How does one move on?

I'd never taken the time to think and process all that happen to me and all that I witnessed in my life. At the time I could only survive and keep on living, I didn't have the time or the emotional/psichological capacity to deal with things.

Truth is, I never thougth I was "abused", I never admited something had happen TO ME. I always undervalued my suffering, my feelings, because I've seen so much suffering in other's lives.

Today I realise that I was abused aswell. I realise that all the abuse i witnessed was also "abusive" to me, if afected me and it haunts me today.

So, what were the "bad things" that happened to me?

- My father died when I was 8 with lung cancer
- My family broke apart
- My brother couldn't deal with it and went missing for 3 years when I was 10 (lost himself on drugs)
- When I was 12/13 my mother started dating my uncle J (my father's older brother) and he started psychologically abusing and manipulating her
- When I was 13 my mother told me my brother was in a mental institution (he had been there for a year): he has schizofrenia
- When I was 13 my uncle J showed me the first signs of sexual interest in me
- When I was 14/15 I witnessed my uncle George physically abusing my aunt Stela, on several ocasions.
- By the same time I witnessed my aunt Stela threatning to commit suicide several times and in various ways.
- My aunt Stela also had spontaneous abortions on 5 ocasions, due to my uncle's abuse.
- She is and has been since I've known her a prostitute. She tried to get out, but my uncle George is a low class pimp.
- When I was 15 me and my mother moved to my uncle J's home and to another town, where I knew no one and had no way of contacting the world i'd left behind (no cell, no internet, no phone at home)
- I left my close family and friends behind + karate, scouting and Church (uncle J is atheist) --> the things that sustained "my world" at that time.
My mother quit her job and went to the family business, making her more co-dependent.
- A month after being there I decided to "go for a walk" on my hometown. The next day my mother lured me into the house and my uncle welcomed home with pure brutallity.
- Weeks/maybe a month later, my uncle J inexpectedly came home at work hours and "made me a sexual proposition".
I lived 1 year and half at my uncle J's. alert and afraid for my physical well-beying, but mostly, afraid of being sexually abused.
I now realise this was psychologically abusive itself. He constantly gave me hints and to his interest and would give it a try or 2 at inapropriate touches. Fortunatelly he never rapped me or really abused me.
- My mother finally decided to move out and we got a new home there. My uncle J fired my mother (family business).
- We moved back because we couldn't afford the house and my mother couldn't get a job there.
- From 15 to 20 I was in a serious relationship, through all of this. I got engaged at age 19. Didn't work out. He was a narcissist and turned out to be a phsyclogical abuser. I was a selfish Sex Addict and ended up behaving agressivelly to him 4 times (punch, almost smashing his pc, push, kick - "the 4 ocasions").

There are more stuff, but these are the main ones.

I am now 21 years old.
I feel like only now I have "the time" to deal with this. And I don't know how to.
All my life has been about adapting myself to situations, about keeping myself and others safe.
I lost myself in the middle of all this.
I don't know what to do, now that there is "nothing" to adapt to, now that I am free and autonomous, now that I'm expected to be an adult and step up. I'm afraid of growing up, and I don't know why.

My therapist says I'm resilient, says I could have turned out much more violent. What good does it do?

I always took proud on having my principles, of keeping clean and "sober" (minus the SA), through all the environments I've been in, through all of that I've been exposed to.
I always saw everything has an oportunity of learning with other's mistakes and keeping myself on the right tracks.

Bruth truth is I wish I never have witnessed those things. More than that, I wish they had never happened!
I'm certain I'd have other life lessons.

For the past week, flashes of my aunt threatning to kill herself run through my mind everyday.

I didn't save her. As I didn't/couldn't save my brother, as I couldn't save my father.
Or that friend with the depression, or that friend with congenit heart problems who died at 15, or that friend who cut herself and at 15 got pregnant from a physical abusive boyfriend, or that friend who shot herself in the head and left a baby without a mother.

I know there is a lot of suffering in the world. I wish I hadn't witnessed so much of it and in the lives of the people I love.


Now that the dust has settled down. I wanna know (because I DO NOT), how does one move on? how do I move on?

I feel trapped in all these memories, in all the things I never delt with.
In my head there's caos and confusion. There are a thousand emotions "never felt" and now it's like I'm stuck here, like I can't evolve, like I can't go trough with my life because my past keeps holding me down, like I can't go on untill I drop the weight of my past.


thank you for taking the time to read this.

Hi there. I have quite a list too but I wont share it here.
You are doing the very best thing to move on. Your in Therapy. It takes time. Thats a good thing because you really need to sort out each individual instance that impacted you. I did this- it took me 5 years of full time therapy. It was the best investment I ever gave myself, and I have come out of it a whole new person. I see things clearly, I understand others and I have no fear or shame any more.
You can do the same, that resilience your T spoke of is what is going to make that happen.
Hang in there! You are worth all the work and the benefits will last a life time.
With Hope,
One

Hi!
It takes time to move on..maybe years..The first good thing is that you are in therapy..which is something good for you. It is the first step..And then it really depends on you and how much you really want to be happy again..and I am sure..you really want it..