Keep waking up throughout the night, feeling distressed and remembering different things.
My poor mind feels like it doesn't know where to start, in trying to work through the flashbacks and emotions.
Yesterday night, I kept waking up and remembering my older siblings. Siblings I found terrifying when I was little. In my family, everyone was always trying to get their needs met. It felt like because you couldn't meet them by turning to those older than you, or our actual caregivers, then they would turn on those younger than them, who were vulnerable and easier to scare into submission.
Home felt like where my bullies resided.
I was particularly affected by how they mocked me and sneered at me. And how they spoke constantly of themselves: of all the horrible things they would do such as getting into fights and harming people who they felt wronged them. My brother in particular was grotesque with his details. I would feel so pained for the people he hurt. He seemed to feel it was something to brag about, as though it made him cool or masculine.
I thought it made him seem monstrous.
I didn't want to hear the stories. I already felt terrified and anxious from my mum and other siblings. Hearing these stories of wannabe-gangster type behaviour would push me into the brink. Just leave me alone, I wanted to say.
As I grew up, I assumed some sort of role of listener and comforter/advice giver even though I really felt so drained and traumatised. It felt like the only way to have some sort of control in the situation, to commandeer it into some way of normality.
I feel sick remembering this.
It's like being given no choice. Crossing a young child's boundaries so often, and then the child grows up to believe they should fawn over you and look after YOU.
I am so angry at this.
It sickens me so much.
The very people who hurt me, stressed me out, I was then growing up to placate them and listen to them and become more traumatised hearing their insane stories and being expected to be a dutiful audience?
Laugh when they expect you to laugh.
Call them cool and interesting when they expected that.
Give them comfort and advice and soothe them when they expected that.
It makes me think everyone in the family had their needs so poorly recognised and met, that they went about it in disorganised and nonsensical means of getting them met. Who turns to a young sibling, 8 years younger, to tell them their problems and insane stories of violence and hatred, in order to get kindness and care from this child?
It was all so topsy-turvy.
Mum was too self-centred to do any of that. Even if she wasn't, she didn't have the skills anyway. She didn't seem to think like an adult. She seemed distant and full of hatred herself.
What a mess. How do I untangle this sorry unprocessed messy chapter of my life and let it leave me be?
I can still feel the fear and confusion and anxiety and sadness and helplessness that I felt all those years ago, in the pit of my stomach.
I guess I will bring it to therapy this week. I have an appointment in 2 days time.
First, today, I have to get through a work shift starting soon.
I thought I'd post some of my thoughts on here before getting up, to try to release some of these heavy emotions that wrecked havoc on my sleep yesterday.
My poor mind feels like it doesn't know where to start, in trying to work through the flashbacks and emotions.
Yesterday night, I kept waking up and remembering my older siblings. Siblings I found terrifying when I was little. In my family, everyone was always trying to get their needs met. It felt like because you couldn't meet them by turning to those older than you, or our actual caregivers, then they would turn on those younger than them, who were vulnerable and easier to scare into submission.
Home felt like where my bullies resided.
I was particularly affected by how they mocked me and sneered at me. And how they spoke constantly of themselves: of all the horrible things they would do such as getting into fights and harming people who they felt wronged them. My brother in particular was grotesque with his details. I would feel so pained for the people he hurt. He seemed to feel it was something to brag about, as though it made him cool or masculine.
I thought it made him seem monstrous.
I didn't want to hear the stories. I already felt terrified and anxious from my mum and other siblings. Hearing these stories of wannabe-gangster type behaviour would push me into the brink. Just leave me alone, I wanted to say.
As I grew up, I assumed some sort of role of listener and comforter/advice giver even though I really felt so drained and traumatised. It felt like the only way to have some sort of control in the situation, to commandeer it into some way of normality.
I feel sick remembering this.
It's like being given no choice. Crossing a young child's boundaries so often, and then the child grows up to believe they should fawn over you and look after YOU.
I am so angry at this.
It sickens me so much.
The very people who hurt me, stressed me out, I was then growing up to placate them and listen to them and become more traumatised hearing their insane stories and being expected to be a dutiful audience?
Laugh when they expect you to laugh.
Call them cool and interesting when they expected that.
Give them comfort and advice and soothe them when they expected that.
It makes me think everyone in the family had their needs so poorly recognised and met, that they went about it in disorganised and nonsensical means of getting them met. Who turns to a young sibling, 8 years younger, to tell them their problems and insane stories of violence and hatred, in order to get kindness and care from this child?
It was all so topsy-turvy.
Mum was too self-centred to do any of that. Even if she wasn't, she didn't have the skills anyway. She didn't seem to think like an adult. She seemed distant and full of hatred herself.
What a mess. How do I untangle this sorry unprocessed messy chapter of my life and let it leave me be?
I can still feel the fear and confusion and anxiety and sadness and helplessness that I felt all those years ago, in the pit of my stomach.
I guess I will bring it to therapy this week. I have an appointment in 2 days time.
First, today, I have to get through a work shift starting soon.
I thought I'd post some of my thoughts on here before getting up, to try to release some of these heavy emotions that wrecked havoc on my sleep yesterday.