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I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

Cookie42Senior Contributor08 July 2017, 6:45 pm AEST

I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

I am only realising now through therapy that it wasnt my fault what happened to me as a kid. I always thought it was my fault. A couple of months ago i got into a deep depression from trying for a baby. My psychologist seems to think its from anger of what happened as a kid but i dont see how as it was so long ago and i had forgotten about it until therapy the other day. What do you guys think? Anyone been through it?

2 replies

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In response to: I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

GlennContributor31 July 2017, 5:57 pm AEST

Re: I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

Hi Cookie42.

As children we just soak up this whole , new world. Most of this is one way, and we're naturally self absorbed little folks, internalising it all. Stuff happens and, we get the fallout, good or bad. We don't have a lot of perspective or shades of grey, either, so we can really awfulize it. The Thing in the cupboard. I think we tend to grab onto emotions naively. Guilt-Fear- get overused. As the years have passed, i am realising the there is a WIDE variety of people out there. Some don't even look or act 'out there'.

The stuff that happened to me as a kid needs perspective. Anger isn't that perspective. Anger is a lack of perspective. Fear needs to be shut down and guilt needs to be de-selected. I feel for my little self. Then I hold on to me, resurface, slowly, in stages before I continue my life. The way I need to.

In response to: I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

Unknown userMember01 Aug 2017, 10:33 am AEST

Re: I never realised that i was a victim of child abuse

Hi there @Cookie42

This is such a great thread, thank you for staring it and sharing your expeiences lately. It is very interesting how the mind and memories stay, even when you think you have no problems anymore.

Quite often when we are children we internalise everything that happens to us, as we don't understand about others, we don't have the knowledge to realise why people react in certain ways and do the things they do. But as we get older we realise that we in fact had no control over others behaviours and we were vulnerable children, dependant on others, we are not to blame for the things that happened to us.

This self compassion seems to be what you are working on, so you are able to move forward and be kind to yourself.

That is certainly not easy to do, thinking of you

Lunar

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