I am a survivor.

[tryingguy]

Hello,

my childhood was normal and sweet until I was 7 years old. Then my parents got divorced, and everything collapsed.

my parents split me and my older brother, and put me with my mother and him with my father. My mother was the saddest person in the world. She would cry every single night for years after the divorce. It was not normal crying. It was panicky, fervent crying and screaming. It was a small house, and I could hear it all – there is no doubt in my mind, she wanted to share the pain.

So between ages 7-13, I had to deal with that, and by the age of 10 (aprox), I started thinking she is crying because of me, as I was the only person in her life and the divorce happened years prior. I did not care. I was numb, watching TV only to be disturbed by the occasional scream.
In reality, it was not my fault, of course – my father is gay, and my mother dealt not just with the divorce, but with the idea that all her 20-year marriage was a lie. She is a very weak person and has never truly recovered to this day (25 years after).

I have literal trauma of nights because of this. Once the sun goes down, I get the same hopeless feeling I had when I was sitting in front of the TV as my mother sounded like she is getting emotionally murdered. At least 95% of the nights of my adult life were spent numbing myself down at night with first alcohol and then weed. Still today.

My father abused me emotionally to the core. I would sleep at his house once a week, and when he would pick me up with his car there was a years' long ritual – Once I would enter and sit next to him, every time, like a script, he would look at me with contempt and say, "you're so funny looking". Sometimes he would mix it up a bit with "that's not my nose, that's your mother's nose".

My childhood was one big dissociation. After he showed me his contempt, I would have my strongest, best fantasies in his car on the way, which were usually interrupted once, as he shouted, "say something!", which I would answer – "what do you want me to say", punishing him with this awkward silence which was the only power I had on him.

He gave me serious bonding issues with men. I have no friends, and the only way I could connect with someone during the past decade was through sex with a woman. I almost had no other connections. I am a handsome man and my shame-based psyche has taken advantage of that.
Also, because no one took interest in me, my outer critic goes berserk when people are not interesting enough and urges me to go back to solitude.

The truth is, I was not ugly during my childhood and have 0 memories of bullying in school about that. My father made me feel like the ugliest person in the world and feeling ugly was a huge theme during my childhood. I thought to myself it must be true if HE says it.
Beyond the abuse and neglect, I had no safe adult during my childhood. My adult life looks like my childhood – alone.

I have cut ties with my family 2 years ago after a sub-conscious induced self-destruction event (which put me in real danger) led to the brainstorming that opened up the childhood I had denied for so many years. I do not know if and when I will speak to them again.

Thank you for reading this.

[Not Alone]

tryingguy,

I feel sad for the pain and aloneness that you have experienced. Welcome to OOTS. I have found a great deal of help and support here.

[CrackedIce]

Welcome Tryingguy!

You are a survivor.  The crap our family of origin's have put us through is insane, and honestly amazing that a lot of us made it out the other side.  Now we're left to dress the wounds they left on our psyche.

I appreciate reading what you shared.  Hopefully getting it down on paper helps a bit.  Welcome to the forum, I hope you're able to find some healing and support here.

[Armee]

I'm sorry you went through all that, alone. I'm glad you found this forum. I relate to a lot of what you wrote about with your mom. Whether intended to be or not, that can be very manipulative and leaves no room for children to have any needs. Your father was cruel. I wish you had had better.

[Blueberry]

Welcome to the forum Tryingguy! 

[Papa Coco]

Welcome to the forum Tryingguy,

I joined a year and a half ago. The people on this forum are truly awesome. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us all on your introduction.

This is a great group of people. I enjoy being able to be open without having to explain myself here. We all have variations of the same condition, C-PTSD, so when we talk with each other, we can tell our true stories but can omit having to explain why we now feel how we feel. The empathy here is a given. We all know how difficult it is to live with the diminished self-esteem that our broken parents gave to us.

I sometimes like to say "There are more novels walking on the sidewalks than there are in the bookstores" because when we really open up with each other, we've all had some pretty interesting pasts. We all have such powerful stories of our childhoods. Somehow, those varied stories have led us all here, with a similar set of symptoms/characteristics.

I suspect that C-PTSD affects millions of people world-wide, but most people never try to find their way through it. I think of us who seek help as the smartest and strongest of all victims of narcissistic parents. We are the ones who boldly seek to understand the confusion of it and work to find our way back into control of our lives.

I also believe in the old saying that it isn't what happens to us that defines us, but how we choose to stand up and recover. This forum is filled with people who are actively in recovery from narcissistic parents. These are impressive people. I feel lucky to have found this group when I did.

Welcome and I hope this forum gives you a place to feel validated and heard. That's what it gives to me. I hope it does for you too.

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome to OOTS TryingGuy!    I felt my heart sink as I often do when reading introductory posts, while at the same time I feel a sense of hope - contradictory, mixed feelings are the meat of CPTSD. 

My hearts hurts for you because no child should have to deal what you did and if I have my way we will help raise awareness by breaking the silence and speaking up as so many of us around the world are doing here.   The hope that I feel is you will come to understand deeply none of this should have ever happened to you and it was your parents who had the problem which they foisted on you.  It means that you will come to believe that deep in your soul with enough time and practise, not to mention not being in contact with them.  The air will feel fresher, it will be quieter and safer, and you will be able to be the real you more and more. If you're open to therapy that can help too.

And of course, now you're amongst peers now who truly 'get it" so once you're settled in please feel free to post more. 

[tryingguy]

Thank you so much for those comments. This is sort of new to me, as only 2 years ago I started thinking about my childhood so I hope to keep up the work and also participate in this forum.