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Viewing 15 posts - 346 through 360 (of 1,137 total)
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  • #345344
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I am crying because my mom texted me that the man who abused me and her growing up passed away from chemo and the virus combined and I didn’t want to know and my mom just told me please no negativity this happened and he was a part of our lives and his son is devastated.

    And I am freaking out because a part of me is relieved and another part of me feels so much guilt because I have blocked out so many memories of him and try to forget his existence altogether and it is my fault he wasn’t close to the family anymore and I am so sickened. He would stand up for me when my mom was too harsh. He was a bad man but these times confuse me.

    Why during hard times like the virus I feel like I still worry about my abusers like my mom and  I am going to try my best to distract. This is so weird and I am sorry.

    I really should have a better routine I have a hard time being patient with myself.

    #345350
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    This is why I think you should have ZERO contact with your mother. That way you will get ZERO news that will reactivate the emotional damage you suffered by her and by the people she chose to bring into your life.

    As a matter of fact, ZERO contact is in your screen name: ZE.. well, almost the whole ZERO is there.

    anita

    #345368
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    You are right. Part of emotional healing is understanding oneself and setting boundaries and doing what one can to improve circumstances. I am cleaning and trying to focus on what is right in front of me. I have to have courage to grow.

    #345374
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    Good thing, you cleaning and trying to focus on what is right in front of you.

    What kind of “setting boundaries” do you think is best for you to set with your mother?

    anita

     

    #345570
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    When I am able to strongly go through my social media I will remove my mom and anything relating to that. My family and mom is posting about him and I woke up to being tagged to photos of him and immediately as fast as I could look away from my phone.

    And after removal I will tell her I am not trying to bring negativity but I don’t want to hear or see anything about him.

    I have been using mindfulness skills up the Yin Yang but I worry about going back to my social media or texts to be able to enforce boundaries. Right now my boundaries are that I am a ghost to it all. Out of sight out of mind. Thank you for helping to learn how to respect myself. I am mad she tagged me in a memorial post. She knows I am afraid of him. She knows I don’t want to hear or talk about him but she is like no negativity but…. I am not negative I am honest. My needs and wants aren’t negativity.

    #345592
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    Notice this, you wrote: “after removal I will tell her I am not trying to bring negativity but I don’t want to hear or see anything about him”-

    -It is she who brought massive and life changing negativity to your life throughout the years of your childhood. You were the one who brought to her the innocent positivity of a child; she squashed it with her negativity. And still, most recently, she tagged you on a memorial post of a man while knowing that you “don’t want to hear or talk about him” and that you are “afraid of him”- she keeps bringing negativity to your life. In other words she keeps hurting you.

    -If you choose to not have contact with your mother, I hope that it’s not only for the purpose of not availing yourself to a her mentioning of that man, but for the purpose of you not availing yourself to her hurting you more, and more.

    I agree, your “needs and wants aren’t negativity”; it is her disregarding your needs and wants ever since you were a child, that is negativity.

    Keep using mindfulness skills, and post anytime.

    anita

    #345666
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I went to log in and his biological daughter from years ago is now trying to add me. I logged into the media to try to delete and remove and it is a can of worms of the past I don’t want to deal with nor do I have to.

    Okay I held my hand over the screen and untagged myself without seeing any images and removed my mom from my friends list. I haven’t spoken to my mom at all. and I don’t even want to deal with that confrontation. Because I know she is going to be like how can you be so cold? or something. She will say anything to get me to stay quiet.

    At least I can objectify the past as thinking of it only on this webpage and I am unclicking it because this isn’t a part of my story now.

    Why do I have to be dragged into this to have to face his daughter who I only know from when I was like 5. She lived in Florida after that. I don’t want to face this. He was a father figure to my brother and the biological father to my youngest. It is best I just keep myself far away from them. I think that is what my mom means about negativity.

    A part of me was like oh well maybe my mom is “not fully getting it” and she doesn’t understand how I don’t want to hear or see him. But no she knows. That was the whole reason why I stopped talking to her for a year until my ex friend contacted her. Why did she have to tag me?

    I feel angry and then sad and disgusted because I can’t even think of his existence and I don’t have to.

    “-If you choose to not have contact with your mother, I hope that it’s not only for the purpose of not availing yourself to a her mentioning of that man, but for the purpose of you not availing yourself to her hurting you more, and more.”

    She will just keep hurting me because I am suppose to pretend that it is all okay and it just drives the pain in my heart further. And it is painful to lose my brothers. The one I grew up with won’t speak with me. So I have been grieving the loss of my family for 11 years and I feel like this isn’t news to me. This is just another representation of how much I am on the “outside” to them.

    And when my ex-friend did contact my mom she told my mom what I could remember and what was weird like the physical flashbacks I would have but no narrative memory to it. I don’t know if she told my mom about the nightmares I use to have and how I can only sleep on my stomach to feel safe. But my friend has shared what I have shared with her. My mom doesn’t believe me because I can’t say what happened specifically. She thinks I am a liar.

    It is hard for me because this is why I avoid anything and everything that could possibly connect or remind me of him because I don’t want to remember. The last time I was triggered by the past in regards to him was that professor with the eyes and tone.

    I think this is why I have struggled too because if I could say hey look at this injury he caused it.

    A wound that would be visible. maybe that is why I need to make more art. I don’t want to hurt myself anymore.

    *Potential trigger warning*

    I know I woke up with my pants off. I know I hated to take my clothes off as a kid so much so my mom would yell at me why I wouldn’t take my underwear off and I would try to always shower with a bathing suit on. I know I am also afraid of him because of all the violence he would do to my mom and the house. I know he did things to my aunt in her sleep. He taught me how to make peanut butter cookies. I can’t make peanut butter cookies it is sickening like I feel gross because he was a father figure in some ways. Never really always there because he was in and out of jail. But I have those childhood memories I wish I didn’t have with him and I feel like he was a really sick person who is now at rest and died without ever telling the truth. It just makes me sad bbecause my mom was always the most angry and mean on christmas. And one christmas he had a lot of presents for us an my mom was fighting and he was sad and he just wanted us all to have a good christmas. He would cry. I would be dad too because i just wanted to have a good family to and it isn’t my fault.

    #345730
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    Congrats for un-tagging yourself, and removing your mother from your friends list!

    You wrote about your mother: “She will just keep hurting me because I am supposed to pretend that it is all okay and it just drives the pain in my heart further.. My mom doesn’t believe me.. She thinks I am a liar”-

    – for as long as you don’t end all contact with your mother, for as long as she has some access to you- part of you keeps pretending, part of you believes her (that you are a liar).

    I have something to share with you that I didn’t share before, it may shed some light on your understanding regarding childhood abuse and childhood sexual abuse:

    I have a clear memory of myself as a child extremely ashamed at being seen naked by my mother (a shame carried on into adulthood, so much so that a gynecological visit felt like a traumatic experience every single time). As an adult, I read books on sexual abuse and the symptoms listed regarding the behaviors of adults who suffered sexual abuse as children- fit me perfectly.

    I thought for many years that I must have been sexually abused as a child.  At one time I thought that maybe my father sexually abused me (before they got divorced and he left, when I was five or six). I had no memories of such, but he was a man who  lived in the home of my childhood.

    This is what I found out years later: I reacted with great shame as a child to being naked, and I felt great shame regarding anything sexual because of comments my mother made regarding sex. And because of her abusing me physically and emotionally, particularly going to great lengths to humiliate me.

    The effects of her abuse of me spread to the sexual arena. It doesn’t take specific sexual abuse (examples: touching/penetrating a child sexually, masturbating in front of a child) to bring about symptoms identical to what sexually abused children experience. Non-sexual abuse is bad enough and powerful enough to bring about the same symptoms, the same suffering.

    Severe non-sexual abuse doesn’t stay contained in a fictional non-sexual container in our brains. Instead, it spreads into how we feel about our bodies and how we feel about sex. An example: if a girl has an excessively angry mother who also made a disapproving comment on the topic of sex (a comment not directed at the girl), the girl who reacts fearfully to her mother’s anger is likely to feel anxious about anything sexual, such as parts of her naked body.

    Your mother severely abused you, maybe more than her boyfriend did. Her abuse of you is enough to explain your suffering. There is no need to look for more reasons to your suffering, what you do clearly remember about your childhood is enough to explain your suffering of a lifetime, so far.

    anita

     

    #345874
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I will respond more fully when i am able to absorb your post. Thank you for sharing with me and I hope you have a beautiful day.

    #345892
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Thank you for your note, Zeeza. And you are welcome. Have a good day yourself.

    anita

    #346380
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    I want to let you know that I am thinking about you and hoping that you are okay!

    anita

    #346420
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for thinking of me 🙂 I feel cared for. I am being gentle with myself. I ordered a summer dress on sale and it came in the mail and I am wearing it while cleaning lol. It is the softest dress ever. I am trying to take self care as being mindful in how my body feels and how I want to create my space. Doing my best for spring cleaning and staying focused on the present.

    I messaged my mom that I did not want to hear or see anything in regards to him and I hope that you and the family stand in love and heal. That I unfriended her so I don’t have to see or hear about it.

    She never responded but read the message. So the scary confrontation I thought I would have has turned into silence which is far more peaceful. It seems like we are both done with each other.

    I spent last night crying and just kind of empathizing with myself. How hard I tried to be a good girl and how hard I try to keep smiling even when life seems to fall apart. I still try to sort through beliefs that are helpful and ask myself what direction I want to go down. I try my best to listen to myself instead of stuffing it all down.

    There was a song that came on at work that reminded me of him and I started to cry and took a break. It was hard to show emotions around people but all I could say was someone I grew up with passed away a couple days ago and this song reminds me of that person.

    I feel more distant from it all now. Like I can zoom out and see that I am so grateful my life is no longer wrapped with that story anymore. I really do feel like my mother hates me. Like it is easier to give up the hope she loves me.

    I can’t understand why people try to intimidate and be mean when you try to set boundaries. It lis like my feelings don’t matter and I am being scared into shutting up.

    To self discipline myself I think do I want to build a life worth living? do I want to love and appreciate each moment as it’s own? Then let’s do XYZ in the smallest steps. Slowly but surely. Instead of rage that would meet me if I failed at being “perfect”

     

    * potential trigger warning *

    In response to your previous post I do think I can see how what my mom has done was designed to shame me about my body.She would throw away clothes my grandma bought me because she thought they were inappropriate. That one time she made me take my shirt off in front of her boyfriend saying you want men to look at you well now they are. When she gave me a bbloody nose the next day, the night previously she hated my tank top I was wearing while reading a book. I had this tank top for years and now she threw it away. I wore baggie carpenter pants and I became so tired of trying to wear shirts where my mom could become mad about that I just always had a sweatshirt on. I remember wearing a sweatshirt in the summer and feeling comfortable because I had become so use to always wearing a sweatshirt. I wasn’t allowed to wear my hair down and if I did my mom told me she had people watching me at school who would tell her what I was doing.

    I think that is why it is so empowering to wear this dress and be comfortable in it. My body is about my boundaries. I now have long hair and I wear it down when I am not in the lab. I think this anxiety medication and working with you on this very thread has helped me immensely in making choices that help me cope instead of continuing to hurt myself. Letting go of thoughts that poison my mind and spirit.

    How are you these days Anita? I hope you are finding beautiful moments.

    #346432
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    You are welcome. I am glad to read back from you!

    It’s a good visual, seeing you cleaning your apartment in a summer dress. I am glad you unfriended your mother. I want to thoroughly read your whole post and will do so later when I am more rested. I will be back to your thread later today.

    anita

    #346484
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Zeeza:

    “she made me take my shirt off in front of her boyfriend saying you want men to look at you, well now they are”- by doing what she did and saying what she said in this very example, she made a connection in your brain  between her boyfriend and your naked body; between her boyfriend and your (alleged) desire to be seen naked. This connection at a pre-teen age, let’s say, would easily evolves at a teenage years to a connection between her boyfriend and your sexuality!

    What she did and said in the example you gave is her abuse of you, not her boyfriend abuse of you; she took your shirt off, he didn’t. She said what she said, he didn’t. She is the one who sexually abused you in this example, not in the classic way, but her way was no less effective than a classic form of sexual abuse.

    “she gave me a bloody nose the next day”- she is not endearing herself to me with this record (you shared it before, but her behavior still repulses me just as it did when first reading about it).

    You wrote regarding your mother: “It seems like we are both done with each other”- I hope, so hope that you are done with her!

    I am glad you are wearing your hair down when you are not in the lab, and that you enjoy your summer dress. You deserve to be free from the garbage (her shaming words, her accusations, her threats, her abuse of you) that your mother threw at the beautiful, innocent girl that you were.. a girl who is still you, always have been.

    Don’t continue your mother’s legacy in your life, a legacy of hurting a beautiful, innocent little girl.

    anita

     

     

    #347870
    Zeeza
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I hope you are well?

    I still have not had any contact with my mom. It has been very hard for me to sleep the past couple days. My boss asked me to make a bunch of masks. I finally have my sewing machine up and running and practiced straight lines.

    My brother called me after over a year of not speaking telling me he wants to move out to where I am in the next two years. I couldn’t believe it. It made my heart happy to see him doing well and to talk about all the pets we have had and meet each other as adults if you will.

    I feel like I am no longer that 5 year old girl hiding in the closet but a capable confident women to overcome obstacles and enjoy life as much as possible. I have been radically accepting my sadness and it is very validating to have this in perspective.

    Thank you for helping me see things clearly. I am trying to be very careful with the story I tell myself and stick to true to reality thinking.

Viewing 15 posts - 346 through 360 (of 1,137 total)

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