Everything likes to suddenly crash again haha

[wren_wyn]

Things have been alright. Recently, everything decided to crumble before me again for no absolute reason I can see. I’m tired of having phases of self- inflated ecstasy and then worthless hopeless despair.

I keep thinking about him. He comes into my thoughts randomly. The smallest, tiniest connections bring back memories and I’m back to where I was 2 years ago. I think about the other kids I knew that interacted with him. How I’m lucky, but I’m ashamed of my freedom. Why me? Why do they have to suffer while I get to be free. I think about this one girl he damaged before I knew him, how young she was and how hideous she became- so full of hatred and anger. And I think about how I love him and how this sickness in me never seems to fade.

I’m so ashamed and guilty because on occasion, I want to be back there with him. I’m utterly repulsed by sex or even platonic physical contact, but thinking about my experiences with him makes me hypersexual in a way. I hate it. I’ve read it’s a trauma response, maybe as a form of control. But it feels like, once again, I have no control over myself since it isn’t “me.” It’s disgusting. How could I suddenly like something that has scarred me? And what does that say about me. Am I a creep or a pervert now? Because this wretched body of mine becomes aroused by the thought of him?

And then the itch in my brain says “cut, cut, cut, cut it all away.” Like a payment system. I have to pay for my apparent debts I’ve caused myself. I’m not allowed to feel that way, nor do I want to, and I wish I didn’t, so punishment must be the only cure, according to my twisted self. Because punishment fixes everything. But in the end, I start craving the pain again. I guess that’s what I’ve gotten used to knowing. How sad and pathetic is that.
No, I haven’t talked to my therapist about this because even putting it into writing is severely uncomfortable for me.

Everything is seeming to become hopeless again. I’m miserable but I’m alive. I have no friends. I have no life. I’m sad but I also cannot feel. Maybe I’m shoving it all down, but do I even deserve to feel? Silly questions. I’m loopy, it’s time for bed.

[DyllonKG]

My friend. Thanks for posting. While I cannot empathize with the situation, I wanted to be here and listen and be in this space with you. heartsupport — Mozilla Firefox - Everything likes to suddenly crash again haha - HeartSupport / Support - heartsupport — Mozilla Firefox - 8 July 2024 | Loom

[SirGeekalot]

First, I’d like to let you know how much I admire the courage you have shown in sharing your story here. I know from personal experience that trauma can run deep and have an impact on us as well as on how we perceive the reality around us. In my case, it was trauma from being bullied and trauma from extreme fundamentalist religion. I haven’t experienced what you have specifically been through but I do know the pain that trauma leaves us with. It can be natural to feel guilty for making it out while others don’t. As well as to even feel a connection if not affection for our abusers. I think it’s important to remember that escaping the abuse isn’t so much us abandoning others and leaving them behind. It’s getting out of a terrible tragic situation that no one had a right to put us in in the first place. It’s about survival and freedom. It’s also important to remember that we were hurt by someone so much that it left a lasting mark. You aren’t disgusting, or a creep, or a pervert. You were hurt and are seeking healing. I am glad that you have a therapist. I know that my therapist has been instrumental in my healing and personal growth. I know its hard, but opening up to your therapist about these things and talking to people that you trust can be an immense help. I’m glad you reached out. Remember, you aren’t alone.

[wren_wyn]

@DyllonKG
Thank you.

Something you mentioned, about the experiences shaping someone. Especially so, I have a hard time with identity, knowing who I am or even what I like. Even things like my interests, I don’t really know because I’ve been living according to someone else that I never got to live on my own. I was a child then, too. And like you said, there isn’t very much left and I don’t know how to start over when I never really started at all.
I think it doesn’t help that I’m in that weird stage of development of identity and finding out who I am. I internalize everything self-consciously. I don’t know who I am or how I would act without my experiences with him. Am I shy because I’m introverted or is it because I’m scared of people? etc. I still act like how I did with him sometimes.

I do like what you said your therapist brought up. But change is scary and I don’t know any different. What is light supposed to look like when I’ve been in the dark? I’m unsure of how to rebuild everything when it’s been reinforced, changing an half (for me) lifelong habit. There was once a time when I was happy, but I don’t remember anything until from when I got away from him. I guess what I’m trying to say through the ramble is that: I don’t know how to reconstruct anything in my brain, if I’ll even let myself, and that deviation from the norm is scary.

@SirGeekalot
I have a lot of survivors guilt. I wish I could help any of them. I even have had dreams about telling them the truth and them rejecting it. Now I know the absurdity of his lies and I cannot tell any of them.

Affection towards him feels twisted. Like I shouldn’t feel that way towards someone who has hurt me so deeply. “He was awful, but…” It doesn’t justify his actions but I continuously feel like I’m sugar coating, obsessing, or glorifying what he did.

Things aren’t going well with my therapist. They think I should see someone else since I’m not improving. They’re “used to patients wanting to get better.” I guess I’m an anomaly in that sense. It’s too shameful, embarrassing, and hurtful to even speak about him to the people around me. I thought I told my therapist about what happened, but maybe it’s all in my head like everything else is. I end up feeling not good enough because I’m not “getting better.” That’s everyone’s goal for me but I don’t know what I want for myself. Healing and recovery feels forced. Like it’s the only thing I can do and anything different from that is disappointing.

Thank you.

Ramble
For context, this was all online. He never physically touched me, although others unrelated to him did, but he traumatized me the most.

I found something I wrote not too long ago (a couple months). “I fell in love with him. It was 5 years. I didn’t want to hurt him, to get him into trouble, to leave him. I cared about him, I wanted to care for him, I wanted to be there for him, I didn’t want to leave him. I couldn’t leave him in reality. But like if I had a choice, I believed I wanted to be there for him. I wanted him to hurt me at times, I wanted him to listen to me, I wanted him to comfort me and to tell me he loved me. I was obsessed with him and he consumed me.”

At the same time, I loathe him. I hate him, he doesn’t deserve to be alive. He’s a demon in human form and he needs to be expelled. I hate what he did to me, I hate what he’s done to the others and more, and I hate him because he’s still alive.
So that makes any hypersexuality or positive feelings / memories towards him disgusting. I know what he did and I’m fully aware of the damage he has caused me, so why do I get a stereotypical “good feeling” towards something that is the opposite of good. In the end, it feels like I’m glorifying the abuse. It makes me sick not only because it’s sexual but because of the context with him. In short, my thoughts about him are conflicted.

I wish I could get him out of my brain but at the same time, I’m holding on. Other things have happened outside of him. They weren’t as bad, but just that tiny similarity is enough to bring me back to the time with him. They were still traumatizing for me. So what’s the point in healing when more people will be corrupting me? What’s the point in moving forward if I will always be a tool? When I can’t seem to escape those types of people because I keep meeting more of them. Because those instances happened when I lowered my guard.

I hate talking to my parents about anything so I plaster up and maintain a happiness fallacy. They inadvertently invalidate me. Today, even, my parent mentioned along the lines of “I’ve been through worse,” even though I haven’t spoken up about my time with him practically ever. Because I’m tired of being shot down all over again. When I open up and say something, it’s immediately brought back down. It’s not worth that tiny bit of lifted weight only to have it doubled back down onto me. Nothing ever feels good enough and that’s the same feeling I had with him. Tiny similarity, but it still brings me back to then, mostly him. The pain is bearable if I suppress. Healthy, no, but it’s how I’ve survived all this time.

[wren_wyn]

One parent specifically- I come home from a therapy session, “Any headway? You doing any better? Are you improving?” and so on. It’s constant.

“I want you to heal. I want you to get better. My goal is for you to get better.” Just shut the hell up already. Everyone has these goals for me, “getting better” is staring to feel like an expectation and I’ll never be able to live up to that.
They want me to put goals for myself. A goal for the week, a goal for the month, a goal for 6 months, a goal for the year. I can’t do that. I can’t do that. I have no goals, ambitions, or dreams for myself. I have nothing except the pieces of what other people have given me and I can’t take it anymore.

What if I don’t want to get better? Why can’t rotting be an option? Why am I expected to “get better” whatever that means. Why is it like an expectation now. Accept that I’m dirty. Accept what happened is what happened. Stop trying to make me forget when I don’t want to. And stop trying to get me to move on when I’m scared.

Whenever I have lowered my guard, felt safe, or tried to heal, I just got hurt again. Because people keep touching me and breaking me all over again. “It was only once.” I don’t want to heal. I’m just going to be hurt all over again. I’ll be rejected by society again, I’ll be another toy for someone else, and what if I’m fine with that? One voice says this, one voice says that and it’s messing with my brain. I can’t pick. I can’t decide. But I also cannot fulfill this expectation of healing. Because I’m terrified of reliving everything again.

I’m becoming teary eyed but I still cannot cry. I hate talking to either of them about the things bothering me. Because it’s either “let go and forgive” or “pray about it.” Meanwhile one parent is giving irrelevant advice and the other is saying they’ve been through worse than me.
Why is my only option to “get better.” And why does it have to be instant. Why do I have to be a different person over the span of a year when my main trauma lasted for 5? When I try to explain, they don’t understand. I want to scream and shout until I lose my voice, but I can’t. I feel I no longer have a voice. What was once taken by him now seems to have been taken by them. Does it really matter in the end. It’ll still never be valid because he never physically touched me.

“Adversity makes you stronger.” I never asked for it. I never asked to be “strong.” What’s so strong about being abused.