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<3 <3 <3

Great idea. Been needing something like this. Thanks! 

TW: reflecting on childhood abuse


I started a good things journal again last night which is helping me by giving myself positive reinforcement when I do something good. This could be putting on a washing or doing some studying, positively talking to myself or asserting my needs to another.
I think this has helped me already as I am being more proactive in doing things, knowing the good feeling of being able to write it down at the end of the day.
I don't know that I received much positive reinforcement as a child and I think that may be why I struggle so much with seemingly simple tasks.
I recieved a lot of negative enforcement - for example if I didn't tidy my room after being asked I might be physically, verbally and emotionally abused.
The reason I think there was a deficit of positive reinforcement is I was criticised even for doing good things and my positive traits were completely slaughtered at times.
For example, I got called thick a lot even though I was really quite an intelligent child. I also remember being wary of parents night, knowing I would get a good report and this could trigger abuse, and having this confirmed when my dad erupted later that night and told me off essentially for pretending to be a nice, good, quiet girl at school when I'm a total brat at home / inside. He made out like I was hiding my true self from them. Something said in anger, but inexcusable.
I also did not have much support over doing homework or being on time for anything, so I was never led into these skills of taking care of myself, at least not in a positive way.
I was late to school virtually every day for years as my dad would drive me. There was a lot of neglect around those things, so I can see that not only was I not positively regarded for achieving things, but I was actively brought up to be a dysfunctional member of society.
Unsurprisingly, these patterns continued. I struggle with time keeping and organising myself a great deal.
But the positive reinforcement is helping and it seems to be quieting my inner critic - because I know I am doing my best, and I am achieving things no matter how small. My pride is going up.
I imagine some kind of positive reinforcement is important in childhood, so I see why this is helping. It's a shame that it took me so long to get it, but here I am. Better late than never...

Just thought I'd put it out there that I find ASMR videos really helpful for calming down and relaxing fully. There's some specifically made for people with PTSD too. I find them helpful when my anxiety is at an ultra-high or I'm having trouble getting to sleep.
The video's seem really weird at first - someone whispering into a camera or whatever (it's about making noises that give you tingles in your head, which works for some - myself included - but they're also generally comforting, attention-focusing and soothing) but yeah, they do really work for me and lots of other people.
Thought it was worth a shout out anyone else have experiences with this?

I was actually thinking of starting a thread like this music has helped me so much. The songs that help when I'm going through a bad time are:

Safe & Sound by Electric President <3
The Death of Me (rock mix) by Asking Alexandria
Little Talks - Of Mice and Men or Julia Sheer cover <3
The Middle - Jimmy Eats World

I also really like Silk by Wolf Alice. It's probably my favorite song but it's pretty depressing lol. Really relatable for co-dependency, addiction and just generally living with a mental illness. Wary that it could be triggering. Personally I find it kind of validating, hearing a song that speaks how I feel when I'm having a bad moment, so it works well for me.

Bad again. What else is new?

The initial triggering I think was wakening up hungover on Saturday morning (6 days ago) and feeling all the shame that comes with being so drunk I show myself entirely. I'm not sure if I'm normal levels of chatty when drunk, I mean people really seem to like me (better) when I'm drunk, so I must not be too awful. But I feel almost narcissistic when I'm drunk sometimes, cause I talk about myself a lot more. Not sure if this criticism of myself is IC or true though. If it's true i definitely think I'm exaggerating it. Besides, most everyone isn't exactly their best version when they are drunk.
I'd also started smoking again that night after quitting for 2 days, so that wasn't great. Getting drunk destroys my willpower. Maybe I'd have started again anyway but it really weakened my chances.
I was already feeling a bit low and funny when I went to a pub thing after work on Tuesday - free drinks for the office due to a special high-up being in that day visiting.
I was surrounded by people I had spoken to before and been friendly with, even my own flat mate. But I felt so out of place and I stood myself for a period of time because I couldn't find it within me to join any conversations. I feel like I have impostor syndrome in my own social life sometimes. Anyway, I could feel it spiraling because standing alone just feels humiliating and I end up thinking about what others might be thinking of me. But like, they probably didn't even notice or dwell on it too much, people have their own stuff going on. I'm just one of many in the crowd. Idk.
Struggled to go sit next to the people I'm most friendly with, just sat in an available seat at another table. Then felt like I looked silly for that, but what could I do?
Total imposter syndrome, all day every day.

I got triggered again after dwelling on something my boyfriend said (yes I have a boyfriend again, finally, and he's actually really nice). He said something about how he gets stuck in his own head sometimes and (he described it like a coping mechanism) he thinks of me to feel better. He also said he feels calm and happy when he's with me, and his stress pretty much goes away.
I didn't like that. It made me feel trapped.
But I think it was mostly a triggering. It definitely triggered me.
I think because of my abusive relationship. My ex was mentally ill, or at least he pretended to be. I was made to feel like he needed me, he relied on me, he was co-dependent (not denying that I was too, mind you). He even threatened suicide when I left him (going to extreme effort to make it convincing, texting me saying he was at a suicide spot and going to do it, etc. keeping me completely trapped).
So I don't want to be anyones coping mechanism. I don't want anyone to rely on me for happiness. That kind of terrifies me.
But it's a different situation and I realize that now. But it triggered me into full flashback mode, and I've had to take a sick day because of it.
My current bf has never been abusive. He is really nice to me. He's also mature. He doesn't have the silly belief's and behaviors of an abuser. Like, he's responsible for his own actions and emotions, he wouldn't blame other people and, at least thus far, he has never asked too much of me. In fact, he's completely cool. If I don't want to hang out one day or a few days, even if we've made plans, he's always like "okay no worries". He's nowhere near who my ex was as a person. It's just easy to feel terrified when you are triggered, like you are back in that same danger, even though you are not.
I don't think I am really trapped. I'm not. I'm here because I want to be.
At the same time I recognize some things with us that may be issues. Not that we are ever unkind to each other, but it's almost like we are both co-dependent but still, completely nice to each other. It's not an abusive scenario. I think we just spend a lot of time together, and have both probably neglected other parts of our lives a little bit, because we just want to be with each other so much.
I think that is a little dangerous. Because you can't guarantee you will be in love with a person forever, so you can't lose yourself inside of them.
I see why his comment concerned me, from a rational perspective. Even though he was just being honest and there was a nice intention behind sharing that. It concerned me because I don't want him to be with me because he needs me / because I am a coping mechanism.
And I don't want to feel inclined to stay because of that. Because that was the main thing that kept me trapped in my abusive relationship, that need to help another person, even when it's destructive to myself and probably to them too.
I recognize that weakness within myself.
I see why that comment triggered me.
Thus, I am coming to terms with that and breaking out of the flashback.

It's tough having CPTSD.
It's a really tough ol' road.

My ability to look after myself is really bad. It's gotten to a frightening level. I feel almost fully incapable of taking care of myself.
My hair has had matted tugs in it for months, I kid you not.
i hide them often with a hat, or brushing over them, but it's bad.
I struggle with cleaning my flat, tidying and doing washings.
I struggle with sleeping at a good time and getting up in the mornings.
I struggle with making healthier lifestyle adjustments and sticking to them (although I do better in this area than the others, truth be told).

When I go into a flashback my feelings for my parents change. It always seems to happen.
It makes sense, you don't give the things they done in the past attention, you allow yourself to overlook some concerning behaviors they exhibit in the now, so you get along just fine.
But when a flashback comes you feel like that child again, that helpless, scared, angry, confusing, hurting victim. And you know what they done to you. And you're not shielded from the full extent of how it has screwed you up. You start to remember things you've been "moving on" from and you feel them in all their intensity. Suddenly the parents become the enemy again, in a sense, or at least the people who really, really hurt you.
It's when I'm in a flashback that I least want their help. Which whittles my support system down at my darkest of times. But I don't think I'm wrong. You can't find healing in the arms of those who broke you.
It shows how unintegrated I am, I think. That a flashback can have this effect. Something to work on?

I'm done rambling for now. It certainly seems to help though, just to pour all the toxic things I'm feeling out.

May be triggering, ironically.
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I'm sick of seeing or hearing people mock the idea of being triggered or trigger warnings.
I'm sick of people who think steps to make media more helpful or inclusive is ridiculous.
I'm sick of people who laugh at the idea of safe spaces or trigger warnings, or worse get angry about it, when they have no idea what it feels like to live with an incurable, agonizing mental illness.

I wish I could put my opinion out there on Facebook but I'm too scared. I used to be brave with my opinions, but one time about 2 years ago someone from my work argued with me on an opinion status, and they were totally ridiculous and didn't make sense. but it was so horrible for me I haven't posted one opinionated thing since thanks *.
I wish I could speak up when someone makes a "lol, triggered" joke in my vicinity and it makes me want to cry because I feel an emotional reaction which confirms everything they are mocking, that I am an oversensitive, pathetic person for being triggered. Not only that but being triggered in some sense by their "lol, triggered" joke. It makes you feel like an absolute joke, the punch line that so many people are laughing at, for being mentally traumatized and that kind of makes you not want to exist anymore. At least in my experience.
I just feel so horrible about the world. People are cruel and ignorant and it's horrible.
It does trigger me when people are horrible and nasty about anything that betters vulnerable peoples lives, whether that's to combat racism, or make lives easier for the disabled or whatever else. And I hate to say that because that makes me the punch line again. Triggered by a triggered joke, or a political thing that I don't like (but how could I not despair? I feel things so deeply. I hate to see victims of ignorant *. It brings back feelings from when I was a victim too). I am exactly the type of girl they are joking of when they say those things only PTSD is real and incurable and I don't want to be like this so it's like please * stop. (It's just that all the bad things in the world make me think that the world is a bad, cruel place like my mind makes me believe. It makes me not trust people. It triggers me, lol, triggered. How * hilarious.)
It just makes me feel so horribly isolated and misunderstood. It makes me feel like I am all the bad things that are implied by "lol, triggered". And it sucks. And I'm finding it really hard not to despair with the world today.

Wow I'm unbottling feelings here actually talking about the past.

I'm angry that he gets to go on and probably do this to another girl or several.

He hurts people. He's like a leech. He hurts friends too - vulnerable people who fall for his sad stories and give him money to get on. Money he wastes and squanders.

I hate him. I hate that he done to me what he done - sheer emotional violence - and got away with it. And it breaks my * heart that he's probably going to do it to so many other girls.

I'm scared for them.

That was one of my reasons for staying - because I could take the pain if it meant the next girl wouldn't, for now.

But that shouldn't have been my burden to bear.

People like him are so cruel.

I was young and vulnerable and I thought he was my Saviour but he destroyed me. How terribly ironic is that?

Talking about the past is good though, right? Because if I feel these things for the right reasons it's better than bottling it all up and wondering why I feel dead inside. I know it feels better like this.

I've revisited my abusive relationship, just the start, through writing, and some things are making more sense to me.

I thought I was in love. I really did. An all encompassing, romantic, soul mate kind of love that only seems to exist in the movies. I thought I had found it.

He was 20 and I was 17 but I lived with the believe that age didn't matter because we are souls and age is only the amount of years you have lived on this earth as you.

When you're young and naive you don't quite realize these things as red flags. Not even when he has to lie to his mum about your age because his last girlfriend was so much younger too. Nobody else realized either. "If you're happy, that's all that matters", they say. And at first, I was! I really was.

He had my jaws aching from smiling all day. He was like an antidote to my depression. He made me feel special whilst inflating his own image too. I thought he was the coolest person ever, and I was eager to tell everyone about him. He was in a band(!!!), and at that inexperienced age the shows he had played and the things he had done seemed way more exclusive than they do now. In my mind it was inflated to some level of stardom like he was going to make it. Now I see there's lots of people who have played those shows, including my own cousin. Lol. Anyway...

I thought I was in love. I thought I had found the one.

Over one year later I'd read about how abusive people suck you in with a honeymoon period, and suck me in it did.

Those happy first few weeks (Was it even a few weeks before it got bad?) were like a glowing light and afterwards I was the moth - constantly jabbing at them, trying to get in, whilst in reality I was burning, frying up with all of the heat.

The glory days did not last. And suddenly I was the girl who allowed herself to be treated like *.

It wasn't like me. I was always the one who would never be here. But here I was, getting treated like crap and not leaving. I never left for over a year.

It was horrible. I was trapped - financially, emotionally, you might even say physically (sharing a flat that I paid for in the end, that he wouldn't leave).

And it was torture. It truly was. The anguish I would get into even for visiting a friend, because his control was so tight and terrifying, was painful. I wanted to leave for so long but I didn't feel I could for so many reasons. I used to have to hold my fingers in my ears some nights to drown him out because he would deliberately keep me up through verbal abuse and he enjoyed it. I envied his friends girlfriend because one day I observed that he allowed her to nap, during the day. How * crazy is that? I longed for that freedom in my relationship. It just seemed so nice. So calm. But by that point I didn't even try to seek it over things like that. I had changed so much. I had became completely * controlled.

I wonder now why I am so scared of finding love. Why I can't talk to boys for long enough for anything to happen. Why I haven't been on a date in years. Yeah, I wonder why, hmm? 

I was already socially anxious and I was already abused as a child, but I could still talk to boys. I was still in a place where I could find myself a good relationship.

He took that from me.

He took that from me and now years later I am totally * terrified.

I tried to see a boy last year. He was nice. I liked him. But the past just refused to leave. I remember lying awake at night terrified thinking "what if all boys are bad?"

It's not just my ex it was also because my friend had been hit by her boyfriend that night and told us, and it triggered me.

But it's just the way it does not leave.

The way I am never sure of myself.

The way I don't know how to talk to boys and I feel like everything I say and do is wrong and I am so, so scared.

I don't want to be all alone.

I really don't. It's upsetting me.

I'm young but I feel like the years are whizzing past. I've been "free" for coming up on two years. But I'm never really free. Not emotionally. I'm damaged.

And I don't want to be damaged anymore I want to be happy and I want to have the chance to find somebody in time.

(I will work on this. I might set goals. Boys just freaking scare me so much. I feel like they're too full of potential to be bad and abusive. So many of them are. I am so, so scared.)

Thank you both <3 I spoke to HR and they're going to speak to my manager about adjustments. I'm actually feeling better recently but it's a safety net for when I get bad I think.
Thanks again :-) all the best to both of you! <3

I've had a job for over a year now, but my mental health has made it a real struggle. I was appearing to get better but I don't think I was really, inside, and it's all coming crashing down again, with me taking sick days and being unable to do things (like ask for help / talk to people / go to a meeting). It's becoming pretty visible now, is what I'm saying, although it might not be clear why I'm behaving like this to other people.
I'm finally seriously considering asking for adjustments to be made for my social anxiety, because it is pretty intense and it's really affecting my ability to be good at my job right now. Like today I couldn't bring myself to highlight I had no tasks, which is pretty bad because I should be making good use of my time and actually working, then I couldn't attend a meeting because I went into sheer panic and actually ended up locked in the toilet for about an hour (fun times) and going home sick about 3 hours early.
I feel if I asked for two things it would really help me go from totally incapable to maintaining functionality. These would be the option to opt out of meetings when I feel unable to handle it (because that's twice recently that meetings have triggered me really badly, and it's had a pretty major effect tbh), and to be managed a bit differently (with someone making sure I always have tasks and if I don't then that this is okay).
I think these are quite reasonable adjustments but I do feel uncomfortable to ask for extra help.
i also feel uncomfortable because I was basically told off for the way my anxiety and lack of confidence was making me act last pay review. It resulted in me being put on the lowest mark and receiving significantly less pay than my same level colleagues. Not for my productivity or my work quality, mind, for the "perception" of me. For my lack of confidence and communication skills. I can understand the latter being an issue it just felt unfair when I'd already told my manager I had anxiety and I literally couldn't help it.
For this reason I feel pressurized to be confident above all else, which makes me angry and also puts a lot of pressure on me. It's like telling someone with a broken leg they need to walk more if they want equality and respect. KInda sucks. I understand how it affects things but I feel they are asking the impossible of me. It's cost my mental health so much, because this pressure made me do things I wasn't ready for which triggered all sorts of bad things. Like I forced myself to do a presentation and involve myself more with others after receiving this review, but that quick change meant I became unable to eat most of the time due to nausea from anxiety and I became really underweight and depressed. It's harder to do my therapy when I'm depressed and I stopped doing it regularly. I'm not saying the depression is fully to blame but I think it's part of it.
I feel I should maybe say something to my work about this but I don't know if I'm really entitled to. It just made me feel like it wasn't okay for me to not be okay like this. If they'd offered me help or spoke to me about it outside of a salary-affecting review I would be grateful for the support. But it wasn't done like that, it was done as part of a critical process that docked my money. It wasn't done to help, it was done to critique. I just feel like it put me in a really bad place where I compromised my mental health to try and appear more mentally stable (or confident), and I shouldn't have had to do that, I don't think. Not when I'd already said I have anxiety, so it obviously wasn't a choice. People treat you like all this crap is a choice.

This has been a total ramble I'm just trying to get my feelings out I guess.

My other concern is I still feel ashamed to talk about this stuff. It's especially hard because my workplace is about 90% men. Women are generally way more open about these things, and way easier to talk to about emotional or mental health stuff. I feel scared and embarrassed. I want to appear cooler and calmer than someone who has to ask to be managed differently on projects because she can't bring herself to speak. And I don't know who to talk to. If I go to HR it could take a week or so for them to get back to me, but if I talk to my manager I feel uncomfortable, embarrassed and more open to being judged. I think it's harder, especially, because it's someone I am more familiar with. Like telling a stranger through HR (who should be more equipped to deal with these things) sounds much less intimidating.

I've been tempted to just give in and quit because the stress I am experiencing over work is literally ruining my life. But that would mean debt and unemployment. But I just don't know if it's worth it anymore, and I feel vulnerable to being fired anyway - as I am becoming much less valuable to them as my mental health is deteriorating.

I also don't believe I have a proper diagnosis (as much as my doctors will prescribe medication and I have been put into the mental health system before, there's never been a "congratulations, we have identified you have social anxiety disorder!" kind of thing). I feel this could be a problem, idk. Should probably find out. Would be nice to have the back up of a proper diagnosis.

Oh well. Ramble over for now 

Hey,

I've not wrote here in a while, huh? Typically, I am back because I hit a low point - but I am also motivated since finally starting to see it clearly as an emotional flashback.

I've been running, running away from the emotional pain again. I got triggered on Friday and I've been relentlessly trying to suppress it since then - smoking regularly (despite having quit before), getting very drunk that night, staying up all night, losing myself in sleep and TV shows, eating ridiculous amounts of crap, etc. I finally crashed on Thursday morning, after 6 days of running away from my emotions to no avail. I ended up severely suicidal with strong intent, physically exhausted, my social anxiety worse than it has been in a loooong time, and basically being so immobile and non-functional that I had to call in sick for work. I feel there was a cross roads on Friday, where I pondered between writing about my emotions or stuffing my feelings with food - I chose the latter. All kind of went downhill from there. Sigh.

My inner critic went into overdrive on the Saturday morning, like it was out of control. I did not know how to handle it. It ran along in the background, so nasty and filled with hate. It made me feel schizophrenic, but I identify with it - I still see it as a part of me - so it doesn't make sense for me to be. It just sounds so extreme to say there's a hateful voice in your head that you basically can't control, telling you to harm yourself and things too, but it is what it is. And I created those thoughts in the first place, they're just automatic now.

I felt so embarrassed and ashamed yesterday for acting socially anxious, though I kind of stuffed the feeling down.
I've been feeling (or believing) that because of my mental illness I don't deserve to be. I, or my IC, thinks of people who do bad things and be crap friends and how their mental illness or issues should not be used as an excuse, so how can I use mines? I have been feeling like I am not good enough for it all and do not deserve to be alive. It's over such tiny things though, like if I didn't say thank you for something when I probably should have (even if I said it at some point), or if I feel like I don't make enough effort, because of a friend always being the one to talk to me first, or me never arranging plans. These things don't sound like shock horror stories of evil, but when I do them I feel like I don't deserve to be alive and I have just committed something as shameful as murder. My brain is effing crazy!

I've been overreacting to things, I think. I felt like this was the end. I can never get better. Okay, I experience flashbacks. That's a part of my experience. But those flashbacks do not define me. They're little blips. When you're in them it feels like the whole world is being dragged downwards into a black hole of despair, and you will never be happy again- think dementors in Harry Potter. But It's BS. Sure, my life isn't an easy one and that sucks. But I can help manage this better - less running away, more flashback management.

I have things to be grateful for. I have made friends. And this voice in my head says "you don't have them anymore", "they're not real friends", etc. * the voice. The voice is an *. Yeah, I struggle to be too friendly with them, because of the good ol' mental illness, but so what? I'm in a much better place than I was this time last year. So yeah, * the voice. I'm living proof of its previous incorrectness. I still have the job I was "never going to be able to manage", and I'm doing pretty well at it too. I've been progressing :-) I now speak to more people, and more people consider me friendly. I feel more comfortable around people and have interacted with lots of them much better. It's awesome really. * the voice. And yeah, I've been back-tracking going through a bad patch in terms of social anxiety. But recovery isn't linear and I did stop doing my therapy, so what did I expect? lol. I'm starting it again, from the beginning, today. I've made progress and that's not to be ignored. I can build on that again.

I'm still sad. I'm still a bit empty and hurting, but I'm also not ready to let this win. I hurt because of what happened to me, that made me feel not good enough, unloved and broken. It hurts less when I tell myself this newer, truer story of what is real. So I'm going to keep working on that.

And maybe I'll never be happy like the neurotypicals but I'll be happy like me, sometimes.

I am being icky but I just wanted to say I am so grateful for the support I have recieved here, so many times.
People here understand. It is so nice and therapeutic to be validated and have the rational counsel of others.
This is a place filled with love and warmth and I'm grateful tonight.
I had a really bad flashback or two the past few days and I'm feeling good and healthier again, and I just feel really filled with gratitude for this group :-)
I'm glad you're all alive and I find you to be beautiful people in your honesty, integrity, kindness and strength. Keep shining 

Thank you for validating me <3

I did feel it was self defense as I reflected on it. I don't think my brother treats me with enough respect, he just doesn't. He was making a show out of it being really upset at the time then laughing afterwards when he went upstairs, quite the thing. It's a household of drama and games. I think I'm becoming done with that too. I deserve to be respected, right? I would be horrified if someone treated me that way who wasn't family, so why is it okay when they are?

I truly do not agree with hitting people outside of defending yourself. So it is different. I guess I'm just so terrified of being like my dad. But I'm not like him at all.

I am actually more okay with talking to therapists and the like because I feel they should know about these things. But it's totally valid that you feel that way. The things we experience shape our perception. I'm sure you'll get there in time 

Trigger warning!!

A few days ago I accidentally raised my hand to my brother when he was deliberately bothering me, not getting out of my space and actually deliberately farted on me. I done it to get him off me, a spur of the moment reaction. I apologised afterwards and was not happy with myself at all. I told him I don't believe it's okay to ever hit anyone smaller than you. I honestly wouldn't have done it if I had a second to think, it was a knee jerk reaction because he was violating my space and actually farting on me. I would not deliberately harm anyone. I recognise I shouldn't have reacted this way.
My dad, who physically, verbally and emotionally abused me, has not been abusive towards me for a while. I'm talking over a year of no abuse. He has never apologised but I slowly began to forgive him slightly. I think I was living in a state of denial.
Following this thing with my brother he called me a hypocrite. I assume this refers to me saying him hitting my brothers, which he does deliberately, is wrong, and how he done it to me too.
This triggered * out of me. I was so upset thinking I am as bad as him.
He also said things were getting bad in here again, like before. I assume this refers to when he was abusing me or maybe when I ran away and made myself homeless. See my parents treat the abuse and my sometimes standing up for myself as an argument. My mum always tries to show me how it's my fault. She done it tonight: I spoke of the time he smashed my friends laptop into pieces when I was 12 and she said but you just wouldn't be quiet, you always had something to say. She must remember me arguing back with him on something. Apparently that warrants that kind of violent destruction of expensive property, that fear and intimidation. When I pointed this out she said she knows it's still wrong, yet she always has something to say to minimise it, always.

I'm cutting my family out but I don't know if I'm wrong to. I'm so alone. I don't know if I can handle the loneliness. My social anxiety has such an impact on my life and I don't have any friends that I feel I can just drop in on when I feel so bad. I'm co-dependent on the people who hurt me. But being alone is scary and unhealthy, right? Especially when you're as mentally ill as me. My mum says I shouldn't cut myself off because I am ill, but I am ill because of them.
I am doubting myself on everything after talking with my mum. I know it's probably gaslighting, right? But I can't handle it. I don't know who to talk to. I feel like nobody understand. What if I am crazy? What if I am wrong? My mum says everyone's family are like mine. So what if Im just making a big deal over the norm, blaming my mental illness on my childhood when it wasn't really that and I'm just ill?

I'm pouring my thoughts out here because I feel I have no one else to talk to. I know it might not be constructive and is really just a ramble. I'm just so stressed I can't think straight. See my mum forced a visit on me and I didn't want to even try and talk about the abuse with her because she doesn't listen and just pushes her own agenda of me overreacting and being the one in the wrong, even if I am simply being scared of my dad when I "shouldn't" be. But she forced a visit on me so I had to let her in and she wouldn't leave and we got talking and it hurts.

I'm sorry this isn't constructive. I just don't know what to do and I need help. I feel like my friends maybe can't all help me too because some of them are closely linked to my family and think my mum is such a nice person and I'm just terrified of not being listened to or believed by anyone else because it destroys me.