Does it ever get better?

[Sleeper]

Hello, this may be long.

My family has a history of generational trauma and my parents grew up in a time where domestic violence was widely common and accepted. As a result my parents weren't really good with the whole parenting aspect of life. In my early years of being a kid, I have a lot of memories of my parents constantly yelling and trashing the house. It gradually stopped over the years once the police got involved. However the following years were rough, my mum was especially stressed due to many reasons and often took it out on her kids growing up. She was verbally abusive, threatened us a lot, would priorities everything else over her own kids, including her reputation, and would keep us in the house because the outside is too dangerous. She would gatekeep us from seeing certain friends or family that she did not like but would force us to act friendly with her friends to make her look better. Growing up with this treatment, I didn't realise it was "wrong" because it was all I knew and eventually I broke down in my senior year of high school because I could not take it anymore. I was diagnosed with depression at the time but they suspect I probably had it for a longer period. My relationship with her is a lot better now but I have an extreme one-sided love/hate relationship with her. I struggle with severe flashbacks and nightmares that keep me up at night and on these days, my hatred for her is obvious in daily life and sometimes I can't handle seeing her. The flashback has been recently difficult the last few weeks and I'm teary everyday, its difficult to get out of bed, I'm constantly tire and nauseous, I oversleep to avoid dealing with real life and I forget things that I did a few seconds ago. I have just started a full time job and that has been the main reason forcing me to get out of bed and be active. However I have been making a lot of mistakes at work and that has weighing on my shoulders and have been making me spiral into self-doubt and feeling worthless, just like my mum did when she was raising me. I have resorted to hurting myself discreetly as a way to cope and I know its not healthy but its the only way I know off that keeps my calm.

The point is, I feel like I haven't made any progress since back then and its been difficult for me to get up everyday knowing that I will be exhausting myself fighting and suppressing against these negative thoughts and feelings. 

[Sophie_M]

Hey Sleeper,

Thanks for your bravery and openness in sharing this here. That sounds incredibly difficult, we’re so sorry to hear you’re going through it right now, trying to manage these exhausting thoughts and feelings, all while working hard at your new job. Please know that the forums and our lovely community are here for you, and it’s really good that you could share this here.

Hopefully, the community will spot your post and we'll hear from someone soon. In the meantime, please know that you can always reach out to our support service on 1300 22 4636 to discuss how you are feeling. They are lovely and will listen in a kind, understanding and non-judgmental way. You can reach us through online chat, too.

You can also talk to Blue Knot about this on 1300 657 380, every day between 9-5 (AEDT). Their counsellors are experienced in working with people who have experienced complex trauma. They also have some resources on their website which could be useful to visit, particularly the pages on Survivors Self Care.

Thanks again for sharing here. We hope this helps you towards getting some support with this, and we hope you can be as kind to yourself as you have been in sharing with the community here.

Kind regards,

Sophie

[therising]

Hi Sleeper

I feel for you so deeply while you remain waking up to so much regarding your younger years. It's far from easy to manage at times, waking up to what we may not have been so conscious of back then. It can be so incredibly painful and sometimes angering or even enraging, stuff you can really feel on a whole new level. So, it's kind of like a double whammy, you've got new memories and new forms of emotion to face.

If there are powers that be, I'm sure their plan is to lead us to gradually wake up. Kind of like 'Okay, here's a memory for you to manage and make sense of. You got that? Now, how do you feel it?'. While finally we come to terms with that one, having made some sense of it, before you know it we're facing another. 'Here you go, here's the next one to manage. Now, how are you feeling that one?'. It's hard work, gradually becoming more and more conscious. I've found it can be exhausting work. Personally, I'm a gal who's a real feeler. I can feel my thoughts and memories. The kind of energy in motion that comes with feeling (aka emotion) can become seriously exhausting, especially when you're feeling constantly.

I've found another hard part comes down to 'So, what am I now going to do with what I've managed to make sense of? Where to from here?'. I've found it can be a bit of a rabbit hole experience. Which direction to head? Do I follow the channel that leads me to better understand my parents more? Do I follow the one that leads me to better understand that I'm not who I think I am (I was shaped into this person by others)? So, who am I really? Do I follow the one that leads me to make even greater sense of things - Will I head toward talk therapy (counseling) or do I go straight to the source (my parents)? Will I follow the channel that leads me to understand how incredible dis-ease (unease) manifests physically as disease, leading me to feel sick to my stomach or leading me to feel the stress/tension of it all, held in my muscles? Maybe the channel that leads me to feel release or relief without self harm. Dozens of channels down a rabbit hole, that's for sure.

You have definitely made progress - you've found the rabbit hole. Now, where to from here?