Still suffering from childhood abuse

[superbunny]

When I was a teenager, my mother chased me through the house with a butcher knife trying to stab me. I evaded her by locking myself in the bathroom. She slid the knife underneath the door hoping to cut my feet. Although I was unharmed, I slept on the bathroom floor that night. I was too afraid to come out so I didn't call police. The next morning I told the guidance counselor at my school. The counselor reported it to the Department of Human Resources. Nothing was done. I just had to live with it.

That was when I was 15. I am now 26. This is the strongest memory of abuse I have. The memory of it is like a video clip in my brain that plays at random times. Sometimes I count or beg God to make it go away until the memory is over.

I had a lot of hope when I was teen. I thought everything would be better once I became an adult and started living on my own. I have my own life and my mother has no way to contact me. However, the memory is still there. At times, all I crave is revenge. I am resentful of other people because most people did not have to go through what I did. I have become misanthropic and distrustful. When I lost the last of my friends, I actively avoided making new ones. I used the internet to inquire about what legal options I might have but I found out from multiple sources that it was too late, the statute of limitations was over, and the best recourse was to go to counseling (which I can't afford).

How do I help these feelings of bitterness and revenge?

[margypops]

Hi superbunny you learn to live with it, you accept that this horrible thing happened to you, counselling is good but circumstances are not possible in your case.You say the memory is still there , and yes it will always be, what you have to learn is to deal with the memory, you tell yourself it happened you cannot change that fact, but you can make sure it doesnt take over your life. Now I will tell you something,its a secret, I have had to accept many things in my life,I change what I can change , I have found that my thoughts were always my problem, I would Mull and obcess about stuff long gone and each time it made me sick panicked anxious , ...I read many books, I went to Doctors ,yes they prescribe drugs that sometimes we have to take,yet  it is not the long term answer, that lies in our mind and in our thoughts .  Its Impossible to experience any negative feeling without first creating a negative corresponding thought. The Truth is, our thinking will always create the reality we perceive. Now this came from a book called 'Slowing down to the Speed of life ' by Richard Carlson, very cheap to get from Amazon...this was by far the best book that helped me , and today when I feel panicky, anxious I say to myself ..its okay.it'll be alright soon, nothing is happening . I say it over and over and hey presto, it works .I feel better and trust me there is nothing more enpowering than controling negative thoughts . Good Luck

[RJ233]

Hi superbunny, You said that was the strongest memory of abuse, were you abused through your younger years and this particuliar memory stands out? Abuse causes more problems than just the moment of the abuse. You were in your teen years and your mother, of all people, did this to you. That fear that she instilled whether that was the only time or not has become a part of you. The  revenge and bitterness is actually hate and wanting to hurt her back. There are many, many people that have suffered abuse both mental and physical, as well as sexual.

I lived through abuse and betrayal from people that I thought were friends. It is sad to go through those things. At one time, I felt the abuse was me, we were fused together. I lived it and it possed me. There seemed no way to escape it. I am 59 almost 60 now and about age 53, I had to be released from it. Having such control over me and filled with hate ruined my life and future happiness. You are young and have your whole life in front of you. You don't want to be 50 and still have hate and pay back still eating your life and causing you pain. There is nothing you can do to erase what happened and taking revenge is not going to get rid of the pain of hate for what she did.

Yes Counseling is good. I don't know where you live, but in the US most counties and cities list mental health and you can go to them to get help. There are Crisis Centers that may be able to help and there are group meeting that are for survivors of abuse. You may have at least Group Meetings for the Abused available. Being with others that have suffered and being able to talk about it, does help.

You have to make a choice, just like you did when you got away and isolated yourself so your mother has no way to even know where you are. You have to decide whether you want to spend your life engulfed with this pain and hate, or find a way to release it and go forward. Your mother is not suffering for what she did, she does not live with hate or revenge, but you do. If you continue to carry those feeling, it can destroy your future. I know. She is the sick person that did that to her child. You are the innocent.

I know this is something hard to think of, but the opposite of the hate you carry and the revenge to get her back is forgiveness. Forgiving an evil person, takes the revenge away and leaves the payback up to her Maker. You don't forget that it happened, but if you believe in God Almighty, you give her punishment to Him. It will free you, so you can go on with your future. Eventually, those feelings that are so strong, will start to fade and you will have power over it. It will no longer own you. You will have your life back, you can be happy and you can have a future. Your mother is what she is, and let her live with the wrongs she did.

As for friends, they are truely few and far between. We can't see the future, but we can have casual friends. Sometimes we are blessed and find a good friend. The best friends I have, I met on this site. We care, share and support. We are all here for reasons, and we all are helping each other. That is friends, whether we can see them or not. I too have been hurt by people that I thought were real friends but turned out they used me or betrayed me. But, that is life and we let it go and go forward. Yet we learn from our experiences. Friends that use or betray you are not friends and you would not want them in your life anyway.

You deserve happiness and a bright future full of hope, not living in a dark hole of hurt and abuse. This is your opportunity to build yourself a bright and happy future. Start making plans for you and leave the past or you will live in misery. If you can find a support group in your area go, it will help you to share your feelings. Don't forget, we are here and will support you in any way we can. God Bless RJ

[jo929]

first let me say how sorry i am that you went through this, i cant begin to know, but you are grown now, have you been back and faced your mother and asked why did you do this to me, she musy be a very sick woman, and i think counseling may help, but i would stabd up and face her, abd say you will not break me, you are the eveil one, get it out of your systym when you face her then leave and never go back   luck  jo

[bren969]

Hi superbunny, You really do need to get some sort of councelling if you can. By the sounds of it you probeley had an abusive childhood and not just this one instance that you discribe. Im in councelling now for my abusive childhood and have been for 3 years. Its not an easy process to go through but it is worth it in the end. You are only young, with your whole life ahead of you and i feel that you need to get some help and not just learn to live with it. Understanding our emotions and feeling is a hard thing to do when you have an abusive childhood and by the sounds of it you are having problems with them. All the feelings you are having now is perfectly normal when you have been abused as a child and councelling will help you to understand them. Good luck, make sure you find the right person that you can work with.X

[allmymarbles]

I haven't read the other replies to you entry, but I seriously doubt that a single bizarre, frightening incident in your life could account for your present attitudes. If you had been four or five at the time, it would have more meaning. Are you using this episode as an excuse for your social problems?

[jo929]

one has to face the past, and know the problem before they can deal with it  luck  jo

[AnxiousGurl]

There are clinic's out there that go by income, so there are therapists out there that will only charge you maybe 5 dollars a visit or so depending. Some hospitals also can direct you in the right direction. You have to know this isnt your fault and that your not a teenager anymore, I might not have had the same experience but I know what abuse can do to you. Take charge of your life and know that you can overcome this.

[superbunny]

Thanks for the reply. It took a lot of courage for me to post my inner most thoughts online for all to see. My post was already very long so I decided to skip a lengthy description of all the cruelty and abuse I endured during my childhood and get right down to the memory which most torments me. I've found most people are not interested to reply to a long detailed post.

I realized by the time I was 5 that my mother was not normal. I all through my childhood I asked myself "Are all parents like my mother?" At the time, I decided that perhaps other adults were nice in public but evil like my mother in private.

My father had died before I learned to walk so she had no accountability. She could treat me however she wanted. My mother was highly critical of me. Everything was about control. I was told I couldn't have friends, I couldn't pick my own clothes, if I had mail or phone calls she would read them/open the mail. If she was upset about something she would find a way to blame me for it. She had a high pitched shrieking voice. She could scream for an hour and half to two hours at a time. She poisoned my relationships with my relatives to the point they are afraid to approach me in fear they might have to talk to her. Even when I was child she was always threatening me. She would bare all her teeth, stick her neck out, slide her finger across her neck, and say "Don't make me mad or I will kill you." I took her threats very seriously. Something in her face did not look human. I did not love my mother like other children did. I was deathly afraid of her. I walked on eggshells around the house. When we moved out of the first house, the door of my bedroom had popped out of the frame from 15 years of her trying to kick my door down. When I was a teenager I had to resort to sliding my 5 shelf bookcase in order to seal the door close. At Christmas, I offended her and she responded by trying to stick the scissors I used to wrap x-mas presents in my eye. Another Christmas, when I was 8, my relatives had gathered in the dining room and I stayed to play with the presents I had received; when we were alone she whispered in my ear "You're such a selfish little girl." She used to scream at the top of her lungs in Walmart; every head turned to look at us. When I was in college she stole my scholarship check and refused to give it back to me unless I signed her as a beneficiary to my bank accounts. When we were in the mall she told the cashier, "I don't know why my daughter isn't pretty like you." She was always taking credit for my accomplishments because she none of her own. I excelled in school--she barely noticed. She kept my trophies and college certificates in her bedroom because it gave her a sense of accomplishment. She on

[superbunny]

...she once bought clothes from Walmart and cut off the tags and labels. She told her friends that she made the clothes herself. I was 4 and proclaimed, "No she didn't. She bought them from Walmart. She bought them from Walmart." I like to think her friends saw how pathetic she was. When I was 13, I invited my best friend for my birthday. She accused my friend of stealing my birthday present. She screamed at me for 2 hours off and on. We found the present at the bottom of the drawer where she had hidden it away. She wouldn't allow me to take the drivers license exam for a year and half. I found out later it was because she had failed it 8 times! I got it the first time around. She used to punch me when she was teaching me how to drive--when I was driving in traffic! She slapped and scratched my leg before my band concert; I spent the entire concert worrying if the audience saw the tear in my pantyhose because of it. She was always telling me I was ugly, my pimples were ugly, I was fat, and asked me 'Why aren't you pretty like the white girls?' When I blossomed in college, she flaunted me to her friends. She was told the cashier at the bookstore that she thought she was ugly because she is now old; the cashier tried to ignore it and hurry her out of the store. When I was 4, she instructed me to grasp my nose and stretch it as much as I could, then pray to God that he would give me pretty nose like white people. When I was 5 she forced me to eat the amount of food enough for two adult men just to clear leftovers. Her cooking was horrible. I used to think when I was kid that the only time you could eat something that tasted good was to eat a tv dinner. Other times, when I told her I was hungry she would push my head into my plate of food and scream at me that I should be grateful that she took care of me. She was always pushing my head when I was eating. She told me "You are just a pig" when I ate dinner. I would cry when I ate my food. She drove me to school every day and picked me up. I listened to the same cassette over and over again just to drone out the sound of her complaining and screaming. She screamed so loud once I seriously thought the windshield was going to crack. I pushed myself against the passenger door to be as far away as possible from her, but there was no way to get away from her in the car. I have a phobia of white toyota camrys with blue interior. She lived off my father's military pension for over 20 years but she squandered the money because she believes material things would make her happy. I wore handydown clothes from her friends and was told that if I wasn't careful with my money that I would end up poor and worthless. She never gave me an allowance. She used to buy fake gold plated jewelry from the home shopping network. She put a lock on the door and accused me of stealing her things. When I came back from the library after a day of studying for my exam she accused me of being a ***** and said I must have been f***ing around.

[superbunny]

...During one of my attempts to escape the house I found a job at a discount party store. Somehow she found out and showed up at my job. I ignored her but she continued to keep talking to me while I was working. She convinced her friend to steal my cell phone and teach her how to find the numbers in my address book. Whenever I tried to escape the house, she called all my friends and professional acquitances cursing at them to tell me where I was. My friends would call me and I had to make up some reason why she was doing this. When I got in a car accident she told the paramedics not to take me because it would cost a lot of money. When she picked me up from the hospital I demanded to be taken back because I had fallen in the hospital lobby. I kicked the car door until she turned the car around; they told me I had fractured my sternum in the fall. She used to leave nasty messages on my friends' voicemails, four letter words and hateful language, accusing them of poisoning my mind against her. When I lost weight she told me that I was just going to gain it back again. When I got married she told me I was fat and my boobs were getting bigger because my "husband must be touching your boobs alot" and that I was a *****. She used to call the police on me all the time. When I locked myself in my room to get away from her, she kicked my door, then the police came and ordered to me to open the door. The police ordered me to tell me why I locked me door, I made up some excuse about stress at school; if I had told them about my mother they wouldn't have believed, she was afterall, the one who called them to the house--she was the good one, I was bad. One of the other times she had called the police, I told the officer I wanted to die, he handcuffed me and brought me to the mental hospital where I spent the night. My mother came to the mental hospital and made a scene and the staff, who were very aggravated, told me, the patient, to control my mother because she was upsetting the people in the lobby. I paid $900 for my one night visit to the hospital. I had never felt so at peace as when I was in the hospital; they did not give me drugs, they gave me a safe place to sleep with no one bothering me, but she had to ruin it by coming to the hospital. I wished I stayed in the hospital, it was so relaxing. She kicked me out of the house two weeks before final exams and my graduation ceremony. I had to sleep in a motel; it was tough moving my stuff out and study for my finals. She used to dare me to try to leave and that I'd come "crawling back begging her to let me live in her house again." She was always calling it her house. She used the social security money I received as a child to pay for her house; that's why I wore handydown clothes and drank watered down orange juice. She never joked. When people teased her, she didn't get and always took them seriously.

[allmymarbles]

You are not the only girl in the world who had a crummy mother. So did I. She was a really nasty piece of work. So what did I do? I left home. I left home and stayed far, far away from her. No, she did not ruin my life. The past is the past and the future was in my hands. Maybe she even did me a favor by being so vile that I left. Because of that I was relieved of normal filial obligations and free to make a wonderful life for myself. Which I did.

[allmymarbles]

When my oldest child was leaving to go to university in the States (because of our work we lived abroad and she was unfamiliar with her native country), this is what I told her: "You are now going to America. There, whenever you have a problem, you will be taught to blame your mother or society. But when you look in the mirror you will only see you."

The vicissitudes of life are to be overcome, not succumbed to. Blaming your mother might be valid, but it is not productive. You can seek pity, and probably get it, but how will this help you? It will not. It will just serve to reinforce your dependence.

[superbunny]

...My 'mother' would scream at me "to get out of her house" and that if I tried to leave I'd "fall flat on my face" all in the same breath. I failed my classes. I changed my major because I was failing business school. I moved out and came back. I lived on a friend's couch for 2 weeks. I was homeless for 1 week. I tried living with my aunt and uncle but they couldn't tolerate me being there one day and then gone for four days straight. This is why I hate answering the phone; because whenever I picked up the phone, someone was always angry with me. I was a broken record to my friends; I had nothing to talk about but my problems. My friends slowly tired of me and didn't answer my calls. My mother once hung fish hooks on a string and tied it to her plants because she was tired of the neighbor's cat getting into her yard. She was always at war with the neighbors. She would turn up the stereo in the livingroom and left the garage and front doors open to **** off the whole neighborhood. The police came to our house multiple times in my youth; the officer warned her that if he got another complaint about her that he would arrest her. I used to hide in the closet whenever the police officer came to our house. I was so ashamed; I hated her for embarrassing us in front of the whole neighborhood. From the time I was 5, I used to ask God why my father died and not my mother. My mother bought our first computer not to help me do homework but to compete with my aunt. I loved my aunt, my mother was very jealous of her because my aunt was a secure, happy, and confident person. She used to tell me "Go live with your aunt if you love her so much. Go and see, they will treat you as a slave. They'll make you do everything in their house." My mother managed to destroy my relationship with my aunt. My aunt never calls me. In high school I would often burst into crying. When the teacher asked why, I told the teacher I was under stress from school; if I had told them the truth, they would have never believed me. Everyone thinks my mother is a small eccentric asian woman with a funny accent; most people can't fanthom how evil she is on the inside.

There isn't any diagnosis that a psychologist can come up with for my mother's behavior better than what I already know. She is not narcissistic, codependent, whatever--she is evil. There is evil in this world. People believe that evil has red skin, horns, and a tail. That's not the case, evil is hidden. Evil looks nice and friendly. Hell is on earth; you don't have to wait until you die to find yourself in it.

[bren969]

All the anger that you feel is doing you no good. But why shouldnt you feel angry. All kids have a right to be loved and if you dont feel you were then its amazing how it can turn to anger. Its ok allmymarbles to say leave home but we dont have a choice when we are young and thats when all the damage is done.
If you have just one person in your life that makes you feel worthy when you are a kid at least you end up with some self worth, but if you dont then its very hard to value yourself.
The only thing i can tell say is that you have to realise  that  your mum was the person who had the problem. But it was better for her to convince you,herself and others that you were the problem, then she doesnt have to own it anymore herself. It then become a mistaken belief that the child has about herself, beleiving she is bad and all these things she is told. Giving your mum back her problem and realising that it wasnt your fault is a hard prosess to go through, but youve got to understand, how could it be your fault, you were only a child.
You do need some help. Not everybody understands and i wouldnt expect them to, but i just know how it has affected me. I still get very angry but more with myself for not being able to fully see things like other people do.
In therapy you should be allowed to feel what you want to without anybody telling you that you shouldnt feel like that. Its a good way of letting it all out and then being able to understand why you feel the way that you do and start to take control of your life more.
All of these feelings that you express is from the child in you talking and why shouldnt she be angry, but its not doing you good so you need some help with your feelings.
You cant change the past or what happened but you can, very slowly try to move on from it.X

[stillgrowingLisa]

It sounds like you may have post traumatice stress disorder - which would be natural after the horrible abuse you endured.  I too was abused by my mom.  I found counseling life changing.  One of the reasons we continue to have anxiety and problems related to prior abuse (especially relationship problems) is because our brains do not completely process the abuse (probably a defense mechanism).  We need to "finish" processing the feelings.  There is a specific technique for doing this - it's called EMDR.  Google it and ask a psychologist about it.  It enabled me to "get past" certain traumatic events in just a few sessions.  I know this sounds unbelievable, but it really does help.  I'm not saying it fixes everything, I still see my psycholist, but it is a tool that really does when you have had a terrible event that is haunting you.  You can be healed.

Namaste

[stillgrowingLisa]

I forgot to mention - you said you are 26.  I didn't deal with my feelings about my mother until I was about 37.  I'm now 41 and I'm still working on it.  DON'T WAIT ANOTHER DAY FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP.  You deserve to be healed.  I know that "evil look" you referred to.  Just the sound of my mother's voice sends my blood pressure through the roof.  You have to get help or you WILL continue to suffer.  Find a psychologist you trust and stick with it.  You will never forget what happend, but you don't have to carry it around with you all of your life either.  God bless you.

[margypops]

As the above poster said you can be healed and from all you suffered it would be good to get into some therapy,I feel for you ..it must be very difficult to erase the memories, you probably never will but you will learn to accept it happened and live with it, it is a good thing you have got to the place of getting it out.writing it down,its hard but healing,.Good Luck let us know how you are doing..you are not alone ..

[allmymarbles]

You can become dependent on hatred. The healing has to do with you, not your mother. You have to want to be healed, and if you do, you will find a way.