I am a survivor of systematic dehumanization.

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When I was growing up, my blood family did everything they could in their power to snuff out every last bit of pride and self-esteem that was developing within myself. On top of that, they rubbed my face in every real or imagined mistake I made, sometimes up to decades later after it happened. When I tried to stand up for myself when others were taking advantage of me, they hammered into me the message that I was being extremely selfish and unempathetic because everybody that was hurting me was seriously unhappy while I was sheltered and spoiled (according to them, that is).

I think the most painful examples of this are as follows.

I told my mother I was being sexually abused, and she responded by telling me that I did not understand how hard my abuser's life was, and that the mere fact that I was upset about the sexual abuse that I was going through was proof that I had no empathy for other people whatsoever.

When I was being beaten and bullied throughout my childhood, my parents told me to have empathy for the people who were beating me and they told me not to complain about it because they believed I brought that upon myself.

When I took down a personal website that I had a lot of pride in because I could no longer afford to keep it up, they praised me for being mature and responsible. Not because I took it down due to lack of finances, but because they saw that as proof that I was giving up on a pipe dream completely. They always scheduled my presence at events on days they knew I planned on adding new content to that website, and they did that intentionally.

When I first started going to 12-step meetings, they asked me, "Well, of course, you will stop going to those meetings if we wanted you to, right?"

When people in my life were taking advantage of me financially, my parents hammered into me that it was selfish of me to even think of cutting them off. These were people who had larger paychecks than I did at the time, yet they were always begging me for cash and begging me for food because of their own financial irresponsibility. My mother hammered in that their happiness was my sole responsibility, that it was up to me to be a "role model" to them, that standing up for myself was proof that I was "evil and selfish".

When I first entered local political activism, my mother and stepfather did not take my efforts seriously. They insisted that I was too unempathetic to really care about the pain of others, and that I was only doing such activism because I was "panicking for my own sake".

Now my mother is telling me that my stepfather, my sister, my aunt and my uncle had such hard lives while she protected me from all serious harm. My stepfather beat the crap out of me over imagined slights. My sister, my aunt and my uncle got great pleasure out of sexually humiliating me on a regular basis, and this includes coerced bestiality and a couple of instances where they took sexually degrading photos of me for their own amusement when I was in middle school. And my mother tells me that despite all of this, I was overprotected and oversheltered throughout my entire life, and that I should just "get over it".

I am in so much f*****g pain right now. I know, I am a survivor, I lived through things that would have completely broken a lot of other people. I need to learn how to move on with my life.

I can't even come even remotely close to saying, "I understand." or, "I know how you feel." from an experiential standpoint and probably not even from a theoretical one... but having seen your posts on here for some time I can't help but think, "How can anyone endure that and NOT be in horrible pain?"

You've endured much, so very much; from what you have said, I would say much evil has been committed against you.

That you would have the courage to tell others your story and that you have continued to struggle and fight instead of give up; if you ask me is very commendable, especially considering your adversites.

I don't know if this may prove helpful..., but I would say to try to take things one day at a time, keep trying to overcome little by little, if you fail, try not to let it stop you; keep at it little by little, bit by bit, I know I have to.

And keep trying to reach out, whenever you can, your not what your abusers make you out to be, it's not selfish to ask for help, if anything, when you need help and have the opportunity to get help, to refuse it is foolish and prideful, it's not wrong to ask for help, we all need help from time to time, it takes a certain degree of courage and humility to be willing to be vulnerable enough to try and seek it, even if it turns out adversely, to be willing to keep fighting, to keep trying, to keep seeking help, to keep reaching out in the face of such hurt, it is not selfish, is not wrong, I'd say that's a kind of nobility, not selfishness.

Keep fighting KagamineLen, one day at a time.