Discussion Anyone else suffer childhood trauma

[spinningship]

I assigned a bunch of my depression and other symptoms to my autism but I've met a lot of autistic people at uni this year and very few of them have the same issues connecting that I have. I was emotionally neglected by my dad as a kid and he would get very angry if I ever showed any emotion like crying or getting angry. He'd count down from 5 screaming at me to tell him why I was crying and telling me he'd give me smth to cry about. He'd always promise things and then completely forget about them for work.

One incident I remember I was 9 years old and I had to pee twice on a 2 hour road trip and he was furious about it telling me he'd put me back in diapers if I had to go again. I remember yelling at him that it wasn't my fault, and he told me he had 'a right mind to dump me on the side of the road'. This doesn't sound so bad but I spent the next 2 years incredibly anxious about how often I used the bathroom to the point where it took over my life all I thought about all day was how long it had been since I last peed and having panic attacks over it. It made my life hell. I couldn't confide in either of my parents so was forced to face this anxiety alone. I've since developed a fetish related to this that i'm ashamed of.

I guess none of this is particularly bad. What stands out maybe is just the lack of emotional presence of my dad. The only interaction he had with me was screaming at me telling me how immature I was over the most minor of issues. My mum was never much support but she didn't actively do anything she just put up with him.

I've heard childhood neglect is one of the most impactful traumas. Nowadays i've noticed symptoms of cptsd popping up and I have a hard time separating out the cptsd from the autism. Worst part is I push away ppl who become friends because I feel such intense feelings of abandonment when they don't reply to a text for a bit. I think it's smth like BPD.

Now it's all becoming clear I think i'm just broken. Who the fuck wants to know the weird autistic kid, who rewards you for reaching out by blowing up at you over smth trivial. Before moving out I didn't feel too bad about my home situation and ignorance was bliss. Now i'm back home from uni for the first time for the next 3 months, and it's unbearable having to walk on tiptoes round my mum, feeling locked down again. It's so depressing.

I reckon as soon as i'm back at uni in october i'll be ready to go for real. I've had my shot at healing, heck I feel pretty good right now. But the depression will come for me and now i've had this sober period of reflection I'll know with confidence that ctbing is the right thing to do. I was only staying for my family, but I honestly just want to get away from my family now i've seen how toxic they are. I think most ppl have a brief recovery from depression before making their final exit.

 

[day]

I've collected a fair bit of trauma. Was sexually assaulted by 2 family members by age 5, step dad was abusive and threatened to kill my entire family, lack of guidance from any guardian in my life, even as a young adult now family has all but abandoned me because of my identity and sexuality.

I'm sorry to hear about your trauma as well OP. With any decision you make I hope you find peace and your suffering comes to an end.

 

[spirittheyregone]

Id say most people if theyre on here have definitely collected their own traumas haha.
I got saed by my dad for about ten years, by his friend for one, got into drugs really young and got brain damage from it. Thats how I found out that acid just like, stays in your spine, no matter how long ago you did it it stays in your spinal cord.
And god I understand the part about moving out. When its all you have you're thankful for it, then you leave and you realize just how horrible it was.
Same thing with the brief recovery, I had a really good year or so and then it feels like everything fades back.
I'm sorry that happened to you, you were a child, you should have been protected. I hope that if you do decide to heal again, it goes well for you. :)

 

[Ferret77]

Fellow autistic person with loads of childhood trauma here.
Growing up, I never really had a good support system. My father abused me physically, emotionally and verbally, when I was little, and I think that kinda set the tone for the rest of my life. It left me with a lot of issues. Severe anxiety, horrible self image, trust issues, attachment issues....I could go on and on.
I guess the worst would be the abandonment issues.... That's how I developed BPD, I think.
Not only that, I also got bullied a lot in primary and also middle school. I think I would've been able to somehow cope with my father being a horrible person, but when almost everyone in my life abused me to some extent, I guess at some point I started to believe the things they've been saying. I either was completely alone and didn't have any friends for long periods of times, or when I thought I found someone, they always used me, betrayed me or left me. I have almost no social skills for that reason....My autism, BPD, severe trauma and anxiety left me completely terrified of people. Even my other family members are toxic, so home life isn't a source of comfort and peace either.
In high school, I wasn't bullied anymore, but almost equally painfully ostracized and isolated. I found someone I love, but they left me too. I guess I'm just too broken for people to love me at this point. I can try to do whatever, but in the end, I always be that weird autistic quiet kid with no one. And to be honest, I haven't found a way to cope with that and I don't think I ever will.
I'm sorry you have to go through this....I hope you find what you're looking for, whatever that is. If you ever need to talk, you can message me, if you want....

 

[deomlez]

you say it's perhaps nothing, but you lived in a constant tension, it's unbearable for anyone, even more for a child...
You are different as an autist and it's sthg more to hold at any moment : stand noise, physicall contact, understand social codes and so many other things that makes the life a hell, even if you are supported, and if you are not.... our identity is so important !
I understand your wish to break with people since attachment is so painful.
All testimonials here breaks my heart. You are not alone but I not sure it helps you - for me, it doesn't help, even though I feel so close with your feelings and your experience...

 

[Sweet Tart]

I guess none of this is particularly bad. What stands out maybe is just the lack of emotional presence of my dad. The only interaction he had with me was screaming at me telling me how immature I was over the most minor of issues. My mum was never much support but she didn't actively do anything she just put up with him.

It was shocking for me when I started to realize how much emotional abuse and neglect I normalized. For most of my life, I thought I was just fucked up and destined to be that way. It was validating to find a forum for people with narcissistic parents and read about experiences so similar to mine. It was easier to recognize it as abuse when I read about it happening to someone else. Idk how you would classify your parents, but I imagine and hope there are places to talk to others who can relate and provide mutual support.

Being in an emotionally abusive home is so triggering, all the more so because the abuse isn't always obvious and there's a facade of it being normal. I hope you are able to salvage some of your uni break to get out of their space and do things that are comforting and restorative.

 

[josephk]

i Was traumatised enough with psych problems then had compounded trauma in a psych ward for troubled kids when I was 10.
As with most on this site it reverberates to this day

 

[Deleted member 31858]

I'm very sorry for what you've been through, no one deserves to be treated that way and I hope that soon you can get away from them and start to heal a bit, the truth is that many parents do too much damage by physically or psychologically abusing, in my case always too I knew deep down that they had caused my bpd and ptsd and every time I read threads with people going through this kind of thing I confirm it

 

[Kerrtu]

I was emotionally neglected by my dad as a kid and he would get very angry if I ever showed any emotion like crying or getting angry. He'd count down from 5 screaming at me to tell him why I was crying and telling me he'd give me smth to cry about.

It's heartbreaking to hear of this countdown that would happen from your father. I'm so very sorry for all you have been through.

I wasn't really allowed to show or express any other emotion than happiness from a young age until I entered elementary school. If I did express fear, or sadness, it only intensified the beatings, which were done by my older brother (I am the youngest of 3).

He would lock me in the basement which was concrete and cold. He would find me, take me to the bathroom and abuse me there. He enjoyed pushing my head under water in the toilet and would burn me in the bathroom as well. I still have burn scars on my right hand from a particularly frantic attack; he had lit a sharpie on fire and decided to burn me with it, hot ink and all. I clawed at it, it hurt and stung, and it stuck like glue on my skin.

He laughed.

I learned to hide what I loved, or else he would destroy it.

One of the worst memories is of him grabbing me by the neck and lifting me from the floor, then throwing me on the bed. I yelled "Don't rape me!" not understanding completely what rape was at the time, only knowing it was something horrible. He froze and sort of broke character for lack of a batter term, and he left. Maybe I scared him enough to break that rage wall?

The abuse continued on into my early 20's.

The only person who didn't abuse me was my sister. She protected me as much as she could, and when she moved out at 18, I remember watching her get in the car and drive away. I watched the car until it disappeared and felt on one hand, so much happiness for her that she got out, but also so much sadness to look back at the house I had to go back to alone.

 

[deomlez]

How can we endure that...

 

[animetal]

Fellow autistic person with loads of childhood trauma here.
Growing up, I never really had a good support system. My father abused me physically, emotionally and verbally, when I was little, and I think that kinda set the tone for the rest of my life. It left me with a lot of issues. Severe anxiety, horrible self image, trust issues, attachment issues....I could go on and on.
I guess the worst would be the abandonment issues.... That's how I developed BPD, I think.
Not only that, I also got bullied a lot in primary and also middle school. I think I would've been able to somehow cope with my father being a horrible person, but when almost everyone in my life abused me to some extent, I guess at some point I started to believe the things they've been saying. I either was completely alone and didn't have any friends for long periods of times, or when I thought I found someone, they always used me, betrayed me or left me. I have almost no social skills for that reason....My autism, BPD, severe trauma and anxiety left me completely terrified of people. Even my other family members are toxic, so home life isn't a source of comfort and peace either.
In high school, I wasn't bullied anymore, but almost equally painfully ostracized and isolated. I found someone I love, but they left me too. I guess I'm just too broken for people to love me at this point. I can try to do whatever, but in the end, I always be that weird autistic quiet kid with no one. And to be honest, I haven't found a way to cope with that and I don't think I ever will.
I'm sorry you have to go through this....I hope you find what you're looking for, whatever that is. If you ever need to talk, you can message me, if you want....

This is almost my exact same story . I feel exactly how you feel and can relate in every aspect

 

[InaudibleEcho]

I feel you. My trauma's not the exact same but it's similar. I was neglected a lot and my dad used to call me names, albeit in a joking manor (I didn't know that at the time though) but whenever I got upset about it he said I was taking it "too personally" and I was just "overemotional".
I had a step brother who picked up on what my dad said to me and started bullying me for the same things my dad "joked" about. It made me extremely insecure and I think I developed AVPD because of it.
I tried to tell my dad about this trauma and that it was still hurting me but he just said stuff like "you had it good and you'll realize that when you go into the real world. It could be worse and you need to stop feeling bad for yourself." And I can't go to my mom about this because she's always so emotionally distant whenever I talk about my problems it makes me feel like I don't even have a mom.

 

[sadnow11]

Yeah sadly I was neglected and bullied as a young child then bullied, sexually abused by a nurse in my teens and also became a drug addict in my teens.

Not exactly a good start to life if I do say so myself lmao

 

[ultrasharpy123456]

all the time

 

[Nemaki Arber]

I was neglected and abused in every possible ways, emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually. I wasn't allowed to show any negative emotions or my dad would beat me up, dare I acted like a teenagers when I was a god damn teenager I would get screamed at instead of being taught how to manage my emotional swings or plainly dismissed, my brothers both sa'ed me at a very young age and my parents never got me professional help for it, etc.

I resent them, my mom got better but still has her shortcomings, I'm no contact with my father.

 

[flyingrabbitt]

I'm severely autistic and extremely traumatised to the point I have DID so I can definitely relate. not the tiktok kind dear god i hate those people.

My childhood was filled with a lot of abuse. My father was an alcoholic who got clean but turned to gambling, he was emotionally abusive and yelled at me everytime I showed negative emotions similar to your father, it is definitely a unique type of pain to be emotionally neglected and abused by the people supposed to be helping you. My mother was never abusive herself but she was neglectful, she let my father get away with emotionally abusing me.

Now outside of all that I was being sex trafficked, by my father who would also rape me himself. My mother didn't know this, she still doesn't know despite us having a good relationship now. But this spanned around 8-10 years which started off with me having my body stretched out so I wouldn't tear and have the abuse be obvious. I was also tortured on top of this, in various ways including ritual abuse at the hands of a priest. The torture was done in a way that wouldn't leave marks on my body so being locked in plain white rooms with bugs (I have arachnophobia), electroshocks mainly with collars used for animals because they dehumanised me into believing I was an animal, befriending animals then having to kill them in slow painful ways. The list goes on but this went on for 14 years.

At 15 my parents seperated, later that same year I cut off all contact with my father and that's when my mental illness became extremely obvious because I was no longer in survival mode, I stopped functioning completely and at 16 I spent a month in a psych ward following an attempt which resulted in more trauma because of how badly I was treated there. I've been in an out of various mental health services since I was 12 when I first started cutting but no one could ever figure out what's wrong with me because I was smart and quiet even though we now know I had a whole list of disorders either developing or already present at that age.

I'm 18 now, I spend all day in bed with my mum, who is my caretaker, bringing me food and keeping track of everything for me. I have terrible amnesia and I can't remember what I've been doing most days because another part was out instead of me. I see a therapist who specialises in ritual abuse once a week and she's helpful but progress is slow and processing trauma gets worse before it gets better. I have no friends in real life because I drove everyone away being unstable and now I don't go out, I have horrible abandonment issues and the only people I can truely relate to are nearly twice my age. In the rare case I do go out I need to take a teddy bear with me because some of my parts will start breakingdown in public if I don't, I'm not able to mask my autism either so it's very obvious when you look at me. I'm also trans ftm which makes me even more of a freakshow because I have yet to transition properly and my dysphoria is killing me from the inside out.
I'm miserable, although I have a good support system nowadays I feel like it's too late for me most days because of how fucked up I am already. I'm not able to work, live alone or even take care of myself because I freak out at the smallest reminders of my trauma and go catatonic. I'm exhausted and I wonder why I'm still here but everytime I try to ctb my parts go out and tell someone so I'm stopped.

 

[spinningship]

I'm severely autistic and extremely traumatised to the point I have DID so I can definitely relate. not the tiktok kind dear god i hate those people.

My childhood was filled with a lot of abuse. My father was an alcoholic who got clean but turned to gambling, he was emotionally abusive and yelled at me everytime I showed negative emotions similar to your father, it is definitely a unique type of pain to be emotionally neglected and abused by the people supposed to be helping you. My mother was never abusive herself but she was neglectful, she let my father get away with emotionally abusing me.

Now outside of all that I was being sex trafficked, by my father who would also rape me himself. My mother didn't know this, she still doesn't know despite us having a good relationship now. But this spanned around 8-10 years which started off with me having my body stretched out so I wouldn't tear and have the abuse be obvious. I was also tortured on top of this, in various ways including ritual abuse at the hands of a priest. The torture was done in a way that wouldn't leave marks on my body so being locked in plain white rooms with bugs (I have arachnophobia), electroshocks mainly with collars used for animals because they dehumanised me into believing I was an animal, befriending animals then having to kill them in slow painful ways. The list goes on but this went on for 14 years.

At 15 my parents seperated, later that same year I cut off all contact with my father and that's when my mental illness became extremely obvious because I was no longer in survival mode, I stopped functioning completely and at 16 I spent a month in a psych ward following an attempt which resulted in more trauma because of how badly I was treated there. I've been in an out of various mental health services since I was 12 when I first started cutting but no one could ever figure out what's wrong with me because I was smart and quiet even though we now know I had a whole list of disorders either developing or already present at that age.

I'm 18 now, I spend all day in bed with my mum, who is my caretaker, bringing me food and keeping track of everything for me. I have terrible amnesia and I can't remember what I've been doing most days because another part was out instead of me. I see a therapist who specialises in ritual abuse once a week and she's helpful but progress is slow and processing trauma gets worse before it gets better. I have no friends in real life because I drove everyone away being unstable and now I don't go out, I have horrible abandonment issues and the only people I can truely relate to are nearly twice my age. In the rare case I do go out I need to take a teddy bear with me because some of my parts will start breakingdown in public if I don't, I'm not able to mask my autism either so it's very obvious when you look at me. I'm also trans ftm which makes me even more of a freakshow because I have yet to transition properly and my dysphoria is killing me from the inside out.
I'm miserable, although I have a good support system nowadays I feel like it's too late for me most days because of how fucked up I am already. I'm not able to work, live alone or even take care of myself because I freak out at the smallest reminders of my trauma and go catatonic. I'm exhausted and I wonder why I'm still here but everytime I try to ctb my parts go out and tell someone so I'm stopped.

I'm so sorry that's awful. I hope that you're able to work through the trauma eventually. Society wants everyone to be self-sufficient and makes you feel guilty if you're not, but in truth, the last thing anyone wants is to be a burden.