Diagnosed with PTSD, on to C-PTSD, does my story make sense with that?

[Knopssos]

I've had a strange childhood, really bad from others view but I'm not sure it was personally. From what I've read though a lot of childhood trauma victims play it all down for various reasons. I was wondering if I could get some insight from people who have had similar childhoods maybe.

When I was a kid I was never spent time with by my parents, one on one. Up until I was nine I just kind of existed it seemed, they were divorced so they were busy building there own lives, which is understandable. So I spent most of my time alone and playing games and watching tv. Things started getting bad when I was nine or so.

I moved to my dads with my step mom from my moms. At first my dad would take me on secret trips and have fun with me. Overtime my step mom became exceedingly angry with this, and it stopped. She would yell at me constantly about menial things, sometimes feign being about to hit me, and start telling me I was lucky for some reason when she didn't. At first I'd tell my dad and he would be really concerned. Over time it seemed more and more annoying to him, and eventually it seemed he thought I was lying. At about ten he started making fun of me, belittling, chiding, I remember being called things like mongoloid, stupid, but he would always say he was just playing.

My first year at school with him I didn't know then but I had really severe anxiety. I'd go to the nurses office everyday, make myself throw up so I would seem sick enough to go home. Eventually my dad told me that unless I had a fever I'd have to just stay and school and be sick otherwise. At this point he seemed to take on the idea I just faked things because I didn't want to do them, not for any other reason.

Around eleven he started taking me to therapy, and medding me up. Anti depressants, ADHD medicine. My memory on a lot of this is hard to access. Not sure why. It was at this time that really the verbal battery began. Anytime I go around him and my step mom he'd be little me, without fail they'd both be laughing at me and if I showed a negative reaction I'd either be chided or told I'm overreacting. I've heard the phrase more times than I can count. They made me watch my brothers and sisters up to five days a week, whether they were home or not and I'd be berated about my quality of work there too. They really would find anything they could.

At fourteen my grades started plummeting. I can't express how much I didn't care about school, partially because it was the only thing that could actually seem to get him and my step mom angry, it was almost like a power I had over them. Stupid, I know. This is when things escalated. It was the first time I had friends, and a girlfriend I was more adult like with. Every aspect of me was picked over and ridiculed. Anytime I brought anyone over they would constantly explain to them how bad I was. It really was hard to have people over because of that.

After my first high school report card I got grounded like never before. When I came home I had to go straight to my room, they took out my books, tv, everything except a radio. That got taken eventually. I could not talk to anyone. I wasn't to leave my room unless called. It was basically solitary confinement, me and my thoughts. That's when my anxiety started to take in new, strange forms. This went on for a year and a half. If I went to my moms every other weekend I wasn't grounded, and when I came back I was berated for not being grounded while there.

To throw this in late everything friend and family member that showed me affection was also ridiculed. He would tell me my mom cheated on him with a bunch of men, called her tree trunk legs, talked about how her genitals reeked, that if she ever said she wanted me it wasn't because she loved me but just because she wanted child support. My best friend was retarded because he was home schooled, my girlfriends were strange to be with me, etc etc.

As I got older they grounded me like before multiple times, would sometimes lecture me for hours at a time, I remember my legs hurting from standing for a while . If I looked wrong during this I was told I was disrespectful. I was told on multiple occasions that what I thought didn't matter, how I felt didn't matter make sense and was irelevant. If I became upset I was told to go ahead and call child services they wouldn't do a thing. If they did it would get my dad fired(he was a social worker) and wasn't worth it for what I was essentially wrong about.

I know I've dragged, there's more, some of it I'm just withholding for sake of length and some is just strangely hazy and uncomfortable to focus on. Does it sound like abuse? How come it doesn't feel like it is? I feel like somehow it was asked for, deserved. If I tell people they're horrified, yet I have no clue why. I don't understand. Does this sound as bad as people make? Appreciation to anyone who read, it means a lot. Thank you.

[Libby12]

Hi Knopssos.

I just wanted to say welcome.

Every detail in your post said awful emotional abuse to me.  I suffered a lot of physical abuse as a child,  but it was the emotional abuse which I believe did me the most harm.  I understand exactly what you went through with being laughed at, belittled and demeaned.  It is absolutely soul destroying. The solitary confinement sounds all to familiar.  Did you have to plead and beg forgiveness to be released?

It sounds as if your step-mother was insecure and jealous,  maybe.  And your father became her enabler over time.  So sad, and so common here.  My parents stayed together and would say that they had an absolutely blissful marriage and yet the dynamic was just the same. It is these dysfunctional patterns that occur whatever the type of family structure that helped convince me that my abuse was very real and very damaging.   

I wish you well with your journey towards healing and I hope that we can all help you and also learn from you.

Best wishes.

Libby

[Rainagain]

Hi knopssos,

I would agree totally with libby12, to me it does sound as bad as people say to you.

If it doesn't seem too bad to you then you could be numb to it all, numbing is part of cptsd.

Blaming yourself is also part of cptsd.

I hope you read around this site and keep posting, lots of good people here.

[Three Roses]

I've read that it's easier for us to minimize our abuse, that when we are children it's too threatening to see it for what it is - it makes us feel more threatened to look at it clearly because if our parents don't properly care for us, how will we survive? So, we accept their abuse as truth and go along with it, learning over time to minimize and underplay it as we are taught to do by our abusers, who were in turn probably taught that too.

Statistically we are more likely to minimize our abuse than to overstate it.

[Knopssos]

I appreciate the responses. I never pleaded, no, I don't know why, id ask why, why you won't talk to me, why you won't listen to what I'm saying. I never thought it was my fault and what's weird is that makes it even harder to come to terms with, I think, because it seems subconsciously my fault but no one around me thinks what I could have done in any form makes sense of it all. I'm reading around I wish there was more activity here, since C-PTSD seems niche in a sense and talking goes a long way. I wish there were in person support groups for this stuff, talking to people in person would be amazing.