That must have been hard to write. I am sorry about your glasses - I know I can't type without mine.

Your story does bring up a good point where we have to wonder what we teach our children - we try to do our best, but we don't always do what is best for them.

yadlim the numb

I disagree with the part about children typically telling their parents when something bad happens. The thing is, we were so young that at that age you're still formulating what's right from what's wrong. I didn't even know what happened to me was wrong.

I often think my husband has a rougher time dealing with the non-stop perfectionism of his TVLand upbringing than I have dealing with the repetitive trauma of being a throw-away kid. At least I could cry when I was hurt. Still can. He's learning.

Well, yay, Tazgore. Sounds like a breakthrough.

wow - very revelatory!

I quit crying as a child, too . . . . it didn't do any good, in my child's mind. In part, because no one comforted us when we were hurting - same message - get over it. In part, I got tired of the pain so I learned to turn from it just like turning around. Shut it off. Tired of the pain.

I bet this is opening a gate for you and more and more revelation will come as far as your beliefs at 6 years old. What a breakthrough!

I think that all we can do is do our best for our children. My father was a private piolt. One of his sayings was, "somebody has to fly the aircraft". Meaning that no matter how bad something seems, If you dont focus and do what you are supposed to do, you can crash your plane (life). Its a good lesson, but in hind sight perhaps its a lesson best taught after a certain age.. I dont know, its a tough call. I am proud of the fact that in emergency situations I do not panic. My Dad taught me that.

She was very careful to say "typically" She is always reminding me that even though there are patterns that you can look at everyone and every situation is different. What she said for me felt very right. According to her, what we are doing right now is trying to untangle all of the lessons learned, assumptions, truths, and how my emotions tie everything together. One of the things I like about her is that she explains to me the plan. I am a very logic based person, so when i see the plan, It is not as discouraging to me when things move slow. I can see that it is moving according to plan. Hopefully one day I will at least be able to talk about it in its entirety with out having a flashback.

I am learning all about crying right now. Believe you me!!

Thank you everyone for your comments. I am in a very "shaky" place right now.

WOW, such a great story, and such awesome strength to be able to tell it. You can be proud, my friend, you have and are, accomplishing great strides. I'm glad you're learning to cry, and so glad you found a great therapist. I too, am a creature of logic, and never cried. Always let my pain turn to anger. Usually at either whatever hurt me, or at myself for being to stupid to avoid the danger, or too weak to accomplish some feat of agility that I wanted to. So I would suck it up, and keep trying. Sometimes doing additional harm to myself. (Yeah, I know, where's the logic in that. ;-) Dec. of '69, I couldn't use anger, and cried for 3 days straight. Nearly to the point of dehydration. Then nothing till 2008, when the floodgates opened again for absolutely no reason at all.

I can't speak to the rape, having never been there, but this "no harm / no foul" attitude that we seemed to have adopted, at least in my opinion, has served us well. Unfortunately, the "all things in moderation" axiom was neglected, and we failed to temper our learning with a prudent judiciary approach.

I'm also recovering, and making some progress, although I have not the luxury of such a good therapist. She sounds like a keeper.

I wish you all the best, and I will say a prayer for you.
~theGuardian

I have to say WOW, too!!! Thank you so much for sharing this fantastic insight, tazgore!

I also love the way you are able to see how your parents meant well and gave you something of value, but that you were not able, as a young child, to apply it in a reasonable, balanced way. I am assuming you have not come to the place where you can tell your parents what happened to you, but when/if you decide to tell them, I am willing to be their hearts will be broken to learn how you interpreted their life lessons. I hope you will find it a healing, bonding time if you are able to share this with them.

You have brought up some thoughts on my issues around crying. Like BeyondParadise said, I did not know that what was happening to me was wrong and not my fault. I was told I deserved it and that was what I believed... kind of like mind control/brainwashing.

BUT, there was some part of me that said, "NO!!! I did not do anything wrong!!! You can beat me as long as you want to and I will NOT cry because I did NOT do anything to deserve this!!!" I think this stubborn streak was in large part responsible for saving me. Maybe this was a "caretaker part" from the IFS perspective.

Unfortunately, not crying just extended the beatings longer, pretty much five out of seven days of the week. Eventually, I would give in and cry because I could not take any more pain... and my sister would tenderly put lotion on my welts and bruises. Three of my siblings would begin crying immediately, thereby avoiding beatings. The only other one who refused to cry could outlast our father's beatings... and turned out to be a sociopath, from all I have seen.

But, my attitude toward beatings also may have ended up causing me to be stoic in other ways... by separating from my body and running roughshod over physical pain that I should have listened to. For example, I walked on a severely painful foot (turned out to be Plantar Fasciitis) which I ended up referring to as "my bloodied stump" when I could not walk another step... before finally getting medical attention. From there, I continued to soldier on, limping on that foot for about 15 years before learning that the joints had crumbled from end stage osteoarthritis and needed to be surgically fused.

It is still difficult for me to cry. I put it down to being jaded. But, like many others here, I am working to recover the memories and the feelings that I had locked away from my conscious mind.

Thank you so very much for taking a risk and sharing your journey and your valuable insights, tazgore!! We are here with you and for you!!! I hope I did not veer too far off your topic!

Peace... Rosie

Thank you all for your heart pouring forth your honesty in these posts. I have some similar feelings and experiences that resonate with me.

In my experience, when I look back at the why didn't I tell issues that traumatized me:

Sometimes, I had no idea what I really felt, what was real or not, I was brought up in such a hush, hush pretend things aren't really a problem enabling in denial world.

Sometimes, I felt complete shame/guilt/anxiety to even think about what happened, so I tried to numb myself/dissociate/put things out of my mind with food, sleep, marijuana use.

Sometimes, I knew something was hurting me and I could not find a person to trust to open up to. Still, to this day, even paying counselors, I only release little bit of the story to them, and I never seem to get to the "core of the onion layers" ....that is how my trust issues have stopped me from revealing the traumas.

Sometimes, I was punished or shamed by my parents for crying, for asking for my needs, or blamed for what someone else did to me, so I think I learned that unless I wanted to take a risk on having the blame turned around on me, silence and unfortunately sneaking and lying or acting out to express myself or get a need met was the mode that I operated in for many years.

Sometimes, my parents made me feel bad for feeling good. When I was happy and singing, telling me to be quiet, I am too loud. When I am playing and energetic to tell me to sit still and stop moving. So, when I was feeling confused, sad, hurt .....how can I talk to my parents about these unacceptable feelings, when they can't even accept me when I am feeling in a happy mood?

Last of all that I am thinking at the moment, I did tell my mother that my father was sexually inappropriate with my friend at age 12, and she didn't believe me, blamed me for trying to cause trouble, and rejected me, and labeled me "the identified mental patient of the family" for the rest of my life. I did tell her that a priest was withholding money from me for my pay as a church organist, and she told me that there was nothing I could do about it, to keep giving service and forego the pay I was supposed to get for the job, because I was not a grown up, and the other organists at the church that did get paid really needed the $5 a week. I did tell her when an uncle was sexually inappropriate with me, and she told me he had been that way with her, too...and that he really was not that bad of a guy....and then she constantly tried to invite me to be around him and expose me to him again, instead of speak up and protect me from him. So, when my first boyfriend was verbally and physically assaulting me for breaking up and refusing to have sex with him as a teenager, I KNEW not to turn to my mother. I could not reveal to her that I was sexually active, nor that someone was hurting me....she had many times over proven herself not someone who would step up to the plate to protect me. Consequently, I had fought off that boyfriend one day, and I kicked him in the crotch to get him off of me and scratched him, and then HE RAN TO MY MOTHER AND TOLD ON ME for hurting him, and I got grounded for being violent to my ex-boyfriend at age 17. My mother never asked me if I kicked him in the crotch, and scratched him, or why I did this, or what is going on here, or what is wrong? (SHE REALLY DIDN"T WANT TO KNOW, DID SHE?" She just punished me blindly, believing that I was just looking for attention or asking for trouble ever since I told her about my father being sexually inappropriate with my 12 year old neighbor/friend.

Once children find the courage to speak up about something, and the result is less than they had hoped for, it becomes harder and harder in succeeding times for them to know their truth, to speak their truth and to be validated by a healthy, helpful human being. It becomes harder and harder to trust.

This then becomes our habit, I think, holding in the hurts, turning anger inward, seeing ourselves as the problem, feeling hopeless, helpless.

These are just some of my experiences that I relate to in reading all of your posts here.

Thank you for sharing and jarring the memories out of my mind and body and into an honest, healing conversation with others who understand and are seeking a healing journey, too.

Congratulations. It sounds like you had a great breakthrough and that you are working with someone that is a good fit for you and you must trust her a lot to be able to do the work you are doing. That takes courage so be proud of yourself as well.

My family were the perpetrators of my abuse as well as a cult they were part of. I was taught early on, while being abused, that if I made a noise, cried, screamed, anything, that I would be in worse pain than I already was. And I learned that lesson very well. I had to learn to distance myself from what was happening to me and by doing that I survived. But, I didn't know I was doing that nor did I remember doing that, and now holding in my feelings is holding me back from healing I think. Sometimes I still disassociate and it is such a lifelong pattern for me, that so far I've not been able to let go and sob or get angry or anything. I have gotten a bit weepy, which I never did before, so I guess that's progress.

I like the way you put it - "Deal with it and move on." I think this sentence could apply to other areas in my life.