Am I Wrong? Maybe it IS my fault? (TRIGGER WARNINGS)

[Vrizzy]

Hi guys sorry to ask kinda the same question again...I think?

Something has been bothering me a lot lately and I just want to get it off my chest.

Like I said, I've never been outright bullied and I've never been abused or neglected by my family.

My family's not perfect but I know they love me. My parents have had trauma and I think one or both of them might have a mild form of PTSD. (My mother's parents divorced when she was really little. She had to witness her mother and stepfather argue a lot and even sometimes physically fight. She was also bullied and cheated on at least once. Her brother died in his 30's and she had to deal with that too. My father witnessed a break-in where my grandmother's dog was stolen. And his parents also divorced when he was young.) My baby brother has been diagnosed with PTSD because he had Mercia as a baby. So doctors and hospitals can really scare him (I think he's better now.)

They've had real trauma, just like you guys have. What happened to me was mostly covert and to the point where I don't even know what really happened. Maybe I really do remember middle school better than I thought and the problems I had back then were just me misunderstanding the other children because I have a form of High-Functioning Autism (Asperger's). Maybe my ex friend wasn't manipulative and I was the manipulative one. I know victims often doubt things but I mean this isn't trauma that threatened life or threatened injury. So is it real?

These things shouldn't bother me but they really do. (I've had that told to me and I agree with it. What happened to me is minor and I'm probably just being unintelligent.) I've had abandonment issues since infancy and having people leave me (no matter how few these have been) really does affect me. Being excluded in middle school probably was because I didn't always know how to initiate contact and would awkwardly hover nearby. I was scared to ask if I could play. I would sit alone and hope someone would notice me because I was too scared to ask for help. I also wanted to see if people cared because sometimes it seemed that they didn't. When I tried to help the other girls with their problems they told me no. I was emotionally immature during middle school and people probably felt they had to walk on eggshells around me because I was sensitive. My depression was even worse back then and they probably didn't want to be with someone who was depressed? Some of the boys would tell jokes they knew would make me mad or upset and then they'd laugh like it was funny. I don't know if they were joking with me as friends but part of me doubts it.

People used to be happy to see me when I was really little but I kept shying away from them because I was confused and shy and didn't know how to take this. Eventually they stopped trying. But only one of these people was in middle school with me. So I don't know...I just don't know. I am sorry that I am rambling but I am very confused.

I think I had an EF? I wanted to write a small fanfiction story and wanted it to have a bit of drama in it but not a lot because stories usually need some obstacle in them. I saw a writing prompt and it talked about someone dedicating a song on the radio to their s/o. Well, the song that came to mind was one my ex-boyfriend had referenced to me once. And so....yeah....I wanted to use that song but it started hurting and things went downhill from there....

Was this an EF? Sorry again about the rambling. 

[stillhere]

Hi, Vrizzy,

I think a lot of people struggle with validation questions -- that is, were their experiences "really that bad" or did they "qualify" as abusive.  I know I've encountered lots of invalidation from many sources and have learned to keep quiet about my FOO and its violence with all but a few trusted friends.

The problem is partly that we can always find someone who at least appeared to "have it worse."  All you need to do is read the news to find evidence of people suffering all over the world.  As a child of a WWII veteran, I learned that whatever happened in my FOO could never be compared with "real" problems.

That kind of thinking is a dead end (or at least I think it is).  While recognizing other people's difficulties is important, one's own matter too.  What's important is understanding your own needs and reaching for what you want.  That effort doesn't diminish the problems of anyone else.

[Vrizzy]

Thank you Stillhere. 

It's hard because my best friend believes I was actually bullied during middle school (and they said this after I described what I can remember). It's weird that even when I'm depressed and remembering middle school, I have to really think to remember very minor events. I can remember some things that annoyed me and some happy things as well as a few sad ones but....Sometimes I just really have to make a conscious effort which bothers me.

I'm sorry you had to go through what you did and have people invalidate you...It's not right and it should not be done. When people are hurting it makes it worse when others do not listen. I know that from experience.

To this day I don't know all that happened to me. Maybe it was because I was depressed and felt unlikable during middle school that it traumatizes me so much. Maybe I was bullied. I just wish I knew.

[stillhere]

Vrizzy,

I've been reading a bit about memory.  One way to think about memory and CPTSD is that you necessarily need to remember or least not remember every detail.  Instead, you need a way forward, along with the skills to avoid being bullied in the future.

I wish that for you.

[Kizzie]

They've had real trauma, just like you guys have. What happened to me was mostly covert and to the point where I don't even know what really happened.

Hi Vrizzy - just wanted to say that I was not physically or sexually abused, and I was not overtly abused emotionally.  I was, however, covertly abused (emotionally) and like you questioned whether it was real or not for decades.  It was in joining our sister site Out of the Fog that I understood how abusive my childhood truly had been.  What ever the case, be it overt or covert, sexual or physical or emotional abuse, ultimately it all comes down to emotional abuse and the wounding of and injury to our sense of self, and our sense of safety and belonging in this world.

My mother's personality disordered behaviour (narcissism) was difficult to see at first because it was  covert, but nowadays I can see so it clearly and understand how much damage it inflicted on me - never feeling safe, good enough, loved  -- all the things children need to grow and develop in a healthy way.  I see now that my CPTSD developed because I was raised by people who were struggling emotionally, and I was in a constant state of fear, anger, and instability which was never processed.

All this is to say that you may want to take a look at covert personality disordered behaviour as a possible reason you are suffering. There's quite a bit of info at Out of the Fog that helped me to unpick the threads of how I ended up with CPTSD and accept that my childhood was abusive, that it was not me, it was them.  It may help you to validate your experience.