Hi @BlueBay
I have done a lot of thinking about your abuse - I never really understood what you meant about losing your childhood until I read that you didn't have a lot of normal childhood memories but remembered a creep lifting your dress and touching you - now I see that the abuse filled your memory and changed you - and Dr Phil often says that childhood abuse is like an open wound until it can be healed and I may not know about abuse - which is great for me but I know about the wound - the scar in my soul from my son's unhappy life and then his death is light-years long and millenia deep and yours must be the same - this I really get.
Yes - there is the link between us - I have been looking for that for three years and here it is
I thought a lot and remembered how it was for me and my brother when we went to a new school - Dad took us in his police uniform - he had to do that I guess - he was young and proud of his profession but for us - embarrassing. I was okay - I got picked by the best girls and made some good friends but my brother did not. He had suffered physical abuse at home and I think that somehow this shows - kids picked on him
I will be starting my thread about Women's Mental Health again soon - and I want to include men - so I will be writing personal notes about it.
Children pick on children who are different. They don't want to be seen as fratenizing I think - they might be contaminated by association. It's something to do with herd instinct - horses will not graze near sick horses - and wolves who are a different colour are often driven away from the pack - and if animals to this children will too - and alas - uninformed adults - this is the stigma -
As we can catch viral and bacterial diseases people can feel "unjustly" that mental illness can rub off onto them and of course it cannot but still - no doubt they feel and fear they will be contaminated by association and ostracised or pick on people with MI and this is unfair
But - how do you get over your abuse? Just as I wrote that I thought "You can't" - but you need to get over your anger - it is corroding your life and I can see that so clearly - I think you know it
My grandmother had good reason to be bitter - and she was - not toward me - but I heard her bitterness all the time because she lived with us - and my mother was codependent and that was pretty horrible too but neither of them got over it. No therapy - I guess neither of them thought they were wrong about things - it could have been better - but in this day and age you do know - and you can be healed
After my mother died I was sick and tired of having all her stuff on my soul - I was not interested in carrying it any further and with the help of a therapist I did eventually get over it. Or past it. I could see my anger with her was dragging me down. I couldn't do it though until she had died but if I can ever help I will - I will tease this out if I can -
Because I can see that your mother did know something because she was in the kitchen that day - so how did she know which day it was - and yes - maybe your anger has been directed toward your mother too and this is something you need to look at with your therapist -
Yes - I onlly recently realised that the traumatic loss of my son was complicated by the way my parents behaved and the car accident I had at the same time - it was all tangled up in my head - I think you have similar tangles which is harder to sort with black and white thinking - but don't worry about your lack of tints and tones - you can pull it apart but again - you may need your therapist to help with this
As for screaming - it didn't help you when you were a child and it might release your emotions as an adult but it won't help much otherwise.
I hope this helps - I hear you are having a PJ day and have the place to yourself - and a PJ day would be great - the weather has been really yukky around this neck of the woods - cold too - and I read about your son's car getting flooded - I could see these storms on the radar -
So think about what I have written - I am only writing out of my own experience - I haven't read much psychology formally - some yes - but not clinical psychology - but I do have some ideas - we both have had unreasonable mothers too - aw yes!! - so untangling needs to happen but I am not going anywhere atm
I am planning to go up to the Sunshine Coast to visit my grand-daughter - it's time to start making plans - I am glad you are organising a fews days up at Alexander Heads - I don't know where that is actually -
All the best BlueBay - sending a lot of heart-felt thinking with this post
Dec
