@PeppiPatty, thanks for the mention. I posted something on this thread (that I know at least @Decadian or @Jacques mentioned reading) that was quickly removed by the moderators because it was too detailed about the abuse I endured in my family as a little kid. Yes, I had the brakes off when I wrote it - I wrote in a style/detail that meant the post was not really recoverable. I hit back in private at the mods because there is this thread through life of people with MI and in particular survivors of Child abuse/ Child sexual abuse that can be played out on National TV at the Royal Commission - but in the INSTITUTION of family will never be heard. I get it that the details I shared may have been triggering and THAT I am sorry for if it flicked the terror switch for anyone.
I would really like to write a book about my life, because the story is one of resilience and awesomenss really - so many of us have managed despite the depredations perpetrated upon us to stand clear and firm (sometimes) into who we are.
My family was family by adoption. My family were/are not my people my tribe. Through either neglect or actual abuse they hurt the being I was and yet I grew into a being who DESPITE them has done and acheived some amazing things. I would like to congratulate every one of us, every ONE of us for surviving the "detriment to our wellbeing" done to us by our families of origin, and all of us being here with care and love and interest, looking outward to others and holding hands, and providing shoulders to cry upon. What amazing beings we ALL are to even be here...
I have felt like an alien all my life, first in my family, then in the church, then school, then work, I am an "odd" person, odd one out, black sheep of the family... Yet, I still did all I could for my aged Mum and got her into the very best of care, managed to find a buyer for her house, helped her transition from alone, unsafe and angry to safe, in company and finally accepting of the situation. I worked every day in email, on the telephone or in person with the perpetrator of of some vicious and horrible acts upon my child-person, I did all that beng triggered daily in PTSD - having flashbacks, and adrenaline surges and developing gastritis, high blood pressure, anxiety, roaring arthritic pain in all my joints, my anxiety through the roof. I went to a counsellor for a few sessions, I had ramped into a hypomania and of course always LOOK and sound so together when I am hypomanic (in the first few days) and she decided we were 'done'. I agreed, because I was NOT IN MYSELF - and I then fell, fell, fell, like a comet into a sea of grief and fear and horror for days on end. I remade the appointment for tommorrow because I want to TELL her that I was 'presenting well' but that I was "not well" and as a counsellor she should KNOW that.
The telling of my story (in detail that was removed) helped me get it out there, the secrets betrayal and lies that are still told in my family hurt. It is the truth that everyone BLAMES me for being honest, and brave and telling the truth. Everyone blames me for shattering our family when I was the victim. My Mum still does not understand "how I could have said those things". The feeling of deep despair (and not a little anger!) that MY lived experience is silenced and erased in my family was compounded by the silencing and erasing of the moderators by removing that story. (However I DO know why that was done and it is the forum rules I was in breech, and for that I AM sorry, but conflicted too... where the hell do we get to TELL our stories?)
But I get it, I get that everyone of us who have lived through it must not tell it to others who have lived through it - we must only tell counsellers and psyche professionals because who knows if we all shared the gory, hairy horrible details and held each other through it... we might get well.... (bitter much, sorry).
