun 2021, 12:55 pm

BeaArthur wrote:
Something everyone needs to know about childhood abuse and family dysfunction:

When a small child experiences abuse, it changes their brain chemistry FOREVER. That is not to say you can't have a lot of recovery and a productive life, but to compare your mom "getting over" her abusive marriage to the impacts the abusive home had on you as a CHILD is missing the big picture. And you can tell her this, or you can keep it in the back of your mind and just use it for your own enlightenment.

I hope you feel better soon. I didn't read your entire post but enough that I wanted to make this point.

Here's a citation supporting my assertion above: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968319/

It's a long and difficult paper for the lay person to read, but you can just read the abstract, conclusions, and do a search for epigenetic.



ombt I've literally seen this before as well!! ! I think my first counsellor told me this fact and I watched some Ted Talks on it, but it is so trueeeeee!! ! I don't doubt what she experienced was awful and traumatic, but as a child it literally is from birth all I've ever known ya know? So much harder to escape that kind of mindset I feel when it's derived from birth