Recent posts
#1
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - Today at 05:54:03 AMIn midlife you start to see how your plans did or did not work out. My plan was to raise children. It's what I always wanted to do. In order to become someone who could raise children, I had to get out of my situation, I had to go to college, get a career, become independent. And I did. I didn't want to raise my kids trapped in poverty with an abusive man. It took me fourteen years from leaving home to get to safety, stability, some modicum of success. So I could become a mother.
I was aware I shouldn't build my life around my kids. I shouldn't try to live through them. That's what people say, "Don't build your life around other people." "You can't live through your kids." Sure.
But to my surprise, the kids lived through me. Maybe because I grew up with neglect, I didn't realize how much kids needed. How they needed me in order to live. How they needed to live through me. You couldn't leave them tied to a tree while you ran to the store. If you wanted to go anywhere, you had to bring the baby. Or find someone to watch it, and pay them...and who to trust? I trusted no one. The baby needed to be held, soothed, fed, changed, washed, and held some more. All day. And all night. They needed to look through my eyes, feel through my hands, think through my thoughts. They were so vulnerable, raw sponges, all wide eyes, taking everything in. They needed to interpret the world through me, through my vibes, my emotional body, my flesh. So I had to be chill, stable, happy. I had to generate happiness and peace in my rib cage for them to rest their heads on and sleep. I could not have my babies resting their heads on a racing heart, a stifled breath.
Once they were here, there wasn't so much room for me, for the All of Me. Not if I wanted to be what they needed. I had less bandwidth than the average bear to tolerate demands. So something had to go. I couldn't come home from work and veg anymore. I couldn't veg, ever. The kids, they needed me. Needed me to be fully present, all the time. Gradually over the course of eight years I kept cutting back work and cutting back work until I wasn't working at all.
My kids needed me, but I also needed them. I needed to be the one to raise them. I cried every day leaving them at daycare. The daycares never worked out. I tried a nanny. I cried. I wanted to be the nanny. I wanted it to be me. I got home from work and washed the baby's head, the other woman's smell on their skin a torment. My baby. My toddler. My preschooler. Another baby. And another. And so it went.
Now my kids are grown. No longer babies or toddlers. They still need me, and one's still in high school. But they're grown. They don't need me the same way. Not all the time. Not even much of the time. They are themselves, now. They feed and wash themselves. They feel through their own hands, think through their own minds, see through their own eyes. I have myself back.
And how did my plan work out? For them, fabulously well. They are so sane. So well. They have their own therapist. They can set boundaries like nobody's business. They know what's their business and what's someone else's. They know what feelings are, and whose feelings are whose. They know how to manage stress, how to negotiate and compromise, how to grieve, how to celebrate. They don't wonder who they are. They know.
They know what it feels like to be safe, to take life for granted, to assume all will be well, to go to sleep on time and stay asleep till morning, to wake up into another day just like the one before, good. They dance ballet, hip hop, jazz, they play string instruments, they ride horses, they play sports, they get good grades, they have friends and lose friends and find new friends, they go to parties in sparkly dresses and put their hair up in a bun with only one hairpin, they back the car out of the garage and text me, "Leaving now." And when they arrive, "Arrived." They don't even think about it. They just...live their lives.
Through raising them I learned how to live. Every day I had to teach myself a new trick. How to love the child I have today. How to negotiate, compromise, handle stress, how to grieve and how to celebrate. I can't figure out the bun with one hairpin, but I learned how to hold on and how to let go, and when to do which. How to leave, how to arrive. I learned what love is. And came to understand the kind of love I had as a child, what kind of love that was. Not the right kind.
And here I am. And now what? The midlife question. I didn't build my life around my children, but they built their lives around me, and that narrowed my world. I didn't live through my children, but they lived through me, and I had to change my life and myself to become what they needed me to be.
Creating these beings, living with them, giving them what I did not have---not just the horseback riding lessons and the string instrument but the security, the room to grow, and letting them be what I could not be, free... it changed me. It's what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to know what it was like. And while I couldn't live through them, I got to learn through them. The learn from my side of the relationship what it's like to be a good enough mother. I needed to see that.
How hard is it? It's hard. You don't get much sleep for years on end. You make a thousand meals a year, for twenty years. You fold a lot of onesies, t shirts, tank tops, jeans. You lose a lot of socks. You relearn algebra, biology, chemistry and physics and buy a lot of mechanical pencils in lime green. You soothe a lot of sadness, bury a lot of fish and hamsters, digging the frozen ground, helping them say goodbye, and you try not to call their bullies names, although you clench your fists. You clench your fists at night, wipe your own tears, am I doing it right, did I do good, do they have what they need, am I enough? And you know you're not. You learn to live with that.
And, somehow it's enough. Somehow it's really not that hard. It's challenging, and costly. It's also so easy. God it was so easy, to let your body melt around another little body. To stay awake next to a milky-breathed baby, to make sure they're breathing. I'll stay awake forever for that. To pat the back, to gaze into the wide eyes, pupils dilated with milky black and white dreams. To make the oatmeal. To bake the bread. To braid the freshly washed hair. Change the sheets. Hold the little hand like a little buttered roll sticking out of the blankets and say, "All is well. All is well," until they fall back asleep. How easily they believed me.
It was easy, so easy to love them. Easy not to hurt them. Easy to help them find their way. Easy to watch them grow. Easy to build the crib, the bunkbed, the study desk, the bulletin board on which they hang photos of their lovely, lovely life, and drawings of their grown-up technicolor dreams.
What's ahead feels not so easy. The goodbyes that are happening and that will come, I can do that. Off to college, off to work, off to the boyfriend's for the weekend. That's good. What's difficult is that my plan worked, and it didn't. While I got to do what I wanted to do in my life, I'm left still with what I didn't get. What I can never get. I'm confronted with the reality that having mothered for twenty years does not mother me. All the doing I did does not undo what was done to me, does not do what was left undone. For me.
I knew that, going in. You can't live through your kids. I guess it hits different now. Grief again. Smaller, lighter. Happier grief, really. Because I did it. I created these children and I raised them and I did not abuse them and their lives are good. They are so solid, so secure, so strong, so free. They have their struggles. But they are not traumatized.
I'm still traumatized. I'm healed and still healing. I'm strong and getting stronger. I'm happy and can get happier. When I feel at a loss lately I have to remember that I have what I need. I have the intense focus, the power, the creativity, to make a life worth living. I just need to turn all of that full force on myself again. And I have the knowing of how easy it can be, to follow my instincts, to be part of something bigger than me, to allow something more than All of Me to arrive.
It feels harder to change at my age, but I also have wisdom, strength, security I didn't have twenty years ago when I last really considered myself. When I rode the train to take belly dance class with strippers in Manhattan, to get over my frozen shame. When I rode a plane to Europe and sat in cathedrals, to get over my rage. When I drove to California to see the whales, to find a father figure in the sea. Who taught reading in the projects, who rehabbed animals, who walked next to the horse that killed a man? Who was that girl who did these wild and delicious things, who made of her life some kind of art, some kind of interactive installation, a modern mashup, of whales and cathedrals and jingling coin belts?
The kids still need me. I can't jet off to Paris yet. But I can start to imagine, feel differently, explore. If I get five more years, ten more years, twenty more years. What shape would I want to make that life? What outside of myself might I give to? What last few marks might I make? What would be organic? What would be real? What would be All of Me? These are not the questions of a traumatized person living in survival mode. These are the questions only available to those who are safe, who have some resources, who have some peace and sanity. And that's me, too.
I didn't achieve all my dreams. But I see how hard I tried. How bravely I fought. How seriously I worked to heal. And I'm grateful to me. All the me's. All of me. The little me who knew what was happening was wrong, and held onto that fire. The me who made a plan and got out. The me who stuck with the plan. The me who got help and help and help and help again, even when the help hurt. The me who worked to pay those bills. Those were big, big bills. The me who built the marriage, even though it faltered, even though now we look at each other and don't know who we are. Or what we want. Still, we stayed, and that was good. The me who birthed the kids under an imaginary rainbow waterfall that washed away the pain and left only the joy of how easy it is to open, to surrender, to create something totally new where before there was nothing. A whole new person. Hello, person.
The me who raised these persons, the slow struggle to learn each new person who comes into the world preset with preferences, personality, specific needs. No two are the same. One likes it hot, one likes it cold, one needs to be jiggled, one must never be jiggled, one needs to hear a song and one needs deepest silence. How I bent myself to be what each needed, round the clock, 24-7 for years on end. How that changed me, took me out of myself, released me into vulnerability, able to tolerate "my heart walking around outside my body," as someone once described it. The raw fear as they enter the school building, the brave smile and wave.
And the me now. Coming out of the pandemic losses. So many losses. So many dead friends. Three, for me. Dead family, two. Dead marriage, DOA. Dead bank account. Dead career.
But I'm alive. We made it. It's spring. What may come back from the dead is not yet known. And now what? Who am I, now? Will I do jazz, or tap? Do I like it hot or cold? Do I need to be jiggled, or must you never jiggle me? Song, or silence? So many losses. Nearly dead, sometimes. But alive, still. Off I go, into the future. All is well. The brave smile. The wave.
I was aware I shouldn't build my life around my kids. I shouldn't try to live through them. That's what people say, "Don't build your life around other people." "You can't live through your kids." Sure.
But to my surprise, the kids lived through me. Maybe because I grew up with neglect, I didn't realize how much kids needed. How they needed me in order to live. How they needed to live through me. You couldn't leave them tied to a tree while you ran to the store. If you wanted to go anywhere, you had to bring the baby. Or find someone to watch it, and pay them...and who to trust? I trusted no one. The baby needed to be held, soothed, fed, changed, washed, and held some more. All day. And all night. They needed to look through my eyes, feel through my hands, think through my thoughts. They were so vulnerable, raw sponges, all wide eyes, taking everything in. They needed to interpret the world through me, through my vibes, my emotional body, my flesh. So I had to be chill, stable, happy. I had to generate happiness and peace in my rib cage for them to rest their heads on and sleep. I could not have my babies resting their heads on a racing heart, a stifled breath.
Once they were here, there wasn't so much room for me, for the All of Me. Not if I wanted to be what they needed. I had less bandwidth than the average bear to tolerate demands. So something had to go. I couldn't come home from work and veg anymore. I couldn't veg, ever. The kids, they needed me. Needed me to be fully present, all the time. Gradually over the course of eight years I kept cutting back work and cutting back work until I wasn't working at all.
My kids needed me, but I also needed them. I needed to be the one to raise them. I cried every day leaving them at daycare. The daycares never worked out. I tried a nanny. I cried. I wanted to be the nanny. I wanted it to be me. I got home from work and washed the baby's head, the other woman's smell on their skin a torment. My baby. My toddler. My preschooler. Another baby. And another. And so it went.
Now my kids are grown. No longer babies or toddlers. They still need me, and one's still in high school. But they're grown. They don't need me the same way. Not all the time. Not even much of the time. They are themselves, now. They feed and wash themselves. They feel through their own hands, think through their own minds, see through their own eyes. I have myself back.
And how did my plan work out? For them, fabulously well. They are so sane. So well. They have their own therapist. They can set boundaries like nobody's business. They know what's their business and what's someone else's. They know what feelings are, and whose feelings are whose. They know how to manage stress, how to negotiate and compromise, how to grieve, how to celebrate. They don't wonder who they are. They know.
They know what it feels like to be safe, to take life for granted, to assume all will be well, to go to sleep on time and stay asleep till morning, to wake up into another day just like the one before, good. They dance ballet, hip hop, jazz, they play string instruments, they ride horses, they play sports, they get good grades, they have friends and lose friends and find new friends, they go to parties in sparkly dresses and put their hair up in a bun with only one hairpin, they back the car out of the garage and text me, "Leaving now." And when they arrive, "Arrived." They don't even think about it. They just...live their lives.
Through raising them I learned how to live. Every day I had to teach myself a new trick. How to love the child I have today. How to negotiate, compromise, handle stress, how to grieve and how to celebrate. I can't figure out the bun with one hairpin, but I learned how to hold on and how to let go, and when to do which. How to leave, how to arrive. I learned what love is. And came to understand the kind of love I had as a child, what kind of love that was. Not the right kind.
And here I am. And now what? The midlife question. I didn't build my life around my children, but they built their lives around me, and that narrowed my world. I didn't live through my children, but they lived through me, and I had to change my life and myself to become what they needed me to be.
Creating these beings, living with them, giving them what I did not have---not just the horseback riding lessons and the string instrument but the security, the room to grow, and letting them be what I could not be, free... it changed me. It's what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to know what it was like. And while I couldn't live through them, I got to learn through them. The learn from my side of the relationship what it's like to be a good enough mother. I needed to see that.
How hard is it? It's hard. You don't get much sleep for years on end. You make a thousand meals a year, for twenty years. You fold a lot of onesies, t shirts, tank tops, jeans. You lose a lot of socks. You relearn algebra, biology, chemistry and physics and buy a lot of mechanical pencils in lime green. You soothe a lot of sadness, bury a lot of fish and hamsters, digging the frozen ground, helping them say goodbye, and you try not to call their bullies names, although you clench your fists. You clench your fists at night, wipe your own tears, am I doing it right, did I do good, do they have what they need, am I enough? And you know you're not. You learn to live with that.
And, somehow it's enough. Somehow it's really not that hard. It's challenging, and costly. It's also so easy. God it was so easy, to let your body melt around another little body. To stay awake next to a milky-breathed baby, to make sure they're breathing. I'll stay awake forever for that. To pat the back, to gaze into the wide eyes, pupils dilated with milky black and white dreams. To make the oatmeal. To bake the bread. To braid the freshly washed hair. Change the sheets. Hold the little hand like a little buttered roll sticking out of the blankets and say, "All is well. All is well," until they fall back asleep. How easily they believed me.
It was easy, so easy to love them. Easy not to hurt them. Easy to help them find their way. Easy to watch them grow. Easy to build the crib, the bunkbed, the study desk, the bulletin board on which they hang photos of their lovely, lovely life, and drawings of their grown-up technicolor dreams.
What's ahead feels not so easy. The goodbyes that are happening and that will come, I can do that. Off to college, off to work, off to the boyfriend's for the weekend. That's good. What's difficult is that my plan worked, and it didn't. While I got to do what I wanted to do in my life, I'm left still with what I didn't get. What I can never get. I'm confronted with the reality that having mothered for twenty years does not mother me. All the doing I did does not undo what was done to me, does not do what was left undone. For me.
I knew that, going in. You can't live through your kids. I guess it hits different now. Grief again. Smaller, lighter. Happier grief, really. Because I did it. I created these children and I raised them and I did not abuse them and their lives are good. They are so solid, so secure, so strong, so free. They have their struggles. But they are not traumatized.
I'm still traumatized. I'm healed and still healing. I'm strong and getting stronger. I'm happy and can get happier. When I feel at a loss lately I have to remember that I have what I need. I have the intense focus, the power, the creativity, to make a life worth living. I just need to turn all of that full force on myself again. And I have the knowing of how easy it can be, to follow my instincts, to be part of something bigger than me, to allow something more than All of Me to arrive.
It feels harder to change at my age, but I also have wisdom, strength, security I didn't have twenty years ago when I last really considered myself. When I rode the train to take belly dance class with strippers in Manhattan, to get over my frozen shame. When I rode a plane to Europe and sat in cathedrals, to get over my rage. When I drove to California to see the whales, to find a father figure in the sea. Who taught reading in the projects, who rehabbed animals, who walked next to the horse that killed a man? Who was that girl who did these wild and delicious things, who made of her life some kind of art, some kind of interactive installation, a modern mashup, of whales and cathedrals and jingling coin belts?
The kids still need me. I can't jet off to Paris yet. But I can start to imagine, feel differently, explore. If I get five more years, ten more years, twenty more years. What shape would I want to make that life? What outside of myself might I give to? What last few marks might I make? What would be organic? What would be real? What would be All of Me? These are not the questions of a traumatized person living in survival mode. These are the questions only available to those who are safe, who have some resources, who have some peace and sanity. And that's me, too.
I didn't achieve all my dreams. But I see how hard I tried. How bravely I fought. How seriously I worked to heal. And I'm grateful to me. All the me's. All of me. The little me who knew what was happening was wrong, and held onto that fire. The me who made a plan and got out. The me who stuck with the plan. The me who got help and help and help and help again, even when the help hurt. The me who worked to pay those bills. Those were big, big bills. The me who built the marriage, even though it faltered, even though now we look at each other and don't know who we are. Or what we want. Still, we stayed, and that was good. The me who birthed the kids under an imaginary rainbow waterfall that washed away the pain and left only the joy of how easy it is to open, to surrender, to create something totally new where before there was nothing. A whole new person. Hello, person.
The me who raised these persons, the slow struggle to learn each new person who comes into the world preset with preferences, personality, specific needs. No two are the same. One likes it hot, one likes it cold, one needs to be jiggled, one must never be jiggled, one needs to hear a song and one needs deepest silence. How I bent myself to be what each needed, round the clock, 24-7 for years on end. How that changed me, took me out of myself, released me into vulnerability, able to tolerate "my heart walking around outside my body," as someone once described it. The raw fear as they enter the school building, the brave smile and wave.
And the me now. Coming out of the pandemic losses. So many losses. So many dead friends. Three, for me. Dead family, two. Dead marriage, DOA. Dead bank account. Dead career.
But I'm alive. We made it. It's spring. What may come back from the dead is not yet known. And now what? Who am I, now? Will I do jazz, or tap? Do I like it hot or cold? Do I need to be jiggled, or must you never jiggle me? Song, or silence? So many losses. Nearly dead, sometimes. But alive, still. Off I go, into the future. All is well. The brave smile. The wave.
#2
Memory/Cognitive Issues / Re: How Trauma Affects Memory
Last post by GoSlash27 - March 01, 2026, 07:46:44 PM What happened to me is not normal, even for survivors of extreme childhood trauma. Dissociation is supposed to cause amnesia, not preserve memories that should have disappeared.
From spring '72 onward, I was a baby with a GoPro. I recorded all of it and have access to the footage.
Science has no explanation for this. I'm an anomaly; a "freak".
I contacted a specialist in this matter (Nicholas Turke-Brown at Yale) and offered myself up as a "guinea pig" of sorts. Understanding the mechanism that caused this may lead to a better model of human brain development.
I found this ability supremely useful or even critical in my research of my past, but I personally find it unsettling.
My sister seems to take comfort in it. We don't have a family photo album anymore, so she relies on me to describe events when we were together.
From spring '72 onward, I was a baby with a GoPro. I recorded all of it and have access to the footage.
Science has no explanation for this. I'm an anomaly; a "freak".
I contacted a specialist in this matter (Nicholas Turke-Brown at Yale) and offered myself up as a "guinea pig" of sorts. Understanding the mechanism that caused this may lead to a better model of human brain development.
I found this ability supremely useful or even critical in my research of my past, but I personally find it unsettling.
My sister seems to take comfort in it. We don't have a family photo album anymore, so she relies on me to describe events when we were together.
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by GoSlash27 - March 01, 2026, 07:10:26 PMI caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror today, averted my eyes. I forced myself to look at my reflection, directly in my own eyes. All I saw was me.
I chuckled at how silly all of this has been. I'll be alright.
I chuckled at how silly all of this has been. I'll be alright.
#4
Family / Re: Left out
Last post by Kizzie - March 01, 2026, 05:51:30 PMIt can be difficult for family members to understand but at least your H is leaving you to it which I imagine is a relief. My NM often used the silent treatment which is a form of abuse. Until I knew she was an N and this was a tool in her arsenal it drove me crazy. Glad to hear it doesn't affect you! 
#5
General Discussion / Re: Taking part in a research
Last post by Kizzie - March 01, 2026, 05:47:05 PMAwesome to hear that you participated although I'm sorry to hear you had a bit of a reaction. Studies usually have a contact that you can talk to after you participate in case of reactions. Sometimes it's just good to know there is someone (trained) in case you need them.
Also good to hear about being able to reduce your dose of the neuroleptic!
Also good to hear about being able to reduce your dose of the neuroleptic!
#6
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Hello (again)
Last post by TheBigBlue - March 01, 2026, 04:11:49 PMHi Winter, welcome back 
The fact that you're here - saying you want connection even while feeling scared - that's already big.
You don't have to rush getting unstuck. You can take this one small, safe interaction at a time. This can simply be a place to practice being a little less alone. 💛
The fact that you're here - saying you want connection even while feeling scared - that's already big.
You don't have to rush getting unstuck. You can take this one small, safe interaction at a time. This can simply be a place to practice being a little less alone. 💛
#7
Physical Abuse / Re: "I'll give you something t...
Last post by TheBigBlue - March 01, 2026, 04:06:17 PMSlashy,
I'm so sorry that little boy had to survive that. No child should ever have to disappear just to stay safe.
I wish we could go back and wrap that young version of you in the warmth and protection he deserved all along.
I'm really glad you're not sitting in that room alone anymore. 💛
I'm so sorry that little boy had to survive that. No child should ever have to disappear just to stay safe.
I wish we could go back and wrap that young version of you in the warmth and protection he deserved all along.
I'm really glad you're not sitting in that room alone anymore. 💛
#8
About Complex PTSD / Re: What is Complex PTSD & How...
Last post by TheBigBlue - March 01, 2026, 04:00:52 PMThank you, Kizzie.
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by TheBigBlue - March 01, 2026, 03:46:48 PMSlashy,
Reading your reply genuinely moved me.
The shift you described from timeline to patterns, from dates and locations to causes, effects, and structure, feels powerful. Not because it dismisses the investigative work, but because it reframes what "wholeness" might actually mean.
I'm somewhere in between myself, and I know how hard that place can be, when the old organizing principle stops working but the new one isn't fully settled yet. So whenever I see something shift - in me or in someone else here - it gives me hope. Not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, steady way. Like there really is light further down the tunnel.
What you wrote: "*THAT* is who I am." - felt so grounded. Less about proving, more about understanding. That's not a small thing.
I'm genuinely glad if anything I shared contributed to that moment. But what you did with it - that's yours.
Reading your reply genuinely moved me.
The shift you described from timeline to patterns, from dates and locations to causes, effects, and structure, feels powerful. Not because it dismisses the investigative work, but because it reframes what "wholeness" might actually mean.
I'm somewhere in between myself, and I know how hard that place can be, when the old organizing principle stops working but the new one isn't fully settled yet. So whenever I see something shift - in me or in someone else here - it gives me hope. Not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, steady way. Like there really is light further down the tunnel.
What you wrote: "*THAT* is who I am." - felt so grounded. Less about proving, more about understanding. That's not a small thing.
I'm genuinely glad if anything I shared contributed to that moment. But what you did with it - that's yours.
#10
Memory/Cognitive Issues / Re: How Trauma Affects Memory
Last post by dollyvee - March 01, 2026, 03:09:26 PMQuote from: NarcKiddo on March 01, 2026, 11:42:42 AMJust as we are all unique, so our experiences of dissociation are never going to be identical.This is my understanding of dissociation NK — that it exists on a spectrum from day dreaming to DID and everyone experiences that uniquely.
Thanks for sharing