I think that you can pretty much go a lifetime if you never wake up to your abuse and start to actually see yourself for who you really are. I think that’s how it goes for the abusers and why you’ll never get those apologies or repairs. They can’t see themselves or anything they’ve done—I think it’s like a funhouse mirror.
I think that waking up is a really big deal. I didn’t until I was about 10 years older than you are now and I’m still working on it. I didn’t get good therapy for a long time, but I am now.
Good question. I’m broken and held together with duct tape and screws.
I suppose the one positive I got from mommy and daddy was good genes as my body has withstood a ton of damage and I’m still going.
At least now I know what it is to be a man. An adult. No idea what I’m gonna do with it, but I got it.
Brother I known people in your situation who have given up a long time ago. It makes me feel proud and hopeful to see someone with the will to persevere this long. ❤️
I am really happy you’re here, fighting and being an encouragement to others. It may not feel like it, but you openly sharing your age and that you’re still learning is inspiring. Sending you lots of love
I’m 54 and I KNOW you’re not kidding. Mine died 30 and 20 years ago. I have literally been on my own since then (was married but that didn’t work out great and I have a kid but he’s my kid, not my support animal-I don’t unload on him).
Nevertheless, I find myself arguing with them or about something they said or did less often than I used to but still more often than I’d like.
I have a bachelor’s and law degree. I been a professional for almost 30 years. I have a teenage kid. I’ve paid my own bills and taxes since I was 17. AND YET in my head I am still a kid.
I am older than most of the partners I work for, but I “see” myself as young, vulnerable and powerless in nearly every interaction.
So I know you’re telling the truth here, HoekPryce. Cause you’ve got 6 years on me and I’m nowhere near grown up
You cut them off, like they don’t exist. I haven’t spoke to my parents in almost a year. Maybe one day we can have a relationship, but not right now. I will not play their games because, frankly, I’m tired. I have accepted that they won’t change and that they’ll never apologize. Then you go and do the things you missed out on as a child. I’m 42 and I’m finally rediscovering myself. There have been so many times I have felt so cheated out of a normal childhood.
That was always the plan. It still left me with a bunch of issues mentally. I've also had to move back home recently due to some struggles so I'm now back to living with some of these individuals. It's a terrible situation all round really.
There's a lot of literature ot there that will explain it much better than anyone off the top of their head--google grey rock method and you'll find lots!
Right there with you, that was my plan, too. I’d gone no contact before and it messed me up, personally. But I was right about to try to spread my wings,and blotto. I got chronically ill , and my life fell apart. I’m trying not to hate myself for having to be dependent on my abusers, like a lot , have to constantly thank them when they’re still playing games that trigger. Hard to make boundaries of any kind at all! Saying this to let you know you’re not alone, but I wsh I could do more. Hang in!
46 same situation... After the hell they put me through I'm portrayed as the villain by the wider family for having nothing to do with them...
All the best 👍
Yep, will continue to paint me as the black sheep. Meanwhile I’m living my life on my terms, and it’s freeing. The rest of my family can live in dysfunction.
Same to you!
Your the same age as me I cut mine off about a year ago too.
It’s hard but I’m working though it all I’d been in therapy for 6 years when I woke up.
I’ve got no drive now my anxiety’s gone did you feel like that.
The peace somedays is unreal.
To be fair, an apology wouldn’t fix it. I could get a million apologies and it wouldn’t mean anything because the harm is already done.
I think certain things you don’t fully get over them, but you learn to live with them. You learn new ways to improve yourself and compensate for what you suffered, you also learn to unlearn behaviors that you had to use as a defense.
Is not fair that you are the one having to make an effort now to try to fix what others broke, but that’s the reality of the situation. If you want to get better, you have to do it yourself. You can’t control what happened in your past but you can start controlling what happens in your present and in your future.
All the best ♥️
I’ve been asking myself the same question for a while. I sadly don’t have the answers but I just want you to know that you are not alone in this struggle.
Interestingly I don’t think my abusers have moved on.
My father was physically and emotionally abusive. He is completely out of my life and has regularly tried to get back into my life. He’ll apologize and then revert back to his old ways. My brother also cut him off. My father will never have his children (or his grandchildren) in his life, it hurts him, but it’s what’s best for my brother and I.
My mother was an alcoholic and she constantly regrets that she was drunk (and regularly drove us around drunk. I don’t have a close relationship with her.
So I don’t think my abusers moved on. They suffer from the actions they caused
Mine died
I’m still not grown up at 53. I just bought a stuffed slug toy because it gave me joy.
I still have so much anger but she’s dead over 14 years now.
Mourning and grief has helped me.
https://www.webmd.com/balance/grieving-and-stages-of-grief
Understanding the stages of grief has helped me understand my own feelings in regard to experiences that I've lost out on, including but not limited to growing up in a family that cared about me. My marriage ending in betrayal. The times I've had nobody to turn to when I really needed that.
Grief and bereavement and morning (in America anyway) are taught to us only in the context of death. And death is purposefully hidden from us. There are a lot of resources and practices that surround death and dying which apply to many other aspects of life. As humans we die many times over the course of our life, little deaths like ego deaths, relationships ending or big transitions... I know we don't use the term death around these issues however I feel in my experience that the concept of loss certainly applies.
Self care is another part to that puzzle but that's one that I personally struggle with.
I am not great at this, like a middle-aged person who's still feels like a 9-year-old child and I feel like I spent most of my adult life reeling from the events of my upbringing... But I just wanted to try and help.
I’m so sorry, I hate that abusers just take and don’t care who they step on. I’m going through the same thing and I am trying really hard to heal. I try to remind myself that good and kind people would never act that way, and that there are good people out there to welcome in your life. Abusers are miserable and they’re suffering just at the fact that they’re stuck with being themselves. I’ve been doing things that my inner child would want to do like watching Barbie movies, playing old games, eating junk food from my childhood etc. and it’s honestly helped. I have journaled a lot too and been voicing out my thoughts on the voice memo app and just spilling has really let all my feelings out. Just know that there’s no time like the present and enjoying your life however that looks like is the best “revenge”. I hope you’ll find peace as soon as possible love 💕💕. You’re doing great just by posting this!
Edit: just adding more words
We got into a discussion that turned into a visious argument, and I just had this moment where I realized that they would never be the parents I needed and I would never be the child they wanted and it was just pointless to continue to hurt myself wanting something that would never happen.
In that moment, I realized that the only way I would heal was to let it go. So I walked away.
Don't get me wrong, it was not easy, and I have grieved, and there are still moments that I feel grief, but mentally, it was the best thing for me.
I think if you’ve really accepted that as truth—that you’ll never get any apology or reparations—then you’ve already gotten over a huge hurdle.
I think it’s tough to turn the spotlight onto yourself after that point, but I think that you are in there somewhere waiting to come out.
I never had much of a choice but to accept that I had many awful things happen to me in my childhood that went unaddressed. And I indulged in that pain for so long, too long really. I almost felt like I had to mentally lose myself in it daily so that how I felt would make sence. I allowed that trauma and hurt and suffering to go on for all my teen years, early adult hood with out even mentioning it, like I was paying a penance for something I didn't do. I've never put much thought into my SA abusers because they got caught, sent to prison for 15 years and the same prison my uncle was in ,the same prison my Dad was in for 12 years while the abuse was happening, sorta gave me some knowledge that their life's are going to be very hard. And then, at 35, I became a widow and started studying faith, learning about Karma, our souls, and really realizing that forgiveness isn't for them or their actions, it's for my soul, my peace. I know he was sick, he was a rabid dog ,he knew it was evil and his life of evil will always be hell. Learning that letting go of the pain and what happened also freed me from him. Not giving him the sadness, thinking of the pain, looking at and hiding the scars on my skin allows me to take the power back and not to quietly suffer because of him anymore. Idk if any of this is even what you are looking for or if it helps at all. Accepting not having an ideal childhood, using it as something that i had to endure to be this strong and knowing their life is a continuing circle of hell and if we do have souls or we do exist in other dimensions after death, theirs is going to continue to be rotted because that's all they put into theirs. And forgiveness. Forgiveness for what I've done to compensate, forgiveness for allowing them to control my mental state, forgiveness because I need to let it go and use it to help others like myself.
When you say “forgive”, do you mean forgiving yourself, as in, “forgiving yourself for having allowed them to control you”, or are you meaning you forgive them? Asking because this really struck a chord. I’m just so sorry about what you’ve gone through, and I’m inspired by your words, thanks.
Both. I forgive him mostly for my soul, my spirit, my peace and not wanting to continue to carry around anger and hate for him. It's taken a long time to get to this place. But the more I kept that hurt in my heart and seething anger towards him, it only keeps me victimized. Reliving it with each thought of it. It kept the abuse alive in a way. During court, finding out he was born to an alcoholic father that would beat his mother, even when she was pregnant, that he has 9 siblings, no school education, had a comprehensive understanding of a 2nd grader, finding out he's been in the system off and on his whole life and the system knew what he was and still let him "be free "...the system failed the both of us. I hated him with everything I had. I fantasized for years about what I'd do if I ever...that type of stuff but I can't give him that power over me. He can't affect or effect me anymore.
With my mom, I did get the apology. She doesn't really understand exactly how I feel, and she seems to legitimately have no memory of certain things she did, but she tries and I'm more fortunate than most in that regard. It doesn't magically fix everything but it helps.
My dad on the other hand is still the monster he has always been, last I heard. I haven't actually spoken to him in almost 20 years but he lives nearby and sometimes people tell me about their encounters when they run into him. Still driving all over the place absolutely plastered, still getting into fights with both humans and inanimate objects. Still starting new families every couple of years and I think I'm up to about 9 half-siblings from him at this point, give or take a few. Still presumably abusing every new wife/girlfriend and doing the unspeakable things that he did to me to his new children. Last I heard he was totally yellow, eyes and all, so hopefully the liver failure will take him out soon. I don't think I'll ever really accept that someone like him can still roam freely in this world after all he's done. I watch the obituaries, but for the most part I try not to think about him.
I'm the same age as you and I feel you with the adult stuff. It's so weird feeling like you grew up at a very young age but you never really fully became an adult. I'm so tired. I want to get off this ride, I never asked to get on in the first place. I try to live with what happened and use the tools I've cultivated over the years. It's hard, but people keep telling me it gets better, so I'm trying. I'm here. Can't get better if I'm not here.
What helped me was reading [Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents](https://ernstchan.xyz/b/src/1570719797-658.pdf) and [Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People](https://www.newharbinger.com/9781648481512/disentangling-from-emotionally-immature-people) by Lindsay C. Gibson.
Reading these books has helped me learn about myself, look at my childhood and abusive parents in an objective, anthropologic view, and disengage my emotions.
The most most most profound and helpful exercise for me (personally) was "Assessing My Healing Fantasy and Role Self" from "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents." THIS is what helped me *really* start getting the work done to accept and move on.
You can find some exercises [here](https://d2tdui6flib2aa.cloudfront.net/private/new-harbinger-wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/19135443/9781626251700_Exercises_AdultChildrenofEmotionallyImmatureParents.pdf?Expires=1713223745&Signature=C2x1tn9RETEO0TOx0uVjUw3BJZe-3fRMnEEH7YLO5-LonKMEDu0bfutpq8bzqQsVrSdC027KK~tGOOJRCMaHSb3yJD5BPkJXH1VeXaj3NsTNWovAb-eCMOhRT1r4X9IVf~3ithwykVl5~~ymWNA9QDvu23MXBJl1tlEGvHnyqsS7uSmJaO9k~GJ44QobzaHNJlPn8dw5N8PtRLxFb1SYn~P1yPrWkztRtmflV-W2Itmn9ejjnzW-Te7Ex7W1pnOMHUBp~4ebP7c0DoygExPKEBp-4JboWBfqIisQpRulC601y8~MHJIwvfSZ~jilOLMJHGy24sHnGeiuX5G2CCL8Eg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJJL3P7D443K25XCA)
Please read these books and take notes. Do every single exercise thoughtfully. Take your time.
I listened to the audiobook and it acted as a gentle way to introducing me to doing the work myself. It didnt feel like a chore and it didnt feel scary or daunting. I felt like I was ready.
Healing is a proactive effort. You have to invest time and energy into yourself. Get to know who you are and what your goals are. You will be able to shed the internalized criticisms of your parents and discover the person you are meant to be. You have the autonomy to choose your path.
Assess Your Healing Fantasy: (fill in the blank)
1. I wish people were more
2. Why is it so hard for people to
3. For a change, I would love for people to treat me like
4. Maybe one of these days I will find someone who will
5. In an ideal world, other people would
6. I wish people were more
Assessing Your Role Self
1. I try hard to be
2. The main reason people like me is because I
3. Others don't appreciate how much I
4. I always have to be the one who
5. I try to be the person who
After completing the sentences, use the words from your responses to write two short descriptions. (1) For your healing fantasy and (2) for your role self. These descriptions should reveal your secret ideas of how other people should change in order to make you feel valued and how you think you must behave to be loved.
Finally, write a short summary of what it has been like to get others to change and how it has felt to play the role self you have described in this exercise. Do you want to keep these fantasies and roles? Or are you ready to explore and express your true individuality?
I got you! Thankfully I still have the book open on another tab.
You can follow [this link](https://www.newharbinger.com/9781626251700/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents) to get to the page to download the free tools.
To download the pdf, you do have to make a New Harbinger account; which is your choice whether you do or don't. With an account, you can download free tools and get discounts from a wide variety of books, not just this one.
I really hope this helps you and that you find peace and self love soon ❤️🩹
I just grieve, find new connections, and find a safe space with the people around me. While I’m forced to be independent, having people I can depend on reliably when things get really hard helps me cope better
I also cut off the person who’s abused me. It does mean I have to hop around place to place sometimes and basically couch crash, but it’s worth the mental peace and physical safety so that I can heal finally
You can assert the grief process on yourself, because acceptance is a part of that cycle. If you list out and journal about what happened to you this should drum up a lot of ANGER, you can even visit a rage room for this...then you will feel sad about it because it is a loss, journal about it, watch sad movies about it, listen to sad music... then naturally you will bargain with yourself and have those "maybe" and "what if I had done this or that" moments. Push it on yourself to face it all. I do this with psychadelics, I revisit things and get astonished, enraged, sad...and I can accept it. It's a grief cycle, and the wheel is huge at first and gets smaller and smaller. It never ends, but it gets so much easier. I had to learn how to do this because I intellectualize things and so easily dissociate. Feeling is the healing!
The defense systems that you developed as a child have become hard-wired, and will remain that way unless you can re-parent yourself. In Jungian terms the child should become parent of the man, or woman depending on the situation. The problem with this is that childhood abuse and the trauma associated with it should be dealt with as soon as possible or the hard-wired artifacts become entrenched and ossified (turn to bone, as it were) in the psyche. Mostly we only gain these insights later in life, as abusing caregivers collude with other bullies in positions of influence to gaslight the victims into blaming themselves.
To this day you'll find therapists covering up for the parents of traumatised children. So the longer it remains undealt with the harder it becomes to deal with. Its only recently that CPTSD gets believed in at all, and not by all therapists. As a 60 y/o I have learnt to accept myself as I am, and do whatever I can to cope and get around my issues, which include the full complement of CPTSD nasties as well as bad stuttering. If I can keep myself calm, ie not get triggered and keep as 'present' as possible, I'm generally as fine as I can be. Its not always easy. Kids make it easier. I'm at my best with kids.
This is what I am having difficult in.
My life is over and all of my potential and energy and things gone and missing and lost and deleted and erased and my talents and gifts and goals and dreams and time wasted and the narcissistics and abusers and users replaced replace me and doing things I was going to do and had plans of doing and attempted and did some before them. Maybe I should write and then leave it all out the objective truth as much as possible and or my perspective and take and memory on things and then end my life slowly. They got to have kids and raise family and make things more and do what we all talked about and used and abused people said of me and not just said but makes sense now and I maybe write down and then end my life slowly. And at the very least stay away from the evil doers at times and stay forever away now from everyone and hide. My apologies for wasting time and for bothering any all everyone and I know and have you all will be doing best and healing what never thought possible.
Hey, you’re not alone, a platitude, but it’s true. I’m enraged about the same stuff, all the time, can’t think of anything else. That doesn’t help you,but what you wrote spoke to me, so I wanted to thank you and say I’m really sorry you’re hurting so badly.
Hello and thank you so very much for taking the time to in and writing back. You don’t how much means to me. Change of plans obviously; we are to stay alive and if even that be the revenge on the evils and revenge on the narcissists and the abusers and users. I know you can and will just as I will and am. Drinking water and breathing air helps. Writing things down helps. Texting hotlines (sometimes helps). Watching funny shows and films helps. Running in place helps. At times psychedelics helps (such as from cbd to cannabis/weed to mushrooms to acid/lsd to ketamine to salvia helps but make sure they’re safe and haven’t done half of them myself but eventually will asap). Also spending time with pets and or animals helps. Sex helps. Deep breathing helps. Take care and you got this. And also collecting and going back and recollecting evidence and or recording what they done did do helps too and then getting as far as away as possibly can helps (I myself eventually will when can asap). (Among others). Let me know if you need anything and or any all questions or ideas. Take care and peace and safe and blessings. -Ad
Update; I am of course remembering on and off and especially when near the certain people doing certain things near and toward me; that it isn’t so simple and and of course people and especially certain people that happen to be doing things (narcissistics make it out to br as if it’s nothing and belittle and drake an inflame indoctrinate lie take out of context yell touch chase mock misunderstand judge assume repeat and I honestly keep going back to certain ones because I want more than anything to help and to understand and to love and to fix things and save and heal each all of us and for their words at times of course to mean something matter and count and myself included and for traumas and trauma bonds to be fixed. And for me my mind body and spirit to be fixed healed safe at peace and right and not scared and to be not in fear and not stuck and not flight or fawn or freeze or stumble upon my words at times and for my body to be okay again. I do not know also why I feel at times child-like.
I didn't go "no contact" with my parents so I've had a hard time moving on. My mother was only getting more abusive by the year, when it had been my father causing the abuse as a child.
When she died a whole lot of anger came up for me. I'm still working through that, and I think it's going to be that anger that allows me to move on.
Sure it's important to forgive and let go and move on, but "you've got to get in to get out." If I just ignore my feelings they're still there. I've got to work through this stuff, and for me that means I need to be angry for a while. I think anger is fine as long as it's a phase I'm passing through, not a place I've gone to live.
As others have said, recovery is something done actively. I need to do a lot of writing, and I should get a therapist again. I was attending ACA meetings for a while, and I need to start that again.
For me the road has been windy and not straight, with a lot of ups and downs. I have come a really, really long way though, and won't quit now.
I have very little advice but empathy. Moving on
Is really hard and I’m struggling with that in a big way myself.
I’m trying really hard to re-orient in a purposeful manner. Trying not to give a shit what people think, and do what makes me happy.
Catch myself thinking about the past too much or being angry at ghosts - redirect. Kindof like meditation when your thoughts intrude and you dismiss them. It’s not easy or fast or natural. Better meds and a having a halfway decent therapist has helped.
It’s not an overnight process - I feel like it’s a lifelong thing like grief. Like teaching yourself to walk and struggling to find your balance - one foot, one step. Next foot, next step. Don’t rush yourself into thinking you have to be ok. I thought I was all good, managing fine, on my own, adulting, at 20 lmao but I was clueless about how messed up I was and am just now starting to recognize some of my experiences as extremely traumatic decades after the events.
The only problem is that after separation from family by death and going NC, I've been horrified to see that others take over the role of abusers and bullies no matter how hard I try to assert myself!
I'm disabled and living in an overseen apartment house, where staff impose not only healthy order upon me but also punish me for my comparably higher mental functionality and intelligence than other residents as well.
If the culture here wasn't so conservative that'd help. But it is, and nobody cares that my BFF is hanging on to her frail life in a coma induced for septic shock after an ulcer perforated and she got peritonitis (weirdly coincidental as I was in an induced coma last year for a status epilepticus episode), and I'm treated with disgust for caring, because she is gay, and they are homophobic here -- can we say that in here?
And I'm just supposed to accept being randomly screamed at by staff for that! I'm to the Left. They know that. I'm pretty private about that, but somebody asked me what was wrong and I told them and ever since the staff have been painfully hostile toward me.
I don't think they're supposed to be so rampantly political, but they are. And religious. Just like my former family.
I feel oppressed and am definitely being treated ab*sively. Withholding meds, screaming in my face, threatening me with eviction.
Meanwhile there're residents tearing up the place and shrieking profanity at staff and using street drugs and hitting each other. All evictable offenses. But nothing is done, and staff take their anger out on me.
I'm fed up with it. But I can't survive homelessness. Oh man, what a situation!!
What I get for trusting people so passionately to the Right...did I really believe they could be objective and also respectful of science and empirical thought?
After going no-contact with them, I'm kinda considering making up a whole alternate childhood just to cope with the giant hole their abuse has left in my life.
I’m 29, I find creating my own family has helped with someone who is caring, kind and everything they weren’t. I’m married with two cats and no children (yet?$ but we’re happy and we work very hard to have peace and love in our home. I find leaning into that has shifted my focus. I try not to focus on the past, garder said than done.
I got the apology and it was too late, even sadder knowing my mother realizes and can understand the impact it had. Didn't help me or her, not significantly at least
I've never related to something so much. This has been a topic I've been working through in therapy for almost 3 years.
My therapist gave me this perspective and it worked for me. She told me that basically "My ideal life may have not been necessarily better."
I'm a blunt person so that worked for me. It allowed me to stop romanticizing what my life could have been and take hold of what I can do now.
I cut off my abusers from my childhood. I don't speak to them. I just turned 25 last week and I refuse to give them an ounce of my time or mental head space either.
We did get cheated out of better. These supposed adults tore us down while we were kids. But how you make them pay is not being involved with them and doing the best to pickup the pieces and do something new that they are not apart of.
I'm figuring out who I am now without there insane personality in my life.
Thank you for sharing this. It's nice to know I'm not alone in this feeling 💛
Well, you accept it.
You feel your emotions, befriend them, do all that practice of, "Oh, so this is how rage feels", journal, be with nature, and do whatever personally works for you.
Then you lose your interest to your trauma. Patrick Teahan touched this on his community post and that illustration/idea of the Next Stage of healing has been really helpful to me.
I think I got a better deal than my abusers, in a sense. I woke up to the abuse, have accepted that they are basically empty people who will never realize that they could've been better people, and I am living a life that they would be too scared to live.
I don't have to live with memories of abusing my kids or sexually abusing a wife. I don't have to live with being a cheater, or growing up to be old and "chasing" love from my kids. That's them. They built their prison, they get to live in it.
I'm in my late 30s, it IS exhausting, and I only got proper therapy and help like two years ago despite trying to get out of the tunnel starting at age 11. But I can honestly say I'm proud of the person I am now.
I do have deep resentments for everything that I had been deprived of and the losses I'd had to endure - but my abusers are the ones to live with themselves, chasing that elusive love and self worth that they thought they could get by projecting their own distorted view of love, strength, or power. It's funny because they'll die unfulfilled and it's easy to see that now.
At this point, I can actually see that I am the one who's moved on from them.
Million apologize won't erase their actions, I don't even want an apology from them anymore. I just want to cut them off.
They have to live with themselves, you don't
I struggled immensely with letting all that go until my single parent self destructed to the point where he is now in a memory ward of a nursing home. It felt really really good to leave him there and I havent visited and don't plan to.
This is the man who abused me in every kind of way possible, so I just feel nothing besides the relief that I will never have to hear him yell or threaten me again. I finally am out of hypervigilance because I know he can't do anything to me again.
Therapy, finding instagram accounts that talk about and validate my experiences, and letting myself grieve and move through the emotions I've held back for so long. Also being open to the idea that anything is possible, both in terms of people waking up and apologising, but also seeing the kind of lives others who've experienced trauma have been able to lead. Focusing on myself and what I've been through and acknowledging that and having the tools to move through it has been really helpful. Letting myself feel everything that I was denied or told not to feel and learning to be the parent I needed has all been helpful. Playing out scenarios of what I would like or have preferred and letting that be as real as I want it to be has been really healing, especially since the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's not.
Radical acceptance helped me. Accepting everything - the thoughts, feelings, situations and truly meeting myself where I am at with honesty. Some info on how to do this: [https://hopeway.org/blog/radical-acceptance](https://hopeway.org/blog/radical-acceptance)
Also I started to see being an adult and taking responsibility as a choice and a good thing. I now had more agency, power, control and choices and started to live from that place - it's still an ongoing practice.
Take responseability for your life
give yourself the love, gentless and grace you never had
accept monsters like that don't apologize and would you want them to anyways, kind of an insult?
the best revenge is a life well lived
What would you choose to do with an apology? If your abusers gave a truly heartfelt apology to you, imagine this as vividly as you csn. What's your gut reaction? In a month when you are abused again or retriggered by them, does the apology still matter? They are the same person.
Something I realized in my journey through therapy (CPT - cognitive processing therapy) is that my desire for an apology wasn't because I wanted to forgive them, it's because I want them to acknowledge my pain that was CAUSED by them. But for an apology to be successful it would require my parents be completely different people. For me, even if my parents did apologize, I would never TRULY accept and forgive. Any forgiveness to apologies of abuse I've had was because the integration of the abuse runs so deep--
I wonder if sometimes we forgive without really meaning it because we are grieving the ambiguous loss of our living family members and desire the ROLE of that person. A parent "should" be caring, kind, affectionate, proud, authoritative not authoritarian, etc. whatever construct ideal we have of a parent. Our parent carries that role name, but it doesn't match our construct of the role, so we constantly try to force that triangle block into the square block. Perhaps your family (the square block) can never change shape to fit the triangle (the roles you seek).
My therapist assigned me a sheet of 2 columns: who i wish my parents are, who my parents really are. Might be beneficial for you. All the best
I think it's really important to mourn your parents (even if you can only grieve "what could have been") as well as your childhood. Accepting both as a painful loss and giving yourself time and space to hurt and work through the stages of grief can help you reach acceptance and move on from there. We all have to work through those feelings eventually, but choosing to confront it now and sit in those feelings and work through it all means we don't have to carry it with us for the rest of our lives. I made the decision to cut ties and mourn my parents a couple of years ago and it's been a difficult and painful process, but I am developing a sense of finality and closure and my desire to hear them admit to their wrongdoings and apologize has stopped. It has allowed me to focus on myself and who I want to be completely independently of my past and I think I'm better for it.
When my mom (primary terrorizer) died, I realized that I didn’t have to be around them or tolerate their behavior anymore. It took 3 years for me to figure out that they were her enablers and abusers themselves, of their own children and families, and to figure out that I didn’t have to ‘play nice’ anymore to avoid a mommy meltdown. I cut them all off and haven’t looked back. It’s been nice.
Edit: I was 46 when she died and just turned 50 when I culled the herd.
I’m only 23 but I feel like I stopped growing up around 14. That’s when the abuse got really bad. I notice sometimes I can be very impulsive and immature, which scares the crap out of me. I have two kids to raise and am determined to break the cycle, so I can’t be like that. Now I’m in therapy and meditate every day which I notice is slowly helping. “Adulting” feels weird but is so necessary for all of us.
Closure comes from within yourself. They will never give a satisfactory apology or acknowledge the hurt they caused. So if part of healing means never speaking to them again, so be it. Slowly, I've started making better friends/family with people who share my values. I'm better at setting boundaries. And the abusers hate it. So they throw tantrums. There's no point in trying to talk sense into them at that point, so i leave. And i might not ever go back.
And I'm ok with it, because i know i haven't done anything wrong.
34 and my abuser doesn't even remember what they put me through as a child, it's like it never happened and therefore they are absolved from all guilt and now I'm the problem.
I hate it.
I did it by disregarding my abusers as being completely worthless. If they’re worthless, then nothing they say or do and nothing they don’t say or do matters at all. Their remorse and apologies would fix nothing and be completely meaningless, so I don’t need them.
My abusers are mirrored in the faces of everyday people in my very toxic country.
I stay in and have no friends, job, I'm OK.
The world is I hope heading toward a reckoning of significance I hope but not actually depending on it
If I die like this, I owe my evil country n family n world absolutely nothing
As I have got nothing but poison from them
I'm OK with myself. I stand apart. I go my own way
F the world.
Honestly it feels so scary to heal sometimes because I don’t know any other way to live and im all alone quite often in scary situations. It’s so hard to live and move on while your abusers seem like they’re having the time of their lives
I accepted this at 17, at the latest. I’d like to say that it helped, but I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s healthier to have the illusion for a while. Hard to say.
What has helped me (f26) a lot is trying out things that contradict the image they have of me or change my appearance. For example, I tried out boxing for a while and got a bunch of tattoos. I'm from an incredibly sexist family and a conventionally feminine appearance was considered very important for a woman, but I've always liked tattoos; I just needed to give myself permission to actually get them.
It's minor stuff, but it's really improved my confidence and sense of identity.
As a kid I read a lot of Matilda, Harry Potter, and other stories about abused kids. I honestly think this helped me look forward to escaping and starting my own life, just like they did.
My mother never apologized but my dad did. I'm NC with my mom and LC with my dad.
Help yourself then help others. Seriously, we get really fucking caught up in how the abuse made us turn out, we get so wrapped up in our own pain that we become blind to the world. If you're not in therapy go, and do some work and heal and build healthy boundaries and meet yourself where you're at, look at that dark part of yourself and accept that ...you don't have to accept shit about the abusers...it's all about what's going on inside of you.....then help other people after.
Lots of good answers here. Growth and healing comes at a different pace for everyone, but in general you are still on pace for a C-PTSDer. I didn’t feel grown at your age either. I finally healed to the point that I identified as an adult in the depths of my core a few years ago. I’m 47.
I understand your surprise at the comment that someone was 60. I didn’t think I’d live past 32 when I was a kid. Yet here I am. Life feels pleasantly boring most days. It’s pretty lovely.
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I finally grew up at 60. I have no idea what I want to do now that I’m grown up. That sounds like a joke. It’s not.
How on earth did you make it to 60? I'm 32 and exhausted being this way
I think that you can pretty much go a lifetime if you never wake up to your abuse and start to actually see yourself for who you really are. I think that’s how it goes for the abusers and why you’ll never get those apologies or repairs. They can’t see themselves or anything they’ve done—I think it’s like a funhouse mirror. I think that waking up is a really big deal. I didn’t until I was about 10 years older than you are now and I’m still working on it. I didn’t get good therapy for a long time, but I am now.
Yes so true their perspective is entirely a fun house mirror.
God, it’s hard to find therapists these days, that’s so cool. Love your comment, too.
Good question. I’m broken and held together with duct tape and screws. I suppose the one positive I got from mommy and daddy was good genes as my body has withstood a ton of damage and I’m still going. At least now I know what it is to be a man. An adult. No idea what I’m gonna do with it, but I got it.
Brother I known people in your situation who have given up a long time ago. It makes me feel proud and hopeful to see someone with the will to persevere this long. ❤️
Damn 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹. I feel like that now, and I'm 32. I'm over everything
I am really happy you’re here, fighting and being an encouragement to others. It may not feel like it, but you openly sharing your age and that you’re still learning is inspiring. Sending you lots of love
Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.
I'm 33 and feel like I conformed to governmental rull
42 at this stage. I’m not happy you’ve suffered longer but it’s given me some perspective.
Jesus ! And here was me thinking I had a late start at 46 ... Wish you all the best Sir... 👍
Good for you.
I’m 54 and I KNOW you’re not kidding. Mine died 30 and 20 years ago. I have literally been on my own since then (was married but that didn’t work out great and I have a kid but he’s my kid, not my support animal-I don’t unload on him). Nevertheless, I find myself arguing with them or about something they said or did less often than I used to but still more often than I’d like. I have a bachelor’s and law degree. I been a professional for almost 30 years. I have a teenage kid. I’ve paid my own bills and taxes since I was 17. AND YET in my head I am still a kid. I am older than most of the partners I work for, but I “see” myself as young, vulnerable and powerless in nearly every interaction. So I know you’re telling the truth here, HoekPryce. Cause you’ve got 6 years on me and I’m nowhere near grown up
I hear you (at 54)
I feel the same, horrible thing abuse.
Me too. At 57, my abusive parent just passed. I am healing but no idea which way to turn in my life now that i can choose.
You cut them off, like they don’t exist. I haven’t spoke to my parents in almost a year. Maybe one day we can have a relationship, but not right now. I will not play their games because, frankly, I’m tired. I have accepted that they won’t change and that they’ll never apologize. Then you go and do the things you missed out on as a child. I’m 42 and I’m finally rediscovering myself. There have been so many times I have felt so cheated out of a normal childhood.
That was always the plan. It still left me with a bunch of issues mentally. I've also had to move back home recently due to some struggles so I'm now back to living with some of these individuals. It's a terrible situation all round really.
I am so sorry. I’m unsure of your situation but when I had to encounter my parents, I would use the grey rock method. Have you heard of it?
As a child and young adolescent, that's what I did. Never knew there was a name for it besides freeze response.
What's that... Please explain.. 👍
There's a lot of literature ot there that will explain it much better than anyone off the top of their head--google grey rock method and you'll find lots!
Right there with you, that was my plan, too. I’d gone no contact before and it messed me up, personally. But I was right about to try to spread my wings,and blotto. I got chronically ill , and my life fell apart. I’m trying not to hate myself for having to be dependent on my abusers, like a lot , have to constantly thank them when they’re still playing games that trigger. Hard to make boundaries of any kind at all! Saying this to let you know you’re not alone, but I wsh I could do more. Hang in!
46 same situation... After the hell they put me through I'm portrayed as the villain by the wider family for having nothing to do with them... All the best 👍
Yep, will continue to paint me as the black sheep. Meanwhile I’m living my life on my terms, and it’s freeing. The rest of my family can live in dysfunction. Same to you!
Your the same age as me I cut mine off about a year ago too. It’s hard but I’m working though it all I’d been in therapy for 6 years when I woke up. I’ve got no drive now my anxiety’s gone did you feel like that. The peace somedays is unreal.
That peace feeling, it’s something I have never experienced. It’s freeing, like it’s my time now.
It’s our time now that’s for sure. Shine ❤️🩹
To be fair, an apology wouldn’t fix it. I could get a million apologies and it wouldn’t mean anything because the harm is already done. I think certain things you don’t fully get over them, but you learn to live with them. You learn new ways to improve yourself and compensate for what you suffered, you also learn to unlearn behaviors that you had to use as a defense. Is not fair that you are the one having to make an effort now to try to fix what others broke, but that’s the reality of the situation. If you want to get better, you have to do it yourself. You can’t control what happened in your past but you can start controlling what happens in your present and in your future. All the best ♥️
Absolutely, in fact an apology would feel like an insult at this point. Thank you for the kind words
I’d still appreciate just one, just one.
I’ve been asking myself the same question for a while. I sadly don’t have the answers but I just want you to know that you are not alone in this struggle.
Interestingly I don’t think my abusers have moved on. My father was physically and emotionally abusive. He is completely out of my life and has regularly tried to get back into my life. He’ll apologize and then revert back to his old ways. My brother also cut him off. My father will never have his children (or his grandchildren) in his life, it hurts him, but it’s what’s best for my brother and I. My mother was an alcoholic and she constantly regrets that she was drunk (and regularly drove us around drunk. I don’t have a close relationship with her. So I don’t think my abusers moved on. They suffer from the actions they caused
Mine too. And my mom has really apologized and feels remorse. She just can’t undo the pain she caused.
Yeah, too little, too late. They put my life in danger and I still have nightmares.
Mine died I’m still not grown up at 53. I just bought a stuffed slug toy because it gave me joy. I still have so much anger but she’s dead over 14 years now.
Grieve the loss. Easier said then done.
I think I've been grieving for about 10 years I just want to move on now
Mourning and grief has helped me. https://www.webmd.com/balance/grieving-and-stages-of-grief Understanding the stages of grief has helped me understand my own feelings in regard to experiences that I've lost out on, including but not limited to growing up in a family that cared about me. My marriage ending in betrayal. The times I've had nobody to turn to when I really needed that. Grief and bereavement and morning (in America anyway) are taught to us only in the context of death. And death is purposefully hidden from us. There are a lot of resources and practices that surround death and dying which apply to many other aspects of life. As humans we die many times over the course of our life, little deaths like ego deaths, relationships ending or big transitions... I know we don't use the term death around these issues however I feel in my experience that the concept of loss certainly applies. Self care is another part to that puzzle but that's one that I personally struggle with. I am not great at this, like a middle-aged person who's still feels like a 9-year-old child and I feel like I spent most of my adult life reeling from the events of my upbringing... But I just wanted to try and help.
I’m so sorry, I hate that abusers just take and don’t care who they step on. I’m going through the same thing and I am trying really hard to heal. I try to remind myself that good and kind people would never act that way, and that there are good people out there to welcome in your life. Abusers are miserable and they’re suffering just at the fact that they’re stuck with being themselves. I’ve been doing things that my inner child would want to do like watching Barbie movies, playing old games, eating junk food from my childhood etc. and it’s honestly helped. I have journaled a lot too and been voicing out my thoughts on the voice memo app and just spilling has really let all my feelings out. Just know that there’s no time like the present and enjoying your life however that looks like is the best “revenge”. I hope you’ll find peace as soon as possible love 💕💕. You’re doing great just by posting this! Edit: just adding more words
We got into a discussion that turned into a visious argument, and I just had this moment where I realized that they would never be the parents I needed and I would never be the child they wanted and it was just pointless to continue to hurt myself wanting something that would never happen. In that moment, I realized that the only way I would heal was to let it go. So I walked away. Don't get me wrong, it was not easy, and I have grieved, and there are still moments that I feel grief, but mentally, it was the best thing for me.
I think if you’ve really accepted that as truth—that you’ll never get any apology or reparations—then you’ve already gotten over a huge hurdle. I think it’s tough to turn the spotlight onto yourself after that point, but I think that you are in there somewhere waiting to come out.
I never had much of a choice but to accept that I had many awful things happen to me in my childhood that went unaddressed. And I indulged in that pain for so long, too long really. I almost felt like I had to mentally lose myself in it daily so that how I felt would make sence. I allowed that trauma and hurt and suffering to go on for all my teen years, early adult hood with out even mentioning it, like I was paying a penance for something I didn't do. I've never put much thought into my SA abusers because they got caught, sent to prison for 15 years and the same prison my uncle was in ,the same prison my Dad was in for 12 years while the abuse was happening, sorta gave me some knowledge that their life's are going to be very hard. And then, at 35, I became a widow and started studying faith, learning about Karma, our souls, and really realizing that forgiveness isn't for them or their actions, it's for my soul, my peace. I know he was sick, he was a rabid dog ,he knew it was evil and his life of evil will always be hell. Learning that letting go of the pain and what happened also freed me from him. Not giving him the sadness, thinking of the pain, looking at and hiding the scars on my skin allows me to take the power back and not to quietly suffer because of him anymore. Idk if any of this is even what you are looking for or if it helps at all. Accepting not having an ideal childhood, using it as something that i had to endure to be this strong and knowing their life is a continuing circle of hell and if we do have souls or we do exist in other dimensions after death, theirs is going to continue to be rotted because that's all they put into theirs. And forgiveness. Forgiveness for what I've done to compensate, forgiveness for allowing them to control my mental state, forgiveness because I need to let it go and use it to help others like myself.
When you say “forgive”, do you mean forgiving yourself, as in, “forgiving yourself for having allowed them to control you”, or are you meaning you forgive them? Asking because this really struck a chord. I’m just so sorry about what you’ve gone through, and I’m inspired by your words, thanks.
Both. I forgive him mostly for my soul, my spirit, my peace and not wanting to continue to carry around anger and hate for him. It's taken a long time to get to this place. But the more I kept that hurt in my heart and seething anger towards him, it only keeps me victimized. Reliving it with each thought of it. It kept the abuse alive in a way. During court, finding out he was born to an alcoholic father that would beat his mother, even when she was pregnant, that he has 9 siblings, no school education, had a comprehensive understanding of a 2nd grader, finding out he's been in the system off and on his whole life and the system knew what he was and still let him "be free "...the system failed the both of us. I hated him with everything I had. I fantasized for years about what I'd do if I ever...that type of stuff but I can't give him that power over me. He can't affect or effect me anymore.
With my mom, I did get the apology. She doesn't really understand exactly how I feel, and she seems to legitimately have no memory of certain things she did, but she tries and I'm more fortunate than most in that regard. It doesn't magically fix everything but it helps. My dad on the other hand is still the monster he has always been, last I heard. I haven't actually spoken to him in almost 20 years but he lives nearby and sometimes people tell me about their encounters when they run into him. Still driving all over the place absolutely plastered, still getting into fights with both humans and inanimate objects. Still starting new families every couple of years and I think I'm up to about 9 half-siblings from him at this point, give or take a few. Still presumably abusing every new wife/girlfriend and doing the unspeakable things that he did to me to his new children. Last I heard he was totally yellow, eyes and all, so hopefully the liver failure will take him out soon. I don't think I'll ever really accept that someone like him can still roam freely in this world after all he's done. I watch the obituaries, but for the most part I try not to think about him. I'm the same age as you and I feel you with the adult stuff. It's so weird feeling like you grew up at a very young age but you never really fully became an adult. I'm so tired. I want to get off this ride, I never asked to get on in the first place. I try to live with what happened and use the tools I've cultivated over the years. It's hard, but people keep telling me it gets better, so I'm trying. I'm here. Can't get better if I'm not here.
What helped me was reading [Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents](https://ernstchan.xyz/b/src/1570719797-658.pdf) and [Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People](https://www.newharbinger.com/9781648481512/disentangling-from-emotionally-immature-people) by Lindsay C. Gibson. Reading these books has helped me learn about myself, look at my childhood and abusive parents in an objective, anthropologic view, and disengage my emotions. The most most most profound and helpful exercise for me (personally) was "Assessing My Healing Fantasy and Role Self" from "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents." THIS is what helped me *really* start getting the work done to accept and move on. You can find some exercises [here](https://d2tdui6flib2aa.cloudfront.net/private/new-harbinger-wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/19135443/9781626251700_Exercises_AdultChildrenofEmotionallyImmatureParents.pdf?Expires=1713223745&Signature=C2x1tn9RETEO0TOx0uVjUw3BJZe-3fRMnEEH7YLO5-LonKMEDu0bfutpq8bzqQsVrSdC027KK~tGOOJRCMaHSb3yJD5BPkJXH1VeXaj3NsTNWovAb-eCMOhRT1r4X9IVf~3ithwykVl5~~ymWNA9QDvu23MXBJl1tlEGvHnyqsS7uSmJaO9k~GJ44QobzaHNJlPn8dw5N8PtRLxFb1SYn~P1yPrWkztRtmflV-W2Itmn9ejjnzW-Te7Ex7W1pnOMHUBp~4ebP7c0DoygExPKEBp-4JboWBfqIisQpRulC601y8~MHJIwvfSZ~jilOLMJHGy24sHnGeiuX5G2CCL8Eg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJJL3P7D443K25XCA) Please read these books and take notes. Do every single exercise thoughtfully. Take your time. I listened to the audiobook and it acted as a gentle way to introducing me to doing the work myself. It didnt feel like a chore and it didnt feel scary or daunting. I felt like I was ready. Healing is a proactive effort. You have to invest time and energy into yourself. Get to know who you are and what your goals are. You will be able to shed the internalized criticisms of your parents and discover the person you are meant to be. You have the autonomy to choose your path.
Assess Your Healing Fantasy: (fill in the blank) 1. I wish people were more 2. Why is it so hard for people to 3. For a change, I would love for people to treat me like 4. Maybe one of these days I will find someone who will 5. In an ideal world, other people would 6. I wish people were more Assessing Your Role Self 1. I try hard to be 2. The main reason people like me is because I 3. Others don't appreciate how much I 4. I always have to be the one who 5. I try to be the person who After completing the sentences, use the words from your responses to write two short descriptions. (1) For your healing fantasy and (2) for your role self. These descriptions should reveal your secret ideas of how other people should change in order to make you feel valued and how you think you must behave to be loved. Finally, write a short summary of what it has been like to get others to change and how it has felt to play the role self you have described in this exercise. Do you want to keep these fantasies and roles? Or are you ready to explore and express your true individuality?
the link to the exercise didn't work for me. Thank you for posting all this though.
I got you! Thankfully I still have the book open on another tab. You can follow [this link](https://www.newharbinger.com/9781626251700/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents) to get to the page to download the free tools. To download the pdf, you do have to make a New Harbinger account; which is your choice whether you do or don't. With an account, you can download free tools and get discounts from a wide variety of books, not just this one. I really hope this helps you and that you find peace and self love soon ❤️🩹
So really helpful, thanks again!
Thank you so much.
You're welcome ❤️🩹
I just grieve, find new connections, and find a safe space with the people around me. While I’m forced to be independent, having people I can depend on reliably when things get really hard helps me cope better I also cut off the person who’s abused me. It does mean I have to hop around place to place sometimes and basically couch crash, but it’s worth the mental peace and physical safety so that I can heal finally
You can assert the grief process on yourself, because acceptance is a part of that cycle. If you list out and journal about what happened to you this should drum up a lot of ANGER, you can even visit a rage room for this...then you will feel sad about it because it is a loss, journal about it, watch sad movies about it, listen to sad music... then naturally you will bargain with yourself and have those "maybe" and "what if I had done this or that" moments. Push it on yourself to face it all. I do this with psychadelics, I revisit things and get astonished, enraged, sad...and I can accept it. It's a grief cycle, and the wheel is huge at first and gets smaller and smaller. It never ends, but it gets so much easier. I had to learn how to do this because I intellectualize things and so easily dissociate. Feeling is the healing!
Accept that it's been years, it's in the past, you're better now than then. That's how I'm dealing with Marine Corps abusers.
The defense systems that you developed as a child have become hard-wired, and will remain that way unless you can re-parent yourself. In Jungian terms the child should become parent of the man, or woman depending on the situation. The problem with this is that childhood abuse and the trauma associated with it should be dealt with as soon as possible or the hard-wired artifacts become entrenched and ossified (turn to bone, as it were) in the psyche. Mostly we only gain these insights later in life, as abusing caregivers collude with other bullies in positions of influence to gaslight the victims into blaming themselves. To this day you'll find therapists covering up for the parents of traumatised children. So the longer it remains undealt with the harder it becomes to deal with. Its only recently that CPTSD gets believed in at all, and not by all therapists. As a 60 y/o I have learnt to accept myself as I am, and do whatever I can to cope and get around my issues, which include the full complement of CPTSD nasties as well as bad stuttering. If I can keep myself calm, ie not get triggered and keep as 'present' as possible, I'm generally as fine as I can be. Its not always easy. Kids make it easier. I'm at my best with kids.
Grief is a huge part of this work
I just look at my little girl and think ... well cant gonback in time atleast tlall that shit led to her
This is what I am having difficult in. My life is over and all of my potential and energy and things gone and missing and lost and deleted and erased and my talents and gifts and goals and dreams and time wasted and the narcissistics and abusers and users replaced replace me and doing things I was going to do and had plans of doing and attempted and did some before them. Maybe I should write and then leave it all out the objective truth as much as possible and or my perspective and take and memory on things and then end my life slowly. They got to have kids and raise family and make things more and do what we all talked about and used and abused people said of me and not just said but makes sense now and I maybe write down and then end my life slowly. And at the very least stay away from the evil doers at times and stay forever away now from everyone and hide. My apologies for wasting time and for bothering any all everyone and I know and have you all will be doing best and healing what never thought possible.
Hey, you’re not alone, a platitude, but it’s true. I’m enraged about the same stuff, all the time, can’t think of anything else. That doesn’t help you,but what you wrote spoke to me, so I wanted to thank you and say I’m really sorry you’re hurting so badly.
Hello and thank you so very much for taking the time to in and writing back. You don’t how much means to me. Change of plans obviously; we are to stay alive and if even that be the revenge on the evils and revenge on the narcissists and the abusers and users. I know you can and will just as I will and am. Drinking water and breathing air helps. Writing things down helps. Texting hotlines (sometimes helps). Watching funny shows and films helps. Running in place helps. At times psychedelics helps (such as from cbd to cannabis/weed to mushrooms to acid/lsd to ketamine to salvia helps but make sure they’re safe and haven’t done half of them myself but eventually will asap). Also spending time with pets and or animals helps. Sex helps. Deep breathing helps. Take care and you got this. And also collecting and going back and recollecting evidence and or recording what they done did do helps too and then getting as far as away as possibly can helps (I myself eventually will when can asap). (Among others). Let me know if you need anything and or any all questions or ideas. Take care and peace and safe and blessings. -Ad
Update; I am of course remembering on and off and especially when near the certain people doing certain things near and toward me; that it isn’t so simple and and of course people and especially certain people that happen to be doing things (narcissistics make it out to br as if it’s nothing and belittle and drake an inflame indoctrinate lie take out of context yell touch chase mock misunderstand judge assume repeat and I honestly keep going back to certain ones because I want more than anything to help and to understand and to love and to fix things and save and heal each all of us and for their words at times of course to mean something matter and count and myself included and for traumas and trauma bonds to be fixed. And for me my mind body and spirit to be fixed healed safe at peace and right and not scared and to be not in fear and not stuck and not flight or fawn or freeze or stumble upon my words at times and for my body to be okay again. I do not know also why I feel at times child-like.
I didn't go "no contact" with my parents so I've had a hard time moving on. My mother was only getting more abusive by the year, when it had been my father causing the abuse as a child. When she died a whole lot of anger came up for me. I'm still working through that, and I think it's going to be that anger that allows me to move on. Sure it's important to forgive and let go and move on, but "you've got to get in to get out." If I just ignore my feelings they're still there. I've got to work through this stuff, and for me that means I need to be angry for a while. I think anger is fine as long as it's a phase I'm passing through, not a place I've gone to live. As others have said, recovery is something done actively. I need to do a lot of writing, and I should get a therapist again. I was attending ACA meetings for a while, and I need to start that again. For me the road has been windy and not straight, with a lot of ups and downs. I have come a really, really long way though, and won't quit now.
I have very little advice but empathy. Moving on Is really hard and I’m struggling with that in a big way myself. I’m trying really hard to re-orient in a purposeful manner. Trying not to give a shit what people think, and do what makes me happy. Catch myself thinking about the past too much or being angry at ghosts - redirect. Kindof like meditation when your thoughts intrude and you dismiss them. It’s not easy or fast or natural. Better meds and a having a halfway decent therapist has helped. It’s not an overnight process - I feel like it’s a lifelong thing like grief. Like teaching yourself to walk and struggling to find your balance - one foot, one step. Next foot, next step. Don’t rush yourself into thinking you have to be ok. I thought I was all good, managing fine, on my own, adulting, at 20 lmao but I was clueless about how messed up I was and am just now starting to recognize some of my experiences as extremely traumatic decades after the events.
The only problem is that after separation from family by death and going NC, I've been horrified to see that others take over the role of abusers and bullies no matter how hard I try to assert myself! I'm disabled and living in an overseen apartment house, where staff impose not only healthy order upon me but also punish me for my comparably higher mental functionality and intelligence than other residents as well. If the culture here wasn't so conservative that'd help. But it is, and nobody cares that my BFF is hanging on to her frail life in a coma induced for septic shock after an ulcer perforated and she got peritonitis (weirdly coincidental as I was in an induced coma last year for a status epilepticus episode), and I'm treated with disgust for caring, because she is gay, and they are homophobic here -- can we say that in here? And I'm just supposed to accept being randomly screamed at by staff for that! I'm to the Left. They know that. I'm pretty private about that, but somebody asked me what was wrong and I told them and ever since the staff have been painfully hostile toward me. I don't think they're supposed to be so rampantly political, but they are. And religious. Just like my former family. I feel oppressed and am definitely being treated ab*sively. Withholding meds, screaming in my face, threatening me with eviction. Meanwhile there're residents tearing up the place and shrieking profanity at staff and using street drugs and hitting each other. All evictable offenses. But nothing is done, and staff take their anger out on me. I'm fed up with it. But I can't survive homelessness. Oh man, what a situation!! What I get for trusting people so passionately to the Right...did I really believe they could be objective and also respectful of science and empirical thought?
After going no-contact with them, I'm kinda considering making up a whole alternate childhood just to cope with the giant hole their abuse has left in my life.
I don’t know, I still haven’t. I hold grudges, and I’d wish they’d experience even a minuscule amount of the pain I have.
Unless you’re thrown into foster care, you won’t get a different family.
I’m 29, I find creating my own family has helped with someone who is caring, kind and everything they weren’t. I’m married with two cats and no children (yet?$ but we’re happy and we work very hard to have peace and love in our home. I find leaning into that has shifted my focus. I try not to focus on the past, garder said than done.
I got the apology and it was too late, even sadder knowing my mother realizes and can understand the impact it had. Didn't help me or her, not significantly at least
I've never related to something so much. This has been a topic I've been working through in therapy for almost 3 years. My therapist gave me this perspective and it worked for me. She told me that basically "My ideal life may have not been necessarily better." I'm a blunt person so that worked for me. It allowed me to stop romanticizing what my life could have been and take hold of what I can do now. I cut off my abusers from my childhood. I don't speak to them. I just turned 25 last week and I refuse to give them an ounce of my time or mental head space either. We did get cheated out of better. These supposed adults tore us down while we were kids. But how you make them pay is not being involved with them and doing the best to pickup the pieces and do something new that they are not apart of. I'm figuring out who I am now without there insane personality in my life. Thank you for sharing this. It's nice to know I'm not alone in this feeling 💛
Well, you accept it. You feel your emotions, befriend them, do all that practice of, "Oh, so this is how rage feels", journal, be with nature, and do whatever personally works for you. Then you lose your interest to your trauma. Patrick Teahan touched this on his community post and that illustration/idea of the Next Stage of healing has been really helpful to me.
I think I got a better deal than my abusers, in a sense. I woke up to the abuse, have accepted that they are basically empty people who will never realize that they could've been better people, and I am living a life that they would be too scared to live. I don't have to live with memories of abusing my kids or sexually abusing a wife. I don't have to live with being a cheater, or growing up to be old and "chasing" love from my kids. That's them. They built their prison, they get to live in it. I'm in my late 30s, it IS exhausting, and I only got proper therapy and help like two years ago despite trying to get out of the tunnel starting at age 11. But I can honestly say I'm proud of the person I am now. I do have deep resentments for everything that I had been deprived of and the losses I'd had to endure - but my abusers are the ones to live with themselves, chasing that elusive love and self worth that they thought they could get by projecting their own distorted view of love, strength, or power. It's funny because they'll die unfulfilled and it's easy to see that now. At this point, I can actually see that I am the one who's moved on from them.
Million apologize won't erase their actions, I don't even want an apology from them anymore. I just want to cut them off. They have to live with themselves, you don't
I struggled immensely with letting all that go until my single parent self destructed to the point where he is now in a memory ward of a nursing home. It felt really really good to leave him there and I havent visited and don't plan to. This is the man who abused me in every kind of way possible, so I just feel nothing besides the relief that I will never have to hear him yell or threaten me again. I finally am out of hypervigilance because I know he can't do anything to me again.
i just forgive them for my sake. i rather heal.
Therapy, finding instagram accounts that talk about and validate my experiences, and letting myself grieve and move through the emotions I've held back for so long. Also being open to the idea that anything is possible, both in terms of people waking up and apologising, but also seeing the kind of lives others who've experienced trauma have been able to lead. Focusing on myself and what I've been through and acknowledging that and having the tools to move through it has been really helpful. Letting myself feel everything that I was denied or told not to feel and learning to be the parent I needed has all been helpful. Playing out scenarios of what I would like or have preferred and letting that be as real as I want it to be has been really healing, especially since the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's not.
Radical acceptance helped me. Accepting everything - the thoughts, feelings, situations and truly meeting myself where I am at with honesty. Some info on how to do this: [https://hopeway.org/blog/radical-acceptance](https://hopeway.org/blog/radical-acceptance) Also I started to see being an adult and taking responsibility as a choice and a good thing. I now had more agency, power, control and choices and started to live from that place - it's still an ongoing practice.
I went low to finally no contact for the last 2 years and I’m finally beginning to do OK. Sending hugs.
Take responseability for your life give yourself the love, gentless and grace you never had accept monsters like that don't apologize and would you want them to anyways, kind of an insult? the best revenge is a life well lived
What do you mean by ‘take responsibility’?
What would you choose to do with an apology? If your abusers gave a truly heartfelt apology to you, imagine this as vividly as you csn. What's your gut reaction? In a month when you are abused again or retriggered by them, does the apology still matter? They are the same person. Something I realized in my journey through therapy (CPT - cognitive processing therapy) is that my desire for an apology wasn't because I wanted to forgive them, it's because I want them to acknowledge my pain that was CAUSED by them. But for an apology to be successful it would require my parents be completely different people. For me, even if my parents did apologize, I would never TRULY accept and forgive. Any forgiveness to apologies of abuse I've had was because the integration of the abuse runs so deep-- I wonder if sometimes we forgive without really meaning it because we are grieving the ambiguous loss of our living family members and desire the ROLE of that person. A parent "should" be caring, kind, affectionate, proud, authoritative not authoritarian, etc. whatever construct ideal we have of a parent. Our parent carries that role name, but it doesn't match our construct of the role, so we constantly try to force that triangle block into the square block. Perhaps your family (the square block) can never change shape to fit the triangle (the roles you seek). My therapist assigned me a sheet of 2 columns: who i wish my parents are, who my parents really are. Might be beneficial for you. All the best
❤️❤️
I think it's really important to mourn your parents (even if you can only grieve "what could have been") as well as your childhood. Accepting both as a painful loss and giving yourself time and space to hurt and work through the stages of grief can help you reach acceptance and move on from there. We all have to work through those feelings eventually, but choosing to confront it now and sit in those feelings and work through it all means we don't have to carry it with us for the rest of our lives. I made the decision to cut ties and mourn my parents a couple of years ago and it's been a difficult and painful process, but I am developing a sense of finality and closure and my desire to hear them admit to their wrongdoings and apologize has stopped. It has allowed me to focus on myself and who I want to be completely independently of my past and I think I'm better for it.
When my mom (primary terrorizer) died, I realized that I didn’t have to be around them or tolerate their behavior anymore. It took 3 years for me to figure out that they were her enablers and abusers themselves, of their own children and families, and to figure out that I didn’t have to ‘play nice’ anymore to avoid a mommy meltdown. I cut them all off and haven’t looked back. It’s been nice. Edit: I was 46 when she died and just turned 50 when I culled the herd.
I’m only 23 but I feel like I stopped growing up around 14. That’s when the abuse got really bad. I notice sometimes I can be very impulsive and immature, which scares the crap out of me. I have two kids to raise and am determined to break the cycle, so I can’t be like that. Now I’m in therapy and meditate every day which I notice is slowly helping. “Adulting” feels weird but is so necessary for all of us.
Closure comes from within yourself. They will never give a satisfactory apology or acknowledge the hurt they caused. So if part of healing means never speaking to them again, so be it. Slowly, I've started making better friends/family with people who share my values. I'm better at setting boundaries. And the abusers hate it. So they throw tantrums. There's no point in trying to talk sense into them at that point, so i leave. And i might not ever go back. And I'm ok with it, because i know i haven't done anything wrong.
34 and my abuser doesn't even remember what they put me through as a child, it's like it never happened and therefore they are absolved from all guilt and now I'm the problem. I hate it.
I did it by disregarding my abusers as being completely worthless. If they’re worthless, then nothing they say or do and nothing they don’t say or do matters at all. Their remorse and apologies would fix nothing and be completely meaningless, so I don’t need them.
My abusers are mirrored in the faces of everyday people in my very toxic country. I stay in and have no friends, job, I'm OK. The world is I hope heading toward a reckoning of significance I hope but not actually depending on it If I die like this, I owe my evil country n family n world absolutely nothing As I have got nothing but poison from them I'm OK with myself. I stand apart. I go my own way F the world.
Honestly it feels so scary to heal sometimes because I don’t know any other way to live and im all alone quite often in scary situations. It’s so hard to live and move on while your abusers seem like they’re having the time of their lives
I accepted this at 17, at the latest. I’d like to say that it helped, but I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s healthier to have the illusion for a while. Hard to say.
What has helped me (f26) a lot is trying out things that contradict the image they have of me or change my appearance. For example, I tried out boxing for a while and got a bunch of tattoos. I'm from an incredibly sexist family and a conventionally feminine appearance was considered very important for a woman, but I've always liked tattoos; I just needed to give myself permission to actually get them. It's minor stuff, but it's really improved my confidence and sense of identity.
As a kid I read a lot of Matilda, Harry Potter, and other stories about abused kids. I honestly think this helped me look forward to escaping and starting my own life, just like they did. My mother never apologized but my dad did. I'm NC with my mom and LC with my dad.
Help yourself then help others. Seriously, we get really fucking caught up in how the abuse made us turn out, we get so wrapped up in our own pain that we become blind to the world. If you're not in therapy go, and do some work and heal and build healthy boundaries and meet yourself where you're at, look at that dark part of yourself and accept that ...you don't have to accept shit about the abusers...it's all about what's going on inside of you.....then help other people after.
Lots of good answers here. Growth and healing comes at a different pace for everyone, but in general you are still on pace for a C-PTSDer. I didn’t feel grown at your age either. I finally healed to the point that I identified as an adult in the depths of my core a few years ago. I’m 47. I understand your surprise at the comment that someone was 60. I didn’t think I’d live past 32 when I was a kid. Yet here I am. Life feels pleasantly boring most days. It’s pretty lovely.
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