My abuse story and how I'm trying to heal from it

[Lightwarrior]

Long post ahead, please share your stories with me as I share mine to try to get over the abuse my brother has made me suffer.

 

I release the need to protect my abusers. That's what we all tend to do sometimes, isn't it?

 

I am 20 years old now, I come from a family where I have endured verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse. My brother, 7 years older than me, sexually, physically and emotional abused me and manipulated me all my childhood and teenage years until the age of 16 when I left my home and never talked to him ever again. I am still coming to terms with it, just few months ago I discovered repressed memories about the abuse that were playing out in my head like flashbacks. The abuse made me feel isolated, suicidal, desperate, evil and on top of all of that guilty and shameful. I took on all the guilt for him, I felt like it was all my fault, even if I was a child, I struggled with gender identity issues thinking that if maybe I was not a girl I wouldn't have been sexually abuse, I shaved my head, tried to remove my own breasts and I literally went to various doctors as I thought I was a transgendered man. In fact I was protecting him, I was making his fault my fault, I was trying to change my gender to avoid feeling all the disgusting feelings that were left with me after repeated sexual abuse and more than a decade of manipulative control.

 

I lived in the same place with a psychopath, I tried telling my parents that the beatings I was undergoing from him were not normal but I was told to just suck it up because it was a normal sibling thing... a normal sibling fight does not leave so much bruising. When I tried to tell my parents about the abuse they told me I made it up, they continued protecting him because he was a diagnosed psychopath... but as a responsible parent why would you leave a child with a psychopath without any guidance. I took on so much guilt and resentment, so much shame and so much rage. He was a very angry person that used to physically and verbally abuse me since I was 3 years old.

 

Now I am left with realizing that every part of my life is being ruled by these incidents, my childhood impacted my adult life and relationship in a huge manner but with I'm lucky to have utmost support from my partner as she is also an abuse survivor.

Reiki natural healing helps heal my pain and diminish it but I still find myself living in denial that all of this charade happened sometimes. Sometimes, I still think it didn't happen but then I know that I am denying myself, I am denying my pain and that will only cause more pain. I thought I would go insane and dissapear from so much pain, I thought I would myself become a psychopath because of him, because all that I learnt was from him. He isolated me from my friends, he even went as far as using mind control techniques on me when I was a child and he was an 18 year old adult, and I am still trying to come to terms to repressed memories that I am getting of him drugging me and sexually abusing me when I was a young teenager. It makes me sick and it's so unfair for anyone to go through that. But I am trying to share my story to feel that I am not alone, that I am not crazy and that I am not evil because of what I've gone through, I want to learn to see my beauty and peace, my true self and who I am without this pain.

 

I want to be without this pain, I want to look forward to life, I want to live and know that I am a good person, that's what I want the most, to know that I am a good person...

 

I just want to feel like I am my own person now, that he doesn't own me and my body, he manipulated me as a child telling me repeatedly that he is my God for years, I had to bow to him, to what he was doing, he made me watch some disgusting things on his tv with him he was so creepy. I am so glad to be out of there and to have my own life, I am 20 and I feel like I haven't got my life, even if we haven't talked in 4 years I feel like he owns me and I am so angry!!! Not anymore, I deserve my own life, I deserve to be carefree, I deserve to be enjoying my life! Not feel like I'm held back I deserve to know my body is mine and is not owned by him, I deserve not to dissasociate from my body and reality. All these experiences made me feel like I haven't got my own life, like reality is not real like my body is somewhere else, not existing in me, I FEEL LIKE A GHOST!!!! and it sucks badly!!!

Edited October 18, 2013 by Lightwarrior

[Grumpybutfun]

Lightwarrior:

Your level of abuse and the neglect by your parents is very severe. My wife went through physical, mental, and verbal abuse also, and it took some very specific therapy for her to begin to heal from this trauma.

If you have not done so, please go see a Therapist who specializes in sex abuse and child abuse. You can ask around or when you call, ask them if they specialize in these things. It may take several tries to get the right therapist.

If you are not in a situation to do this due to money or time constraints, there are several places you can go into for advice and support....

 

Type Lori's Song/ Abuse site into Google and is for child abuse survivors and they have a thread on Sexual Abuse. SA by a father or brother is not as uncommon as we would like to believe.

Also, isurvive is another site that deals with child abuse/ sexual abuse. They also have a list of resources for dealing with the guilt and learning how to go no contact.

 

These sites are only about childhood and sexual abuse so they will be more helpful in steering you to get help, get resources and give you support by others who are going through the same things you are. People here are great but this is predominantly a relationship site.

 

In my wife's case, she had to go no contact with her parents and her brother (brother and mother was abusive and dad was an enabler/neglecter.) Unfortunately, your parents are also enablers for your brother's abuse and that is a form of neglect. Neglect is a very serious form of abuse also because it affects how you view the world and boundaries.

You are dissociating slightly and that is why you feel like a ghost. You really can't get well on your own, as your childhood has made it impossible for you to see things clearly due to your abuse and neglect.

In support,

Grumps

 

p.s. You are a good person, they failed you.

[Lightwarrior]

Thanks Grumps, I've been through lots of therapy as well but looking to go to an specialized sexual abuse therapist, thanks a lot for your advice, I really didn't know about enablers and that parents denying my abuse is also abuse, looking forward to healing even more from it and getting out of the haze and anger I feel within, it just comes and goes in cycles but I'm ready to fully let it go! Will check out the websites you recommended, thanks a lot for your help.

[Downtown]

LW, I agree with everything Grumps suggested. As he noted, you are describing dissociation, which is common in adulthood when a child was severely abused for years. It is a primitive ego defense that children use to escape frightening or painful situations.

 

I also agree with Grumps that, because skill sets vary greatly among therapists, it is important to be treated by one who is very experienced in teaching you the techniques you will need to recover from such abuse. DBT, for example, teaches one how to manage emotions, how to do self soothing, how to avoid black-white thinking, how to avoid dissociation by staying in the present, and how to intellectually challenge your intense feelings (instead of accepting them as truths). Take care, LW.

[Grumpybutfun]

Thanks Grumps, I've been through lots of therapy as well but looking to go to an specialized sexual abuse therapist, thanks a lot for your advice, I really didn't know about enablers and that parents denying my abuse is also abuse, looking forward to healing even more from it and getting out of the haze and anger I feel within, it just comes and goes in cycles but I'm ready to fully let it go! Will check out the websites you recommended, thanks a lot for your help.

 

I just want you to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. With therapy, support from me and her other family and friends, extensive reading on trauma and abuse, and no contact with abusers, my wife is leading a healthy, happy life now. The triggers and situational pain she used to endure has lessened to almost non-existent and she helps others through volunteering with abuse groups.

You can find healing and help. The pain, shame and regret you are feeling can be managed and lessened.

Best of luck,

Grumps

 

p.s. Downtown is right about DBT...it helps and it gives you the tools you need to combat years of abuse and neglect.