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When I first read about inner child work, I dismissed it as a bunch of new age garbage. Even if it is real, I thought, I'm an adult now. I have no need for a child.

Then, I found out about the inner critic, and that resonated deeply with me. I knew I had an inner critic, even before I knew what to call it. I learned how to tell it (with varying degrees of efficacy) to shut its nasty face one night when I had a breakdown, and was almost consumed by suicidal thoughts. The same people who talked about the inner critic, also talked about the inner child. So, I decided to try and talk with it as though it existed.

I accessed it, finally, and I can say that it is just as real a part of me as the inner critic, if more repressed. My inner child is wonderful. I accessed a part of my grief I had never known even existed, and it feels wonderful. She goes away sometimes, but she's never too far now, sitting at her lovely piano, surrounded with things she can hold. She's truly a gift I would not have if not for this forum. Thank you, from the bottom of both of our hearts. Hopefully, one day, we can become one.

I feel sick today. I'm probably coming down with the cold my SO had. I should rest my body. There is no rest. This is America, where even the slightest admission of weakness is severely punished. So I'll go to work, at my food service job, and try my best to stay away from the food. I will still probably make someone sick. I hate my job.

Why should I hurt other people just because my DM is too lazy to get off her * and cover my shift? Why don't we have enough managers present so my GM can have a day off, and not work 60 hour weeks? Why won't they pay me an extra $20 a week, so I can alleviate some of his burden? Because they're greedy little bastards. Their money means more to them than our health. We're replaceable. Well, replace me, then. I'm done.

I knew I was done with my family when I read a checklist of signs you're dating an abusive boyfriend, and I could go home and check off the whole list. Well, I've learned since then, and I am starting to be able to fill it in again. I am not going to let it escalate. The way I'm treated, the way I'm condescended, the way I'm told I'm "not good enough," the way I'm punished severely for the slightest problem; I'm done. Goodbye, job. I'm excellent at most of what I do. Good luck replacing me.

I feel obligated to stay. Part of me tastes my spite, and recoils from ever using it. This is an appropriate time. I am reacting in an appropriate way. Better to act appropriately, now, than to stay, and act out.

To my SO: please be advised that it has come down to changing jobs, or unfairly venting my frustration onto my coworkers. I don't want to take it out on anyone. I know exactly what you'll say in response, and to that I say, I'm human. I will slip up eventually, and it will not be pretty.

Well, this has all been brought about, in part, because every time I read the e-mail, I have a massive EF. I almost had a panic attack last time, because the words were written in such a similar style to the one my mother had. It was worse because, interspersed with the awful ones, there were a couple that sounded like you may have been speaking to a human.

So, two weeks ago, I was on my way to be fired, because some dickhead didn't like my face, or something. (I asked him if he wanted anything else with his order. Apparently, this was not okay...  )  Then, some guy complained because I reviewed his order being made, and we had put the extra lettuce he ordered on his burrito. I told him so, and suggested that he order more, next time. He yelled at me that we should instead increase our portion sizes.  He sent a picture of his burrito, and it clearly had extra on it. I was told I would be fired if I had one more complaint. So, naturally, a lady complained, I got flustered and accidentally answered a rhetorical question, and she freaked out and complained about me. So I was on the chopping block as recently as two weeks ago.

Then, one of our managers fell asleep on the job, we failed a bunch of secret shops, and pretty much half the company was put on final warning. So a bunch of people are getting fired if they so much as look at the wrong person the wrong way for the next 6 months. Many good workers who had made a single mistake are going to be fired unfairly.

My GM was discussing the * treatment he's received, and he told me that on the bright side, I can do no wrong right now.

I wanted to throw up.

I. Am. Not. Putting. Up. With a GC/SG dynamic.

Maybe I'm reading too far into that, but I think that any workplace that doesn't take you at face value, and instead compares you to people with different strengths, is dysfunctional.

I'm hoping for a nice receptionist or secretarial job. Maybe I can get into a bank, or something. Somewhere where I will be appreciated for going above and beyond my job. Where extra work isn't taken for granted, and where my bosses e-mail me like I'm more than an irritating * stain in their underwear, to be controlled, rather than worked with.

Maybe even a place where, if I have a cold, I can take a sick day instead of paying $100 to get a doctor to examine me and say "yep, looks like a cold."

NO * IT IS A COLD. I AM NOT * STUPID. I CAN TELL WHEN I HAVE A GODDAMN COLD!!!

Maybe if I speak in caps lock, abusively, and use way too many punctuation marks, I will finally speak their language, and I can go home before I contaminate the entire store. 

Yep, I think it's time for me to move on.

You killed me. I understand it was necessary, but you killed me. It makes me sad to think that you didn't want me, and that you still don't sometimes. We used to do things I liked, you used to be understanding when I cried. You used to love me, and accept me, but you killed me.

I was dead for so long. You revived me when we went to play. It took so long for you to even go out and play, though. After you played, you lost me again. But I wasn't dead. You were scary, and I didn't want to talk to you. You're less scary now, but sometimes I'm still scared of you. I'll talk to you sometimes.

I like it when you listen to piano pieces. I want to play them. Thank you for finding something I like. I also like rolling on the mats at the dojo. Just falling straight down is kind of scary, though. Thank you for acknowledging that.

I'm still sad a lot. I don't know why. It feels like I always have been. I hide a lot, too, especially when you're being scary. Please try to stop being scary. I like you when you're not. We have fun together. Take care of me.

My lovely, amazing SO told me, yesterday, that his parents used to beat him. This triggered a rage in me so huge I thought the air around me might light on fire from the friction in my thoughts. I told him that I hated his parents for that, and would like to set them on fire. He said he didn't, because, even though they had beaten him, it was because of an ageist bias that they have since gotten over. I have seen with my own eyes that they treat my SO with respect as an adult child, and he said that, after they made their mistakes with him, they learned from them, and didn't repeat them with any of their other children.

While I don't advocate for corporal punishment in any situation, I find myself agreeing that these people are forgivable, as they are now; that they made a mistake, and did their best to rectify it. How different this is from my own experience, where mistakes were not something my M could learn from, but something to cover up, and hide.

I find myself unable to forgive the people my MIL and FIL were, in the past. However, I think that besides his emotional resilience, there are some key differences between our experiences that contributed to SO growing up relatively undamaged.

For my SO, being beaten was a punishment for an external event. In my life, being beaten was a punishment for my mother's internal anger. The physical abuse my SO experienced was just that: physical. It came without the systematic psychological torture that pervaded every facet of my home life. He did not grow up with the idea that he was bad, or wrong thrown at his head at every turn. Beyond all that, his parents validated his feelings by taking them into consideration after he presented them, and learning to be better people.

I guess everyone deserves a second chance, as long as they're actually going to use it. I've been burned so many times before, that my thoughts regarding second chances and making mistakes have become quite cynical. I wonder what other aspects of my life this sort of thinking permeates?

I have had pretty bad nightmares ever since my dad left, and my mom started freaking out more. I can usually deal with them; they don't leave a lasting impression. Normally, I wake up, think, "wow, that's messed up, brain," and go back to sleep. Even if I wake up crying, or shaking, it doesn't usually last. Last night, I had one that I couldn't shake, though, and I just want to get it out. I told a couple of friends about it already, but I can use some more support. I'm disproportionately shaken up.

I was in a dystopia ruled by rival gangs, and my father was part of one of them. The rival gang tried to kill him. I was very small in this dream, and couldn't save him. I was very scared, and ran away, leaving him to die.

A time skip occurred (because I'm just super creative, yo), and the gang my father was related to was after an age- and skills-accurate me, trying to kill me. I ran and ran, but eventually, they caught up to me, and tried to kill me in the same manner my father was murdered. Apparently, my father had been alive the whole time. He told me it was my punishment for not saving him, as he tried to deliver the finishing blow. I escaped at the last moment, but my father died in a fire he set. I continued to run.

I woke up after that, and couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

I think I had that dream because of the guilt I feel for not saving my father or mother from themselves. I always have this niggling voice that tries to convince me that if I had just done X, or if I'd done more, everything would have worked out just fine. It seems to be a more focused version of the shame and guilt I had as a child, when I felt like everything wrong with the world was my fault.

I think it shook me so badly because I'm finally starting to understand fully that their choices are not my fault.

I hope that, even though it was terrible, it helped me process some emotions subconsciously. I think that's part of the reason I have such awful nightmares. I don't allow myself to feel enough when I'm awake. I constantly invalidate my own emotions, and when I do acknowledge them, it's only because I can get rid of them faster that way. I don't know how to break out of it, and embrace myself as a living, feeling, human being, instead of a machine.

Does anyone else find themselves afraid to have children because of the abuse they've been through? If you have kids, how did you work past the CPTSD, and the bad lessons your parents taught you?

I ask because, although my SO said that he's okay if I can't/don't want to have kids, he would prefer to have them. I told him I'm still undecided. I know he loves me, and he's very forward-thinking, but to my knowledge, this is one of those things that hits people harder than they thought once it's finalized. I'm really afraid that if I don't start a family with him that he's going to have an existential crisis somewhere down the line, and it'll be all my fault because I'm broken, and shouldn't have been anywhere near a relationship with someone normal like him, anyway. My mother wanted to end the cycle of abuse, and only ended up furthering it. I don't want to do the same. I would rather never have kids than subject them to a life like I had.

Hello, guys.

I don't know if many from OOTF post here, but I was referred here after I had a bad day, and someone told me it sounded like I was having an emotional flashback. I read about them here; how they feel, what happens physically, and I realized that I have them all the time. How convenient, that I've been trained to emotionally abuse myself for my mother.

It's really tough for me to read posts here. I'm very bad at processing emotion,  and a lot of the stuff, even simple things like symptoms lists, bring me to a very dark place, that I haven't had enough practice getting out of yet. So my posts here might be very intermittent at first. I want to make sure I can face myself, and the consequences of my abuse, without running away. I've regressed before by jumping in with both feet. I'm going to try the slow approach this time. Moving on from this sort of thing isn't something that is going to happen overnight. I hope I can find the patience.

So my story, which I put bits and pieces of on OOTF:

It all started with my grandmother. Or maybe her mother. Or her mother's mother. Cycles of abuse have a funny way of perpetuating themselves, but I don't want to speculate. So my grandmother was, as I call her, a heinous SOB. She physically abused my mother, beating her severely for not cleaning the right way. She emotionally abused her, telling her she was ugly and fat, and making sure she knew she didn't have the beauty of her older sister. She neglected her, by not allowing her to eat if she didn't comply with her every whim. My mother was responsible for keeping the house when her parents were away, and tried her best to raise her little brothers. She was the family SG. My mother knew all of this was abuse. She used to share her stories with me, because holding something like that inside hurts, and she didn't have the resources I do. I feel so sad for her. Her intention was not to perpetuate her mother's ways, but she wasn't self-aware enough to stop it.

My mother was forced into an abusive marriage when she was 16, and had my older sister. Even though my mother thought from a young age that she was destined to be a mom, being a teenage mother almost invariably does not turn out well. She physically abused my sister, and as soon as she could, my sister moved out. I was very young at the time, but I do remember my sister, and I'm sure her leaving when I was 2 didn't do me any favors. I also found out that my father would get drunk, and try to abuse me for regular "being a baby" stuff like crying, and my older sister would come to my rescue.

After my sister left, my mother was devastated. I don't remember being abused at all in the years immediately following. Then, out of nowhere, my mother started hitting me for minor offenses, like fidgeting. CPS was called, and I lied to them for my mother when they asked if she had ever hit me.

My little sister was born shortly afterwards, and my mother was convinced the baby hated her. My mother was so stressed out and overwhelmed by the colicky baby, that I can only assume she terrified her, because after a while, I was the only one who she would accept food from quietly. Then, we had a babysitter who would literally force-feed us, and my sister ate very little from then on. I taught my baby sister to speak, and played with her constantly, until my brother came along. My sister insisted that my brother was hers, and hers alone. I told her that was ridiculous, that he belonged to both of us, and she attacked me. Naturally, as the oldest, I was blamed for that fight, and many to come. My sister made a habit of attacking me, and afterwards running to my mother crying about it. I would then be forced to apologize for fighting her,  while she would escape punishment.

After my sister started attacking me, my temperament changed. I became moody and suicidal. My brother was the only light in my life at that point, since I didn't know how to make friends, and my mother wasn't any help. Still, I ended up hurting him a lot as a toddler, because who leaves their eight year old, with zero parenting skills, alone constantly, with a toddler going through their terrible twos? I'm not proud of how I handled the situation, but I don't think the entirety of the blame falls on my shoulders.

Then my youngest sister came along, and sh*t really hit the fan. My father left before her first birthday, leaving myself and my mother devastated. My mother fell into depression, and we were evicted from our house. We moved around constantly after that, and ultimately ended up homeless. I was called upon more and more to take care of my siblings, but I could never do enough. My mother told me I was useless, worthless, that she hated me, that I was scuzzy, dirty, a whore, and I couldn't wrap my stupid little brain around reality. She told me many times that she wanted to kill me, during her rages. One time, I got it into my head to challenge her to do so, since she clearly wanted to, and she sat on me, and crushed me until I couldn't breathe.

I legitimately feared for my life when she was raging, and they were unpredictable, so I was very anxious, always pumped full of adrenaline. It gave me a very empty feeling, a sort of knot in my stomach, and I couldn't process any emotion in that state. So I started self-injuring at 13. I couldn't sleep at all when I was a teenager, and I barely tried, since all that was awaiting me were nightmares. I had one really good friend, and I think that if I hadn't been able to escape to her house, I would have really gone insane. I internalized my mother's rants. I legitimately thought I was worth nothing. I lashed out at anyone who angered me, parroting my mother's rages. I became as moody and unpredictable as my mother, my own moods tied closely to hers.

I wasn't allowed to be a sexual being, so dating was out of the question. I started coming out of the FOG when I was 17, though, and rebelling. When my mother attacked me, and I decided I'd had enough, and defended myself, she mostly gave up on trying to force me around physically. Instead, she turned on my siblings, mostly when I wasn't around, because I tried my best to defend them, too. I made more friends, started dating, and moved out as soon as I could.

I maintained NC with my mother for the first year I was gone, but then my siblings' birthdays came up, and I couldn't take the guilt of not being there at all, like my father. So I reinstated contact. I should have known it was a bad idea when the first thing my mother did was verbally harass me in public about leaving her, and yell at me for what I'd written in my private notebooks. She then proceeded to try and break me up with my SO (who is a very loving and supportive person), get me to come back and live with her, and constantly showed up at my place of work under the guise of bringing me lunch to guilt-trip me into giving her more money, and defame me to my coworkers.

She soon ran out of motel rooms to stay in, so I had my siblings stay with me. It was supposed to be a very temporary arrangement, but it turned into a month-long stay, that ended with my landlord telling me I couldn't have them there. The whole time they stayed there, my mother yelled at me about their care. I was 20, and worked midnights. I knew their situation wasn't ideal, but they were older than I was (13, 14 and 17) when I was given responsibility of them, and I did provide easy meals to make, a place to sleep, and entertainment. My mother was also very angry that she wasn't allowed to stay with us, but my SO put his foot down for both his and my sakes. I was always in a terrible mood when I interacted with my mother, and my mother hated my SO.

She stole my grocery money, and moved out of state with it about a year later. She didn't tell me. She knew how much I feared being abandoned, and threw it directly in my face. I didn't know how to grieve, so I shut down. My relationship became rocky, and everything reminded me of my family. She contacted me again to ask for more money, and I gave her all the extra I had, but it wasn't enough. She asked for more constantly, blowing up my phone while I was trying to sleep. I gave her what I could, but then I learned she was lying about why she needed the money. She would say it was for some school function, or what have you, that didn't exist.

I stopped sending money, and went NC (for good this time), when my brother told me she had spit in his face. She had done the same thing to me when I was around 15, and it was the single most degrading, spiteful thing I had ever experienced. I was livid. I confronted her with my grievances. Looking back, I could have presented them in a calmer fashion, but I think I did very well. She spat in my face verbally; told me I have a "Cinderella complex without ever lifting a finger," and said that now I can go rant at work about how I have a horrible mother.

So I ranted at work about how I have a horrible mother. Every word I said was true. It was liberating.

Unfortunately, she still haunts me. Sometimes, it's a guilt I can't shake, or a bad mood I can't get out of. Sometimes, it's in the violent rages I try so hard not to succumb to. Sometimes, I panic over things that are seemingly benign, but hold significance, like the remote she threw at me, or raised voices. I constantly ask my SO if something's wrong, if he's mad. I feel an incessant need to apologize, like I'm imposing by just existing. I never feel like I'm doing enough for people, even when I'm exhausted. I'm very glad I found OOTF. It's really put some things into perspective for me, and I hope I can learn and grow even more here.

Thanks for making it to the end of this post. I know it's long, but it was very cathartic for me. I didn't start out with the intention of writing a novel, but I've always been long-winded. Thanks for sticking it out.