I will be sixty next year. I was born to a schizophrenic mother who rejected me at birth screamed a lot and had no sense of what a child was. She didn't pick me up for 6 months and I lay in my own urine. My father who was ex military was granted custody of me when i was 3 years old for my own safety. My mother said "Go and take the kid with you"! I have an abiding memory of being dragged at a very fast determined pace for 6 miles as I screamed for her to stop. I was three. When I was 19 I married a woman who told me the night before we got married that she had been raped repeatedly from the age of 5 till 16 when she ran away from home. I told her that Love never fails. After 22 years she left me to save me from what she was doing to me. I no longer knew who I was. I loved her. I failed. I got remarried and only now that the noise has stopped I find feelings of sadness crashing in on me. The deafening silence of realisation. Anyway, this forum seems just what I have been looking for. Don't worry, I wont be Mr Misery. I will both gratefully accept help/advice and most generously give it. After my first wife left me I set up a charity to help partners of survivors of childhood sexual abuse understand what was going on. I did it for 3 years and then decided it was time to heal myself. Still trying.
Warmest welcome to a kindred soul cantreach! I am so glad you are ready to choose yourself as a priority. Me too. Ive been everyone elses caretaker and fixer and completely neglected myself thinking that is what you do if you love them.
Im so sorry for the very painful experiences you have suffered. You CAN heal. WE can heal!
Thanks PB, We really benefit from familiar path sufferers. Always good to not walk alone. 👍
Welcome Cantreach!
You definitely are not walking alone. :hug:
Thanks Serenity ☺️
I'd like to add my welcome to you as well.
This place has been a new part of my journey Out of the FOG. It has taken a long time to learn that my recovery process can be understood by others. Glad you found this forum.
Trees
Thanks Trees. I hope all of us find ways to manage the damage. 🙂
Welcome! I am new also and turn 55 this year.
I think it takes courage to come to a place like this when we are older and realize what is hurting in us. So I am glad you are here. :)
Thanks Huntress, Hope you are doing ok, thanks for the comment. 🙂
Interesting intro, cantreach.
It would seem you and I have encountered similar people in our lives, but in slightly different roles. My birth mother was also schizophrenic but I was pulled from her care in the first year of my life. That said, my bio family has shared stories of neglect of my needs during that time.
I skipped through a few foster homes and was then placed with an adoptive family just before I turned 2. Out of the pan, into the fire, adopted mom had a significant history of childhood sexual abuse but this was kept secret from me, and I think most others, until after she died. She had all the behaviors, dissociation, explosive anger, physical issues such as reproductive health problems (likely the reason for adopting), eating disorder etc. I recently started posting here because I also came to understand that she was profoundly dependent on my adopted father and in a weird way on me through a toxic pattern of scapegoating. I was very often the focus of why she was not thriving, the reason for her sadness and suffering, even though I was just a kid and had absolutely no responsibility for it. Honestly, it took me decades to see this pattern clearly and for what it really was.
Lots of similarities there. It's amazing how long it takes to realise patterns and their effects. Like you it's took decades to "see" things. I lived with my mom until I was 3 when the judge awarded my father custody who then promptly handed me over to my grandparents so that he could get on with his life unencumbered with me. Rejection has followed me like a shadow it seems. I hope you find those nuggets of enlightenment and understanding to find some kind of functioning peace. Glad you found your way here and I am encouraged every time I come across people like yourself who "know" what it's like and what it does to you.