u/toe_beans35

TW: sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

Mostly just me talking into the void but also very curious if anyone else has experienced this.

I am 40f and for the first time this year I confronted my childhood trauma. My abusers were my dad (primary offender) and oldest brother (physical abuse sporadically until I was 18, he is six years older).

I'm doing well in my healing journey but one thing I struggle to wrap my head around is just how effective my brain was at creating this narrative that my dad was the good parent and my mom was the bad parent. The most painful example of this was when they went through a divorce, I was 13 and of course the only minor child left in the family, so I faced the custody battle alone. I don't know many details of the divorce or remember a lot, but at one point my dad had my mom involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. I remember after this, the narrative was that my mom was crazy and I fully adopted this.

Well, despite the contentious battle and even my mom being "crazy" and committed, she still won custody of me. I was upset by this so I spent the next year making my mom's life hell. My dad filed for custody the following year and I must have worn her down so good because she didn't even fight, even though I do remember clearly the ferocious fight she put forward during the actual divorce.

I've spent my entire life to this point pretty much regurgitating the narrative I thought was true. Never even thought twice, it was just like a rehearsed script almost any time anyone asked. I didn't talk to my mom for almost 20 years. I hate myself for that.

I finally started asking questions this year. I asked myself the question first, then I asked my dad--"why did mom go to a mental hospital during the divorce? what was she diagnosed with?" His response was "I don't remember."

I recently learned about the concept of "coercive control" and how pretty much this exact scenario plays out in family scenarios where one parent is the "coercive controller" and the other is the "safe parent."

I saw my mom this year for the first time in almost two decades and I've never cried harder in my entire life. She's so sick now. She is nothing like the "crazy" mom I remembered. I learned about her family for the first time too. Three generations of unimaginable trauma.

I know logically and rationally none of this is my fault. I don't need reassurance there. I just can't handle the guilt and regret.

Damn this got so long. Thanks for reading if you're still here.

Anyone else relate to this at all? I can't even describe how it makes me feel.

TW: sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

Mostly just me talking into the void but also very curious if anyone else has experienced this.

I am 40f and for the first time this year I confronted my childhood trauma. My abusers were my dad (primary offender) and oldest brother (physical abuse sporadically until I was 18, he is six years older).

I'm doing well in my healing journey but one thing I struggle to wrap my head around is just how effective my brain was at creating this narrative that my dad was the good parent and my mom was the bad parent. The most painful example of this was when they went through a divorce, I was 13 and of course the only minor child left in the family, so I faced the custody battle alone. I don't know many details of the divorce or remember a lot, but at one point my dad had my mom involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. I remember after this, the narrative was that my mom was crazy and I fully adopted this.

Well, despite the contentious battle and even my mom being "crazy" and committed, she still won custody of me. I was upset by this so I spent the next year making my mom's life hell. My dad filed for custody the following year and I must have worn her down so good because she didn't even fight, even though I do remember clearly the ferocious fight she put forward during the actual divorce.

I've spent my entire life to this point pretty much regurgitating the narrative I thought was true. Never even thought twice, it was just like a rehearsed script almost any time anyone asked. I didn't talk to my mom for almost 20 years. I hate myself for that.

I finally started asking questions this year. I asked myself the question first, then I asked my dad--"why did mom go to a mental hospital during the divorce? what was she diagnosed with?" His response was "I don't remember."

I recently learned about the concept of "coercive control" and how pretty much this exact scenario plays out in family scenarios where one parent is the "coercive controller" and the other is the "safe parent."

I saw my mom this year for the first time in almost two decades and I've never cried harder in my entire life. She's so sick now. She is nothing like the "crazy" mom I remembered. I learned about her family for the first time too. Three generations of unimaginable trauma.

I know logically and rationally none of this is my fault. I don't need reassurance there. I just can't handle the guilt and regret.

Damn this got so long. Thanks for reading if you're still here.

Anyone else relate to this at all? I can't even describe how it makes me feel.

I decided to go insane this year and leave my stable corporate job at an evil tech company. Then I decided to go insane again and start my own company.

I'm on month two and I kept hearing building solo is a lonely world-well, it's pretty damn true it turns out.

So, curious if there are any others in a similar situation around Boston/Cambridge/Somerville? I was thinking about casual meet ups/coffee/"happy hour"/ etc.

About me: 40f, pre-seed pre-revenue, building in a niche space under the "child safety technology" umbrella, starting to slowly lose my mind as Claude is starting to become my bff and I just can't end up becoming the girl who is friends with an AI robot.

Obligatory "if there is a better sub for this, my bad, please point me there."

My non swiftie friends kept asking me to introduce them to the swiftdom so I finally just built an app for it! It’s basically a TS 101 course that takes the user experience on a custom taylored (hehe) journey based on their preferences.

This app will ALWAYS be free (unless it happens to blow up like crazy and I need to monetize it just to keep it going but that’s highly unlikely 😅). When I have more time, I want to create a v2 where the swiftie “professor” can follow along their swiftie “student” journey.

Heads up, still in beta so right now it’s just a pwa (web app), but I’m working on getting it added to the App Store!

For now, the user can use it just like an app by going to the website on safari—>share—>add to Home Screen. It behaves just like a regular app where you can open the app icon from your home screen and it saves your progress so you can begin right where you left off.

Enjoy this souvenir from my trip to your shores 🫶🫶🫶

(I did run this by the mods to ensure I wasn’t breaking the self promotion rules, but because it’s totally free and it’s just a fun project I’m working on, they allowed it)

I made a post the other day about whether or not you chose to disclose and I got an overwhelming amount of replies, each of them heartbreaking and infuriating. I started to notice some trends and I'm curious:

1. those who didn't disclose couldn't find the words. this one actually resonates the most with me...not necessarily finding the words but just like literally saying them out loud. like i can text and message about it fine but i swear to god i am nearly 40 years old and i have never been able to say the words out loud. i have tried but i just choke. does anyone else experience this? and why does this happen???

2. those who did disclose but weren't believed or nothing was done. i can't explain it but this just feels like the all time worst scenario. i'm curious for those that experienced this, do you wish you wouldn't have or are you glad you did? i can kind of see both ways...i think for me i would mentally be in worse shape if i told an adult that i trusted and they didn't do anything or believe me. almost as if at least if i don't tell them, they don't know, i can just pretend someone still cared about me.

i'm extremely curious about this topic because i recently learned most kids don't tell anyone until years/decades later. i hate this fact so much and i just wish i could do something. idk i think i'm in my rage stage of my healing journey.

anyway. thanks for reading and if you feel comfortable sharing i'd love to hear your story.

gentle TW I think?

I'm building to help kids who are suffering from abuse and it's been such a rewarding yet soul crushing journey as you can imagine.

For example, I have to learn to accept the fact that if I talk about what I do, I'm just going to bum people out. An attorney I was consulting with just last week went silent and then goes "sorry...I'm just really sad now." Sigh. me too girl.

The hardest part though is the parents who are in denial about the severity and prevalence of the problem. I hear a lot of "that's just fear mongering" or "that would never happen in my house"....hmm. Guess all these stats just apply to everyone else's kids, not yours, huh.

wah wah. just throwing myself a pity party tonight. thanks for listening.

TW: physical/sexual abuse

I just read an article about reasons why kids don't disclose.

Curious if anyone here did and how did it go? And if you didn't why not?

I'll go first. I didn't report my abuse because it was my dad when I was like 3 or 4 and I was terrified of him. Then my oldest brother started physically abusing me at some point in elementary school. One time I cried so loud and my dad got mad at me for being loud. So I think that's when I officially learned no one cared about anything that happened to me so I just let it happen until I moved out and never had to see him again.

sigh. it really breaks my heart on a daily basis because i can't help but think about all the kids out there right now just suffering in silence alone.

Hi all,

Brand new here. For real. Conceptualized my start up a little over a month ago and hit the ground running.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Just taking it one day and one task (ok like 78 tasks) at a time.

I created an IG account because what I’m doing is very…niche you could say, and IG would be an amazing accelerator.

I’m fairly terrible at IG tbh so was wondering if anyone else has tips or in the same boat?

Would kill to be a Gen Z-er right about now 😂

ETA: a little more about my start up-I'm building a digital platform that aims to help kids disclose abuse to a trusted adult, and conversely provides tools for that adult to be able to respond well.

currently my IG strategy is a bit of a different angle-I'm not promoting content directly about my company. It's more like my "personal business" account and the idea is for people to follow me along my journey of being a female solo founder in one the most difficult spaces to build in.

My three rotating themes are:

1. The backstory-my story, why this is important to me, and how I landed here

2. Professor series- animated type series where I have a cast of a professor and two TAs who "teach the class" about relevant topics and concepts-so things like types of child abuse, Complex PTSD and long term effects of abuse, signs of abuse and unusual ways it may present, etc.

**I should note that the Professor is me and my two TAs are my cats photoshopped with academic gear lol **

3. a series called "why'd I do that?" where I highlight a particular business decision and share "why i did that"--eg why I chose the name I did b/c it turns out it has 7000 years of my chinese heritage behind it.

I feel like this is a decent strategy but damn I just suck at instagram lol. I have like 50 followers and they're mostly just friends or friends of friends haha. I'm only two weeks in so of course it's early, but I'm just hoping it picks up and this isn't all a waste of time.

hey hey fellow swifites-sorry this is probably not typical of the kind of posts we usually see here and i certainly don't mean to bum anyone out!!

TW: child abuse mentions

for context, I'm a survivor who has gone through some pretty intensive healing over the past year. I decided to turn my experiences into something positive and long story short, decided to start building a digital tool to help keep kids safe.

Anyway, on to the point-I posted to my professional IG page and IG actually recommend this for audio and at first I was like huh....then I was like hmmmmm....

yeah, it hit. wondering if anyone else can relate? or if anyone else has similar experiences and they found one of taylors songs that really resonate?

… The who's who of "Who's that?" is poised for the attack
But my bare hands paved their paths
You don't get to tell me about sad
… If you wanted me dead, you should've just said
Nothing makes me feel more alive
… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
You should be
… The scandal was contained
The bullet had just grazed
At all costs, keep your good name
You don't get to tell me you feel bad
… Is it a wonder I broke? Let's hear one more joke
Then we could all just laugh until I cry
… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean
"Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth"
Who's afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be
… you should be
(You should be) you should be
You should be (you should be)
You should be (you should be)
You should be
… So tell me everything is not about me
But what if it is?
Then say they didn't do it to hurt me
But what if they did?
… I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs
I'm always drunk on my own tears, isn't that what they all said?
That I'll sue you if you step on my lawn
That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that's why you're still singing along
… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean
"Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth"
Who's afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be
… you should be
(You should be) you should be
'Cause you lured me (you should be)
And you hurt me (you should be)
And you taught me
… You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am 'cause you trained me
So who's afraid of me?
Who's afraid of little old me?
Who's afraid of little old me?

And download all these crazy apps to monitor/restrict, surveill, etc. I’m honestly just curious-do they ever educate you on why they do it and what the risks of total digital freedom as a teenager are?

Or do they just totally skip that part and zoom right to the control part? Or both? Like is there ever an opportunity for agency during this process?

Some of these stories seem wild just trying to understand.

Edit (because somehow this question is triggering to certain parents):

I am a 40 year old woman with no biological children. My partner and his two young children who I love dearly, have unlimited, unmonitored access to the digital world.

I am also a fierce child advocate that can sometimes be overbearing, which I am working on-it just can be difficult sometimes when you know and understand the dangers of both the physical world and the digital world.

Now the reason for my post is twofold:

1. ⁠I worry parents simply hand off their jobs of explaining to their children what these dangers are to these apps and fail to equip their children with tools to navigate said dangers and
2. ⁠the more parents rely on surveillance instead of building trust and agency, the farther they push their kids away, making them much less likely to disclose to their parents if god forbid something is going on that warrants adult intervention. This gap probably widens significantly if there is no conversation or explanation behind the parents’ decision making process.

Now I want to be clear. What I wrote above is not an indictment on the parenting skills of the parents who have somehow deduced that I am immature for simply seeking information—because that would be immature.

I just watched the movie "Mysterious Skin" for the first time a few days ago. First, I just need to acknowledge how absolutely incredible this movie is and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s one of the most beautifully done movies about CSA that I’ve ever seen.

But for those who have seen it, I specifically want to talk about the UFO scene (for those who haven't and want a quick summary, see below). This scene genuinely ignited one of the biggest "a-ha" moments of my entire life as it relates to my CSA. For a split second I was super confused, but then it totally clicked for me almost instantly what was happening. And it answered a lifelong question that has been nagging me in the back of my mind for decades.

I've had two \*very\* bizarre "memories" that have stuck with me my entire life. They make zero sense and quite frankly there is simply no way these things actually happened, but they were SO realistic that it has been messing me ever since. I now realize these are coping mechanisms and events I've created in my mind to cope with trauma.

1. When I was about 3 or 4 years old (I should note this is when my abuse started-or at least my earliest memories of it), I have this vivid "memory" of my older brother (9 or 10) and I leaving in the middle of the night. I just remember I was trailing behind him as we ran down the highway at like 2-3 am. Eventually we ended up at his school where we just waited until the morning I guess. This is all I "remember."
2. When I was about 6, I turned into a pretty rambunctios kid. I was outside rough housing as usual and I scraped my leg really badly. Except instead of blood coming out, a weird white milky liquid started pouring down my leg.

Does anyone else have these strange "memories" ?

 

*The UFO scene explained:*

*In Mysterious Skin (2004), the UFO scenes are a psychological manifestation of repressed trauma. The protagonist, Brian, replaces memories of sexual abuse by his coach with an alien abduction narrative, visualizing the traumatic, invasive "blue light" and strange hand-touching as a sci-fi experience to cope with the violation.*

* *The "Blue Light": Brian’s flashbacks feature a distinct blue light that he interprets as alien activity. This is later revealed to be the light from the coach's front porch, symbolizing the true site of his assault.*
* *Repression Mechanism: The 5-hour, or sometimes longer, "lost time" or blackouts Brian experiences (characterized by nosebleeds and incontinence) are not from aliens, but the physical and mental shock of child sexual abuse.*
* *Alien Hands/Touching: The "alien fingers" and invasive touching in his dreams are distorted memories of the sexual abuse he endured, representing a protective, albeit traumatizing, fantasy constructed by his mind.*
* *The Final Truth: The film reveals that the abduction story is a myth; the "truth" is the more mundane, sinister abuse, which Brian finally confronts to stop the delusions.*

*The movie uses this sci-fi framing to showcase how children, especially, can warp traumatic memories into a narrative they can mentally survive*

I am 35F and recently started therapy to process some trauma from both childhood and adulthood. I basically have no memories of my childhood-the ones I do have are extremely fragmented.

To help with my therapy and hopefully help trigger some memories, I asked my dad to send me some photos from my childhood.

The first batch of photos he sent me I was naked. I understand parents have some silly photos of their kids naked (I guess?) but I wasn’t even doing anything silly. I was just naked.

Then when I requested photos of me wearing clothes, he proceeded to send me the most bizarre photos of me either crying or looking extremely upset. Eventually we got some normal photos sprinkled in there but I couldn’t get over the initial batch he sent.

Parents, if your daughter asked for childhood photos would these types of pictures be your first choice?

Thanks for any replies.