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Was I emotionally abused? HELP

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Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby BABVeronica » Tue May 28, 2019 3:24 pm

Hi, I have a favor to ask you. I am 19 years old girl and I am currently in lot of pain. I am mentally ill a lot. I suffer from depression, anxiety, self-harming, suicidal thoughts, social phobia and mainly from conversion disorder which caused me to be restricted to bed rest for two years now. Please, would you be so kind and read my life story and give me your opinion if I was emotionally abused or not? When I talked to my therapist, she told I wasn’t, so I am very lost right now.

My parents divorced when I was 4 years old and since then I was raised by my grandmother. My mother is a nurse and throughout my childhood we haven’t spent much time together because she was always very busy. So, my grandmother became more like a mother a to me.

During my sessions in therapy I realized that my problems are connected to my childhood, mainly to my grandma. Our relationship wasn’t always good, but that was because I thought it was my fault that she was hurting me. I believed I was stupid and I felt hurt only because I’m just hypersensitive.

Now I am trying to remember everything she has ever done to me. I am in a lot of pain, when all these thigs are coming back to me, these flashbacks I feel like I have PTSD or something.
I think that her mean behavior started when I was five or six, around the age kids go to school. My grandmother is a very performance goal-oriented person. So, she wanted me to basically study all the time, 5 to 6 hours a day and she always wanted perfect results from me.

I remember the first time when I was learning to read and write, she was already yelling at me, how can I make so many mistakes. I had to study until there were no mistakes, and I need to know everything before we would learn it even at school. It was just too much for me… When I had enough and wanted to rest, she would be calling me names like moron, brat, lazy and what an ungrateful, spoiled child I am. She would exploit my love for my mother into convincing me that I needed to learn so much. She said horrible things like: „Your mom is suffering because of you, “ „Something bad is going to happen to your mom if you’re not going to have good results”. She would threaten me that if I wasn’t going to listen to her, she would stop helping my mom (financially, looking after me, doing housework and so on…) Even when I was obeying her and diligently studying, she would burst out on me, how can I be so incredibly dumb, and how many times does she need it to ######6 explain it to me. Perfect grades weren’t enough I had to participate in singing and writing competitions etc. She would tell me, that the price would help my mom and somehow, I believed it. She was always compering me to other people like my sister, my cousin, my classmates and herself, telling me to try ######6 harder because they’re better than me. This was happening all the time…

She would also threaten me to beat me up, punch me but she usually didn’t act on it. There were some incidents, when she would be dragging me on the ground, holding me to tightly, pulling my arm or she would maybe lightly slap me on the head, but never nothing serious! Never! But she was very aggressive, she would for example punch the table, wall, throw my schoolbooks at me and often bang doors loudly. Sometimes when she wasn’t able to scare me, and I was still resisting her, she would start crying, telling me that she’s about to pass out, that her head was spinning and everything was hurting her. She was telling me things like: “How can you do this to me?” “You are going to kill me.” “How can you be so cruel to me, when I am so nice?” She would play the victim and she has always won like that, the guilt eaten me up. Oftentimes she started acting like a child. She was screaming, stomping, making faces, spitting out angrily, making exaggerated gestures. She would be making fun of me by impersonating me.

When it started, I told my mom about it, but it only became worse, grandma denied everything. She told me that I am just a crybaby who makes things up. Her behavior would get even worse after that. She was punishing me for telling on her, for as she said I was only worrying my mother, bothering her. She banned me telling her things. After trying few times, I gave up. Every time I was about to cry or started crying, she would either say: “Why are you crying, do you want me to give you a reason to cry?” “What kind of games are you playing” or she would show affection to me, but also told me things like I’m doing this to help you, broadly speaking: “I’m sorry but it’s all your fault.”

After 5 years of this I kind of gave up, I decided to become good daughter and stopped completely getting on her nerves. After 5th grade she stopped teaching me, because she wasn’t able to keep up with the schoolwork… So instead she became my supervisor. Constantly guarding if I am learning. She would ether sit in the same room watching me or she was peeking at me through keyhole. She would spontaneously rush to my room, open violently door and scream at me, if I am learning or the opposite she would be sneaking behind my back and then start screaming into my ear. It may sound kind of funny, but I always got so scared. I had a panic attack one time because of this. If she caught me doing something else, like watching videos, she would of course yell that I need to study, but if she caught me studying, she would tell that I am overworking myself and should rest or that I should do something else like play my guitar or clean. I was always doing something wrong.

She was getting scolded because of little insignificant things (at least that’s how I see it now, back then I thought I was just terrible daughter). She would scream at me and curse when I closed the door to loudly, walked to loudly, forgot to turn off the lights, according to her wasted to much stuff or didn’t clean after myself. And even if I did clean, she would yell that I did it wrong. She was able to yell from morning to evening, all the time, name calling me how incapable, stupid and useless I am. She said thig like that “even a table or celling is more capable to listen to her than me”. From the moment I woke up she would already be criticizing me. I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time, I tried my best not to do anything, be good and useful but she would always find something.

This behavior would last couple of days, but sometimes she was actually in a good mood and acted nicely. Every time it happened, I thought to myself: “Wow, I guess I am really the bad guy here. I am sorry grandma, I will try to be better.” Sometimes she was ignoring me, I guess. All day she was making those blaming faces, those looks… like I did something terrible, when I asked her about it, she would either not answer at all or tell me than she isn’t angry. She was always banging doors when leaving the room, moving things loudly and violently… It’s hard to explain, it was passive aggressive behavior, I guess? She would also use sarcasm a lot. She would insist on something and the other day say, that she doesn‘t care about it, that it’s not for her but for me and I can do whatever I want.

I could never satisfy her. I feel like I have always listened to her, but she still punished me and said mean thigs to me. She wanted me to be this perfect, overworking, goal-oriented monster, and when I became one, she criticized me for it, saying things like: “How can you be such a perfectionist?” “Why is school so important to you?” “Why is your self-esteem so low?”
In front of others she would change her behavior. She would be praising me how good I am, skillful and obeying.

I thought that this was emotional abuse, but when I talked to my therapist (I had 3 so far, and they all basically told me the same). That it’s not and emotional abuse, my grandma did some mistakes, and wasn’t acting very good, but other people had it much worse than me, also that I am very sensitive person and that, I was very well taken care of, my basic needs were fulfilled.

I was telling myself this my whole life so I can’t disagree with her. I do remember her acting also good to me, when I was sick and things like that… when I was doing good at school, she would be praising me… She was also with certain things overprotective of like doing sports, to not get hurt. But I just don’t understand why I’m so mentally sick right now, If it’s not an abuse. Also my conversion disorder is getting better, after realizing that the cause is from my grandma.
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Re: Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby TheGangsAllHere » Tue May 28, 2019 7:05 pm

What you are describing is absolutely and without question emotional abuse, and while you might not remember "mean behavior" prior to the age of 5 or 6, it's unlikely that it only started then.

Either you have had the misfortune of choosing three VERY unhelpful therapists, or your descriptions to them were not as detailed and clear as they were in your post. It is clear from your symptoms that your childhood was very traumatic, and it's not for ANYONE ELSE, least of all a therapist, to say that it wasn't "bad enough" or to blame your reaction on oversensitivity.

If you still have a current therapist, I would give them the benefit of the doubt by printing out your post for them to read. If, after that, they still invalidate your experience and maintain that this was not traumatic and very damaging to you, then I think you need to find a therapist who is experienced in early childhood trauma and can give you the support and help that you need.
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Re: Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby BABVeronica » Tue May 28, 2019 8:59 pm

TheGangsAllHere wrote:What you are describing is absolutely and without question emotional abuse

Thank you so much for your positive comment. It means a lot to me, to hear those words. I thought I told her everything but I will definitely try your advice. I am really grateful, that you read my long post and replied.
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Re: Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby RenAmamiya » Fri May 31, 2019 4:16 am

You had been abused badly, no doubt about that. You are just confused, because she is your guardian of all people. This is quite normal for most victims.

This video will open your eye. Not my video, but I think it will be very helpful. (Signs of abuse)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMDJkWl7E2A

The best way to solve this problem is to tell the therapist about your problems above. Like being said, you better copy paste your post above into a text program, print it on paper and then show to therapist. Probably you have the problem to tell your therapist since you're not sure whether you are being abused.

Please stay away from the abuser or anyone who tries to do bad things like being mentioned in the video above. Not just your grandmother, but also friends, that is if your friend did bad things to you.

The problem with being abused since you was little, is it will take years of time to fully recover.
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Re: Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby BABVeronica » Fri May 31, 2019 2:02 pm

I talked to my therapist and she agreed I was abused. It can be quite common, that mothers want their children to be very successful, get good grades and things like that… I don't agree with the pressure they put on their kids, but I understand why someone could think it’s normal, like my therapist. The reason why I believe now that it was abuse, is because that she was still very mean to me even though I've gotten good grades. I had stray A all my life, I was always best in my class and I won so many competitions… I had so many other school activities where I exceled… Person can always be more successful, but I just still don’t get what more could she want from me… I always did what she asked for in hopes of making her happy.
So, she may seem kind of like caring mother in some cultures, but she just wanted to yell at me. I really don’t think it’s normal to act like that to someone, just because he closed door to loudly… She was just looking for reasons to yell at me… Now I can see that and it’s ridiculous. Thank you so much for your kind answers, it helped me a lot.
I just wanted to know the truth, just the fact that what she was doing to me is simply not my fault, and her behavior is not okay is very healing to me. It will take a lot of time to completely heal but I believe can do it. Once again thank you for reading my long post and replying.
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Re: Was I emotionally abused? HELP

Postby Sarandipity » Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:16 pm

When I've tried to explain thingd to people to get things across they laugh - maybe it's how I say it. I used to go without food at age 11 to buy stuff I could use when I moved out because I so much wanted to escape the house.. people think that's funny they don't grasp it.

I think you was emotionally abused.

How you are describing I was like this with my oldest son until I realised I was doing everything wrong. I would get annoyed if he didn't know his shapes at age 3. I constantly put him in time out. By 6 he knew all his times tables and would make him re-write stuff over and over if he got it wrong. If he was "naughty" I would take him to my dad and my dad would lock him in the garage in the dark.

I was seeing a therapist and I was also seeing a child psychologist because my son was abused by a family member and I reported it. I didn't realize that how I was is wrong. So I told the child psychologist. She told me I was doing it all wrong. I listened to her, I went to several parenting classes.

I have younger children and they only had the parenting skills I learnt at classes. Not the terrible parenting my son experienced in his early years.

My oldest son is completely different to my younger children. He is more anxious, can be agressive, never liked school, had "naughty" friends. He's 19 now, I have told him more than once I did loads of stuff wrong with him and i did change it once I knew it was wrong but that doesn't take away from the fact that I made alot of mistakes. He has an apprenticeship and is making a good life. I did have to put alot of extra attempts at helping him get there but I don't think early damage can be easily undone but he is trying - I was the problem and I can only help him so far. Overly trying to fix it could also be damaging because of his early experience being so intense.

My younger children are completely different. They love school, they're more happy than anything else not aggressive, they speak up for themselves respectfully, they have nice friends, even including things like they take responsibility for their own school stuff and their bedrooms - they take pride in themselves and their life.

I put this difference 100% down to how I changed my parenting. I didn't pressure the younger ones at all, I supported them, praised them, ignored negative behaviour unless it was dangerous. That's how they have the self esteem and self belief that is secure and take joy and pride in themselves. My older son doesn't have this and 100% that's his early experience. Probably he'd be worse now if I didn't change my parenting style but he still does have impact from those early experiences.

When I spoke to a educational psychologist at the school he said, off the record, that my son is like when a child is adopted - disorganized attachment. All I could do was keep doing what I was doing basically. I beat myself up about it for years until somebody said that wasn't doing my son any good so I had to let go of the guilt.

But 100% I'd say what you experienced would emotionally and psychologically effect you. I've seen the difference in my own home.

People really do not seem to grasp that emotional abuse has immense negative effects on people.

Also you're feeling better since you realised it was being caused by your grandmother so that to me is proof in it's self.
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