I think I may have found my people

[MiaBailey]

Hi All, I am Mia.  I am new here.  I only have a few minutes before I head out the door to run errands.  I thought about waiting to post my intro until I had more time to collect my thoughts; however, I have lived in my head and collected my thoughts for 62 years.  I was truly struck but just reading a few of the posts from the introductory page -- some of you were writing my internal thoughts on your computers. 

My hubby is waiting on me so no there is no time to write a novella.  I can say this brief synopsis.  I was raised in an affluent family but there was severe neglect with a busy career-focused dad and a mom that was busy being pretty.  So, basically, I was intelligent but not all that pretty so I wasn't a good play-thing for her; therefore, I had no intrinsic value.  I spent my life trying to be perfect.  Perfect grades, perfect attendance, law school, et cetera.  Nothing would ever gain love from someone incapable of giving love.

I married someone very similar to my mom and was married to him for a long time. He and I had a daughter who is very similar to him.  I ultimately left that relationship. 

By the time that I left these relationships, I was just absolutely spent and had zero self-esteem. 

It doesn't seem to matter how many books I read or counselors I talk to that tell me about the neglect and abuse and this and that -- I just feel like I am so ground down that I will never be able to truly believe in myself.  Yes, I have PTSD and C-PTSD.  Yes, I have done counseling and EMDR.  Yes, I know that it isn't my fault.

However, I have also had a hard time finding therapists that really understand and/or care and/or are truly empathetic to someone that was neglected.  They seem to understand abuse as-in what happened to you but that is so tangible.  I can sit there all day long and say nothing happened to me, per se.  That's the problem, nothing happened to me.  They seem to have a difficult time in identifying neglect.  How do you do EMDR for neglect?  What do you target? 

Anyway, I have blathered on and hopefully not sounded like an idiot.  Just glad to have found a place to feel understood.  Thank you for listening.

[Teddy bear]

Hi Mia 👋
Nice to meet you here 
Welcome!

I've just read your post, I also had neglect in my childhood.
That's really tricky what to do about it 🤔

I haven't tried EMDR yet and no therapist for now (but had tried different previously, not sure they were actually helpful though).
Nevertheless I'm going to search again a bit later on.

Glad you've found this place, and it gives you the feeling of connection

[TheBigBlue]

Hi Mia, 

I'm so sorry for what you went through. My introduction read very similarly. And yes, the "what did not happen" paradox - the invisibility of complex relational and developmental trauma. Reading this article "Death by a Thousand Cuts" helped me

... There's a good article here I found today that explains why this is so, how those of us who cannot describe our abuse as horrific and in some cases as abuse itself end up with Complex PTSD.
https://www.complextrauma.org/complex-trauma/death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

Those constant wounds - being invisible, unwanted, unlovable, shamed, treated as if you didn't belong - are relational traumas that cut deeply precisely because they come from the people who were meant to protect us. Minimizing it is something so many of us do ... but what happened to you was real, and it mattered. One of the first things I learned on this forum, by reading the experiences of other CPTSD survivors, is this: if you have the symptoms of CPTSD, then yes - it really was that bad.

I'm really glad you're here. You deserved so much better - and you're not alone anymore.

(if that's ok)

[Kizzie]

Hey Mia - Hi and a warm welcome to Out of the Storm! 

I a so sorry you struggle to convey what happened to you (and I think a lot did happen to you). IMO neglect results in CPTSD because it is a form of abuse, just less visible - abuse by omission if you will.

At least here we do understand and I think (hope) if you can summon up the strength to keep looking, you will be able to find a therapist who does get it.

 

[MiaBailey]

Thank you for your words. 

Yes, exactly, it IS the "what did not happen" paradox.  Wow.  It is the pain of being rendered invisible and of no value.  It is the lack of love and nurturing and someone actually seeing you as a person.  I was treated as a nuisance and a disruption to her life -- some "thing" that must be marginally tolerated.  She was a woman in the early 1960s who was married to an "executive man," and she was expected to play the role of "stay at home mother."  She wasn't a woman of the 1960s who wanted a career and was forced to stay home and raise a family; no, she didn't want a career, she didn't want children, she wanted to do the bare minimum.  She wanted to play Goddess.  Having change diapers and raise children was so pedestrian. So, she gave birth to us and then did nothing else.  My brothers and I took care of each other. 

My mom didn't cook or clean or anything resembling a domestic chore; she didn't do any mom activities either. For example, she didn't do hugs or homework or doctor's appointments or school trips or school meetings or girl scouts or sports or carpools or illness or birthday parties or boo-boos or birthday parties or holiday meals or talks about facts of life or girl things or anything that would resemble an investment in the development of a small human.  She basically ignored us, like we didn't exist, and when my dad returned home from work at the end of the day, she'd give him a laundry list of our supposed infractions.

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTT, when we were out in public, she was mother of the year.  Meryl Streep would be impressed with the acting skills of my mother. 

So, there was no overt abuse.  But, it was very much the "Death by a Thousand Cuts" coupled with very, very public gaslighting.  It was basically the public image of look at these privileged kids from an affluent home with these wonderful parents.  As a child, when the world perceives that you live this life of privilege, with these beautiful parents, and there are not broken bones or no overt things that you can point to it does a real number on your mind.  You grow up feeling like you are the problem and that maybe you are an ungrateful jerk.  No one sees it.  No one understands it.  You aren't allowed to talk about it.  No one believes you if your do.  My brothers won't talk about it. 

I told my husband that me saying that I love you isn't as important as me saying that I TRUST YOU.  I trust you is so much more difficult for me because I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Because of this inability to trust, I have been an introvert most of my life.  II find comfort and safety in solitary activities.  It's not that I don't like people, I do like people.  I just start getting overwhelmed when it gets too "peopley." 

Anyway.  Venting I guess.  Wow.  That felt good to just purge just that little bit.

[TheBigBlue]

Wow - this hits home hard.
My life wasn't identical - we were poor, my father was narcissistic, and I was the body-shamed scapegoat. My mother used me as her regulating container (resulting in parentification/horizontal enmeshment). She did love me, and she was traumatized herself - that explains a lot, but it doesn't excuse it. Even without malicious intent, the impact was very real.

But the lived experience and the long-term effects feel strikingly similar to what you described: invisibility, being silenced, no internal sense of safety, abandonment issues, no fully developed self, no real self-worth - and so much shame. Of course I thought it was all my fault. I felt completely invisible - even to myself. From the outside, I was an accomplished, high-functioning academic. Inside, I felt broken.

About 11 months ago I "took the red pill" - started digging up repressed memories and bursting the bubble of a "protected childhood" my brain had selectively preserved so I could survive. Seeing the truth was painful, but also clarifying. My FOO (family of origin) has no idea about my diagnosis or struggles. I'm not sure I would have made it as far as I have without a good T (therapist) and the people on this forum.

No one sees it. No one understands it. You aren't allowed to talk about it. No one believes you if your do.

So I just want to say this clearly: we know. we believe you. we see you.
And what you're describing counts and was real - even without bruises, even without witnesses.

[MiaBailey]

Yep, once you allow yourself to fully know this stuff there's really no going backwards.  It's that quote from the Velveteen Rabbit of "once you are real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

For a long, long time I was a perfectionistic overachieving workaholic family law attorney.  Overcompensation and outrunning my demons was a very, very busy and productive distraction from a tremendous amount of pain. Stopping the busyness is difficult because those demons are mean.

[TheBigBlue]

 

 
(If that's ok)