POLL: What childhood trauma did you have in your life?

[etherealgoddess]

I'm just curious to see what associations we can see with people who are clearly depressed and suicidal (as assumed by being on a suicide website) with childhood trauma. You can select as many responses as you want.

 

[thewalkingdread]

I think It all started when I was born... Being born into this pigsty is already — by itself — enough trauma...

 

[1MiserableGuy]

Born into a white supremacist/antisemitic cult so removed from regular society I had no idea it wasn't how normal people lived until I was about 10-12

 

[Malaria]

Physical abuse, emotional abuse, some sexual abuse. Growing up with autism and being socially awkward led me to being ostracized, rejected, and bullied by classmates. I was also abandoned and neglected by my parents. I was left alone at age 11, and I was too young to be left alone. I became a latchkey child and as a result had unrestricted internet access, which also fucked me up.

 

[DogSandwich]

When I was in second grade, whatever age that would make me, we lived in a newly developed prairie space. Scrub land. Full of tarantulas and, especially, centipedes. In my sleep I was bit on the face by a huge centipede as my bedroom was the basement bedroom. Every day you'd find several dead or dying centipedes. About the size of a healthy, impressive cock.
I never prayed before then, but I started to pray myself to sleep. Hours of pleading with God to protect me. No more venomous insect bites, please. Some nights I would cry or plead too loud. Sheltered under a lion king sleeping bag that I used as a blanket, one night, crying too loud, I heard a deep seething, labored and angry breathing.
Immediately I knew that my room was host to a ghost, something malevolent.
Turned out it was my mother, tired of my crying. She flailed about my head, she was tired. Tired of my crying, tired of me. She went on until I stopped. We've never really spoken about it. Never spoken about my being beaten in the centipede room.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

The first 6.

 

[Kit1]

I ticked off 8 of those - autism was not on it, but thatvprivably didn't help either.nor did the abandonment.
There is ample evidence that indicates that the more the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), the higher the possibility of mental health challenges and dying of suicide as adults. 4 or more ACEs takes off 20 years off our lives.

 

[sserafim]

Emotional/psychological abuse, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, Cold Mother Syndrome, physical abuse, race-based trauma (I'm Asian)

 

[Suicidebydeath]

@DogSandwich that's awful, I think the insects might traumatize as much as humans did, for some reasons humans can do worse but I wouldn't want to sleep with insects, I would find it difficult so it would be like passive torture
@Kit1 I'm sorry you had to grow up as a refugee

 

[actualfemcel]

Abuse (every poll option), neglect, medical trauma and grief. I have tried everything I could to succeed in life. I was a perfect student. 4.0 gpa all the way until I got my STEM degree. I was not accepted into any graduate program. It doesn't matter how smart you are or what gifts you offer if people treat you horribly for being "retarded" (having autism), being visibly deformed due to physical abuse, and even your own parents didn't want you.

 

[thewalkingdread]

I seriously think that being born should be considered some weird kind of "sexual"/romantic abuse...

To me, being forced to be born just for the satisfaction of others is as abusive as abuse can get... it's literally a couple deciding for themselves to have a platonic "ménage a troi" with a third person who never asked to be involved with any of it.



And it's all downhill from there...

 

[etherealgoddess]

Born into a white supremacist/antisemitic cult so removed from regular society I had no idea it wasn't how normal people lived until I was about 10-12

I have seen stories about cults. They make me twitch, and I'm just watching a video about it. They always are so fucking disgusting in terms of morality. I'm so sorry.

Physical abuse, emotional abuse, some sexual abuse. Growing up with autism and being socially awkward led me to being ostracized, rejected, and bullied by classmates. I was also abandoned and neglected by my parents. I was left alone at age 11, and I was too young to be left alone. I became a latchkey child and as a result had unrestricted internet access, which also fucked me up.

I am so sorry. That's just horrible. 11 is way too young, especially for a child with autism.

When I was in second grade, whatever age that would make me, we lived in a newly developed prairie space. Scrub land. Full of tarantulas and, especially, centipedes. In my sleep I was bit on the face by a huge centipede as my bedroom was the basement bedroom. Every day you'd find several dead or dying centipedes. About the size of a healthy, impressive cock.
I never prayed before then, but I started to pray myself to sleep. Hours of pleading with God to protect me. No more venomous insect bites, please. Some nights I would cry or plead too loud. Sheltered under a lion king sleeping bag that I used as a blanket, one night, crying too loud, I heard a deep seething, labored and angry breathing.
Immediately I knew that my room was host to a ghost, something malevolent.
Turned out it was my mother, tired of my crying. She flailed about my head, she was tired. Tired of my crying, tired of me. She went on until I stopped. We've never really spoken about it. Never spoken about my being beaten in the centipede room.

I am so sorry. That's horrific.

The first 6.

Wow, I'm just shocked you'd have to endure all 6. I'm extremely depressed and only have 4. I'm sorry. You're definitely a lot stronger than I am.

The first 6.

Wow, I'm just shocked you'd have to endure all 6. I'm extremely depressed and only have 4. I'm sorry. You're definitely a lot stronger than I am.

I ticked off 8 of those - autism was not on it, but thatvprivably didn't help either.nor did the abandonment.
There is ample evidence that indicates that the more the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), the higher the possibility of mental health challenges and dying of suicide as adults. 4 or more ACEs takes off 20 years off our lives.

Sorry, I actually used the maximum number of options for the poll. I couldn't make another option if I wanted to. I'm sorry.

But wow, I didn't know that. It makes sense. I'm also really surprised that emotional abuse and neglect are coming up REALLY high here. It's crazy to see that super strong correlation.

Emotional/psychological abuse, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse, race-based trauma (I'm Asian)

Same except I'm white, so I haven't dealt with race-based trauma. I'm so sorry. It hurts.

 

[4am]

none

 

[etherealgoddess]

none

Wow, really? Like, your parents were completely normal and were loving parents?

 

[4am]

Wow, really? Like, your parents were completely normal and were loving parents?

yeah, i'm lucky to have them

 

[etherealgoddess]

yeah

If you don't mind me asking, why are you depressed? By the way, I'm not invalidating your experience. I'm surprised because almost every depressed person I've met had a questionable family life.

 

[1MiserableGuy]

I have seen stories about cults. They make me twitch, and I'm just watching a video about it. They always are so fucking disgusting in terms of morality. I'm so sorry.

Started really with my late grandfather who has his own article on the Anti Defamation League. He did some jail time in the 70s for tax evasion and hate crimes.

Dad holds a lot of the same stuff but his dad's character was such that there were no questions to be asked, you just did whatever he said or else. Dad's not as vocal about his views. But it has caused problems in the past and makes it difficult to maintain any kind of relationship with him.

When I was about 16-17, mom had an affair with dad's best friend, and when that happened dad's two sisters blackmailed her into all kinds of stuff until she just couldn't take it anymore, and so that whole side of the family just completely fell apart and I haven't heard from most of them in over a decade. I spent years as one of those fedora tipping, mad at God atheists over it.

 

[4am]

If you don't mind me asking, why are you depressed? By the way, I'm not invalidating your experience. I'm surprised because almost every depressed person I've met had a questionable family life.

it's okay, don't worry. actually, idrk. it's not because of anything specific, i always just found life to be meaningless and never wanted to live, rather always wanted to die young. i feel like i was suicidal for longer than i was depressed

 

[mainlanders_son]

My mother screamed at me a lot about seemingly trivial things, I'm talking banshee level, top-of-lungs-lost-her-mind screaming, but would then turn around and tell us she loved us no matter what. Watched her have a mental breakdown in my teens and she was subsequently committed. That really fucked with me. She also experienced a bunch of dramatic physical/medical problems too. My father never shielded us from any of it.

But we grew up in a nice house, obtained good educations, yadda yadda. Guess none of it matters when you're dead.

 

[etherealgoddess]

it's okay, don't worry. actually, idrk. it's not because of anything specific, i always just found life to be meaningless and never wanted to live, rather always wanted to die young. i feel like i was suicidal for longer than i was depressed

I absolutely have that as well. I definitely feel like I can't commit to real life goals because it's not just an, "Oh, I'm lazy and don't want to do it." I keep having flares of just not even caring about the game of life in general.

 

[bookgirl]

I can't remember anything from my childhood

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Mostly physical and emotional abuse at the hands of my father. My mother may have been a bit neglectful in my early years but that's probably because she was also being abused by him and had to dissociate to survive.

I'm lucky to have never suffered race-related trauma for being Asian.

 

[etherealgoddess]

My mother screamed at me a lot about seemingly trivial things, I'm talking banshee level, top-of-lungs-lost-her-mind screaming, but would then turn around and tell us she loved us no matter what. Watched her have a mental breakdown in my teens and she was subsequently committed. That really fucked with me. She also experienced a bunch of dramatic physical/medical problems too. My father never shielded us from any of it.

But we grew up in a nice house, obtained good educations, yadda yadda. Guess none of it matters when you're dead.

I HAD THE EXACT SAME THING! I'm happy I found someone to relate to (obviously, I am not happy you went through it because it fucking SUCKS but at least we're not alone in a sense). My mom also had chronic pain and always blamed that. My dad did absolutely nothing to protect us. He was in the same house but basically was a passive bystander and emotionally neglected us. He actually got sick of the yelling, so he took his own selfish initiative to go to work at 6 AM and come back at 8 PM, so he could avoid my mom's yelling, but he never thought about protecting us... So selfish when I think about it... I'm also in the same position where I was doing pretty well academically. I was doing math in school that was 3 years ahead and was doing just fine until my emotional problems started catching up, and the studying was hard to keep up with. I feel like it would have been better if I were emotionally neglected than get screamed at 24/7.

I also felt so invalidated when I would tell other people about my problems. I told my fiancé's dad about my situation because I was so desperate to leave my emotionally abusive situation, but he did nothing. Honestly, it felt so incredibly invalidating. I just felt like a crazy person who was overreacting. I remember also telling one of my ex-boyfriends about the yelling situation in my family, and he said that my mom was yelling for a good reason and to stop her yelling, I should just listen to her. I could tell he got sick of me and talking about the situation. He was that kind of person who would give you an inspirational quote and then get annoyed that you weren't emotionally already over it. Clearly, this guy had never dealt with severe emotional abuse because I could tell he was getting so tired of me when I talked about my problems when I was FUCKING DEPRESSED. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, I really shouldn't tell people my problems because this is what happens." All I think is that if I wasn't beautiful enough to attract my current boyfriend, my life would have been 10x worse. My fiancé is not a superficial person in the slightest, but I know my appearance is what got our relationship through the door, so to speak. If I wasn't dating him, I would have killed myself a LONG time ago.

Did you ever feel like people didn't understand you? I feel like people think that a little yelling isn't that crazy, but this is something to put into perspective: if someone yells at you at the top of your lungs, you'll probably feel shaken for the next two or three days. If that happens twice in one day, let's say it takes 5 days to fully recover. If you get yelled at every day, at least twice a day, for 10 years, that's literally 50 years of recovery that you need. The calculation: 3650 days in 10 years, 7300 times yelled at, 7300 * 2.5 days to recover = 18250 days, 18250/365 days in a year = 50 years. No wonder we are absolutely fucked up lol. Of course, the human body probably acts different in terms of its healing process because we're not like a linear equation, but that still puts it into perspective how bad it is.

I don't know how I'm going to forgive all the parental figures in my life. The more I become older, the more I realize how absolutely disgusting their actions were when they were supposed to be adults.

 

[Ambivalent1]

According to Hinduism, we all share the same essence, so I have suffered all things

 

[mainlanders_son]

I HAD THE EXACT SAME THING! I'm happy I found someone to relate to (obviously, I am not happy you went through it because it fucking SUCKS but at least we're not alone in a sense). My mom also had chronic pain and always blamed that. My dad did absolutely nothing to protect us. He was in the same house but basically was a passive bystander and emotionally neglected us. He actually got sick of the yelling, so he took his own selfish initiative to go to work at 6 AM and come back at 8 PM, so he could avoid my mom's yelling, but he never thought about protecting us... So selfish when I think about it... I'm also in the same position where I was doing pretty well academically. I was doing math in school that was 3 years ahead and was doing just fine until my emotional problems started catching up, and the studying was hard to keep up with. I feel like it would have been better if I were emotionally neglected than get screamed at 24/7.

I also felt so invalidated when I would tell other people about my problems. I told my fiancé's dad about my situation because I was so desperate to leave my emotionally abusive situation, but he did nothing. Honestly, it felt so incredibly invalidating. I just felt like a crazy person who was overreacting. I remember also telling one of my ex-boyfriends about the yelling situation in my family, and he said that my mom was yelling for a good reason and to stop her yelling, I should just listen to her. I could tell he got sick of me and talking about the situation. He was that kind of person who would give you an inspirational quote and then get annoyed that you weren't emotionally already over it. Clearly, this guy had never dealt with severe emotional abuse because I could tell he was getting so tired of me when I talked about my problems when I was FUCKING DEPRESSED. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, I really shouldn't tell people my problems because this is what happens." All I think is that if I wasn't beautiful enough to attract my current boyfriend, my life would have been 10x worse. My fiancé is not a superficial person in the slightest, but I know my appearance is what got our relationship through the door, so to speak. If I wasn't dating him, I would have killed myself a LONG time ago.

Did you ever feel like people didn't understand you? I feel like people think that a little yelling isn't that crazy, but this is something to put into perspective: if someone yells at you at the top of your lungs, you'll probably feel shaken for the next two or three days. If that happens twice in one day, let's say it takes 5 days to fully recover. If you get yelled at every day, at least twice a day, for 10 years, that's literally 50 years of recovery that you need. The calculation: 3650 days in 10 years, 7300 times yelled at, 7300 * 2.5 days to recover = 18250 days, 18250/365 days in a year = 50 years. No wonder we are absolutely fucked up lol. Of course, the human body probably acts different in terms of its healing process because we're not like a linear equation, but that still puts it into perspective how bad it is.

I don't know how I'm going to forgive all the parental figures in my life. The more I become older, the more I realize how absolutely disgusting their actions were when they were supposed to be adults.

Trauma bros!

Funny about your dad being at work a lot- my dad founded and ran his own company, so while my mother was melting down, he was traveling for work, IIRC. So we were left alone with her.

I'm not sure if people understand me or not? I mainly avoided talking about it with…anyone…other than therapists and my current partner. In HS, some of my friends would tease me about not liking my mother, because "so was so nice". How does a teenager articulate that level of, essentially, abuse to their friends? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Love your calculation, btw!

 

[Silent_cries]

Does bulliyng count as emotional abuse? It was never physical or anything. Just exluding, humilliating, ridiculing, false rumours, cyber bulliyng to some degree and god knows what they did behind my back. Yes, this was in school. Also growing up with autism, loneliness and also depression from age 13 was pretty traumatising in itself. All of these things ruined my childhood tbh.

 

[sserafim]

I'm lucky to have never suffered race-related trauma for being Asian.

Really? Lucky

 

[etherealgoddess]

Trauma bros!

Funny about your dad being at work a lot- my dad founded and ran his own company, so while my mother was melting down, he was traveling for work, IIRC. So we were left alone with her.

I'm not sure if people understand me or not? I mainly avoided talking about it with…anyone…other than therapists and my current partner. In HS, some of my friends would tease me about not liking my mother, because "so was so nice". How does a teenager articulate that level of, essentially, abuse to their friends? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Love your calculation, btw!

I remember telling my friends about it, but they weren't even great friends. They were super jealous and treated me like garbage. Lots of evidence got stacked up that the motive behind it was jealousy. Despite my beauty and intelligence, which may seem like a significant advantage, many people wrongly presumed my life to be perfect while I suffered through severe abuse. I remember my seventh grade math teacher calling me a "Barbie" in front of the whole class because I got a question wrong three times. I am at school to learn, not to be perfect. I couldn't do my homework because of the extreme stress at home, but she just saw me as a lazy girl who had everything. She said she thought I was very social, had lots of friends, and was a fun person, but inside, I felt so lonely. It couldn't be further from the truth. And don't get me started on how many girls were so incredibly mean to me. I think they thought my life was perfect or that their lives would be perfect if they had a pretty face and a slim waist *eye roll*.

Does bulliyng count as emotional abuse? It was never physical or anything. Just exluding, humilliating, ridiculing, false rumours, cyber bulliyng to some degree and god knows what they did behind my back. Yes, this was in school. Also growing up with autism, loneliness and also depression from age 13 was pretty traumatising in itself. All of these things ruined my childhood tbh.

ABSOLUTELY! In fact, this happened recently to me, and I feel extremely traumatized. I feel completely disconnected from my emotions. I used to be very open with people I met, but now I use this place as a safe haven because my boyfriend is the only person I can talk openly to about my issues. I shared my life update with an old friend, explaining that I have been struggling with depression and related issues. Unfortunately, she spread this information and encouraged others to mock my mental health problems. My emotional abuse mostly involved hysterical yelling over small mistakes. The poll doesn't have enough specific options. However, your situation was absolutely emotional abuse.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Really? Lucky

Northern California is just Asia with better weather. I went to a private school too so all my friends were also Asian.

 

[Silent_cries]

If you don't mind me asking, why are you depressed? By the way, I'm not invalidating your experience. I'm surprised because almost every depressed person I've met had a questionable family life.

I too grew up with a normal, loving family but I still had childhood trauma, just not bc of family. For me it was bc of my toxic elementary + middle school (they were both under the same school, just different buildings) and growing up with mental issues in itself rly. It isn't just bad parenting and such that can cause childhood trauma you know. Just wanted to point it out, no judgement here :)