Sorting myself out

[OwnSide]

Hi all!

I'm a young adult on a years-long identity questioning tour (including sexuality, gender, neurodivergence, and mental illness) in which C-PTSD is my latest place of exploration. I decided to join OOTS after reading a few threads (particularly The Healing Porch) and noticing a strong emotional reaction come over me. It seemed like the people here would understand the parts of me that didn't make sense and that I didn't have to be alone anymore.

I have a hard time rationalizing my experiences as abuse or neglect per se (the harm was not intentional), but I've slowly been recognizing that I have trauma and that it arose in a relational context. I am hoping that's enough for me to be here. Everything I remember seems so small, but the Big T Little T Trauma thread has assured me that it still counts. I am learning how to validate myself.

My little sister has been my biggest inspiration. As a toddler, she understands what it's like to have big feelings and not be able to explain them. We're learning together, and I hope to be able to understand my trauma better so I can prevent the same things from happening to her.

[Papa Coco]

Hi OwnSide

Welcome to the forum.

I understand the struggle to find and accept our true identities. A lot of that going around. I'm glad you are reaching out to others so that you can take this journey of self-discovery with others who are on the same, or similar paths.

You made a comment: I have a hard time rationalizing my experiences as abuse or neglect per se (the harm was not intentional). My only response to that is that it's okay to accept that your experience was abuse whether it was intentional or not. Trauma is the dent that's left in your car door. It doesn't matter if the dent was an accident or intentional, a dent is a dent and the cure is the same: An auto-body shop.  Same with the traumas of our pasts. It isn't important whether the damage to our psyche was done intentionally or not, the cure is still the same; Talk with others who have had similar experiences, read the helpful information on the web and in books, get therapy if needed, and love yourself no matter who you end up finding out you are.

I'm very happy to see you on the forum. I hope you get what you were looking for here. I have been a member for over a year and I've found some of the friendliest, most open and heart-felt empathetic people of my lifetime. People with CPTSD tend to be pretty darn nice people.

Welcome

[Not Alone]

OwnSide, a very warm welcome to you. 

[OwnSide]

You made a comment: I have a hard time rationalizing my experiences as abuse or neglect per se (the harm was not intentional). My only response to that is that it's okay to accept that your experience was abuse whether it was intentional or not.

Thank you, Papa Coco. I think I needed to hear that 

Another thing I've been sitting with is this concept I came across a little while ago, looking at online resources about abuse. The idea goes that because abuse is a subjective experience, "if it feels like abuse, it probably is". And when I ask myself how those moments felt (rather than trying to interrogate the events themselves for objective signs of wrongdoing) I get a very odd feeling. I know what it is. I can describe to myself. But as soon as I try to relay it, something in me scrambles to downplay it.

One of the most powerful things about being here is that I feel justified to at least consider the possibility. Like hmm, what if I haven't been oversensitive this whole time?

OwnSide, a very warm welcome to you. 

Hiya! 

[Papa Coco]

Hi OwnSide,

I'm 62 years old. I think young adults today are far, far, far more advanced in emotional intelligence than we were at that age, and in a lot of cases are more emotionally intelligent than we are at any age. You impressed me with your comment "And when I ask myself how those moments felt (rather than trying to interrogate the events themselves for objective signs of wrongdoing)". You couldn't have asked a better question to yourself. I was in my fifties when I finally started to ask that question.

From there you brought up something I resonate with very, very well. When you try to explain how you are feeling to others, your brain scrambles so as to downplay it. You can think it, but you can't explain it.  For a lot of people, there can be two or three things at play here.

1) We minimize our pasts. Myself, as well as a few others on the forum, have disclosed that we spent a long time not believing we had the right to call our childhoods abusive because we really didn't think they were that abusive. A few of us even said that the abuse wasn't intentional, so we didn't feel right complaining about it. The big problem with that is if we don't feel like we deserve to see our pasts for being as abusive as they were, we won't accept the appropriate methods for healing that we need. For many CPTSD survivors, the day they finally admit their past was as painful as it really was, and that the pain was given to us through abusive treatment by others, is the day their healing shifts into higher gear. Also, we'd been taught a few things that made minimization into the right thing to do.

2) We obey our toxic abusers: Many of us were raised by sociopaths and narcissists who convinced us from birth that we deserved to be treated like family pets rather than human beings. This did some serious damage to our self-image. We grew up feeling unworthy of holding boundaries of our own.  Narcissistic people make good people like us into their scapegoats. When they sin, we get punished. Our self-image sinks to the point that we feel ashamed of ourselves if we ask for help or even try to expose the abuse.  And Narcissists, sociopaths, or any other type of toxic person hates one thing more than ANYTHING else....they absolutely hate it when their victims stand up for themselves. So they take out every weapon they have against us if they think, even for a second, that we're preparing to stand up to them.

3) We are tired of being called liars: Many of us have tried in the past to ask for help, only to be laughed at, disbelieved, or told to "suck it up." Or "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade!" or even my least favorite "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  (PS: I think that phrase should be rewritten to: "What doesn't kill you puts you into therapy and depression and anxiety for the rest of your life."  In my opinion, it's the THERAPY that makes you stronger!!!!)

An example of why I could never verbalize my feelings:
I'm from a family of 5 children, spread out over 16 years. I was the 4th of 5. I had 3 teen siblings when I was born. They all had adult authority over me. They were not good people. If I ever tried to ask one of them for help from another, I'd get accused of lying. They stood together against me. I was a child, they were all teens. They stood together, and our parents stood with them.  This became the family dynamic which stayed in play until I was 50 and stopped all contact with all of them. I was taught that my voice was not credible. I was taught that no matter how honest I was, I would always be called a liar if I asked for help. I once had a situation where my eyesight started to blur. I was about 12 to 15, somewhere in there. All I said to my mom was "Everything's blurry." My mom, without even looking up at me, chuckled and said "You don't want glasses."

I instantly dropped the subject and didn't say a single word asking for help with my eyesight because I knew that if I said one more word about my eyesight that I'd escalate her sick anxiety, then my own anxiety would give me a blank brain, and she'd go on scolding me while I sat and stared at the ground. In the end I'd be apologizing all over myself for being a bad son. I knew that mom would tell dad that I'd made some childish attempt to score a pair of glasses off her. He'd laugh and scoff at me later. Then she'd tell my now adult narcissistic sister how I was behaving like an idiot, trying to trick her into buying me glasses, and from there, the rumor would spread all across the land, and I'd be called a stupid little manipulator by all my siblings, and half my aunts and uncles.  THAT's where a lifetime of gaslighting leads a boy's brain at 12-15 and beyond. That's why I grew up unable to verbalize my experience of life on planet earth.

I got lucky that whatever was causing my problem, it was temporary. Maybe it was some part of puberty or growing. I shot up to 6 foot tall about that time and had a lot of physical aches and pains just from the growth spurt. Today I assume that's what caused my blurred vision.

The truth is I did not want glasses. It would later turn out that I didn't need glasses. I was never treated or looked at by any doctors so I don't know why it happened, but it turned out to be something that only caused me problems for about a week and then cleared up on its own.

But my point is that no matter what I said about how I was experiencing or feeling or how I was being treated, I got the same response, which basically was that I was being bad. I was too stupid to know what was going on in my own body, and I'd be laughed at or punished if I verbalized my problems. Since they were all manipulators, they just assumed I was one also. Any and every attempt to get help with any problem I was having, from being abused at school to having legitimate medical concerns, was a dangerous journey toward a blank mind, a scolding, me apologizing later for being "bad," and dealing with a reputation from all the gossip that my inquiry generated.

I ended up living until I was 50 with a serious inability to tell my side of any story without going into babbling crazy-talk that never got me any help for anything.

The reason I can more eloquently tell my side of the story today is because 12 years ago I walked away from all of them. I went 100% No Contact and immersed myself in ONLY my own family. My wife, son, daughter in law and grandsons. They love me. They trust me. I'm getting better now at being able to talk about my feelings and thoughts.

[OwnSide]

Papa Coco,

You said something in another thread that really resonated with me, about how gaslighting is being traumatized by so many little things over time. It's really hard to explain that to someone who hasn't experienced it! Like okay, this is what they said, but this is what I imagined they were really saying, and this is how I think it would go if I contradicted them, and this is how I think it would go if I explained it to someone else, etc.

My situation was quite different from yours. I grew up the only child of a single parent, no family nearby, very 1 on 1. I was my mom's reason for living, so we were very close, best friends, almost like equals. My gaslighting was less about what I did and more about how I felt -- it's not that cold, it can't hurt that bad, that sort of thing. And because this was my best friend talking, it was very easy to believe that I was just making a big deal out of things. So yes, minimizing all the way. But being here has already changed that!

I used to imagine it would have been easier to have someone else around, to bear witness, to offer an alternative viewpoint. But it sounds like you were surrounded! My condolences to you, and congratulations on your later life (ongoing) recovery.

[Armee]

Hi and welcome. You have a protective streak like many of us here. I hope you can understand and heal too both for your little sister but also for yourself.

All the traumas caused by my mom were unintentional, caused by her own mental illness. I struggled with that until she died. It wasn't her fault, she couldn't help it, it wasn't abuse because the intention wasn't there, etc. For me it was all a way to keep my anger submerged because I needed to take care of her. If I kept telling myself I was the bad and wrong one then I could keep facing it. It was still horribly damaging but if I called it abuse....anyway...I get it, and it's powerful. There are good reasons when we shy away from calling something abuse. And none of those reasons are that it wasn't abuse. It was. It is.

Here's a place you'll feel understood and validated. Welcome. I'm glad you are here though I'm sorry you've suffered.

[Blueberry]

Welcome to the forum Ownside

[Master of my sea]

Hi Ownside,

Just wanted to say hi and welcome to the forum 

There are so many wonderful people here that just get it. I have found it such a relief to finally find people who understand exactly what I am saying, with very little explanation.

I hope you find the understanding and support you're looking for. I'm sorry your journey led you here, but I am glad you've found this little safe haven of kindred spirits.