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I’m ok. I’m gonna be ok. I’m gonna live a beautiful life and I’ll get to know beautiful people. I will create things of beauty and be surrounded by flowers. And I’ll love myself, and I’ll be soft, I’ll be kind. And I’ll be ok.

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How?

How do you leave your abuser behind when they are your family? How do you leave your abuser behind when they've stopped abusing you because their mental issues are now under control with medication? How do you leave your abuser behind when they are dependent on you for survival? How do you leave your abuser behind when you love them and they love you? How do you leave your abuser behind when you keep telling yourself that this relationship was/is different? How do you leave your abuser behind when your parents don't believe your medical diagnosis? When they say that you are fine? When they say that you're the normal one in the family? How do you tell them that you're not fine so they listen? How do you stop pretending to be their perfect, joyful, optimistic little girl? How do you reconcile your darkness with your light? How do I still love and forgive my abuser? How do I heal?

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Post Traumatic Stress

It took me so long to know that what I was feeling had a name--and when I could name it, I cried. I cried because now I knew--I knew that I wasn't just crazy.

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Therapist: oh… oh no.. you’re doing that face again

Me: *grinning ear to ear bc humor is the only coping mechanism i have* lmao but listen this is some fucked up shit bro

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As a toddler, the codependent learns quickly that protesting abuse leads to even more frightening parental retaliation. Thus she responds by relinquishing her flight response, deleting “no” from her vocabulary and never developing the language skills of healthy assertiveness. The future codependent also learns early on that her natural flight response intensifies her danger if she tries to flee. Later, when a child is older she may also learn that the ultimate flight response, running away from home, is hopelessly impractical and even more danger-laden. Many toddlers, at some point, transmute the flight urge into the running around in circles of hyperactivity. This adaptation “works” on some level to help them escape from the uncontainable feelings of the abandonment melange. Many of these unfortunates later symbolically run away from their pain. They deteriorate into the obsessive-compulsive adaptations of workaholism, busyholism, spend-aholism, and sex and love addiction that are common in flight types. The toddler who bypasses the adaptation of the flight defense may drift into developing the freeze response and become the “lost child.” This child escapes his fear by slipping more and more deeply into disassociation. He learns to let his parents’ verbal and emotional abuse “go in one ear and out the other.” It is not uncommon for this type to devolve in adolescence into numbing substance addiction. The future codependent toddler, however, wisely gives up on the fight, flight or freeze responses. Instead, they learn to fawn their way into the occasional safety of being perceived as helpful. They discover that a modicum of safety can be purchased by becoming variously useful to their parent. For the budding codependent, all hints of danger soon immediately trigger servile behaviours and abdication of rights and needs. Once a child realizes that being useful and not requiring anything for themself gets them some positive attention from their parents, codependency begins to grow. It becomes an increasingly automatic habit over the years.

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker pg 130-133 (via thetwistedrope)

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This is the first time I've read a post that really spoke to my trauma--to my experience. Thank you.

Psa

Just because it wasn’t physical or sexual doesn’t mean it isn’t abuse. Yelling at you, calling you names, consistently caring less about your well being and education, these are things parents commonly do that are not considered abuse in most societies. But it has shown to be harmful to the brain, especially when coming from a romantic partner or a family member.

Don’t justify it because what they did was legal. Legalities in many places say child abuse won’t even be tried by court of law if the child doesn’t have bruises, bleeding and scars, or visible physical wounds. That means being locked in a basement with no food is legal. The laws are often corrupt.

Don’t justify it because they were kind to you most of the time. Most child abuse survivors go through long periods in between the abuse. It’s still mentally damaging and traumatic. Most child abuse survivors suffered abuse due to punishments. Their kind words and actions are the result of them projecting their emotions onto you, similarly to how when they are angry they forget to have empathy for you, and take out their anger on you. That means they have problems with self control or empathy and don’t care enough about your safety, not that you deserve it because you did wrong. Violent punishments are not involved in proper parenting. They should’ve told you you can’t have ice cream tonight if you keep doing that, or explained why your actions were wrong, not hurt you or yelled at you or told you that you were an idiot. That doesn’t make you learn anything except to fear them, and once they leave your life you won’t have anything to motivate you into being functional, so they only do it for the purpose of making you be nice to them in particular because they are selfish.

Don’t love them because they’re your family. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Hitler had children, Stalin had a dad.

Don’t excuse it because they were abused or mentally ill. 30% of abusers were previously victims of child abuse, so that definitely doesn’t excuse it. Your safety is more important than their right to use you to normalize their trauma. Mental illness does not mean it doesn’t hurt you. You’re still suffering. You aren’t going to cure them by taking the blows. Their illness will still be there.

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i wish my ptsd would pts-leave

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Primary

[09.11.17]

(Do not remove my caption)

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Me @ my childhood traumas:

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reblog if you wanna delete your trauma

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Mine

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Mine

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Don’t listen to that voice in your head that says you aren’t good enough. Because you are good enough, and will always be.

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Forgiveness is not saying “what you did to me was okay”

It’s saying “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever”