u/SomeCommission7645

Real talk: Do you have supportive people in your life? Friends? Partners? Family Members? Fur babies? How do you manage with companionship?

As time has gone on and I’m far closer to being a parent than a child, I feel an incredible amount of anger and protectiveness over children. Seeing children in television makes me angry because they deserve better than an upbringing in show business. Seeing kids online posted by their parents makes my blood boil. Seeing kids on the street with perfect hair and perfect clothes they clearly didn’t choose makes me sad they can’t explore. Seeing kids in compromising positions or attire makes me petrified for their safety. Watching old sitcoms where children had to sit on laps and wear swimsuits on camera makes me want to cry. It’s constant and it never stops. I find in terrifying that children are as vulnerable as they are. They rely ENTIRELY on adults to keep them safe. Part of me just wishes I could protect them all. Children deserve safety and developmentally protected expression.

I don’t know why this pains me so so much. It makes me want to rant about it all day every day. I don’t think of my child self kindly, but real children deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and kept safe.

I have this memory of getting a birthday spanking + “a pinch to grow an inch” from my kindergarten teacher. I had to stand on a chair in front of my entire class, and I remember being both terrified and mortified. 6 spankings and one to grow, and I think there was a song but I don’t remember it. I was a summer birthday, so myself and all the summer birthday kids would do it on our half birthdays. I spent the next several years of elementary school terrified a teacher would find out it was my half birthday; granted, this tradition only took place in kindergarten. A friend I went to kindergarten with confirmed that this happened, and she also thought she’d made the whole thing up. I think what surprises me about this memory was that I was in kindergarten in 2008-2009, and I went to a public school in a metropolitan area of the midwest. It just seems so culturally strange, and I still feel icky thinking about how I felt getting publicly spanked in my classroom as a kid. Is this something that happened to other people?

I see these (good) conversations on the internet all the time around teaching kids safety, body autonomy and anatomically correct words for private areas. I know it’s incredibly important to have these conversations with kids and I’m glad more parents are having them.

Still I can’t help but shutter when it’s always followed with “only mommy can touch you there”, “only mommy/daddy can kiss you on the lips”, “only mommy/daddy can cuddle with you”, etc.

What do you do when it’s mommy/daddy that’s hurting you? How do you teach children safety no matter what/who? I just feel uprooted when I think about this and every time I hear these conversations; I don’t know how to comfort the child in me whose still confused whether or not it was okay because it was my parent. It’s impossible. I don’t know why this makes me so upset.

This has been happening for years now, but it feels slightly different than an emotional flashback — i’m far more present and able to “witness” what’s coming up. It’s this intense feeling of being unsafe in the midst of zero identifiable triggers. The best I’ve seen it described was in “What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo — she calls it “the dread”.

It’s always just so upsetting and I often end up whimpering, feeling chest pains, laying or rocking on the floor, holding my throat, shaking/flapping my hands, etc. (I do feel a need to clarify that this has only started happening at the onset of my CPTSD, and I am not autistic). From the outside, it looks like overstimulation or a child-like tantrum, but on the inside it feels like a mini-emotional flashback.

It makes me really wish I had a service dog to ground me in these moments, because they happen often and almost always when i’m alone or things are quiet. Idk if it could be tied to preverbal trauma but it’s challenging to explain.

I think this is very much a “grass is greener on the other side” feeling, but my CSA trauma has made me terrified and sexually avoidant. I know hypersexuality is more common, and I was that way as a child, but ever since CPTSD set in, I’ve been terrifyingly afraid of sex. This isn’t for lack of desire — I dream of a healthy relationship with a safe sex life. It’s about a terror so great that I essentially pass out and become a rag doll, and my fight response refuses to ever be that vulnerable again. I hurt too many people because I was afraid they’d hurt me or hate me for my hurt, and then dumped them promptly.

I know purity culture is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t predicament, but where I’m from and around friends/peers it’s always been shameful to be a prude. It makes talking about sex uncomfortable because in my head, I have had sex before — it just so happened to be the worst thing that ever happened to me and now I avoid it. I’ve had close friends (not knowing my trauma) spend so much time making fun of me for being “impossible to fuck” and treating me like a child whom they needed to explain sex to.

Sometimes I just wish I could be the type to dissociate while still sexually perform instead of the type who can no longer function as human. I wish I could just disconnect and sleep around. I wish I could appear normal even if I struggle with this part of my history.

I don’t want you (my abusive parent) to love me. Love is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Love is what you said when you bruised me, held me against the wall, threw glass to scare me. Love is what you told me when you bonded with me over weight watchers as a 7 year old. Love is what you whispered in my ear to manipulate me into devoting my life, my sense of self, my body, my time, my everything to you with no way out. Love is what you said when you came into my room and tried to kissed and touch me in my sleep. Love is brutality.

Love is inescapable. I want you to hate me, please for the love of god, hate me. Do whatever you want to do — just please don’t love me.

I just want anyone here to know that if you’ve endured CSA at the hands of a parent, you are not alone. It’s a special kind of hell when the person who has all the control over you and your life, your attachment, your self concept…the only person designated to care for you…the only person who even mattered your entire, life hurt you in unimaginable ways. It’s the most confusing, profound experience — and then you’re still expected to hug them at holidays and sit beside them at dinners and socially worship the ground they walk on for giving you…everything.

It’s an ineffable, emotional death sentence. Something that cannot be spoken of and cannot be repaired fully. It’s an amputation of a part of the human spirit that can never be replaced.

How have you managed intimacy with your partner and disclosing your history? My response to this trauma in adulthood involves major triggers in any form of intimacy that make sex incredibly scary. My CSA history involves a lot of betrayal and much of it was repressed until the last few years. I have CPTSD, and I also believe I have vaginismus which makes sex even more challenging and extremely painful. I find it very difficult to trust, despite really desiring intimacy of all kinds. I also have not disclosed the majority of this part of my history to anyone, and I really fear my responses are only confusing and frustrating without giving a partner context.

I’m not in a relationship now, but I struggle to imagine a reality where sex can be safe and pleasurable. The thing I worry about most is that nobody will want me once they see how damaged I am — damaged physically and damaged emotionally. I really truly do want a sexual relationship at some point, I just feel like I’m worthless if I can’t make it easy.

For people who have partners — do you have stories of how that’s worked out or shown up in your relationships? Have you disclosed your trauma? Have your partners been patient with you?

One of many hard things involving my childhood has been the incessant need of my mom to cut down any expression of joy, happiness, gratitude, peace, etc. I’m not just talking about expressions of joy that are potentially disruptive or loud or annoying or distracting, but things as simple and as quiet as enjoying a book, noticing (things i liked — flowers, or weather, or colors, etc.), dancing, singing, humming, enjoying the company of someone other than her, etc. It’s made me a person who’s so utterly terrified to feel anything in front of anyone, even if it’s positive.

I imagine joy was intimidating to her, especially coming from me, and I seemed to represent a part of her she hated. It’s challenging to describe how isolated it made me to never be able to share anything, and how much damage it’s done to my ability to connect even on a surface level. It feels — to my nervous system — like an incoming bomb just for someone to point out or acknowledge something i seem to like or notice or do for fun.

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this. It’s one of those things where there was a clear difference between what was acceptable for me and what was acceptable for my sister — I was never allowed to express or even imply i experienced joy or pleasure.

I opened up in therapy about something so incredibly painful and shame inducing. I’m so grateful for my therapist and her patience and humility; she was honest about what emotions it brought up in her. As much as therapy is mostly about someone being there for me, it means a lot to me when there are moments where she is there with me when I’m disclosing something so difficult.

This week has been hard, lonely, painful, activating, and at several points, i’ve just been a puddle of collapsed flesh. I’m glad I waited until I was ready to share, but there’s so many other memories, context and details that I can’t talk about yet. It’s a can of worms. My stomach feels paralyzed and I’m in a lot of physical pain. I haven’t let go of my teddy bear. This is hard, I’m alone and I just need a hug or kind words.

I’m not saying this to gain sympathy, but to be honest: I was a nasty, cruel little girl. I was a bully. I wish more people were willing to admit the harm they may have caused other children as children.

Yes, I was modeling adult behavior that I witnessed in my home. Yes, I was being abused and was looking for control in outside relationships. Yes, I was acting out as a means of communicating the harm and dysregulation that I couldn’t understand. But I was also manipulative, possessive, emotionally abusive, and mean spirited as a child. Where I was does not change the fact that I treated people poorly, primarily people I deeply cared for.

Many people recall being bullied as children. I know there are kids I grew up with for whom I bullied. I wish more adults could own up to their mistakes too. The less-pretty reality of trauma is that it often shapes you for the worse until you’re able to grow. Victimhood is not an identity, it’s a role — and roles can change depending on circumstances. I was not a kind child.

I’ve always wondered (rhetorically) why all of the white girls on the team need to be spray tanned so dark. Some DCCs have such distinct features that look so much brighter in their natural skin tone; the redheads and the high-contrast brunettes with naturally pale skin?? beautiful! I don’t get the uniformity argument because there is diversity in skin tones on the team, and technically — because they’re NFL dancers, they’re not under traditional stage lights either that make the argument for pushing a bit darker than what’s natural.

All of this is rhetorical — I know they like their girls tan. I just wonder if they’ll ever allow a paler girl to stand out, especially since they’re always (theoretically) looking for a standout.

I feel like so much of the air-time was focused on the weight of social media on the girls and on team culture, but we missed so much (what I imagine to be) joy and success for them in the face of that? I’m surprised we didn’t get footage of banquet (especially with Jenna’s ROTY) or of the Dua Lipa show, or the beautiful reasons girls pick certain charities for my cause my boots. I feel like this would’ve been achievable with an extra episode, or even just cutting out some of the redundancy of training camp? I think they wanted to run with this social media effecting the girls storyline (which I do think is valid and needs to be on display — these girls are human and the internet and this sub can be vile), but I wish it didn’t come at the expense of some really great stories. So many of the girls said that this season had been such a great one for them and the team and I wish we actually got to experience more of that, especially with the fifth years.

This season just seemed to take a darker tone while simultaneously having no attention or focus on the actually darker toned aspects of the cowboys organization; maybe those pieces felt “told” already in AS — but it seemed very evident to me that this season, even more than the previous two, that Netflix works for the Cowboys. Just tonally stranger than the past two seasons, imo.

This week I’ve been reminded via-nightmare of a reoccurring situation from age 11(?)-22 that I just cannot seem to shake nor understand, but am profoundly ashamed of. I feel at a loss, and I need the assessment of others to know: could this have registered in my brain as SA?

When my mom and I would argue and/or she’d fought with my dad and/or was in the middle of giving me the silent treatment, she’d make what I imagine to be attempts at repair that are strange and upsetting to me. She’d come into my bedroom when she thought I was asleep (sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn’t) and she’d kiss me. She’d kiss me on the forehead, then the mouth (not something we were doing by that age), then my shoulders and chest/neck. She’d cup my face with one hand. there were a couple times when I’d woken up during this where she had her other hand on my belly, despite having a long enough shirt on to cover my stomach (I’d almost always sleep in a tee shirt and loose underwear and nothing else, which my mom advised me to do for hygiene). Other times she’d be laying next to me in my bed cuddling/petting me while kissing me as opposed to hovering over me. There were times when she thought I was asleep but was not and Id scold her. Other times I just froze, especially if I already had my back to the door, kind of like playing dead — I remember thinking “if I just lay here as still as possible, maybe she’ll stop sooner”.

When I woke up and asked what she was doing and told her to stop (as I reached my 20s, I think “what the fuck are you doing” or “what the hell is wrong with you” was often what I said) her response was this defeated, rejected, almost childlike sadness on her face. She’d whisper, “I just love you so much” before leaving my room. I can’t even begin to explain the look of sorrow on her face. I won’t ever get it out of my mind.

I remember then and recalling now, feeling so ashamed like a bad person. Like a filthy person. I’m so scared to talk about it because that “bad person, shameful, disgusting person” shame comes up so strongly that it’s overwhelming. Then I think “she was just trying to love you, why couldn’t you let her?” That feeling of disgust with myself and my body makes me want to burn. I feel so worthless, then and now when I think about this.

I don’t know if this was just a violation of boundaries, something kinda weird, or something that could’ve legitimately registered in my brain as sexual. All I know is that I felt used and ashamed in a very similar way to my other experiences of CSA/SA, but I feel like this doesn’t count because nothing about this is definitely sexual and I don’t know how she felt doing it or why she did it.

I just need more eyes on these memories to help me understand.

Finding out about preverbal/early trauma just makes me feel like I never stood a chance. I truly feel like I can’t even fault the people responsible for the abuse I endured later in my childhood. It was fate after what happened first. Part of me questions if it was even abuse at all — seems more like fate. Like something that was supposed to happen, like something divine. Is it really abuse if I brought it on myself by being damaged in the first place? I did it to myself. I was a ragdoll…better used than not, I guess. I used to only feel this way regarding CSA, but now I feel like it applies to all relational trauma too. All of it. I was weakened from the start. It’s my fault. It’s who I am.

NAT, just curious! I don’t mean this as a confidentiality or privacy breach-type deal. I find just as a person, I’ll mention funny or charming things my friends or family say/do in conversation if I’m reminded of it/them. As a therapist, do you ever voice mundane or noninvasive things to people in your life if they come up in conversation?

When I was about 7/8 months old, my mom went on a vacation abroad to visit her sister, and left my sister (then 2.5) and I with my dad and grandma. It was supposed to be 2 weeks; my maternal aunt (who had her 12 month old with her at the time and a 4 year old at home) was on the trip too, but left after a week because she missed her eldest.

My understanding is that my mom went the two weeks and instead of coming home, called my dad and said she was going to stay 2 weeks more. That ended up turning into 2 months total she was gone, and it “would’ve stayed longer but [her] mom told [her] to come home”. She called my sister before bed most days, so she talked to her. My dad mostly cared for my sister, while my grandma (mom’s mom) mostly cared for me. Idk if she stayed in the house or was only there during the day, but i’m assuming the ladder. I was 7.5 months old when she left and 9 months old when she returned.

I have abandonment issues and disorganized attachment from the emotional/physical abuse my mom put me through separate from this incident. I feel like this can’t be “real trauma” because I don’t remember it. But my nervous system is really sensitive to abandonment, even if it’s clearly not rejection. I have no sense of emotional permanence with people in my life, including my therapist. If I’m alone for too long under the right set of circumstances, I begin to experience an intense sense of fear, doom, almost like dying, and my blood pressure skyrockets.

The strangest thing to me is that the last several years, regardless of current circumstances, I’ve had intense, seemingly random and inconsolable episodes of emotional distress around march/april, which is the exact months this event occurred. It’s becoming almost creepy, and I don’t have any other negative connotations with spring. I’ve experienced many circumstances that could register as “abandonment”, but I’ve always been curious if there’s some connection back to this too.

I feel like i’m overreacting; I don’t remember being 8 months old, obviously — how traumatic could it have been? I wasn’t uncared for or neglected, my mom just wanted a break.

I really don’t feel like most people understand the lifelong devastation, the actual destruction of the attachment system, the truly profound effect that relational trauma can have on a person.

Everyone has different nervous systems and experiences things differently, and I consider myself to be, by nature, quite sensitive. As much as I think there was a bit of a “perfect storm” that led to my CPTSD, it really is quite remarkable to truly think about what had to be done to a person to create a nervous system response where they never feel safe near human beings. To take a creature whose entire existence is rooted in connection, and strip them of the ability and capacity to connect. It’s mutilation. and nobody can see it.

I wish they’d taken my arm, or my leg, rather than my spirit. My mother locked me in a bathroom and forbid me from playing, humming, self-soothing of any kind. She removed every other adult from contact with me. She convinced me that everyone aside from her was out to get me. She violated me to the degree of feeling dehumanized. She’d abandon me for the fun of it, just so she could watch me beg for her back.

Sometimes I think it wasn’t so bad, and then I remember: The number 1 risk factor for developing PTSD after a trauma is a lack of social support. To not only abuse a child but to then restrict them from any other connection, and lock away all evidence.

I don’t want a protector now, I really don’t, but god to think if I had one then. Maybe I could’ve endured my household if I had people outside of it. If I hadn’t been pulled out of therapy after 6 weeks as a child. If I’d been taken to the doctor when things were clearly wrong. If my elementary school had social workers like they do now. If my father had been home an hour earlier by surprise. If I’d been braver. If someone cared.

It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand. What I do know is that life is about people. It’s about connection, it’s about love and being of the world. That was taken from me. I will spend so much of my life — if I can even endure — trying to get back what never got to be. It’s not just hardship. It’s not just what happened, it’s not just trauma. It’s carnage.

My therapist sent me a breathwork session last week as something for me to do for coping. It was a three-part breathwork exercise. I don’t think this was what was supposed to happen, but about 6 minutes in I started crying, and then sobbing, and then wailing. I even started shivering/twitching. I don’t know that I’ve ever cried like that; the only thing I have in my memory to compare it to is videos I’ve seen of mothers finding out their child was dead. That deep, guttural wailing.

I moved out of it, but holy hell it was intense. I didn’t expect to have that reaction. I’ve really struggled with crying over the last few years — not because I can’t or don’t, or even because I cry too much — but because it hasn’t been a release in any capacity. Crying (big or small, quiet or loud, long or short) has had no catharsis for me in…years. This breath work session was a cathartic cry. A necessary cry.

The cry was intense, but the breathwork exercise also brought up something I’ve known but have never been close enough to feel: Being in my body is so overwhelming and triggering. I’ve known that, but having a moment of being in my body through breathing made me believe that it’s a lot more than just discomfort. I know trauma is held in the body, but truly being in my body feels like walking through a war zone saturated in landmines. I have a little more compassion for the dissociation I experience on a daily basis — nobody with this level of destruction could remain in their body hour to hour, day to day.

I’m mostly sharing this because it’s rare to me to have something strike me this much. If sharing this means anything, I hope those of you seeking healing open doors to body-integration or body-based practices in your therapies.