Don’t read this if reading about childhood abuse makes you sick or upset.
This is a rant that I think others who have a MIL or Mother that “has never done anything wrong” may find interesting.
So, I have a bunch of autoimmune disorders that cause fun things like my legs just not working or me passing out etc. They are being managed by my neurologist & immunologist mainly.
In my medical record it does state my abuse history and resulting C-PTSD.
Anyway, seeing this along with my laundry list of health issues despite a healthy lifestyle, they wanted me to go back to therapy to see if I could improve my stress tolerance with a view to improving the autoimmune disorders.
New therapist is a Clinical Psychologist, lots of accolades, has done summits at the White House in the USA (I’m Aussie) and basically deals with the cases you see in documentaries. I’m seeing him under “Victims Services” which is a service where I’m from where basically if you’re the victim of a crime and you have proof to back it up you can access counselling from experts and the government pays for it. You don’t need the perpetrator(s) to have been convincted.
First appointment yesterday is just doing the dot points of what my trauma is so we can formulate a plan as to treatment.
• My mother physically abused me to the point of whipping and broken bones
• was not allowed to go to school if I had an welts or bruises
• she had my 5 siblings engage in the abuse as well, and although she never hit them, they are all traumatised from what they were made to do to me
• My mother had 3 of my brothers sexually abuse me, earliest memory I have of which was when I was 3 years old
• My mother and one of my brothers would choke me until I passed out or drowned me in the bathtub until I passed out, sometimes with scalding hot water in the tub. She’d also held a knife to my throat one time.
• constantly remarked that I am hideous because she is indigenous and my father is white so she was hoping for perfect little “half-caste” babies with caramel skin and blue eyes and curly hair. Unfortunately for her I ended up looking as white as the day is long.
A lot of other “minor” things like my birthday not being celebrated whilst my siblings’ birthdays were, me being blamed for things my siblings did as an excuse to hurt me further, getting beaten for crying about…having been beaten…because I was implying she was a bad mother (lady, you are?!?).
Now, this, to me, was awful, obviously. I would never even raise my voice to a child let alone this evil stuff but…it was normal. This was my normal. I never knew anything else and I genuinely believed I deserved it because my 5 siblings were in on it and they weren’t being treated this way so…6 people can’t be wrong? Right? I must be defective. Then you go to school, you’re a bit too quiet and engrossed in the schoolwork as a distraction from reality and you get relentless bullying from the other children and sometimes even the adults.
Therapist says “this is one of the worst abuse cases I’ve ever even heard of and I deal with the worst of the worst. Have none of these people been convincted of any of these crimes?” Nope. “These are horrendous criminal acts and whilst I’m certainly not a physical health doctor and have no expertise in that area I can see why your specialists believe this has caused and is contributing to your ongoing health issues.” I just nod. “You come across remarkably normal and have done extremely well to achieve what you have already.”
I was told previously by another therapist, she was a Clinical Social Worker also with a PhD, that I should write a book about my childhood as I come across “incredibly normal” despite everything and others may find it inspiring and mental health professionals would find it interesting. I stopped seeing her because any time we’d go into details she would start crying and I can’t deal with that. She was lovely though.
My mother, to this day, genuinely believes she has done nothing wrong. She accused my sister and father of poisoning me against her as this is the only reason I would have stopped talking to her for the past 10 years. When I have brought up any of the abuse with her in the past her responses were:
• “well, it takes 2 to tango OP” (regarding the sexual abuse)
• “hahahah I know that was so crazy, wasn’t it!” (about the time she broke something over my spine that she was beating me with and I couldn’t shower or lay on my back for 3 weeks after)
• “I never said that.”
• “I never did that.”
• “Well, you were a weird kid.”
• “Well, I was unhappy in my marriage with your father so I had to take it out on you or I would have ended up divorced again.” (She said this after she cheated on my Dad and left him for another man she is currently married to btw).
• “Oh, well I’m just such a terrible mother then aren’t I?!?!” (Yes, you are)
• “Get over it.”
• “People have been through worse.”
• “You turned out fine” (in spite of, not because of, thank you very much)
My siblings deal with it all in different ways, some refuse to interact with me as I am a reminder of the abuse and what they did to me. They have told me as much. They just can’t deal with looking at me. Fair enough.
My sister has gone to therapy and apologised for her part in it.
One brother told me to “fuck off” when I asked for an “I’m sorry” when he demanded we all get back in contact and be a family again. I didn’t even ask him to talk about the abuse, he didn’t have to say what he did. I just wanted a sorry. That was it. This was the brother that was drowning and choking me with my Mum btw, so the worst of the siblings.
I cut my mother off when she asked me to have a baby and give it to her so she could “get it right this time.” Her theory, I kid you not, was that “Well…I obviously went too far with you…but I didn’t even hit or yell at >younger sibling’s name< and he doesn't talk to me either. So I think if I just do somewhere in the middle, I can get it right." So...just abuse the child...a little bit? "Yeah, I think I just did the two extremes and it needs to be somewhere more in the middle." I lost my mind, as you can imagine. Planning to abuse a baby that doesn't even exist yet.
So, that’s the tale of my abuse and how my mother thinks she is still in the right for doing it all. It’s also the beginning of another round of treatment to see if I can feel better and have the life I want with my partner and our future children.
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That’s unbelievably heavy and I’m so sorry you had to go through any of it. The fact that you’re still standing, still fighting for healing, says so much about your strength. You deserved so much better and I really hope this new therapist helps you get closer to the peace you’ve been fighting for.