Child Abuse/Alcoholic Household

Here is a link to the book for anyone who is interested in what he's thinking might help illuminate why I may have been treated the way I was. Not an excuse, but an explanation, as he said from what I've told her, she demonstrates all of these traits. Who knows, maybe this book can help someone else who grew up in an abuse and/or alcoholic household:

www.amazon.com/Understanding-Borderline-Mother-Unpredictable-Relationship/dp/0765703319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411800637&sr=1-1&keywords=understanding+the+borderline+mother


Things aren't always black and white, but the most important thing is taking the steps to work through them and come out healthier on the other side. I've learned how I never, ever, ever want to be,....and it shows because I'm NOTHING like her in any aspect, and I'm dang proud of that!! :)




M.

Hi boys and girls! It's update time. Just got back from the therapist and want to share a gem of what I've learned.

Children who have been neglected physically/emotionally, children who have been abused (all of the above), end up having certain aspects of their development retarded in growth. I mentioned the issue of the brain development, so here's another one I learned today.

Many abuse/neglect victims are also chronically ill, and suffer from a multitude of maladies. This is because in addition to brain development, our IMMUNE SYSTEM development also gets retarded in growth! So we never build up the defenses of normal, healthy children!!

And the sad part is,...that's for life. When we're adults it's up to us to do our part to take care of ourselves, but we're starting with a lower baseline. We're more susceptible to diseases and illnesses, because our immune systems have been hampered.

It makes sense as I was always a sick kid and God knows, lots of stuff as an adult. Lots of issues with hair, skin (LOTS of skin problems growing up), joints, lungs (I have asthma, and suffered from croup, chronic bronchitis, bouts of pneumonia)....the list goes on.

Those are pretty big things to take into consideration. I am learning that this goes way beyond how a person abused a child, and it extends beyond the act itself. We are then impaired for the rest of our lives, and most of us don't seek help for any number of reasons. But we're left in the dark thinking we did something wrong, there's something wrong with us, what did we do to deserve (getting sick all the time, etc.)

I have no doubt my decades-long battle with anxiety/panic are included in the extensive list of repercussions.

There you go. I thought I'd cast a little more light onto this for anyone who is following my journey to Healing Well after abuse.

I'm desperately in need of lunch, so I'll be taking a little break for a bit, but be back in a jiffy. Hope this helps someone else out there too!





M.

It's Jfer again,
I will add that I know that cult like behavior is real- I would never discount a persons' suffering as cult like as false. I have treated a woman who was 'borderline' but was was diss associative identity disordered. This individual was subjected to horendus experionses - all I can say is very sad and very scary and REAL - a group of horrible people dressed as (not real professions) police, FBI, etc, it was horrible.

Yes! Exactly what you guys said.

Since I left that environment, I've gotten healthier and happier. I kept trying to have her approval despite what transpired. Even though we've been estranged, even after all she's pulled....

She phoned me yesterday!! Talk about a trigger. I went into meltdown mode. I did not answer the phone, did not check the voice mail, it's getting deleted w/o being heard. I refuse to talk to her and her ex-husband period end of story.

I've put my foot down and said NO MORE!

Last night I came clean with my Husband and told him about the childhood abuse. I felt another step of the purge...

The more I clean this childhood crap out of my system, the more I can feel the 'real me' inside start to come out in freedom. This is a rough ride, but I'm really giving it my all.

I see my therapist again tomorrow. Can't wait to tell him my "mother" called me....thank God for Xanax and that triggered me opening up to Hubby. So something good *did* come of that mess.

You guys are the best, and I thank all of you for supporting me through this!





M.

I had the 2 different lives too. It was unspoken and expected, and punished if not followed through on.

There was really no where to escape to be me because pretty much all that made me "me" was "wrong" for my "mother." So I spent a great deal of my life (and I'm talking childhood up until adult hood) in what I'm discovering has been a depersonalization state, derealization state, disconnected from reality, not getting it, not learning, remembering, processing.

I went through the motions (guided by my "mother" that SHE felt I should do with the singular goal of making money for there is nothing more important than making money).

I was a terrified child who grew up into being a suspicious and paranoid adult (and often with good cause).

Just because we're older, and true -- we ARE responsible for our OWN lives now that we are adults -- does absolutely NOT mean we've dealt with or recovered from all that we were dealt. Parents/family/others would just contritely preach to 'get over it' and 'you're grown up now' and 'just deal with it.'

True. They don't get it.


All these mixed messages participated in why we have compromised immune systems, and it explains our brain development (YES even as an adult), our repeating mistakes w/o learning from them,....we're not stupid, we have, quite literally and frankly, been compromised from a very young age which in effected hindered our body's development.




M.

Yes, it is sad looking back how we just were really amazing kids, my mother only had to look at us and we knew, there was no screaming and time-outs and warnings, we just knew when she gave us that look that we better straighten up and now. I do feel very sorry for my mother having to go through this for years and years, back then you didn't leave your husband and she had so little confidence in herself, in my opinion, that she stayed because she had to have income and housing..etc.

My father always provided for use, ALWAYS, never missed a day of work even when he was drinking very badly, he has been sober for a long time now, and I love him dearly, he was abused as a child, and will rarely speak of those things, but occasionally he will tell us some of what went on and I am flabbergasted at what he went through.

Now that my father is older, he dearly loves my mother, and he has a touch of Alzheimer's and has to be with her almost all the time, if he can't find her in the store he gets anxious.

Merrida, what about your father? Was he supportive of you. In my situation at least we always had my mother, she never left us, was home every day, listened to us and was very strict but she loved us, she was a little over protective of us, she was just an incredible woman, still is to this day.

Okay, another nugget: Children who have been abused also have problems with context, memory, time, and the consequential blurry line between events.

I can attest to this as in my early 20's (for just one example), I had a few jobs that were more "mainstream" and considered "real jobs" (compared to my passionate job of personal training). To this day, I don't remember them well. I have fuzzy memories, I know of course, what I did and all, but my perspective of timelines is altered and unclear.

So we have problems remembering events and establishing dates. There's a lot of cross-over and misremembering (in part, as a coping mechanism and shut-off valve).

Always something new to be learned,...





M.

I just got back from therapy and thought I'd share some new gems of insight along the way.

I've mentioned this book before: www.amazon.com/Understanding-Borderline-Mother-Unpredictable-Relationship/dp/0765703319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413915978&sr=1-1&keywords=understanding+the+borderline+mother

This helps to describe the personality/dysfunction of certain individuals who abuse their children. Disclaimer and Caveat: I realize this doesn't apply to every person nor every situation.

He brought it up again today, so we're past the "hinting" stage, and he's really uhm, strongly encouraging me to buck up and read this book.

This is what I learned today: Parents who abuse their children often manifest what's referred to as a splitting of their personality (NOT the same as "split personality"...I must clarify this strongly!) It becomes an "all or nothing" situation. He gave me an example relating to our therapy sessions. If for example, I arrived 5 minutes late one time, someone with these disorders may turn on me reprimand me with comments like, "Why are you always late? You're never on time!" (Etc.)

I was constantly berated for never being good enough. I did well academically and that was expected. If I made a mistake, all of Hades was let loose as if I caused a plague. I became a "bad person" as opposed to a simple mistake or even performing a bad behaviour. I "became" that behaviour as my identifier.

So with those constraints, one who is abused is always in a no-win situation because all it takes is one mistake, and suddenly our whole person, who we are, our identity is about that one behaviour.



Another thing is: Part of our coping mechanisms involve learning ways to hide. Some people do this by gaining a lot of weight, or by dressing in ways or behaving in ways that strongly either say "stay away" or send out messages "don't approach me." And it's not always conscious, in fact, most of the time it isn't. It's us filled with anticipatory anxiety and trying to avoid "the next shoe from dropping!"



There's more, but I figure we'll start there. I'm learning so much about child abuse, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse,...how the trauma manifests and what subsequent behaviours develop,.....





M.