Hi All, Newbie Here!

[anewlens]

I'm grateful I found this community. Hoping for some mutual support. I am the C-PTSD poster child with a 10/10 ACES score.  I'm 40 and in late stage perimenopause. (possible trigger warning*) Last year my brother told me that our father sexually abused him by repeatedly exposing himself to him through age 9. I have been helping my brother heal as we are and always have been very close. At this same time I also started a new career and opened my own business in a brand new state (which I never thought I could do having such low self-esteem) and a few months into that, my husband of 19 years has an emotional affair and says he is done with the marriage and our religion we have been in our entire lives. Subsequently we have been staying together "trying" to work it out. But there has been physical abuse, an assault charge, road rage involving a firearm, threats of suicide involving a firearm, he is on 3 different on and off label drugs completely altering his personality yelling and cussing at me daily verbal abuse, busting through breaking locked doors, etc. Followed with him leaving to go back to his home state so we are currently separated. With all of the stress, I recently started remembering my own sexual abuse by my father as well as my mother covering it up.
Childhood for me was extremely emotionally neglectful with both of my parents dismissing me repeatedly. My mother and father both exhibit narcissistic traits. Growing up strict religiously my father being a pastor, but while also secretly doing horrible things. He is a high functioning alcoholic and workaholic who was never home. My mother chose to stay in the marriage for the image and the money. All the while not allowing my brother or I to become financially independent. It was a very controlling environment with high perfectionistic standards religiously. So much hypocrisy and gaslighting being told they were perfect and trying to distract us with "fun". There was so much blame, shame, humiliation, and scapegoating. There was tons of verbal abuse by my parents getting called a brat and a B word and stupid daily. Being called fat, when, in fact, I've always been thin. There was an extreme level of physical abuse towards me. I have never seen or heard my parents fight with each other ever. In fact growing up they were extremely affectionate with each other constantly but never affectionate towards us kids. Except for when my dad did inappropriate things behind closed doors with us kids sexually apparently. But at church, at home, privately and in public places my parents would physically beat me, hit me, slap me, pinch me, stab me, leave marks, use objects like belts and kitchenware, hit me in the face making me bleed, leaving scars. A lot of this violence was done in public in front of people and didn't stop until I was around 15. I think the sexual abuse stopped when I was around 4. The narcissistic verbal abuse has never stopped, so I am very low contact with both of my parents. It's very difficult and the grief can be overwhelming to not have parental support in any way. I guess I must have used escapism with my imagination because I thought my family/my upbringing was perfect until I was 35 when I had a bad experience and ended up in the psych ward where I was able to start getting some help where I was first told about CEN. Well, it has been a journey of self-discovery ever since. As you can probably relate, I have my good days and bad days (or more like good minutes and bad minutes). But I look forward to being an active member of this community as we help each other heal from our pasts and hopefully create a bright future together. Let me know if any of this resonates with you. Thank you all for reading!

[NarcKiddo]

I am so sorry you had to endure all of that. I am horrified that not only did you have abuse behind closed doors as a child but you had it in public, too, and nobody ever did anything about it. I am also very sorry that you are having problems with your husband.

I am low contact with my parents too. I can understand why you are feeling grief over not having parental support, and I hope that you are able to protect yourself from them by bearing in mind that their idea of support is probably worse than no support at all. That's certainly the case with my FOO who believe they are loving and supportive but in fact are anything but.

Welcome to OOTS - I'm glad you found us.

[Hope67]

Welcome anewlens    I'm glad you found us too. 

[zen_racer]

Welcome anewlens.  I resonate with some of what you wrote.  My father was an alcoholic and workaholic.  My mother was narcissist and was very controlling.  I dealt with pretty extensive physical abuse from a sibling, and ended up in the hospital a couple times from it.  I was also the family scapegoat.

I'm sorry that you've had so much to deal with.  I hope you find a comfortable sense of community here.