Only now realising...

[songbirdrosa]

For my entire life, I've been abused or neglected in some form or another. From the day I was born, I've only known fear, anxiety, and instability. I thought it was normal. And now, at 26, I'm finally beginning to realise what was stolen from me. I lost my childhood, my innocence, my confidence, and my potential. There's so many aspects of myself that have been left to flounder because of what happened to me. I love to sing, but the thought of even doing it within earshot of another person is terrifying. I'm extremely intelligent, but I can't finish any kind of study because the stress triggers breakdowns and makes me physically sick. I love to care for people, but being the daughter of a psychopath means I always give too much and leave myself emotionally drained. I've had so much taken away, and I'm so mad about it! About what they did to me, about how I'm the one who is paying for their mistakes, about what I could have been if none of it had happened! My whole life was snatched from me and I'll never get it back. 

[Eyessoblue]

Hi, you sound like how I feel. Have you been able to get yourself any counselling? I started off my going to see my GP who set the ball rolling and it's been an ongoing process for me for just over a year now, I'm currently with a Trauma therapist who does EMDR with me and it's working well, but you definitely can't carry on feeling like this if you have no support. i give myself affirmations every day which is hard but the more you do it the easier it gets, I remind myself that I am intelligent, I'm kind and caring but most of all I survived and I'm now safe. This site is really helpful and you can ask anything you're not sure about.

[Kat]

I agree with Eyessoblue that having support is key.  I don't have a lot of concrete memories of abuse to pull up, so I've been told EMDR wouldn't be too helpful in my case, but I've heard great things about it.  I think we can all totally relate to feeling that justified rage of "I'm the one paying for their..." fill in the blank--mistakes, abuse, psychopathy, neglect, etc. 

It wasn't until I was about 32 and my mother was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder that I sought treatment for myself.  It felt like it was late in the game. Now, twelve years later, I realize that there really is no such thing as "late in the game" when it comes to healing.