Scars of Our Youth

This very topic is what keeps therapists in business. Where do I start?

I have been told that the dysfunctional aspects of how my parents treated me centered around psychological abuse and neglect.

I know other people whose parents used physical abuse and one person who endured sexual abuse.

 

My childhood definitely was a rocky one. When i was younger my parents were very, very poor. They still cared for me and my sister as best they could dont get me wrong, but a lot of the time we would be a month behind on rent and have at least one of our bills being cut. We got close to being kicked out of our house multiple times, and at one point where it was the lowest, we had so little money that i had to share cheap microwave dinners with my sister. Ontop of that my father had pretty bad anger issues, he never hit me, my sister, or my mom, but he would often break things and get into arguments with my mom. (usually about money) when my mom got a stable job, thats all she did. i never got to see her anymore. she would work sometimes for 15+ hours and usually came home when i was already asleep. she also picked up smoking again (she quit when she was pregnant with my sister) and that meant that a lot of our already little money was going to her addiction. (she quit again though) This caused a lot of strain between my parents and they eventually split, but are still on talking terms. not quite friends, but okay with each other.

Not to mention i lived in a awful neighborhood as a kid. There were teenagers who would shoot kids, dogs, and cats with bb guns, break peoples windows, rob people, do drugs, and beat people up. A large rock was thrown through my dads drivers side window on his truck 3 different times. and fixing that is not cheap. Also one time a rock was thrown through the window of our front door with "you are next" written on it. Police were called but nothing came of it. It was quite a poor neighborhood, but its all we could afford at the time.

The craziest thing that ever happened to me as a kid that still sort of scares me to this day is that one time, i think it was grade four or five, this one older kid really had something against my cousin. And since we were really good friends back then, it carried over to not liking me too. This kid had some... issues not trying to be rude. He would go around sometimes kicking peoples dogs if they were outside. He was crazy. So it was on the school bus, and he took the wire out of his binder and began hitting/whipping people with it. of course the bus had to stop and get him off, but he wouldnt go willingly. that isnt even the most scary part. so a bit of a time skip after he got of the bus, it was me and my cousins stop. we were walking down to our houses like normal, but the kid from before was hiding behind a snowbank at the entrance to my court. when we got there, he started chasing us. i didnt know if he had the wire or something else, couldve possibly been a knife because all i saw was metal, i didnt get a good look cause i sort of, yknow, had to "run for my life". luckily we got to my house safe and unharmed, lucky that we didnt slip on the ice. and we were both pretty hysterical. im glad he didnt get a hold of us, who knows what he wouldve done if he did.

but i am much more safe and in a stable place now. my childhood still causes me a lot of trauma, but its all in the past now. (edit: sorry for the novel haha, got a little carried away with details)

 

I have saw what alcoholism and drug addiction could do to a person. I mean I am a social drinker but I never drink alone. I also set limits depending on where I am. I think the thing is I had to maintain control! It’s more about that than anything else. That made my choices easier.

Now the looking on the bright side could be out of spite lol like I refuse to let those who’ve hurt me have any power over my life. It could be knowing death was coming from such a young age because of my dad... make the most of what time we have! Maybe it’s my sheer muchness I don’t know hahaha but you can’t have light without darkness and we get to choose which one we operate in. Doesn’t mean I don’t have dark times, I’m digging myself out of one of the darkest times I’ve had (definitely top 3). It just mean I try and put out as much light as possible even when I can’t see it myself!

 

I suffered verbal and emotional abuse from my teachers because of my autism and ADHD and I have CPTSD as a result of it. Their words still sometimes come back to me to this day

 

Thank you very much.

 

Adding on to the part about claustrophobia, I have an aversion to touch and if someone unexpectedly hugs me (especially if it's tight) I often lightly punch them in the arm four times without thinking about it. Sometimes I'm asked why I don't just stop doing that, but it can be hard not to. I'm so used to it that it's almost a reflex. Not hard enough to hurt them. I know that I could just say "please don't do this" however, during the moment I just freeze up and instincts take over.

There are instances where people give me well-intentioned advice that doesn't help. "You shouldn't base your view on people around your time at school". I know, and I'm deeply aware of this flaw. But I can't fix it overnight.

I can't just go "Oh wow, thank you, now I trust people and feel less afraid". Since it's a process. It takes time to open up again, and believe me I am freaking trying. Catching bad habits, limiting them, controlling myself.

Anger is difficult to deal with. These days when I get too angry I break down in tears because it can be hard to know how else to deal with it. Well, aside from making angry artwork but even then the tears come. Because the feeling is just so intense it's just...I don't even know.

 

Where do I begin...I've had a difficult childhood. The difficulty began from my birth, since I was born too early and event though I don't consciously remember anything from that time, I suspect being in an incubator for 3 months is bad for a new-born baby psychologically speaking. I was fed with needles through my hands, and had tubes passing through my nostrils, even today when I see people with tubes passing through their nostrils I cringe because my body remembers the sensation. My mom was coming to see me everyday, but you see, a baby needs to feel its mother 24/7 not just at an hour appointment. Heck, I should have stayed in her womb for about 3 more months, but what to do. I consider it a miracle that I survived.

I carry the scars of the needles on my hands and I don't flinch when I'm getting a blood test. I can watch the blood flowing through the tubes with interest, because a part of me travels elsewhere. I guess I have no trouble with seeing blood. However I have a deep aversion towards taking medicine, because I've taken many to combat infections, but on the other hand I've developed an interest for less pervasive, more natural forms of therapy.

Later on, I had to deal with a father who has unknown serious mental issues. Before my parents got a divorce, which didn't happen until a few years ago, I had my father put me through hell just for his amusement. He liked telling me things, like how much of a burden I was because I lived as a baby and they had to pay for the months I was in the incubator, while masterfully trying to make me feel awful for being alive. He tried to drive a wedge between me and my mother, by telling me to lie to her, or do things that would hurt her. He threatened me when we were alone by yelling me. Sometimes he beat me with his fists, slapped me or whipped me with his belt. He once threatened me with a knife, but the worse of all was when he finally admitted he didn't love me and never did. He pretended he loved me in front of others, and did it so successfully, that I was confused and felt guilty for being angry at him. I tried being friends with him many times, but every time he made me think he liked me, and then did something to disappoint me and let me down. He enjoyed my mental and emotional suffering, because it made him feel like he had power over me. It seemed to be intoxicating to him to made others depend on him, just so he could let them down. He never admitted his faults, asked for forgiveness or regretted a single thing. Even now, he insists he has done nothing wrong. I am fairly certain he has no idea what he has done. I pity him now.

Because we moved out a lot, I changed schools a few times. This made me be the new kid and left me with no friends. When I got friends, they were controlling and manipulating.

Now I'm visiting a psychologist. I'm also meditating to deal with trauma, it seems to help me a lot. I seem to do well, except that I have a pattern, in which my mind makes me hate myself for no reason every few months and makes life difficult. Thankfully, I managed to cope without becoming addicted to substances, although I have struggled with game-addiction and sometimes have a hard time to get offline. I'm truly thankful for every day I am alive, even though my mind can give me a hard time on some days.

 

Oh yeah I guess I have some mental scars

I feel almost nothing most of the time (bipolar meds probably contributed to screwing with my emotions), sometimes I REALLY enjoy being angry, I have a near-constant need to get a rush, I'm a sex maniac, I have severe trust issues, and deep down I tend to think people only want my body or money (my dad still jokes that I should become a prostitute)

 

When I tell people that my dad was verbally abusive, no one fully understood what I meant. Even though he didn't exactly outright tell me I was garbage, that's how it made me feel. When I lived in Georgia, I would see him on Wednesday afternoons and every other weekend. And on the days I was with my mom, he forced me to call him for hours at a time each and every night. And when I didn't comply? (for any reason whether a sleepover, homework, etc) He would ground me for 45 for each day I missed. And it got even worse once I moved to California. Calls became earlier and longer, even though I had tons of homework that he knew about. And when I would visit him he made everything about spending time with him, doing what he wanted to do and rarely ever talking to my mom. My flights there would be at 6:00 am and flights back would put me home at 1:00 am. It was the worst 12 years of my life. But finally, I had a breakthrough. I had been calling less and less and before then we had times where I would go days, months without calling him. But even then I went back to him. But I had forgotten to call him one night, as per usual, and woke up to a barrage of text messages from him. We fought for a while until he went silent. We didn't talk for a while and slowly I started to see a therapist with my mom. I tried to reconcile and even wrote him a letter telling him how I had really felt all my life. He never replied. I still get anxious thinking about him but after a year or so of freedom, I feel I been my best self since.