Childhood trauma. How does it affect us?

 

Good morning. I'm in the mood to write so I'm going to talk a little bit about my childhood and how i think it's affected me. I know it might be hard for some people to look back on their childhood and live in bad moments again, but I think it's important to live in those hard moments to recognize what parts have affected you. It's important to know why you are the way you are, and I think looking back on our childhood can help us tremendously. I want to spread awareness of abuse. This will have some hard topics to read about, so please make sure you're in a comfortable place. 

 

     I want to start by sharing a bit about my childhood because I believe it plays a giant and crucial role in helping me—and perhaps others—understand why I respond the way I do in certain situations. From a young age, I’ve had strange thoughts and acted in ways that I’ve never shared with anyone. As I’m figuring out my life and what I want for myself, I feel that opening up about my past is an important step in understanding the person I’ve become.

One thing I vividly remember doing often as a child—and didn’t understand until recently—is something I think could help others who might have had similar experiences. When I was very young, I used to lay in my room and pretend to be dead, hoping someone would come in, become emotional, and try to revive me. Sounds crazy right? Why would a young girl just sit in her room and play dead, this girl needs help. Well, looking back, I now understand why I did this. It often happened when my mother was being physically abused. I thought that if I pretended to be dead or hurt, it might somehow prevent further harm or make the man we lived with realize that there were bigger issues. I believed that showing pain could make people feel empathy for me, or for others who were hurt. I thought that if i was hurt, the focus would shift to me and my mom would have enough time to get up and not be hurt for a little bit.

Around the age of 8 or 9, I started intentionally hurting myself and going to school the next day to tell my classmates or teachers. In my mind, I thought, “Maybe if people see that I’m hurt, they’ll check in on my home life and realize my mom is being hurt too.” The police were called to our home frequently, but nothing ever changed. They saw it as just a couple having regular disagreements. My mom tried to hide the bruises, always looking for any chance to seek help, which I now understand more than I ever did back then, so I can’t hold it against her. I used to be upset with her for hiding the bruises, acting like everything was okay but i realize she was in deep harm, and it wasn't as easy as she wanted me to believe.

The emotions I felt after these incidents were always conflicted. I would return to school after the fights, feeling scared, yet sometimes happy or confused, and often upset. I was bullied a lot in elementary school, for reasons I never fully understood. Even teachers joined in, laughing at my height, my face, and the clothes I wore. Sometimes my laugh would lead to me being pushed out of my seat or tripped at lunch. I once peed my pants and instead of them taking me to the nurse, they shoved me in the closet. Despite it all, I don’t hold grudges against the kids who didn’t let me sit with them, or the girls who mocked me, the teachers who made me feel dumb. What bothers me more now is that I went to school seeking fun and love rather than focusing on learning. School became a place of refuge, a home of sorts, where I felt a connection with other kids and teachers who were kind to me.

After the fights at home, I never knew how to feel when I returned to school. Should I be upset that nothing changed, or should I be relieved that it was over—for the time being? I would distract myself with the joy of school, forgetting that the pain would return when I got home. Have you ever done that? Lived in the moment, only to realize that the hurt will follow you? I think a lot of people do, and that’s okay. It’s okay to seek relief from the pain, to pretend for a while that it isn’t there. But I’ve learned that it can sometimes hurt even more in the long run, so we have to be careful.

  I'll probably never forget the things I saw and the things that happened to me and i think writing about it and sharing it with the world is something i have wanted to do for a long time but was unable to bring myself to put in the effort. Writing has always come easy to me, but writing about things that have happened to me, in fear that people will criticize me or the way i feel hasn’t always been easy. I have run into some very judgmental and cold-hearted people. These people have made me think that i am selfish for wishing i had a more friends and love as a child. Now that i am figuring out myself, I know it’s not selfish for anyone to want more love. If you’re tired of waking up and no longer want to live, even if you feel that way for a small three months, you obviously aren’t getting the affection you need.

 Around like 11-12, I started showing older guys my body. When I was young, I was a victim of child sexual abuse and child on child sexual abuse. I never have told anyone because I wanted to forget it. I also want the children that experienced this with me to forget it because we didn’t understand. I’ve talked to many people on the internet and growing up who played house with their neighbor friends or played house at the park with random people. It makes me feel less alone to know other people went through it, but it makes me sad they experienced it too. I thought it was normal, but now that I’m nineteen, I realize it was not.

Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong with me. I want to talk about my fear of the unknown, for example, death. It is something no one truly has answers for until it happens, and the uncertainty surrounding it is what scares me. The world itself is already overwhelming, and the thought of losing control of my body when I leave this world frightens me even more. I am a very anxious person, and I constantly wonder why. If you can relate, feel free to comment on it. I made this blog to help others feel less alone, and I think a small part of me wants to feel less alone too. Growing up, nothing felt consistent. We moved houses and schools often, and I lost many friends along the way. I was always afraid of making new ones because I knew we would likely move again. Even when my mom promised we wouldn’t be moving, we still did. This instability has caused me to worry a lot about having people in my life.

Another factor that impacts me deeply is the absence of my father. His struggle with substance abuse throughout my life has led to abandonment issues and challenges with relationships. I don’t try to have a relationship with my dad. I know he's sobered now, but he still lays in his room everyday wondering where he went wrong. I know he does. He upsets me and while the little me inside tells me to call or text him every day, i think me now realizes I should not have had to beg or teach my own dad to love me. While some say he is clean now, the effects of his behavior still linger, and he doesn't fulfill the role of a father in my life. The man I was raised with until the age of 10 also failed to meet that role. His abusive actions—both physical and emotional—have left deep scars. I remember some horrific, inhuman things and I wish I could forget. The only man who ever tried to be a father figure was my stepdad. However, as a child, I didn’t see it as a "dream come true" or a moment of joy; it felt uncomfortable. Have you ever had a stepparent you wish you could have liked, but it just never felt right? Like they were intruding? I questioned why he was being so kind and why he was trying so hard to be involved. He had rules, he was respectful, and he didn’t let us disrespect our mother. He took us out on adventures, trying to make up for what we’d lacked, but it was hard for me to accept. We had gone from living with a man who was abusive to a man who didn’t raise his voice at my mother. As a child, I resented him, not because I wanted to disrespect my mom, but because I had been her confidante for so long. Before, she would come to me for fun, we would go out together, and now someone else was making her laugh and spending time with her. I became hostile toward him and wished for bad things to happen to me, hoping my mom would leave him. This is something I regret, but growing up in an abusive environment can make you numb to negative things because they feel “less bad” than what you’ve already endured.

The abuse I witnessed and experienced growing up has shaped the person I am today. People might say that you can use your past as motivation, but for me, it's not about using it. It’s about acknowledging it. I feel my past. I remember it. I hope that people can do the same. I know it's hard and painful, but we will never really find and know ourselves if we don't make those hard decisions.

I remember a specific time when we were all locked in a room, forced to watch an abusive man hurt my mom. We begged our older siblings to intervene, but they couldn’t. I understand that now. I used to be very angry with them for not helping, but now that I’m older, I understand how much fear they must have felt too. Now that i look back, they were around 15-16 at the time. They were dealing with so much at their age that it's so hard to even believe now that I am nineteen. Looking at what i do and then looking back in what my big brothers were caught up in, I get sad. I’ve forgiven them for not intervening. I was only eight years old at the time. I miss my brothers. I wish i got more time with them when i was little, but i know they love me and will make up for all the time we lost. They need to heal too. I hope they can. They were abused too. In unimaginable ways. They were introduced to drugs, and at a young age was doing very harmful and scary things. At the ripe age of 17, my brothers were running the streets and getting caught up in terrible, unsafe situations. My brothers have been beat. Abandon. They were just kids too. I know they will brush it off and go on with their life, but they deserve justice too. They didn't deserve how they grew up and i wish they had a better childhood. They got torn apart from me and my younger sibling. Did they play with us every day? No. But they loved us. They love us. Us leaving had a big effect on their lives and I am so glad they are doing better now. I am so so proud.

I remember the times my mom tried to shield us from the violence, sending us to our rooms or telling us to play outside. I felt so powerless. I remember her hiding in the bathroom, crying, and how I tried to comfort her, only for her to push me away. I know in the moment, she didn’t know what to do. Abuse affects people in many different ways, whether it surfaces suddenly years later at a church gathering or on a random Tuesday at 4:00 a.m. It’s a part of me now, and it makes me fearful of being alone. Sometimes I can't wait to be a mom. I hope i can give a better life to my future children. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t deserve to feel this way. I feel like I'm not allowed to want more for my future children, or that I'll mess up and ruin everything. But I’m allowed to wish for better and kinder love than i have gotten and seen. And so are you! We won't end up like the bad people in our lives as long as we try and acknowledge the pain, they endured to us and remember we don't want that.

There are moments that are still so vivid in my memory, like the time my mom drove us to an old gas station because she was so overwhelmed with her and the man fighting, along with us not listening. She told us it was an orphanage, and that if we weren’t going to eat our food, we had to come here. Me and my younger sibling held her tight, and promised we’d go home and eat our food. I was terrified, and we begged her not to leave us, but we ended up going home that night. I know it was my mom's first time being a parent, and she was young. I’m not angry with her anymore, but I was just a child at the time. Looking back, I don't fully understand why she started a new family so soon after finally leaving. Why were me and my sibling not enough? Why couldn’t we continue seeing our older siblings? It felt unfair. But I understand now that she did what she thought was best to protect us, even if it hurt in the long run. And her finding a new man super-fast, she just wanted love. She was a young, hurt woman who was abused and taking advantage of. Who wouldn't want to get out and seek real true love? I actually saw my older siblings not too long ago, and I’m so happy to see how they’ve both turned out. I’m super proud of them. They’re living proof you can always do what you set your mind to. They're so strong and have turned out great! They are still the funny older brothers i had at a young age, I'm grateful they didn't change their humor. If you guys ever read this, i am proud of you guys.

I want to tell anyone who's reading this right now, if you're in an abusive situation, please reach out to someone. Even telling a friend or someone at school, a trusted family member. My mom's bravery got her safe along with me and my sibling, if it wasn't for her bravery to seek out and tell someone what was going on with her, who knows where any of us would be. If your mom or dad is getting abused, a friend, please reach out to anyone. I'll be here for you. I just want everyone to be safe. For the people who relate, who was brought up in a bad home and you're scared, I believe in you. You're loved. I know that life can be hard, but we can be better than the people who hurt us. Talk soon, be safe.