It's like being suffocated, minute by minute, day by day, week after week, for a lifetime. I knew there was emotional abuse but didn't know what it was called or how to ask for help. I ran away at 14. At 54 (current age), I finally came across information that helped me understand that I wasn't being disobedient, but trying to survive as a person. For 25-plus years, I have attempted reconciliation and begged for forgiveness until I learned a couple weeks ago that I did nothing to need forgiveness for. I survived with my identity intact or at least mostly intact. But I have suffered all these years, especially with depression, anxiety, and self isolation. People see it. People saw it. But they didn't understand it. I was ostracized at school, every single school, each year a new school, and each year it followed me. Each year I was made fun of and rejected by my peers, and with each school, with each new opportunity to change it, I believed I failed and I died a little more inside. Now that I understand more of what happened/is happening, I find myself sinking into a greater depression because I don't know how to help myself.

I'm loving this conversation. If you find someone that you dont quite know yet, but you have this remarkable feeling of familiarity, watch out. Sometimes that feeling is based in picking up on traits of trauma in another. It can be good or terrible to experience. Espeywhen they do something that just hits you like 'Okay, he's doing the exact same thing that my abusive parent used to do.' Im the oldest of six children, mentally ill mother, child run household, co-parent, and codependent. That's me. I remember having to hide in the laundry room to cry or hide the fact that I was on the brink of losing it. I'll be 39 in a couple days and still have difficulty expressing myself with behaviors that I don't like. I'll white knuckle the bar, so to speak, and bear it until I implode. I'm learning how to do so many things that I missed out on and I just want to change my baseline sense of what "normal" looks like for me. Like, updating my encyclopedia set of how to live and what's healthy. 😊

And, when your best efforts and insight, and sharing honestly to get on the same page, after being more than generous applying your care, sharing, being a team player and you need time to yourself, it become a threat

Love Dr Webb- great books!

When my mother married my dad on her wedding day, she thought she was alone when she told her best friend and sister, "I'm marrying the wrong man." Unfortunately, my father's mother was there and overheard before she was seen entering the room. She told her son, of course; but not until way later on. (I'm guessing she was hoping my mother was just getting cold feet.) Years later when my mom was caught having affairs and my father caught on, (Or she was getting sloppy at hiding it) my father placed a recording device on the home telephone system bc he was an engineer/in the tech industry and recorded her private conversations. When I was 5, he played the recordings for my sister and I and told us, "If you see mommy with these men, you call them 'Homewrecker!' and then tell me.." IDK if my sister ever did because she hates me, we never have been close. (Big surprise) I know I went and did exactly what I was told and my mom slapped me in the face. I was so confused; because I was proud that I did what dad told me, but instantly reprimanded as soon as I did as I was told. He not only told us about the affair, but he would often take us places he knew she was, when she was lying about where she was. On Mother's Day she said she had to work. He took us to the fair in town and I guess she was there with her lover and his two daughters, who were prefect and blonde/thin and beautiful. My mother would body shame me growing up, "Why do you have to be so big?!" she would yell at me when I didn't fit into the clothing at the stores for kids anymore. That's just the tip of the iceberg... I'm now in my 30's and most of my relationships have been abusive, toxic and I always left them. This is why I am single as I'm trying to sort out all the trauma I faced as a child, including the sexual abuse when I got older. It's never too late to get help and to recognize the pain and get help with it.

@ashton1952

3 ай бұрын

Sorry you've had to go through all that, may you find healing and peace 🙏❤

For the record, studies show more often women/mothers emotionally manipulate their children than the men/fathers do, in cases of divorce and shared custody. I know this initial example is using the father as the bad guy that is emotionally manipulating the kids, but once again more often it is the mothers manipulating the kids.

@scatteredgrapes8007

Жыл бұрын

More often, the abuse from the father is more covert. The mother is often the first victim

@automatic5

Жыл бұрын

the abuse from fathers is more severe. and that rates for emotional manipulation towards children is probably not that different than mothers and fathers. also fathers are less likely to be in the picture altogether.

@erineve156

Жыл бұрын

What studies are you referring to? (Name/year/year replicated etc.)

@ashton1952

3 ай бұрын

@@automatic5 Depends on the situations and individuals, I've seen male abuse be more overt / physical, whilst abuse by females isn't seen as easily, and just as destructive if not worse, because the wounds are emotional and mental. Can take decades to realize what it was.

Lol. That dude telling his kids that they're getting a divorce because of their mother is amateur hour. My dad told me straight up to my face that I almost cause him and my mom to get a divorce (also, I was kidding about the amateur thing, that other dude is still horrible, I joke about my trauma)

@patticake5367

2 жыл бұрын

I also have a vivid memory of my dad telling me that when he was a kid and crying his mom made him look in the mirror and look at how ugly crying was. He had me do the same.

@patticake5367

2 жыл бұрын

He also said another time "you're crying so you must know you're wrong"

@ForRelationshipHelp

2 жыл бұрын

Sadly passing the abusive behaviors on as too many folks do.

@scatteredgrapes8007

Жыл бұрын

@patticake may father was very intolerant of emotion. He would speak with disgust filling every word as he told me that he wasn't going to deal with my " hysterical emotions"