Self-abandonment since CSA

[DD]

My PTSD was recently triggered and that actually helped hit something home. And looking back over the last months there has been a theme of self-abandonment. It's in the songs I keep listening to on repeat. And this is actually quite hard to write about as it is so fresh a realization. All my life I've been the one to hold everything together even as I was taking an emotional beating. It's unfortunately a repeating pattern. I am the one keeping things together while I am in agony and no one sees the pain, even as a child.

I experienced CSA at the hand of my uncle as a child. My parents knew my sister had the same fate some years before me but they kept taking me there. For that and for all the other traumatic things there is a theme that always a few people knew about it, but no one came to help. So I grew up as the person who tries to save everyone because no one came to save me. They just watched me hurt, and get hurt as if it was nothing. As if it was meaningless, as if I was meaningless. So I grew up believing I was less than human. That I had to earn the right to exist and it had to be earned by being useful, kind and helpful to others. If everyone around me were fine, maybe it was ok if I existed just a little.

This led to a lifetime of people pleasing and enabling the abuse that ensued. Now I sit here having cried for some hours and just see the damage done. I don't have a question. What I am asking is to be kindly witnessed. That I exist. That I matter. That I'm allowed to be human.

[Blueberry]

I experienced CSA at the hand of my uncle as a child. My parents knew my sister had the same fate some years before me but they kept taking me there. For that and for all the other traumatic things there is a theme that always a few people knew about it, but no one came to help.

I'm sorry DD, that sounds to me like SUCH a betrayal! Your parents knew of the danger and still didn't prevent it happening to you.

Yes, you are human, you matter, you exist. I want to add that you have rights - to exist and to be treated with respect.

[TheBigBlue]

I see you.

What you shared is devastating, and I want to say this clearly: you were a child who should have been protected, and you weren't. The way you learned to survive - holding everything together, being useful, keeping others okay - makes sense in the face of that level of abandonment. None of it means you were ever less than human. It means you were hurt and left alone with it.

You exist. You matter - not because you earned it by being kind or useful, but because you exist. You are allowed to be human, even when you are not holding anyone else together.

Thank you for trusting this space with something so raw. You are being witnessed.

[dollyvee]

I'm sorry DD. I think that you did the best for yourself that you knew how to do at the time and it helped you to survive. I'm sorry as well that your parents put you in that situation, that's a horrible betrayal and I can understand fighting for the need to exist. It's also something I struggle with.

I have been listening to some Heidi Priebe videos lately and she talks about how to not be manipulated by looking at the ego version/idea of ourselves that we need to survive. For me, it's so hard to shake the idea that I have to be a nice person. Like it just throws my world off if I do not adhere to this, and healthy selfishness is something I'm working on. But I get how something so normal for others can be so outside my sphere of relating.

Sending you support and a hug if that's ok 
dolly

[Kizzie]

I hear you DD.  Betrayal runs deep but I hope now that you know you will allow yourself not to care so much about others and start caring for yourself. 

[Chart]

Now I sit here having cried for some hours and just see the damage done. I don't have a question. What I am asking is to be kindly witnessed. That I exist. That I matter. That I'm allowed to be human.

DD, I hear you, I feel deeply what you have written. You are seen. I'm so sorry you were thrown to the wolves by those that were responsible for your safety. The child betrayed makes absolutely no sense to any true human.
Sending support and acknowledgement.
 

[DD]

Thank you all and  to everyone who finds comfort and strength in it. I firmly believe it was a betrayal so deep and profound I can only process it a bit at a time. Thank you all for witnessing it, and me as a survivor of it.

For me, it's so hard to shake the idea that I have to be a nice person. Like it just throws my world off if I do not adhere to this, and healthy selfishness is something I'm working on. But I get how something so normal for others can be so outside my sphere of relating.

Dolly: I totally agree with this point. I used to state it as "I've been broken to serve others". Part of it is intentional and relates to religious trauma. I'd like to propose another way to look at this, if it also would help someone else: What if it isn't selfishness at all? What if doing that is an integral part of being a healthy human being? My mind runs from any hint at selfishness as dangerous due to my past. So I am learning to think that it is not that but the fundamental right of human beings to notice their limitations, boundaries, resources, and needs. And to communicate them in a respectful way to others. As well as then limiting the access of anyone who does not agree to them.

Because to ignore my needs and boundaries, isn't it to ignore my humanity and my value? And anyone repeatedly doing this would then inherently be unsafe to be around if they do not stop and repair? What do you all think?

I did some profound trauma releasing this week and am having these kinds of brand new thoughts on the topic.

[dollyvee]

What if it isn't selfishness at all? What if doing that is an integral part of being a healthy human being? My mind runs from any hint at selfishness as dangerous due to my past. So I am learning to think that it is not that but the fundamental right of human beings to notice their limitations, boundaries, resources, and needs. And to communicate them in a respectful way to others. As well as then limiting the access of anyone who does not agree to them.

Because to ignore my needs and boundaries, isn't it to ignore my humanity and my value? And anyone repeatedly doing this would then inherently be unsafe to be around if they do not stop and repair? What do you all think?

I think this is an incredibly insightful way to look at it. I do feel like my body (and subconscious) have other ideas at times and that's where I find the problem that when faced with "danger" it will just switch into the fawn or freeze response. I guess at the moment I'm trying to understand what that concept of "danger" is? Like any kind of conflict or power struggle seems to flick the switch as I call it, and I'm trying to unpack that. Even if my brain says one thing, it's like my body does another.