(NSFW HIDE FOR THE FOLLOWING TRIGGERS!: SUICIDE, SA, AND SELF HARM)
Hi, so a lil about me I guess. I’m 23F and I’m married with a beautiful 10 month old baby girl. I’m new to Reddit posting so forgive me if this is formatted weirdly.
Today I had a reflection with myself today on how far I’ve come.
I was given up when my mom had me at 38 because I was my dad’s affair baby (which got me the name ‘Devil Child (insert my real name here’) to my grandma’s meth house and I was raised there until I was 8 years old. Then I finally met my siblings (huge age gaps but my sister) and when I lived with my mom, her roommate molested me heavily. My mom is a narcissist so of course, my trauma became her trauma and I was pushed aside for my mom to “heal” and to process everything.
I began to self harm at 10 years old and it was such a hard thing to cope with especially since my mom didn’t want me so she dropped me off at friends houses to stay for months on end. I tried to commit for the first time at 12 years old. I never got help because my mom said I’d be a heroin junkie like her cousin.
Anyways, I cried hard today to myself while watching my daughter try to stand in her play pen and was laughing at her drum toy. She’s the personification of my happiness to be honest. I look at her and I pray to a god I don’t even believe in to protect her.
I know I’ll never be my mother or even remotely even resemble her but god, I get nauseous even thinking about my daughter being put in any thought pattern I had when I was so young.
I’ve been in therapy since I was 18 and I’m so happy I’ve gotten to live to see my life end up this way and to push back my mother’s narcissistic verbal abuse she’s installed in me.
This was a pretty everywhere vent but I just feel so many things today while everyone is asleep.
Thank you for reading if you stuck it out this far!
Comments
There is something healing about righting the wrongs of our childhood and ensuring that our children never have to go through what we went through.
I’m glad you’re receiving help now. No child should go through what you have. Your daughter has a strong loving mother.
I had a terrible childhood and awful examples for parents. I also remember looking at my son as a tiny baby, and thinking, “I will never do to you what was done to me.”
I put myself through some serious therapy, learned everything I could on healthy attachment, and have worked hard so that my now teenager trusts me.
If I may share the best advice a therapist ever gave me: I once told her it was my goal to be the opposite of my mother. She said goals like that become self fulfilling prophecies because of projection and how the human brain works. She said, “instead, imagine who you are as a mother. What do you want to do to be a good mother? Who do you want to be outside of opposite of your mother or different than your father? Get a clear image of that and work towards it every day.”
I have held tight to that, and I like to share it when I can. I am the mother I choose to be, and it’s hella empowering.
Good luck, sweet momma. Snuggled that baby, and give yourself a squeeze for doing better than was done to you.