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Something’s not right

Powderfinger
Senior Contributor

This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

Two hands is not eneough to count the number of people in my life that commited various forms of abuse towards me.Sadly, every single type of abuse that is on the abuse wheel as forms of abuse, I have experienced. Some were romantic partners, some were friends and some were complete strangers. Today though, I am going to talk about my mother. I was also abused by my father and my sister but I am going to try stick with her. It's hard because sometimes the memories are intertwined with my sister and mother. I no longer have any contact with any of them in any way, shape or form. I'm still working through guilt of making that decision. 

 

My mother- so much to say about her really. For the first time in my life, I feel safe but only here to talk about her openly. I dont feel safe anywhere else yet, not even with a therapist. I had no idea my mother was abusing me till I was 40 years old. I have just recently turned 41. To hear myself say that my mothers abuse was cruel is shocking to me but it is true. It was extensively cruel. I did not know I was being abused as a child, a teenager, a young adult and then a fully grown adult. It happened and it never stopped just because I was getting older and growing up. That is fact. 

 

I sit here today and say to myself many times over, how could I not have seen that I was being abused by mother? Why did I not see it? Why did I not recognise it as abuse? I still go to say to myself you have it all wrong and it wasn't abuse, there must be something you are missing. BUT..... slowly I know I do not have it all wrong and slowly.... very very slowly I am starting to not blame myself for her abuse towards me. Through learning about responsibility and what it actually means, I am starting to understand that I am not responsible for her choices she made to abuse me. 

 

It still hurts so much and it has done a lot of damage to my brain. It has done a lot of damage to failed relationships, how Ihave seen myself in life as a person, what I have done to myself as a result of the abuse, the people I have chosen to be in a relationship with that were no good for me at all, the friendships I chose to have that were toxic and unhealthy, the struggles I have had to have healthy relationships because I did not know what they looked like but I wanted to try, the millions of mistakes I made because I didnt know much better as I had never been shown better, the various traumas I went through because I didn't always know how to take care of myself, and the many issues that it has left me with. The isolation I feel and go through, my mental health diagnosis that I have as a result and that I was not born with and the work I have to do on myself for life. As for the damage to my brain, well sometimes all I had to get through something was to use my brain. Pretty hard to do when someone not only is abusing you physically but is abusing you psychologically as well. To mess with the psychology of someone's brain is one of the cruelest acts of abuse I have been through. It started and it never stopped until last year when I notified her I was cutting all contact. Did I get any response, of course not. 

 

The many memories of my mothers abuse still haunt me. I have nightmares sometimes. They particularly come up when she has been on my mind for a few days. I always and for a long time wanted to know why she did what she did to me. I wanted to try understand and work her out, so I could help her. I feel sick inside of myself that I did that. I feel sick because that is how desperate I was for my mother to love me, I feel sick because I was a person that had empathy and a big heart, and I watched my mother suffering and wanted to help her be happier and not suffer anymore, I thought that is what love is. It is only now that I am older that I realise and know that the fact that my mother would turn her love on and off with me was not because of me, I now know that it was never up to me to be responsible to fix my mothers suffering and to be responsible for making her happier in life. I feel sick because I lost so much of my life and paid huge prices for what I thought I was meant to be doing. I am still paying those prices today. I am changing though with the new things I am learning, its slow change but I am changing. I could not have changed if I had kept up contact with my mother. To go beyond all the old voices in my head and to stop having hope was very hard for me to do, but that is what I had to do in order to cut contact. My mother messed with my head and my heart for a very long time. 

I cannot do long descriptions of everything my mother chose to do. There is too much and in each of them a story. I kept it to myself all my life. I do not know at all what my reasons are for saying anything about them now. Perhaps that they arent secrets that only I know anymore and I do not have my mother constantly saying to me do not talk about me. She would do that when I would get into a new relationship with someone. For some unknown reason I would be struck with fear about it. If these conversations ever came up in any relationships I would usually go quiet about it. At times I would have some partners whom I disclosed things to, but that always ended up in dire consequences for me. My partners were horrified and would have a dig at my mum. I would beg them not to say anything. Come to think of it, they should not have. They broke my confidence and trust. It would usually result in my partners being angry with me, my mother being extremely angry with me and threats to be abandoned all over again. I blamed myself. This toxic pattern followed me for amny years. The main message was I was not allowed to tell anyone about me being abused. Of course I did not know this was what was happening, it took me 40 years to see what she had been doing to me for a long time. Believe me these things are so very hard to write. Acceptance, what else can I do? I know she never will take any responsibility for the things she has done. It caused me damage. There are times when I think I would like to take her to court. I guess I want someone to know what was happening to me. For her to hear that her actions and choices to abuse her child in the way she did was heinous and unacceptable. Some sort of punishment and an acknowledgement that I was the victim of abuse and abuse that had a great cost to me. Then there is pretty much everyone that says, well you are an adult now and you need to take responsibility for your own life. You cannot blame your mother. Not helpful, slap in the face and another dismissal of me and the abuse that was inflicted upon me. I really do not feel safe talking about her and the things she did. All I have learnt is to keep myself safe from everyone. I need to have a break now, but I will continue this on at another stage. 

 

90 REPLIES 90

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

keep posting we are listening x

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@LostAngel Thank you. 

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Powderfinger  I’m listening. ❣️❣️

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Maggie 

 

Thanks for letting me know you are. 

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Maggie I did another post last night on my thread and it is just nowhere to be found. 

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Powderfinger  Have you contacted  @Former-Member  someone might be able to help out with that. 

 

I hope you can find it.

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Maggie I have tagged someone hoping they can help. Thank you. Will see how it goes. 

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

Post 2. 

 

You will notice, I am starting to put up on each post I do about all of this as Post 2, Post 3, Post 4 and so on. It is so I can keep track of it myself. Sort of like an online diary of pages. 

It seems my post from last night has disappeared, so I will continue on anyway. Today, thoughts of ending my life have run through my head more times than I could have counted. Yes, people I do know all the numbers available to call when and if anyone feels like that, I do know I can present at hospital, I do know that people want to check in that I am ok. Im fine. Sometimes I do not want to be checked up on when I share those things. Id rather people comment on my post than check up on me. 

Moving on. It's been an even more difficult day than it was yesterday. I have literally felt myself going insane and not understanding what was/is going on. Writing sometimes helps me get some clarity and sometimes it does not. I get angry with myself because things keep coming up over and over and over again in my head. I think to myself why cant you just let it go. Its not just in my head though, it is in my body too. I feel all the feelings I felt when it was happening and then new feelings perhaps as well or perhaps feelings I had pushed so far down? I do not know. 

 

My mother really hurt me so much. These are the things that have been floating around in my head most of today. I never really got to understand her motivations for things. Nor why she did certain things. All I know is some of the things she did feel to me like betrayal, not anything that would equate any symbolic love for your child and just plain crazy. There were many experiences of this. It has caused me great harm, these things she did. I also feel crazy a lot of the time and I do not understand that either. I dont understand why I feel crazy and I dont know how to find answers. The frustration of not knowing for me makes me want to cry a lot, because deep down I know it is not my fault for feeling this way. I don't want to feel crazy and I dont know how to stop it. 

The first experience I remember was when I was a teenager. I had a major experience at school and the proverbial sh..t hit the fan at school for me. I was accused of something quite serious that I was innocent of and know that I did not do. The person who accused me of doing it completely lied and she was believed. I had not a leg to stand on. To make matters worse, she was my friedn I ahd known for 3 years. My parents were very close friends of her parents and we all spent a lot of time at each others houses. That was the end of our friendship really. The day she did that. It changed the course of my life. I was completely innocent and she made up this lie all for attention. I truly thought people would see right through it. They did not. I hate this person to this day. I try not to think about it and I find it really hard to talk about. The immense shame and guilt I felt when I actually had done nothing wrong. So, I had a hard time at school that day and I was in such shock. Consequently I never had an easy time at school after that. She spread it around to her friends and I got viciously teased. As it happened so many many years ago now, I have let go of what her friends did. I will never forgive her for what she did though and I dont think she would have changed at all. 

So, I went home after school that day and I knew my mother would be home. My father would still be at work. I came in the house and my mother was in the back yard crying. She had a family friend around. I will never forget the look her family friend gave me. It was one of I am not sure, disgust I suppose. I was so scared. I truly wanted my mothers support. I had no idea what she had been telling her friend, but I felt so embarrassed and betrayed. I was angry. I guess today I realised I was angry. I thought to myself just now while writing, what right did you think you had to tell someone something about me without my knowledge? This person isnt a therapist, she is a friend. There is no confidentiality and this is a person I have to see regularly. My mother never had it in her to think about me. Anyhow, she was talking to her friend and her friend was consoling her. I couldnt take it, so I just walked away. I went to my room and shut the door. That was my mother. She never did it with my younger sister but she did it with me. Anytime something upset her about me, she was either on the phone to someone, or calling someone to come over to talk about me. Forget about the idea of actually talking to me first at all. People say you need to talk about this in therapy. 

 

They do not understand how hard it is for me to do that. The shame I feel to try talk about it. Worrying that someone is going to say it is no big deal and they dont understand why I am so hurt/affected. It wasn't the first time she pulled this sort of caper anyhow. My mother betrayed me and that is the only way I can see it. I do not know how to deal with her betrayals. To make matters worse, this happened very close to Christmas time. Each and every year we would go and spend Christmas Eve with this girls family. I knew it would not be the same this year. I was 14 years old that year. 

I thought my family would support me and take care of me. Guess what they did. They got me some movies, some popcorn, left me at home by myself and all of them went to spend Christmas Eve with their usual posse. I cried all night. I was devastated. To me that was a very cruel thing to do. I never realised then how much it affected me, I do now though. I still want to cry about it sometimes. There is no justice for me. No one cared. Many years later, my mother bought it up for one of her pathetic selfish reasons. She said oh by the way, so and so's mother said that night we went without you, that you could have come along and were welcome. Just loved to screw with my head and heart. I do not know if she was consciously doing this to upset me on purpose or if she was just flippant and put no thought into anything and all. Why even bring it up more than 20 years later even!  I never want to see her again. 

 

I wish somebody could just tell me straight, what the heck was and is wrong with my mother???? It's not like she had a diagnosis of anything, nor did anyone know what she was doing. People enabled her so much. I just dont have any answers. I will continue this post again when I am ready.

Re: This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.

@Powderfinger  Again, I have no answers. Lots of understanding and experience of an unfortunate mother experience. So I’m hearing you. Walking with you.

 

Keep talking if it helps. Sending some 💙💙💙💙

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