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Wow, thank you for sharing your story, Chart.
I say wow because I wonder if it's a coincidence that my eldest son is also trans.Born as my daughter. I've done everything I can to be supportive. Everything. Really.

At the beginning, I told him, well, her, at the time, not to worry about it. Growing up is a life transition in itself.I told him how when I was a kid I thought I was a boy. How I didn't cope well with puberty and the expectations on me because of being female -I went to an all girls school, and I didn't get along with it at all.I wanted to play football and learn metalworking and woodwork. I wanted to be in the army cadets like the boys in the boys' school. I reassured him that he'd get used to his changing body, that these days it's easier for boyish girls, that I'd been a tomboy too.Still am.But that having kids changed my life, that I'm so glad I did. And that it would be okay.

At the time, he accepted this. But the longer it went on, the more YouTube videos he watched about "transphobia", the more aggressive he became. My supportive words became "abuse", "transphobia" and "bigotry".

See how I'm still calling him "he"?

I just got used to it and accepted him. But he got worse and worse, more and more aggressive. He developed an OBSESSION with "transphobia". He developed severe, aggressive aversions to certain words. If I used these words in my vocabulary, even if I said them to someone else, he would fly into a rage.

He would regularly initiate conversations around the subject of identity politics, then when/if I gave an opinion he didn't like, he would call me names especially the word for female dog, (which my psychopath ex husband called me on a daily basis). He desperately wanted me to hate Elon Musk. I have absolutely no opinion on Elon Musk, apart from he seems to be doing pretty well businesswise. I don't care about celebrities. My son would fly into an absolute rage if I said "I don't know what happened in his life between him and his child who's not speaking to him. I'm not interested. It's none of my business". He wanted me to judge and hate- something I thought he despised? Judgement is fine unless directed at him, it seems.

One day I was sitting watching a video. He came to initiate a conversation about why I'm not allowed to use the word "trannie" in conversation, regardless of the concept, because it's "triggering" to him. I told him that some people are transvestites who call themselves trannies, that I had a friend in the 90s who called himself a tranny, and that I've been called one and called myself one plenty of times in the past, and I don't care, it's not a word that offends me, that if it's not used in an insulting way, it's not a deliberate "slur".
He flew into such a rage when I said the word "trannie" and threw his freshly brewed cup of tea over me, pushed me, slammed the kitchen door so hard that paint cracked onto the floor, shouting that I'm a female dog and should unalive myself.

Apart from the cup of tea, this type of behaviour has been the norm for several years, including throwing things at me or at the floor, including heavy objects down the stairs.

It's not normal.

I'm not "transphobic".

I accepted he wants to live as a male. Both myself, my partner, his younger brother (who was born male and of whom my eldest is insanely jealous), my step kids and my dad make sure to call him "he/him".

I'm sick of him inventing imaginary traumas that he found on YouTube videos.

So I have started looking at stories of other parents of trans kids with regards to this obnoxious behaviour and it appears that these kids are being taught to hate the very people who support them.

It took me a long time to understand why people were concerned about their kids being "groomed by trans activists".

But at this point, what else am I supposed to think?

Because we were nothing but reasonable and supportive. Obviously, we have had our moments, but if I don't agree with absolutely every single nuance (he understands and has zero nuance), I am enemy number 1.

I'm so so sorry you're going through this,Chart. Sending you so much empathy.

Thank you both.

It's got to the point where the intrusive memories are completely ruining my life.

I don't know how to make them stop.

And sometimes I blame myself (I should be able to control this and just cut them out: I can't.)

Thank you Desert Flower. I needed to hear that right now.

Thank you everyone. I forgot to say he's in his early 20s. It would have been so much easier for everyone especially himself if he'd accepted moving to supported accommodation prior to everything getting unmanageable...

I survived complex forms of abuse from my mother. I cut her out of my life when it became apparent that she was beginning to exhibit the same types of abuse on my children. They were 9 and 6 when I cut her out of our lives.

My kids and I also escaped severe domestic violence a year prior to this.

My eldest has had EFs for a long time. He was adamant that he didn't want therapy, because it "wouldn't help".

A couple weeks ago my son physically attacked me and shouted abuse mirroring the abuse my psychopath (diagnosed) ex we fled from used. This wasn't the first time, but it had been escalating and this was the worst time. I called the emergency mental health team but the police had to be called too due to the violence and threats.

He's no longer able to live here. It's unsafe and unhealthy for all of us.

I'm desperate for him to finally accept that he needs therapy to process the abuse he experienced and to learn to cope with EFs, triggers, etc.

Has anyone else here experienced the cycle of abuse being played out towards them by their own children?

I've been very, very understanding and reasonable until now, but he's absolutely crossed the line and he can't come back.

But I'm very worried about him, his mental health is awful and he's frequently talked about suicide.

It's kind of I'm wrong whatever I do at this point.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Hey Getting there,

I didn't realise I'd be human trafficked either until I started following the Tate brothers trial. It was like a kaboom moment. I was human trafficked too. I knew I'd been abused in the past, but I had no idea what human trafficking even was beforehand.


I think acknowledging it and understanding what happened to us is pivotal in our future self care. Because now we have the knowledge, we are strongly armed against being abused again.

Because we know it was abuse.

Wow, that therapist - that's awful! What incompetence! I feel she was complicit. What you needed was someone to help you understand that you were being abused, because how can we find a way out if the person we reached out to for a lifeline denies and justifies the abuse?

I'm learning to stop making justifications for abusers.

I thought that if only "they didn't mean to hurt me" that it would be easier to cope with.

It's not. It makes no difference if the therapist was just ignorant or useless or deliberately siding with abusers: she was complicit, regardless of her intention.

I often feel like "it happened to somebody else" too. Maybe that's a kind of depersonalisation thing.

Quote from Blueberry: "Armee, you are not an attention-seeker or wrong or ... anything of those nasty things that I'm not going to write out for you to read again!! You're not disgusting either, but you feeling that way also tells me your account is true. It's a feeling I have too, especially round my own CSA stuff. Ditto the shame. Man, disgust and shame, that's what the abusers should feel, not us. Grrr."

Yes!

Disgust and shame don't belong to us, but to the abusers. Absolutely.

(I've not figured out how to use the quote feature yet!)

Hey Armee,

I've read through most of the messages here and am so glad you have recovered from the EF. I'm writing my thoughts before finishing reading the thread because otherwise I'll forget what I wanted to write! So apologies if not everything is relevant.

I've had a doctor using that language with me too- "psychosomatic" and it made me absolutely furious at the time. I thought they thought I was making the pain up in my head, and because I'd struggled with addiction to painkillers both to cope emotionally with flashbacks and with physical pain, I felt very judged - I thought I was being judged and treated like an irritating drug addict trying to get free drugs, just for fun. It was horrible. It felt dehumanising. I'm sorry you had a similar "diagnosis". Being further traumatized by incompetent or thoughtless "professionals" is horrible. Some of them can be so cold.

Have you read "The Body Keeps the Score"? I bought a copy after hearing the author on a podcast*. Listening to that was so validating. FINALLY I didn't feel like I was "making it up to get attention" (voices of my abusers):

I noticed you had similar doubts- thinking we are "making things up to get attention" is very typical in people who have been groomed by abusers- said by abusers in order to avoid being caught, so we are not believed if we tell. This is a very common grooming tactic.

*After hearing the podcast, Finally,I understood why I've been in so much physical pain ever since I can remember. Why the chronic insomnia, the nightmares that actually hurt physically. The muscle aches/cramps, the stomach/digestive problems etc. The chronic exhaustion/fatigue. It all made sense. I no longer think I'm "lazy" (another thing told to me by abusers).

The voices of our abusers become our inner doubting voices. We become our own gaslighters. I'm so grateful for this forum too! It's wonderful being able to come here for reassurance. To be heard, believed, understood, validated.

If there's one thing I keep noticing it's my own inner self gaslighter has been quieter since I reached out here which really is wonderful.

I am trying to read the book "The Body Keeps the Score",but for some reason it's been incredibly triggering. I think because the research they did involves people who were able to access excellent expert treatment for their trauma, which I have had a lot of problems accessing. I found myself breaking down in tears as I mourned the life I could have had, if only I'd had an early intervention. The pitfalls I could have avoided,had I been educated about grooming, CSA, narcissistic abuse. Had people not glorified "the mother". "But she's your mum! She loves you!" Had they not been afraid to"speak ill" of her. She was so incredibly cruel to me. Her abuse, gaslighting and DARVO made me a groomer's ideal candidate.

(No: she's not my mum- giving birth does not give anyone that title: being a mum does. She's a person with a womb who happened to give birth.)

Sorry I digress. That's unfortunately how my brain works... :-/

Then comes the self blame and doubting even the kind people who did help ("why didn't they push me for answers?"), because I was scared to tell them the truth, because I blamed myself for being abused. I didn't even know I'd suffered CSA. I thought it was my fault, so I lied to protect myself, thinking I would be punished (words of my abusers).

There's been so much more research done nowadays, but there's still a lot of judgement from some in the medical profession: I guess it's the same in any field - some people just aren't compassionate and probably shouldn't be working in a caring role.

As always, I'm going offon a tangent - sorry - spamgled mind!

What I wondered, reading your i initial post, was whether you have been gaslit about the abuse you are referring to by the abuser - I think all (most) abusers gaslight their victims, which in itself is designed to cause self doubt. Then we can often end up gaslighting ourselves, which is the purpose of the gaslighting - to get away with abusing someone - if we dont trust our own memory, they're more likely to evade justice.

I went through an absolutely horrendous EF thanks to my so-called best friend being contacted by my abusive ex and passing on a disgusting message from him - and during the process of going through all the years of "friendship" with her, completely losing trust in her, I came to the conclusion that she had never believed he had abused me. The self doubt that caused (how did I not notice she wasn't a real friend?) threw me into a really really bad PTSD relapse - doubting my own judgement to the point that how can I even trust my own experiences if I thought she was the kindest person I'd ever met,then maybe I was just a rotten person who deserved to suffer, was being punished in some karmic horror.

So in conclusion - I completely believe you. The way you described the abuse reminded me of a flashback I was having - which I actually managed to get rid of by telling it to my partner. Saying it out loud somehow broke its loop, it's ability to play back in my head as though I was re-experiencing it. It doesn't scare me any more in the same uncontrollable way. And I hope yours won't either.

 

Hey Magpie,
I had a really bad reaction to a muscle relaxant I was prescribed for fibromyalgia. It made my throat swell up to the point I couldn't breathe easily, but not so bad I had to go to hospital.
It's so frustrating, isn't it, that something works then does the opposite (I can't take any type of benzodiazipines for anxiety, because exactly what you described happens after they wear off).
I have that "my body feels anxious but my mind doesn't" a lot.
I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions that haven't been mentioned by others, apart from hops. My partner bought me some dried hop cones and lavender oil and put them in a small cloth bag. I sleep better with my bag of hops and lavender and I'm the most anxious and restless at night, so I'm guessing it does help!

I also forgot to say thank you for your reply!Thank you.

You know, I think highly narcissistic abusers are very conscious of the types of people they pick to abuse and unfortunately, the more compassionate the victim, the better for them, because they use our compassionate nature against us.

It's directing our compassion towards ourselves that's always the hardest bit for some reason? It took me a very very long time to stop blaming myself for what happened to me. I probably still do, (sometimes, a bit) if I'm totally honest.

My ex knew I was very much an "inclusive" type of person with regards believing in gender/social equality, LGBTQ rights etc etc. He KNEW I was very anti-racist and he used that against me. It's very confusing, especially when you've heard others say racist things about your relationship with your abuser, so you want to defend your "partner" (abuser) against the racist, then it turns out whilst of course the racism wasn't justified, the warning was- which is crazy making in its own right.

Because when a family member, for example, says "You shouldn't be in a relationship with that *insert racist slur here* because they'll only use you", it's even harder to get out of that relationship, because you don't want to prove the racist right that "all *insert racist slur here* beat their wives" or "are sex offenders "- because we know very well that's not true, yet the person abusing us is living up to a horrible, racist stereotype. And once you've defended the abuser against racism, perceived or real, when racism starts being used as a tool of manipulation against you, it feels like an absolute betrayal...well, it is a betrayal. Feeling the need to defend the abuser against racism, whilst simultaneously being in an abusive relationship where you are feeling the need to defend that entire ethnic group against being stereotyped too... whilst experiencing severe sexual abuse and violence...
Sorry my head isn't able to process this very well. It's difficult to put into words.

I don't think we need to prove to anyone that we're not racist. We already know we're not. People are just people, some good, some bad.

We know it's not a race thing, just a complication of the type of trauma we went through.

I think I felt very much like I had to prove to him I wasn't racist in order for him to stop hating me and therefore stop abusing me. When all along, had he been the same ethnicity as me and doing the same, he'd have just used the same method of abuse with a slightly different tactic.

I do worry though, that the abuse and manipulation of intersectionality and identity politics in cases of abuse may not be a rarity. I should probably have a think out loud on my own thread though!

Hey Desert Flower,
We won't get kicked off: this is a good place in my experience. That feeling that we're going to "get into trouble" for exposing what our our abusers did to us might have something to do with the feeling remaining that were "doing something wrong" by sharing our experiences (that our abusers so desperately wanted to silence us, they would go to extreme lengths to scare us and shame us into silence)? Just a thought?

I think it's really important to allow ourselves to feel anger instead of guilt, shame and fear.

If you'd have been racist, you wouldn't have dated him in the first place and you wouldn't have been so hesitant to share. It takes time to overcome triggers. It's more about facial features like his, hairstyles and clothing similarities that remind me of him that trigger me.
What also makes that feeling of "I'll get into trouble" is the lack of good mothering perhaps?
I think finding validation from someone else similar happened to allows us to be angry on their behalf therefore we allow ourselves to feel angry on our own behalf? Like we can finally give ourselves permission?
Sending you hugs too.
I'm sorry it's taken me a while to reply.
I'm so sorry you "get it". It's a kind of double edged sword, isn't it, knowing that someone else went through similar? I wouldn't wish it on anyone, yet at the same time, sharing our experiences can help us feel we're not bad, we're not crazy, when we've been told so many times we are. It helps us stop putting ourselves down I think?

Hey Desert Flower,

It shouldn't be a tricky subject, but it is for me too: I started replying to you yesterday, but it's taken me all day to finish what I started writing. I'm glad you are here, because it's difficult talking about this stuff, and finally someone brought it up: the nightmare of contemporary identity politics. Thank you.

Even though we all agree that a victim of sexual abuse, coercive control, rape, sexual violence, is a victim who has suffered tremendous trauma, regardless of skin colour or ethnicity, I think identity politics often makes it way harder to talk about (even when it's intended to make it easier). Intersectionality can be useful in some ways, but it can also completely devalue the experiences of those who it puts in a "less at risk of oppression" category, presuming they're somehow "entitled" or "oppressors", or even lying. It can be used to justify insidious forms of racism. It is deliberately misused as a tool to discredit rape victims. It's horrible. (I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable talking openly about some stuff because I don't want to be possible to identify so I'm not sure if this makes sense without examples).

The fact that you are feeling uncomfortable/scared about sharing this goes to show how nothing is as black and white (no pun intended) as people often try to portray. I feel very strongly about this subject because I've experienced it as part of a family with multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds and my goodness it really shouldn't be so complicated. The guilt complex about not being "worthy of victimhood" (for want of better terminology) breaks my head.


And that includes feeling one's experience is somehow invalidated because one's abuser was from a different, "more intersectionally entitled to victimhood", ethnicity or religious background or skin colour.

I have a similar experience to you and I get it. I'm not brave enough to go into "ethnicity" details, but I understand the political rhetoric that's behind your fear of sharing. I find identity politics so very toxic. I feel completely marginalised by the "Intersectionality" hierarchy. I belong to an ethnic minority and I was abused by a different ethnic minority. Mine "doesn't count": his "does" (I often think of how a male victim of sexual abuse by a female finds support in this atmosphere of "hierarchy of suffering"). "Oppressor vs Oppressed" rhetoric hurts my head.

My abusive ex husband completely distracted services I reached out to to help me and my kids, by abusing identity politics, to the point that his abuse against me became the second priority after his demand that I only called the police and social services because I'm racist, and that their services were "institutionally racist".

No, they weren't: they were trying to help a woman and her kids in an extreme domestic violence/abuse situation. They went to every length they could to find "culturally appropriate" workers. He really played them and the help I needed was way more difficult to get, not because of any racism from services, but because of his manipulation, of me, of social workers, of police.

I had to listen to social workers discussing with him "She's crying rape because she's racist". No, I wasn't. He manipulated me, gaslit me and coercively controlled me to the point he made me believe "no one will ever believe you because you are a liar".

His gaslighting and DARVO were exacerbated by his manipulation of identity politics to make his victim (me) appear to be a racist, prejudiced and cruel person, when in reality he verbally abused me using racist language against me on a daily basis. I have never, before or since, experienced such horrendous racism, as from my ex husband.

I think this sort of experience needs talking about, not brushing under the carpet, so thank you for being brave enough to talk about it.

Racism can come from a person of any skin colour. I've seen a lot of very toxic stuff from all sorts of people.

Due to the paedophile who abused me as a child/teen, I'm  scared of light skinned men with pale blue eyes and reddish brown hair. I'm afraid I always will be. I accepted that it's my brain's way of protecting me. My doctor matches that description and he terrifies me, but he's a really nice doctor. I make up imaginary stories about him and his lovely family going on family days out, to humanise him, because I want to overcome my fear. He's not the same guy, but I'm still terrified of him. I'm working on it!

I'm terrified of men with the same ethnic appearance of my psycho ex husband too. I'm not going to describe him but I honestly couldn't care less if people think I'm prejudiced against either of these types of people because I know why, I know my experience and I know I was severely traumatized by people looking like they did. Being aware it's just a trigger doesn't make our response less real.

Your experience doesn't make you a bad person. His behaviour does, however, make him a bad person. I spent years being gaslit that it was my fault. It wasn't. It was the fault of the abusers.

And what happened to you wasn't your fault either, neither is your brain trying to protect you from people who remind you of the person who abused you your fault.


One day maybe I'll be brave enough to tell my story with details.

Hey Desert Flower,
 
I'm sorry you can relate. I'm kind of glad the subject changed to recovery in different languages!

Hey Chart, English is my first language- I just forget words in it 🤣