Bermuda's Memories - Overflow Journal 1

[Not Alone]

Bermuda, I am just catching up in your journal today. My heart breaks for you and the abuse that you experienced.

It is a beautiful thing that your child is free to be himself and that he is safe with you and your H.

[Armee]

The way you handled the tooth brushing with your son is really beautiful and so balanced. He's lucky to have you and H raising him. I completely relate to what you say about the multiple poignant triggers that aren't necessarily negative in parenting.

That strikes me a lot when my kids want to snuggle or have me stroke their hair. All I wanted as a kid was for her to stay as far away from me as possible. She would touch me and I would just freeze. If she'd offer to help me with some chore I just wanted to be left alone to do it myself because I knew what her help meant.

I still have no idea what causes some parents with difficult backgrounds to continue the cycle and others to approach parenting thoughtfully like you do. But what a beautiful family you are raising. Good job.

[Bermuda]

Thank you for your replies. I have felt more self-conscious than usual lately and have been deleting more posts than I keep up. The replies really make me feel better about simply writing my random thoughts.

Armee, me too. To all of it. You wrote in your journal about never wanting to ask a question and it really resonated with me. Just simply reminding my mother of my existence was too much, let alone making myself vulnerable to attack by asking a simple question. I remember asking for help understanding a question on a homework assignment once and being berated about how stupid I am the entire evening, and how I would know what the teacher expected out of me if I had been paying attention, clearly I wasn't paying attention. Obviously, I look at this differently as an adult. My parents were projecting. They knew they wouldn't know how to approach the question and it is much easier to tell a child how worthless they are than it is to admit they had no idea. I was their emotional scapegoat or voodoo doll depending on the situation.

I don't know why so many parents just parent blindly. With C-PTSD I clearly have my own issues with emotional regulation, but I break down on myself and become just a void of human mass. I don't lash out. I fall apart.

[Bermuda]

I haven't been posting very much. I said I had been feeling self-conscious. That is true, but there is more to it.

Two active users on this forum have user names that are names of family members. I find it triggering. I know they are not my family members. It's very obvious in the way they speak and their backstories, but my mind still goes into protection mode. To me that means hiding and expecting the worst. It's not full paranoia, but I feel the need to pull away and protect myself. I worry about the things I've said, and feel the urge to change my user name. I have thoughts like, maybe they don't know me, but who does? What if someone finds me again?

I am 35 years old and still afraid of being found. I still feel like I'm being hunted. I don't know if I am being hunted, and sometimes seeing those user names trigger that reminder. So, that's why I am being reclusive. It's not that I am not struggling.

It's hard to want so badly to be seen, but also to want to remain invisible.

[Armee]

I wish I had a magic wand to help you feel safe and able to post. I don't, but I wish I did.

I sometimes i feel similarly about the real sounding user names. Not that I think someone has found me and will harm me because luckily no one is alive any more. But that it is someone I know and even though I'm not scared that it is anyone who abused me I STILL get a little panicky thinking it is someone who knows me and will recognize my posts. So I can't imagine the fear that arises thinking it might be someone who I have been trying to stay away from.

If it were my name that were triggering you I would change it in a second.

[Blueberry]

I'm so sorry Bermuda. Please let me know if it's my name, because I guess it could be a nickname too.

I also understand what you mean because even on other forums not even remotely connected to cptsd I get a little shock if I see a name that could come from my FOO.

[Bermuda]

Thank you both. It makes me feel a bit better to know I'm not the only one who can be triggered by something so simple as a name.

I don't want to say which names, because that feels too personal. In any case, I love blueberries. They're my favourite berry. 

I don't want to indulge my cPTSD either. I just want to be honest about my day to day struggles. Today I looked up several FOOs to try to figure out if they're trying to phish information on me, and where they are right now, and all those things. I found nothing new. They are silent for once. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. I don't feel one step ahead. It's not relief.

I wonder if I can ever learn to truly have two feet on the ground. I want that. I want rootedness. I want contentedness. (I physically feel like fleeing.)

[paul72]

hi Bermuda,.,
I'd happily change my name (it's just made up) if that helped
I too know how it feels to try to hide.

[Bermuda]

I am writing this on my phone, so please excuse any typos.

I recently realised that I am 17.5 years FOOless. I've been reflecting on what it means to be free nearly as long as I was abused. I have had half a life to live. I can think of it as 17 whole years to heal, or as half of my life up until this point robbed from me along with all the aftermath.

This post will be waffling and I'll let it go unplanned. So, sorry for that too.

Despite what I am about to write, I am a huge advocate for going zero contact. As a child I was made to feel that if I called the police or tried to escape that I would be locked up in an orphanage, go to jail, or starve to death on the streets. I believed that I would die, and that what I lived with was not that bad and that I was just being overly sensitive. It's hard to reach out for help when you don't know what it is you need help with.

I wish I could draw out a timeline here to describe what it has been like being zero contact with anyone from my past. It's been hard. At first, the first years, I mourned. I was a teenager, and I cried about the idealised version of a family. Holidays were horrible. Other people my age were the worst. They did not understand their privilege. I was told so many times, "What?! But they're your family!" I was blamed by my peers as if it were something I had done wrong. It was isolating. I had trouble with basic things people take for granted, even when I managed to get identification. I couldn't get anyone to cosign a lease for me. I had no emergency contacts. I had no safety net. I couldn't fill out university paperwork. I had no one, and no proof of existence. I still am more than a decade behind because of the real technical beaurocratic difficulties with being a homeless stateless teenager.

So, after the mourning the imaginary family phase I kind of went into the emptiness phase. It was the time when having no family meant having no identity. I don't have heritage or traditions. I didn't have anyone rooting for me. I felt like I just landed in a place and time. Someone during this time accused me of being a government spy. Not even jokingly. I had no idea how to behave like others, how to speak, what to say, just how to be. I was figuring out what to call myself, which language to speak, if I was sitting up too straight, what is the correct amount of eye contact... I was lost.

The third phase was the milestone phase. In my thirties some big things have happened. I got married, have had two children. At my wedding I only had one person who came to represent me. My wedding is an unpleasant memory. I feel guilty saying that, but it was a horrible day for me. (Deserves its own post.) I have trouble speaking up for myself and on my wedding it meant that my culture was not represented at all and that my mother in law bullied me out of anything I wanted. When we announced our engagement she turned to my then fiance as said, "Why, is she pregnant??" After that I got the interrogation. Why was my family not coming? My husband had to show them video evidence of what I was going through at the time with stalking. It was embarrassing. Somehow people who have lived ordinary lives look at those who haven't as if there is something wrong with them. I felt humiliated and judged. It was not my special day. My one person to represent me was also from the same religious background I am from, and also did not speak up for me. They were also taught not to speak. Other than marriage, the milestone phase has been a time where I have no one to ask questions to. I don't know how I was as a baby. I knew nothing about recovery from labour. I don't know my family medical history. When my midwives ask I can either be honest and have an awkward moment, or speculate.

Each phase of being singular has been distinct. I don't know if these experiences are degrees of healing. I wonder what phase comes next. All in all I am grateful. I may be lonely. I never learned how to maintain human connection, but I can't fathom what my life would have been. I never would have had the opportunity to be my own person, develop my own opinions, make decisions, or grow. I would exist in secret. I feel like I exist in secret now, but I would really only exist where no one could see. That's a scary thought. I wouldn't have had space to heal, or space to realise there was something to heal from.

[rainydiary]

Bermuda, I appreciate you reflecting on this and that I have learned from you and others that zero contact is an option.  I'm not there and not sure I will be, but I appreciate the understanding that I can determine the amount of contact I have with people that hurt me even if they gave birth and "raised" me. 

[Bermuda]

One of my triggers is gender.

So, I've written about how sexist slurs were used against me by both sexes growing up, but it was more than that. Their was also harassment about menstruation and other aspects of being born female. (I'll share stories when I have more time to write.)

Today I just want to write about every day life and what it meant to be born female growing up. I grew up in a religious cult, but in a way that my family openly used religion and at home voiced their... disbelief. This religion taught me that my virtue was related to my purity, willingness to serve my father and then my husband, and my ability to bear children. Nothing more. Overcoming that has taken me so long. Not just in the obvious ways, but how that mindset corrupted my ideals and what was normative. As an example, It was almost as if I had never questioned whether I wanted marriage because that was simply what I would do. Fortunately, I did not marry young. Yikes.

To be a female was to work. I didn't play. My brother's played. I remember my grandmother constantly reminding me that I was going to regret being active, that my body could not handle it, and I would feel my choice to behave tomboyish when I am older.

While my brother's had toys, I cooked and cleaned. I was so eager to help, until I realised that nothing I did would ever be satisfactory. I wasted too much water while washing dishes, five year old me folded sloppily, and I didn't remember the baseboards when vacuuming. ...At least I could cook...

When I was in 1st grade I threw out all my toys. My mother always threatened to throw all *her* things out, and I think I thought that the things were the problem. She didn't like people to see children or their things, we weren't to be seen or heard. So, in 1st grade I told my mother I was too old for playing, and I stopped.

Now as an adult I constantly question all choices that seem like gender norms, and I am WAY too serious, and I don't clean, ever... and I have no attachment things, only slightly less than I do to people.

[Hope67]

Hi Bermuda,
You got me thinking about attachments to things.  I appreciated you sharing what you said about your own attachments.  I was sorry to hear about your experiences regarding gender, and recognise the trigger relating to gender. 

I was sorry to hear that you weren't able or allowed to play, and that your brothers could do that.  It doesn't seem fair.

I wondered if you've allowed yourself to 'play' as an adult in anyway, or whether you don't wish to do that.  I hope you don't mind my asking that - I just wondered.

Hope 

[Bermuda]

I want to play. My grandmother was right in a sense. My body doesn't allow me to be active and wild in the way I would like to be, but she was wrong in her presumption that I am delicate because I am female. I wish I could do all the things that I was taught little girls ought not to. I want to climb a tree, play rough, etc. I AM that person.

When it comes to laughing, smiling, being silly, goofing off, joking, that's where I falter. I don't understand jokes, or when things are a joke. I rarely smile. I even see my partner being silly and playing, and I try to mimic that and be a ferocious tickle monster, but I can't. My little one would stop laughing and look at me weird.

I want to joke. People in the past asked me if I know any good jokes, and I don't know any jokes, and I certainly couldn't deliver one. I know these little things sound trivial, but to me they really are the things that make me feel alien.

I think I am naturally a weird goofy energetic artsy person, but I only know how to express myself as a quiet motivated robot. My outside does not reflect my inside.

[Armee]

I sometimes feel like my outside doesn't reflect my inside, too, and it is not a fun feeling at all. And also physically not being able to do certain things like joke around.

I'm sorry you got all those damaging messages and worse that your instincts were curtailed. I hope it's a comfort to you that you are doing amazing with your own child.

[Hope67]

Hi Bermuda,
I hope that you will be able to express whatever you want to, at some point in your future. 
Hope