Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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...I realized WHY I don't want people to tell me I am worth something, or that I don't deserve the hate I am slinging at myself, the self-contempt I feel...
Intellectually I can sort of see they are right, even? But I get why I need to dislike myself...
...Everyone I really got close to has, with maybe one or two exceptions? Turned on me and knocked me down.
It is more of a ***when*** they will grind me into the dirt than an if?
So, if I feel good about myself, that gives them something to take away. Something to wreck.
It does not feel safe to be on my own side, it merely means I have harder to fall when the people I love decide I need knocked down, punished. When they need to feel better about themselves by making me feel worse.
It's safer to already be down, to be ready to take the degradation that is going to be dished out inevitably.
When I ask myself why I don't like me, I get little images of abuse in a confusing blur.
I do feel slimy and dirty a lot. Like my personality got covered in slime. I feel guilty a lot.
I think I cause people to lash out at me somehow? I think I am doing something. It's too universal a behavior.
So I need to isolate myself.
But I am afraid to like me!
I am an idiot.
Intellectually I can sort of see they are right, even? But I get why I need to dislike myself...
...Everyone I really got close to has, with maybe one or two exceptions? Turned on me and knocked me down.
It is more of a ***when*** they will grind me into the dirt than an if?
So, if I feel good about myself, that gives them something to take away. Something to wreck.
It does not feel safe to be on my own side, it merely means I have harder to fall when the people I love decide I need knocked down, punished. When they need to feel better about themselves by making me feel worse.
It's safer to already be down, to be ready to take the degradation that is going to be dished out inevitably.
When I ask myself why I don't like me, I get little images of abuse in a confusing blur.
I do feel slimy and dirty a lot. Like my personality got covered in slime. I feel guilty a lot.
I think I cause people to lash out at me somehow? I think I am doing something. It's too universal a behavior.
So I need to isolate myself.
But I am afraid to like me!
I am an idiot.
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I feel so dirty and used I was drunk and passed out at a party when I came around some guy was on top of me rapeing me he covered my mouth and told me to shut up afterwards he got up and got dressed and said I better not tell anyone I found my friend and reported that I had been raped after having medical checks and them getting DNA I've taken the morning after pill IAM just so depressed and...
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Upon his departure, he remarked, "I am in many people’s pockets; no one will believe you." Have you ever grappled with the silence that follows sexual assault, where the perceived impossibility of being believed necessitates self-censorship?
But if I start to like myself, I think I'll be punished for it.
Which puts me in a bit of a no-win situation. Like myself, punishment. Not lking myself, its own punishment. I self-sabotage. To get expected results. Only that doesn't work. I've worked hard for so long in my life to stop that stuff, but even all the work I did early on... Some of it didn't get "deep" enough and I'm still trying to root that notion firmly in my personal bedrock: "It is okay to think I'm an okay person"....
You're not an idiot, BD, you're like any other abuse survivor. Trying to figure out how to debug your own brain. Big soft purrs and hugs.
I get that slimy feel cause I've had that many times in my life. It is something I think many abuse survivors feel. You are not alone in that. Remember you have friends here who care about you.
I happen to think you're pretty great.
But your post reminds me of what all of us deeply know: "they" can take things ... pieces ... from us that we may never be able to get back.
I'm struggling mightily with that, too, so ... I understand.
I wish you peace, health, and strength, and the ability to see yourself as we all see you !
...If I love someone? It gives them the " root password " to my beliefs. If they lash out at me, get verbally abusive? It's just devastating to me.
...So, to protect myself? I can't let people in. I have to think about this. But I would be better off liking myself and being alone than disliking myself and NOT being relatively alone.
Doing that with my mom as she's had her late-life issues? OMG. Tested that concept, continues to test it, but.... That's what I got. Maybe over time, once we really feel okay liking ourselves, we feel better about those boundaries and saying, "No, I am not that nasty word you used" and so on?
You are not an idiot, the person who does the abusing is the idiot. The sad thing is, the victim is the one who feels so icky inside and outside; the abuser may feel that they did nothing to abuse you. (how sickening). I also learned that the person may have a very miserable life until something else come along and wipe the filthy thoughts away.
I agree with KAdunn, and I just the thoughts make us feel dirty and icky. The victim feels so icky that they get low self esteem....I used to feel that way. I try so hard not to let thoughts of being abused dictate my emotions of today but it's hard.
Just... WOW! Thank you so much for these words! I've never been able to articulate this, but feel it to my bones. Thank you so much for allowing me to feel I'm not so alone and weird. Thank you for the validation, and for being the furthest thing from an idiot I can imagine! Thank you for being brave. In my eyes, that stuff all over you isn't slime, but radiance!
maybe just for a little while when nobody is looking.
My wish for you is that you find friends/lovers who can be trusted to be mindful and respectful towards you regardless of the circumstances.
My now-ex? He "forgave" his mom in order to have a relationship with his mom as an adult.
...apparently, he buried a LOT of unprocessed rage, which is NOT real forgiveness.
So any less than me being perfect? I became "BAD MUM" and out comes Mr saggy diaper.
Since he has this huge unresolved, unexamined thing going on? ANY partner would have gotten this, no matter how loving and giving they were.
...Understanding it...suddenly makes me feel a lot less nasty. All that stuff he said was delivered to the wrong mailbox.
I'm not going back, though. He'd do it to anybody he got with. He needs to be actively engaged in recovery for years before he would not do it. I can't handle it.