Venting Survivors of childhood abuse, did you grow up with many phobias?

[Suicidebydeath]

TW: This is kinda dark, what happened to L.A.

I saw this recently:

Little Albert experiment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This might explain why I grew up with so many phobias. Little Albert died when he was 6, before they tried to reverse them. I have phobias that I could link to stuff that happened to me when I was a toddler, but I can't remember those times. I have to hear it from a third party, e.g. my older siblings.

I have a crazy amount of phobias, which is weird because I'm not cowardly and I can overcome all of them either via repeated exposure or force of will. I think phobia of violence was the first to go, because I had repeated exposure to violence growing up and some as adult. That phobia initially manifested as being a pacifist and not being able to defend myself in a fight, although my bullies and family were all older and bigger than me anyway and other kids would bully me in groups.

I don't know if it's weird for a kid to think of themselves as a pacifist, but I did, when I was between 7-10 maybe later too. I started hitting back when I was between 11-15, I think it was mostly after I was already feeling suicidal, but I think it was also the first thing I ever regretted doing.

 

[mind3de]

I have a phobia of spiders. My mother once found it very funny to throw a spider on me, although she knew I was scared of them. Then she laughed about it.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I'm sorry your mother did that.

I grew up with a phobia of spiders and I suspect something similar happened to me. I grew up with a lot of phobias I suspect we have some in common. I grew up with a phobia of creepy crawlies in general. i grew up with a strong aversion to one or two species of invertebrate in particular and my reaction to them was so violent seeing them made me vomit for a long time. They no longer revulse me.

One time a slug got onto my younger cousin's face somehow and she started crying, I picked it off her face and she stopped crying. They haven't bothered me since. Her father abused, kidnapped and group tortured me.

 

[Unattainable666]

I have a phobia of dying alone, but alas that is the way I will go.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I have a phobia of dying alone, but alas that is the way I will go.

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope you find someone to talk to so you don't feel completely alone when you go. I don't know what happens after so there is a chance you won't be alone, or you won't feel anything at all after.

 

[Unattainable666]

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope you find someone to talk to so you don't feel completely alone when you go. I don't know what happens after so there is a chance you won't be alone, or you won't feel anything at all after.

I do know that once I go I'll be with my little girl and Dad again so it's something to look forward to. People suck all they want is what they can get from you then they discard you. Not into that. THanks for the kind words

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I do know that once I go I'll be with my little girl and Dad again so it's something to look forward to. People suck all they want is what they can get from you then they discard you. Not into that. THanks for the kind words

Good luck.

 

[Gaga786]

Yes, I grew up during a lot of yelling and screaming in the house so I definitely didn't stand up for myself and rarely fought back and now I can't tolerate yelling. I'm scared of it and sort of repulsed by it. I also have agoraphobia, because I didn't have many friends and other children didn't like me.Recently, I developed a phobia of driving or being in cars

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Yes, I grew up during a lot of yelling and screaming in the house so I definitely didn't stand up for myself and rarely fought back and now I can't tolerate yelling. I'm scared of it and sort of repulsed by it. I also have agoraphobia, because I didn't have many friends and other children didn't like me.Recently, I developed a phobia of driving or being in cars

I'm sorry to hear that. Yes I grew up with yelling too and dislike it. I'm a bit agoraphobic due to bad experiences outside, and driving in cars makes me dizzy and riding in cars makes me sick, but I don't think those last two are phobias. However since you brought it up, maybe they are distantly related somehow and I haven't connected the dots.

I was kidnapped by car but I already got travel sick in cars before that. Maybe something gave me a motion related phobia. I hate rollercoasters too, I don't enjoy them and have to force myself to try them.

 

[tabby]

I actually ended up with the opposite problem. I was always one of those stubborn kids who tried to fight back no matter the situation. I have very little awareness of self preservation and tend to end up in dangerous situations since I spent so long purposefully forcing myself to be brave despite the consequences that it bled into my older life.

 

[Gaga786]

I'm sorry to hear that. Yes I grew up with yelling too and dislike it. I'm a bit agoraphobic due to bad experiences outside, and driving in cars makes me dizzy and riding in cars makes me sick, but I don't think those last two are phobias. However since you brought it up, maybe they are distantly related somehow and I haven't connected the dots.

I was kidnapped by car but I already got travel sick in cars before that. Maybe something gave me a motion related phobia. I hate rollercoasters too, I don't enjoy them and have to force myself to try them.

Kidnapped? Thats horrific. Im so sorry that you had to endure that. I was mugged once, and it was the most terrifying thing ever, but ,now that I look back,i should have just let the robber shoot me.

 

[blackwidow]

Not so much phobias.. But completely screwed in the head..

 

[Pluto]

I can share a bit about what I've learned. I wouldn't worry too much about creepy crawlies. Considering how many of them can kill us, it seems like a perfectly valid fear for humans to have evolved.

Trauma responses are a different thing. We are especially sensitive to trauma in early childhood, even though we won't remember much of what happened. Ongoing mistreatment also accumulates trauma. And extreme events add even more. Sadly, it sounds like you've copped all of this. The result is CPTSD that never goes away by itself.

With CPTSD, the nervous system becomes hypervigilant and stressed in everyday life until the overstimulation causes secondary health issues, and of course also makes healthy relationships unlikely. The nervous system also gets burned out from the excessive activity. And we also tend to dissociate as a means of coping. All of this makes normal functioning basically impossible.

In my case, I had no extreme traumatic events and virtually no violence, yet a constant stream of heavy emotional abuse. My parents had mental illnesses that gave them no empathy, so my older sisters ganged up on me to take out their rage at not being loved. I have few memories of specific incidents. I was inevitably bullied throughout school since I had never known what it felt like to not be bullied, until I dropped out without finishing high school so I was doomed to only work crappy jobs. The family covered up the abuse with the narrative that I'm a troublemaker or a retard, and I was shunned by the whole community. I had no evidence that any abuse occurred and endlessly doubted myself. A pathological fear of people made relationships impossible however hard I tried, and an ever-growing list of physical/mental health issues accumulated.

It's only recently that I learned that the nervous system, rather than the stories of what happened to us, is the constructive place to turn. The ultimate phobia is of the entire world. Separate to the intellectual argument that bad things happen to people and animals, the nervous system viscerally feels uptight and it causes a range of health issues - immune, digestive, etc. Here's an educational video I was watching recently. In short, the goal needs to be learning to make the nervous system feel safe, as we would have in our youth were it not for the abuse.

 

[enough of this]

Yes, I grew up during a lot of yelling and screaming in the house so I definitely didn't stand up for myself and rarely fought back and now I can't tolerate yelling. I'm scared of it and sort of repulsed by it. I also have agoraphobia, because I didn't have many friends and other children didn't like me.Recently, I developed a phobia of driving or being in cars

I grew up in a violent household, too. I don't have any phobias, per se, but I grew up being scared all the time.
I thought my parents were going to kill me. So, I always had to be on my best behavior, which meant giving up my life to satisfy their every demand. The consequences of NOT doing that were too terrible to risk.

 

[Kikoo]

Plenty of phobias.

 

[Kadaver]

When I was a kid I was really afraid of the dark and death. Nothing else quite scared me like those two things did.

Now that I'm older my fear of the dark is mostly gone, but my horrible fear of death remains. I just can't shake it. To me death is such a terrifying concept. I feel like my fear of it is the only reason I haven't attempted to CTB years and years ago

 

[mouseteacup]

Mine consisted mostly of neglect and a lot of yelling from my parents, then CSA from other people later on, so I don't have many phobias that stem from that aside from an unusually intense response to being touched unexpectedly or hearing loud noises.

I am scared of bugs, though, and that does come from trauma, just not abuse. I was stung by a bee when I was young and to this day am irrationally scared of all bugs but especially bees. (Please don't tell me that this shouldn't have been traumatising — it clearly was if it caused a phobia, and phobias are irrational fears.)

I suppose fear of contamination might be one? Things wouldn't get done because of the neglect in my household such that things would get mouldy and start to rot and I'd be too scared to touch them = now I clean and throw things out compulsively to avoid that.

Edit: I'm also aware that that last one sounds like OCD — it is a part of that disorder for me. What I'm saying is that this obsession and the resulting compulsive behaviours likely stem from this in my childhood.

 

[jbear824]

I have agoraphobia. I experience very severe anxiety when it comes to leaving the house or being out in public or being seen while I'm outside. It's awful. I'm basically in my house unless I have to go food shopping or a I have an appointment. I just feel like something bad will happen if I leave. Either to me, or to my loved ones or to the house itself.

 

[sammiechzxv]

Yes, a lot. Loud noises, sudden movements/touching, dogs, bugs, etc.

 

[BlazingBob]

Doors slamming, people yelling and arguing. It makes me sick to my stomach, even more than usual If someone yells at me I'll be messed up for days

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Yes, a lot. Loud noises, sudden movements/touching, dogs, bugs, etc.

I'm sorry to hear that. I grew up with the same phobias.

When I was a kid I was really afraid of the dark and death.

I grew up with a phobia of the dark too. It's gone now. I had to overcome fear of death to make preparations for ctb, but I'm still here. Death is the one thing that you can only really expose yourself to once :(