Today I realised I am a victim of abuse

Sounds really stupid I know…

I haven’t had the best childhood, emotionally distant mother to the point of torment. At a young age, I started getting on the internet to find an emotional connection with someone and ended up at the wrong places. My Dad (who was my rock in everything) was with a really toxic church group and my Mum stopped me from seeing him at every chance she could get. At 15 I was on the streets. Doing favours for people so that I could stay in a house with a room over my head. People offering to pay me to do things. Bad relationships…

And today I just keeled over myself as I realised for the first time in 27 years that I am a victim of abuse, and honestly I can’t deal with that. But it’s this whole Pandora’s box of everything suddenly going… “Oh… That’s… Not… Great.” And now I am haunted by all of the things that I did, and that people made me do…

And I don’t usually do this, I am the person that keeps others up despite everything. And I just… Don’t know what the hell to do. My life is pretty okay so far, but it’s like I just noticed the Ghosts that have haunted me even though they’ve always been there… You know?

3 Likes

I do know. And I think I understand, too. I don’t know anything for you to do. I’m going to get my friend and senpai, @Hannah2911 to help you.

1 Like

Hi friend,

Thank you so much for sharing your heart here and for opening up on our forum for the first time that is such a brave step.

It sounds like you had a tumultuous and traumatic young adulthood and it makes sense that your brain would try to protect you from processing and working through that trauma and abuse until you were ready to do so.

My encouragement is that it is okay to ask for help, you can be the person who always helps others AND be a person who needs help themselves sometimes. You can be a survivor of abuse AND not let it define you.

I imagine it feels like you are standing in the middle of the ocean and wave after wave keeps hitting you and you feel like you’re drowning in it, like these memories and realizations will never stop and they won’t pass. Although it feels that way it’s not true. Just in the way that you survived all of these things that happened to you and became the person you are today (someone who is kind and loving and helps others) you will survive the remembering of these events. Breathe. Be gentle to yourself and don’t hesitate to reach out.

Therapy is a great safe space to process these traumas, work through them and receive support. If you aren’t sure where to start heartsupport has a partnership with betterhelp where you can receive a week of free therapy at betterhelp.com/heartsupport

You got this. Hold fast friend. Sending love

2 Likes

Thank you for this beautiful response. It’s just weird that the term felt like it never applied to me but it wasn’t until I hear what other people’s childhoods were like that I was like… oh this really isn’t a normal thing?? Oh damn…

The weird thing is that I get upset or angry/jealous at other people for not having to face those things. Which is bananas! I don’t want another soul to go through what I went through. And jealousy does not have the nicest green.

I think I will take therapy though, it’s gonna be the joy of finding the right one. It takes me a long while to trust women but due to my instances being of intimate occurrences I dont want to make the guy uncomfortable

Hammeta,

It’s so common to not recognize the reality of your pain until you have the perspective of other’s to use as a reference. We often don’t know what is normal or abnormal until we have a different reference. I’m glad you’ve been able to realize this!

It’s also a normal feeling to be jealous of others who haven’t experienced the same kind of pain. It’s the feeling of wishing your experience could be different and could be more similar to someone’s who hasn’t felt the same pain, but also knowing that you wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. It can be hard to accept, but don’t beat yourself up about having those feelings. Your feelings are not good or bad they are there to tell you something and to guide you.

Also definitely try therapy! I encourage you to find a therapist of the gender who feels the most comfortable to you. A male therapist definitely shouldn’t be uncomfortable with what you are sharing, they go through years of training to know how to guide you through the processing of tough situations.

Hey there,
Thank you so much for reaching out and sharing this here. That truly does take so much courage to do.

Like Taylor said, you can most definitely be a support to others and still ask for help yourself. We can’t pour from an empty cup so it is important that we seek help and support when we need it so that we can continue to not only take care of ourselves but others as well.

Our brains protect us from memories of traumatic things from the past as a way for us to be able to function and survive and because you are remembering more and more I’m sure it is incredibly overwhelming. Know that it is most definitely normal to feel how you are feeling. All of this is a normal response to an abnormal event/events.

I am so glad you are reaching out and although this is a lot to process and may feel scary, you are not alone on this journey. You are a person filled with incredible strength and I am hopeful you will be able to find a therapist that you can feel safe opening up to and processing with.

Stay strong my friend. We believe in you!

Hannah Rhodes

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.