New...Again

[M.R.]

I made a profile a while ago after my father did some research and found this website...and I deleted it soon after. I felt like I was "fine". I was totally, 100% blind to all of my struggling. I had successfully masked all of my problems, not just to others but to myself as well. In the past few years I have had my eyes forced open...quickly and painfully. And right now I am at a total loss. As I am writing this I don't even know if I am "doing it right". Opening up feels like I am tearing my heart apart and I feel anxious waiting for someone to pick up a piece and laugh at me saying, "You think you've got it bad? Meet x, y, or z and try to live in their shoes for a day".

I have been diagnosed with so many different things in the years I have lived with my father that I feel like I don't even know what's wrong with me. But, I am in the process of getting testing done for some concrete answers, finally. I don't know what is normal or abnormal. From practically the time I was born (18 months) to 12 I was living in my mothers' grasp, trying to survive my own private * without ever knowing there was something different, something better.

But, anyways, I guess that's all, just wanted to post and say hi...Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Melodie

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome back, Melodie! I think a lot of us feel the same about our backgrounds, that somehow it wasn't bad enough to warrant being damaged. But, we also know that pain is pain and this is not a contest. No one will invalidate you here. 

[M.R.]

Thank you Three Roses, you don't know how much better that comment made me feel.

[AphoticAtramentous]

Welcome back Melodie. ^-^
As Three Roses said, it's not about "others having it worse than me", or that you're "overreacting". There's no contest, no bragging rights. I've felt the same way, and I just always remind myself that in the end, pain is relative. Our trauma is simply 'trauma', there is no level of trauma thus no reason to compare ourselves to others.
Feel free to stick around if you wish. We won't judge you. We're here to help you, to listen to whatever you want to say.

[M.R.]

First of all, I want to thank you both for your kind words. And everyone else that might not have even realized that they have made me feel welcomed here through all the posts that I have read but haven't responded to. From my own personal isolated space it feels weird, but oddly nice to be welcomed so easily into a community.

Second of all, I feel the need to explain why I feel like my level of '*' would be compared to everyone else's. For 11 years I lived in a world where I never had a voice, thought or expression of my own. My mother always spoke, thought and expressed for me. She was almost the soul and I was the body. (Bad example I know.) What she wanted me to think, I thought. If she told me to jump she never left me wondering how high. And with not knowing any better, she would tell me things such as, "You don't know how good you actually have it here, baby girl" ('Baby girl' was her pet name for me.) and I believed it. After years of her telling me how whiny I am, and that I need to learn to thank her for taking me in I just learned that I have it better than most. (When in all reality it was the opposite.) And at 12 when all of a sudden my world comes crashing down through learning all that I went through and what it all actually meant, I had a terrible time thinking anything besides, "I don't know how good I have it". And when Three Roses said, "No one will invalidate you here" it almost made me start balling my eyes out. It feels good to actually mean something, ya know? So, thank you for letting me mean something. It means the world to me.

Melodie

P.S. I couldn't stop myself from crying as I wrote that^.

[Three Roses]

 

[AphoticAtramentous]

Second of all, I feel the need to explain why I feel like my level of '*' would be compared to everyone else's. For 11 years I lived in a world where I never had a voice, thought or expression of my own. My mother always spoke, thought and expressed for me. She was almost the soul and I was the body. (Bad example I know.) What she wanted me to think, I thought. If she told me to jump she never left me wondering how high. And with not knowing any better, she would tell me things such as, "You don't know how good you actually have it here, baby girl" ('Baby girl' was her pet name for me.) and I believed it. After years of her telling me how whiny I am, and that I need to learn to thank her for taking me in I just learned that I have it better than most. (When in all reality it was the opposite.) And at 12 when all of a sudden my world comes crashing down through learning all that I went through and what it all actually meant, I had a terrible time thinking anything besides, "I don't know how good I have it". And when Three Roses said, "No one will invalidate you here" it almost made me start balling my eyes out. It feels good to actually mean something, ya know? So, thank you for letting me mean something. It means the world to me.

I really understand how you feel there. My parents say the same all the time; "You have it so good here", "You're so lucky to have us", "We're the best parents you could have". I didn't have a voice, thought, or expression of my own either. It is really a *, tucked away and hidden from the outside world, unknown to others, but very much present.
I hope your living conditions are better now though. ^^

[M.R.]

Thank you Aphotic.

I'm so sorry that you are still living in your *. I couldn't even imagine if I was still in that position. >_<

I have only mentioned my mother so far here, but I was unfortunately abused by many, many more. I lived with my mother, step father, three older half brothers and two step sisters...and was abused and sold to many more. So I heard it almost constantly from everyone. The worst part for me was the fact that my "family" portrayed me as this autistic stupid child. That I couldn't understand any better and so, out in public strangers would tell me how good of a family I have for them to stick around and continue to care for me and help me. It just kept proving what I heard on a daily basis.


But, on a brighter side my living conditions are amazing considering where I've been. It doesn't mean I'm comfortable or even able to fully appreciate them but I have a family now that tells me they love me daily, that take me to my doctor appointments every week and that support and try to understand me the best they can. And I hope that this...love is in your future also.

Melodie

[Blueberry]

Welcome MelodieRose,

My parents used to go on about children "with real problems" as opposed to me. And say I was just feeling sorry for myself etc. etc. Many decades ago. I think they do actually realise I have a number of problems now but seem to have conveniently forgotten their own involvement. These comparisons seem pretty common-place unfortunately, if you see how many of us on here still compare ourselves to others who "have it far worse". I still do that in my head.

But as Three Roses writes, it's not a contest and nobody on here will discount what happened to you.