Will keep this short and sweet.
34 year old dude here. From 13-21 grew up in a home filled with pain/alcoholism/projecting/emotional abuse etc. It really messed with my adolescent brain causing all types of troubles from feeling on edge, like somethings wrong, like I’m not enough, I have to fix everything – that linger today.
Lost myself through this and just lived an unhealthy young adult life between 21-29. I wasn’t being authentic. I put on a mask. Partying, alcohol, drugs. Hanged round places I didn’t enjoy because I didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t go after what I wanted to do. But I realised none of this is really real. These aren’t my friends. Yadda yadda.
I’ve seriously put my head down in my later years in life and got away from my toxic enviroments, anyone who caused me pain, moved city and such. I’ve made a way better life for myself, I have felt so much growth and I continue to work on this. Hence making this post.
One thing thats major for me now is just forgiving my younger self, he was so vulnerable and had no idea he had to become an adult at 13, he shouldn’t of seen the things he did, he shouldn’t of had to be waking up at 3am frequently on school nights as someones burst in his room and hes got to catch school bus at 7am. He was such a happy funny boy that had great friends but his home enviroments crushed him that lead to him changing outside of home which affected everything.
I said it’d be short so I’ll just leave it there as I’ve gone on
TLDR:
My day to day life is good, I have so much to be grateful for, yet this pain from the past is just there lingering daily which brings me back to that child.
How do you let go of all this? Forgive yourself? Love yourself? Build yourself back up?
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the people who did it are dead
I win
I only hang out with nice people and focus on the now.
You have to do recovery work for yourself. It’s not something that will resolve itself just because you moved out.
When you are raised in dysfunction, you learn maladaptive coping skills that are rooted in survival. To be able to heal, forgive and move on, you will need to work with a counselor to process through your emotions and through everything you witnessed and learned, so you can create a new path forward.
I decided to forgive them, and not speak to them anymore. Forgive, not forget. I like my life and they aren’t entitled to have any power over it.
I grew up in a similar environment and felt a lot of anger towards my younger self in my early 20s when I left the toxic place I grew up in.
I handled things the best I could at the time but was still disappointed in myself for not being able to do more until I cut out the people in my life that caused me pain.
I was asked a question once if you were to meet your younger self how would you react?
In the past, I said I would punch me.
Ten years later after being asked that question I would give them a hug and tell them things worked out.
Went through therapy and dealt with the trauma and dysfunctional nervous system that background leaves you with. One particular modality called IFS (Internal Family Systems) proved to be quite useful in breaking free of exactly what you describe. The self-loathing, the self-blame, the hurting younger parts, etc. It’s a modality that allows you to re-parent yourself in a way, helping you to directly address those parts of yourself that were left damaged or acting out.
Never forget, never forgive.
Play nice for inheritance sake.
Keep quality people in your life and keep drama to a minimum.
This is my experience anyway, time heals, but never forget.
Therapy.
Mine never went away.
Parentified child with traumatic childhood. I used Internal family systems, CBT, meditation and and a lot of therapy. Still healing.
I realized the only person hanging onto the pain was me. The only person it was affecting was me. The only person bitter, angry, and sad was me.
Took me a year to get to the point where, if I think about it, I just think, “Yeah, that was fucked.” and move on. I trained myself out of the emotional impact of the situation.
3 books & much self-reflection
Go get your authentic self back. You can do it 👊🏼
It’s more that the bad was away from me. It’s never been healed though.
I think I was 11 when I realized that my mom wasn’t normal. I kept it low ti’ll I was able to get out of the house. There was a lot of pain and crying for me as a child/teen. I tried to hide in my room most of the time, playing videogames. I still stress if I hear footsteps behind a closed door.
Took me to fight back at 17 for the physical abuse to stop. Left home at 18. Last time I spoke to her I was 21. I am now 37.
I don’t feel any sadness or have any stress since I left. The only emotion I have when I think about the situation is hatred for her, but it doesn’t impact me in anyway of form in my life. I don’t need healing since I wasn’t broken… i was 100% clearminded and knew the whole time that I needed to leave. I think I was lucky that my escapism was mmo’s… kept me away from drugs and gave me rl friends.
I live a happy life and have been with my gf for 18 years I travel the world, have close friends… The fact that all the family left her and have no contact with her makes me happy. She’ll die alone like the trash she is. I’m not forgiving anything, they don’t deserve it and I’m happier.
Don’t gaslight yourself into forgiving the unforgiveable.
I’m working on it. Big thing I’ve been learning from my current therapist is giving space for the feelings I compartmentalize and push away, appreciating that they at one point were helping me survive. Then I take time to talk to the residual child in me that I kept locked away to protect and remind him he’s safe and I’m now here to care for him, he doesn’t need to be his own caretaker anymore.
Well…. Resentment is a powerful drug, I tell ya! Fueled my destructive 20s as well! I remember having a deep conversation with a friend and I explained how I needed to hold people accountable, how I needed apologies – I was so angry. And she asked me a really important question: “would it change anything”? No, no it wouldn’t.
I realized I was only actually holding myself back. The resentment and guilt I carried, caused by others, was holding me back. Causing me pain and I wouldn’t let it go. So I started letting it go. I realized I wouldn’t get that apologize, or that my wish to get that time back would come true. I had to resolve that my life is my own now and that I can control how people who affected my life so starkly back then, would influence my life going forward.
Easy, you only get one momma, live and let live. We’re all gonna be dead soon just let it go and make the best of what little time you have.
Focus on the present and enjoy every second of it
I avoid people
I used to carry that pain like a weapon, hoping life would give me justice. Eventually, I let go and left it to something greater. Call it God, karma, the universe… Whatever. Over time, I saw that I became everything they weren’t.
But forgiving my younger self? That took longer. I had to realize he did the best he could with the chaos around him. He survived. He got me here. I would not be who I am now without the hard times I had to get through. Some of the traits I value most in myself today were forged in that fire. My absolute pinnacle of non-conformity. My obsessive, mad love for truth and justice. The “my word is my law” approach. The ability to just be with myself in silence; comfort in solitude…
And more.
You will likely have to spend a lot of time and energy understanding what you experienced, how it affects you now, and what a path forward looks like. It will not happen quickly, it won’t come from reading a book or from a few therapy sessions. It may take years of diligent, self examination, and lots of work learning to comfort that child inside you.
It is very possible to learn, to grow, and to heal. But the idea that we could quickly or easily undo many years of harm quickly doesn’t wash.
I went no contact. They are old and they will die soon. Sooner the better. If it’s slow and painful, that’s fine too.
I don’t think you can truly let go of it. You are a survivor and you will always remember what happened to you when you were a kid. I’m glad you are in a better place in life. Good job man.
Meditation, counseling (haven’t been to therapy yet but basically read a ton of books by therapists), a whole lot of sitting with the pain and re parenting my wounded inner child, a whole lot of work on my codependent dysfunction and anxious attachment pattern. And psilocybin. And time.
There’s a lot of long stories behind that curt summary.
I’m not condoning the use, but psychedelic drugs have helped me heal from past trauma. Ghosts from the past still occasionally haunt me, and pop up every now and then in the form of mild paranoia or fear of abandonment in romantic relationships/friendships.
I got some therapy, which helped. I don’t think I fully understood how messed up I was. I had periods of not being depressed but it always came back.
The situation still gets me down. I’ve got two kids and I’m trying to do the best I can for them. My father is still alive and now suffering from dementia, I saw my grandma go through that and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even him.
It’s so fucked though, it’s like the whole family is waiting for him to die. He gets no sympathy because of what a bastard he was to everyone, But now… It’s just sad. No friends, no life, his family don’t like him. He sends messages to the family group chat but it’s just pointless shit about what’s on the TV later,. nobody cares.
I’m definitely not fully healed. Whenever I see threads like this I need a vent and it brings a lot of it back.
All experience in life is training. Every adversity makes you stronger and smarter if you’re willing to examine yourself and grow through the experience. What people “did to me” was almost always projection on their part. When it wasn’t projection, it was my reflection staring back, begging me to see what needed to change within.
Therapy, EMDR
Have you tried ACoA meetings? I’ve found them very helpful
Work, lots of work. I started with a 12 step program called adult children of alcoholics. That gave me a lot of understanding of the reasons why I was the way I was growing up in the unstable, unpredictable environment that was my childhood home.
Since then I have done lots of counselling, been a part of a men’s group for over 25 years, therapy and pretty much everything else except drugs.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, EMDR, DBT.
The therapy world is a funny one to navigate, and you have mentioned already doing therapy, but I would say that psychodynamic therapy specifically over CBT bc you can’t reframe your thoughts out of childhood abuse/neglect. CBT is a useful skill when it comes to dealing with things that happen in the day to day, but it is not going to transform your inner world. DBT is useful if you’re struggling with emotional regulation to begin with. and EMDR is helpful for re-experiencing the traumas in a way that is more direct to your emotions than plain ol talk therapy.
The purpose of psychodynamic therapy is to repeat the emotions and relational patterns you have in therapy with a therapist. Personality transformation works through the process called transference. It is effective provided that you: trust the therapist enough to tell them how you feel about them (takes time), have an agreed upon set of goals, and agree with the methods on how to achieve those goals—in the therapy world this is called the therapeutic alliance.
I cannot emphasize this enough though. Doing worksheets, trying to self improve, reading books… those can only get you so far compared to having a therapeutic relationship with a therapist.
Therapy, lots and lots of therapy. It’s hard fucking work but it’s worth it.