Coping with Childhood Memories

Hello there!
I wasn't sure where put this thread but I thought it would fit quite well here.
I've been wondering about things that happened in my childhood for quite a long time but I kept brushing it off since I know that there a million people who have experienced far worse things as children than I ever did. Anyway, I lately figured that no matter how marginal and harmless those things might seem to some people, I wouldn't get past them without some kind of confrontation. I haven't been living home for about a year now(I'm 19) but those memories still nag at me. So, I think it might beabout time to try and do something.
So, now I'm looking for some kind of help, advice or encouragement on how to keep progressing with this topic.
First, I'll give you a short summary of what my story is:
Basically, there are two parts to my story. The first one reaches very far back to a time when I was probably around 4-7. I have very little memories of those years, I do not even remember my first day at school, but there's this dream that keeps coming back to me. It is about my father taking me by my shoulders, shaking me hard and pushing me all the way backwards through our bathroom until he couldn't push me any further. Then he left, locked the door and turned out the light. Outside, I could hear my mother yelling at him that he couldn't do this to me and had to get me out of there asap and apologize. Then a couple of minutes later he would come in, let me out and say that he didn't want to harm me.
I have no idea whether or not this really happened or if it's just a dream. But it keeps and keeps coming back to me. I know that there's probably no other way to find out than asking my father himself but I feel so bad for hurting him like this. After all, I don't know if it's true. It could very well be as there have been other incidents from when I was older where he locked my door so I couldn't get out, made me study until I got everything right before I would get something to eat.
But I cannot say that I remember that I was hurt very much by it at that time, it's only now that I feel that somewhere deep down, it hurts. And it nags at me that I can't seem to allow myself to be hurt by it, because so many, so much worse things could have happened to me and I should probably rather be grateful for the relatively nice childhood that I had.

Second part of my story is about the relationship of my mother and my father. Since I can remember they have been fighting. While they certainly both of them were responsible for the fights to start(at least for the majority of times), they almost always ended up the same. My father started yelling at my mother, threw bad words at her and left the room, slamming the door. She was always the one who ran after him, trying to convince him to stay, talk to her and solve the problem, but he wouldn’t talk to her until he thought that “the time was right”. Although he never physically hurt her, I know she’s been hurt so badly mentally. I remember the days when she sat there crying, when she told me how she wondered why she always continued in this relationship, when she asked me what I thought about my father’s behaviour and if I thought that she should stay(or other times she just said she would leave and never come back again), how she was still remembering her “true love” and how afraid she was of being alone. In the end, she always stayed. Though my father once was determined to leave but then didn’t do so, because he didn’t have the money.
Besides all of this, there were so many good days, so many nice things my father and my mother did with me, so many things I couldn’t have done without them.
So basically there’s three things I can’t seem to deal with:
1. the situation and the memories themselves, as I feel that somewhere deep down they have thrown me off, my ability to trust people that they won’t hurt me purposely
2. the ability to allow myself to feel hurt because I know there are so many worse things that could have been
3. the memories of the good days make me think that I should just focus on those and convince myself that the rest just wasn’t as harmful as I think

This has become quite a long post, but I just had to get it off my chest. Thanks for taking some time and reading it. I very much appreciate any thoughts, advices or encouragement.

- Aglaya

Hi, Aglaya! It's ok to feel this way, even though others go through "worse" things. The truth is that if something hurts you, then it hurts you and you have every right to feel the way you do. It sounds like your dad was verbally, emotionally and maybe a bit physically abusive towards you and your mom. Locking you in the bathroom or in your room or keeping you from eating wasn't right.
It could be that you need him to explain why he hurt you and to tell you that he shouldn't have done it and that your feelings matter. When someone yells at you or just leaves or locks you in a room instead of talking to you to work things out, it feels like your emotions are being ignored, I think. You could ask him why he did all that and ask him to say he's sorry, but it's possible that you won't get him to understand completly. You could also write about your feelings here and/or talk to a therapist. It's good to get things off your chest.

Hello there,

I too have been on a wild ghost chase ever since I left home at 19 (I'm 20 now). It was very hard for me to accept what had happened to me, but in the end it wasn't my fault, I'm not the one who did this to me and I don't have to feel hurt for remembering this. They keep haunting me every time I hit a obstacle or have to put some efforts into something. I've become pretty much indifferent to them, but I am annoyed that my brain put so much effort into constantly feeding this monster. The past is the past and it should remain there, good or bad. The past is a tool, what's really important is the present and the future.

I'd say talking/writing about is a first step in the right direction, but be careful because as you grow indifferent to them it's also easy to quickly sink into self-pity. At some point you just have to downright ignore them and move on as if they never existed.

Also, I'll be wary of your current relationship with your parents. I don't know what kind of feelings you have for them, but they sound like toxic people. You might want to consider limiting communications with them as much as possible and perhaps even cutting all contact at some point. They are better people out there with whom you could have a much more meaningful relationship with and whom could help yourself into maturing into an adult.

Good luck and don't give up

First of all, thank you very much for your answers! Very much appreciated them!

I've been playing with the thought of confronting my parents with all of this, the situations that hurt me. I even made a list of situations to remind them of.
But I'm pretty much lost when it comes to how to stir up a conversation like that. I guess I'm way to shy and just not at all used to expressing my emotions in front of other people(especially not my parents).
Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to have separate conversations with my mom and my dad, since I fear if it's the three of us it'll come down to be all about them just one more time.
But I do fear their reaction, I really do. I'm not concerned that they're gonna hurt me, at least not phsically, but I just feel like I have no right to hurt them and I know that I will if I stir all this old stuff up again. I believe that they just have no idea how much they really hurt me and how much I still have to deal with this.
As for my mom, I fear that she'll break down in tears(she's been dealing wth burn-out and depression for quite some time now and is choken up easily), tell me that she never meant to do any harm to me(which I actually believe could be true) and that my dad is the bad guy. She's one of those person who like to emphasize that they never hit their children in order to justify the way they act in front of them, talk to them. She's been repeating this phrase, and I've constantly tried to remind her how much words, slammed doors, yelling ad the following silence can really hurt. My gut feeling tells me that deep down she's aware that something went terribly wrong and that it did affect me, but that she brushes it off, jus as I used to.
Concerning my dad, I fear that he really has no idea how lasting the consequence of those situations are for me. I'm afraid he's gonna feel insulted, this will lead him to just shut down and not talk anymore. Then I'll try to make him talk to me, but when he decides to punish you with silence iit's like talking to a wall. That often makes me feel so helpless and desperate that I'll start to cry, worst is that he won't even notice those tears(or he ignores them). He never did, neither with me nor with my mom.

I know it's probably unfair to believe that I already know how such a conersation will turn out but I'm just so afraid. Afraid to hurt them with words that I say.
Do yu think a conversation would really be helpful? Or should I better just try to work things out myself? It's just that I don't feel that I've been very successful with the latter.

Thanks in advance for more advices and for just listening,

Aglaya

Aglaya, you probably have a pretty good idea about how they'll react. The truth is that you might have to deal with this yourself. You're looking for emotional validation from them, you want to hear that your feelings matter, but some people just can't give that. It might help to confront them, as it could help you to accept the truth, but if they will react the way you think they will, it could also hurt you and stress you out a lot.
How about writing what you want to tell them in a letter and reading it when you feel like venting, or writing more?