OK, Hi, I’m Parker, and I want to come out with my story of Abuse, PTSD, and Codependency. This is going to be hard for me, because there is a lot of stuff that I have not talked about with anyone, and a lot of stuff that I have not talked about with many of my closest friends or family. First, this is going to be a blanket trigger warning. I’m tackling a lot of my own personal experiences with Trauma, Child Abuse, and other behavior which is may be sensitive. Also, I am not in any current danger, although I will talk about a lot of mental unrest.
Also, I want to clarify why I’m doing this. During Quarantine, I’ve been struggling with aspects of my own shame, and my own feelings towards the entire situation. I feel like I have spent the last 13 years living some shade of a lie, and I want to be able to tell my truth at least one time, so that I don’t have to worry about people finding out the extent of my problems. I have lived my life by not talking about these issues; I’ve lied when people ask me if I’m ok; I’ve frequently lied about the severity of the impact. By making this document, I hopefully will not feel ashamed anymore, or at least I won’t feel as secretive about this. I want to let my truth be known. I want to be done with this here and now.
I had a pretty standard nuclear household for most of my early life, and that’s why I’m going to rush through the demographics quick. I had a mom, and a dad, and three brothers. One of my brothers was about 10 years older, and then I had a pair of younger brothers who were twins. These twins both had problems with Autism and are still non-verbal. And for the most part, my childhood up until age 7 was about normal, and for that reason we don’t need to pay too much attention to it.
The abuse started when I was about 7. My father had recently became a stay at home dad, because he “needed to be with his family, and watch after the kids”. Because of the high amount of contact with my father, which was also isolated from supervision, he was able to abuse me for a long time without anyone knowing. At first, the abuse wasn’t too bad. In fact, for nearly the first year, I honestly just thought that it was a very jaded man who wanted me to flame his ego. He believed that he was smarter, and more moral than many of the other people in the world. He believed that he was some tragic figure, who had never been able to live up to this great potential. He would talk about how he went to college, and about how everyone thought that he was the best there. And he talked a lot about how everyone wanted to betray him, and everyone would want to betray me too, if I was going to be a good person. Because he was a great person, and things didn’t work out for him, so someone must be betraying him.
From there, we can start to build a pattern of isolationism that he encouraged. Every day on the rides to school, he would tell me that my mother was a cheater; that she was going to ruin the family, and destroy the marriage; that if she had it her way, they would get divorced, and she would get my brothers, and I wouldn’t see them anymore. The most important thing to me, from when I was 7 to now was family, so these all struck me in the thing that I was most afraid of. For the record, none of those things are the truth. He also encouraged smaller lies, to make my mother seem less likeable; for instance, he told me that she didn’t want to have kids, but that he begged her in order to have children. It turns out that this was the opposite, but he wanted me to believe that she didn’t want me.
There was more than this; He also claimed that she was a bad mother, and the only way for my brothers to get better was if he could parent the way that he wanted to parent In my dad’s mind, he needed to use physical discipline in order to get my brothers in to line, something my mother refused to do. All in All, the main objective was to paint a caricature of my mother; she is a monster, who doesn’t want me, wants to hurt me, and doesn’t know how to help my brothers, and my dad is the only one who is good, wants to help us all, and can help my brothers.
This was the first case of isolation. From 7 until about 15, I didn’t really talk, or communicate with my mother, and that hurt her a lot. I look back and I feel ashamed; I should have continued to communicate to her, and I began to form impressions of her, based on this identity that my father had created.
Another instance was with a few neighborhood friends. I had a couple friends in the neighborhood, and my father tried to control any contact with them. When I was younger, I would be reminded of how they are awful kids, and that I shouldn’t be spending any time with them. As time continued, any anger towards them was slowly turned towards me. I would be chastised and told about how I was doing a bad thing by spending time with these friends. This created a complicated dynamic with these friends. I would often go out to hang out with them, only to then feel guilty, because I was disappointing my father. I would often leave, because of nonsense excuses, because that conflict in me was uncomfortable. To this day, these two are my friends, so I’m thankful that we managed to maintain a relationship through that. He liked to frame that any friends were likely to hurt you. My friends were also going to hurt me. My mother was going to hurt me.
I began to feel like the only person who mattered was my Father. He was the only one who was going to look out for me. He often attacked other role models in my life as well, or other people that I admired, by pointing out faults and that they were privy to hurt me. This furthered this idea of authority from my father. He was the only role model I could have.
This all establishes the baseline for other aspects of my childhood, and of the abuse. Because my father was so important to me, he slowly began to gain control over my identity and what my interests were. He would perpetually frame interests as “valid” or “invalid”, based on the idea about whether or not he also found them interesting. For instance, when I was younger, I really liked to write short stories, and I thought those were cool. Often, I would try to show my father what I was working on, and often times, he would dismiss my interest as not being important. If I was interested in it, it wasn’t important. There are many other examples of this. I wanted to join the school choir when I was 7, and my father made demeaning comments about singers, and continued to tout the superiority of bass players. So when I was 10, and I could pick an instrument, I chose bass, and I ended up getting cello. He later clarified that he didn’t like that, and he meant Guitar Bass. I felt like I couldn’t do anything musical, so I just stopped, and didn’t ever really return. I’ve always wanted to pick back up a cello and see if it makes me happy, but I’m afraid to have those same feelings of inadequacy again.
Often, he wanted me to pay attention to football. I liked football, but I really liked Basketball more. However, he never validated that, and I don’t remember him going to any games or anything. Instead, I only got to spend time with him if I focused on Football, so I began to focus on Football more and more. And when I felt like I wasn’t good enough at either to get his approval when I was about 11, I quit. That was the only way to get his attention, because otherwise I wasn’t worthwhile.
In addition, because of his emphasis on that he was the “best parent”, I began to normalize different behaviors and parenting techniques that he used. Notably, physical intimidation, violence, and verbal demeaning towards my younger brothers, and that it was acceptable behavior for me to carry into my normal life. My brothers were very difficult to grow up with, because they often had different quirks that come with Autistic Children. My father would grab their arms until they were bruised and yank them in order to get them to follow his lead. My brothers would go to school with bruises on the shoulders, and this was continual, reaching until the point that they got into middle school. He would also scream directly at them, as well as make references to them, while they were in earshot, about how they were worthless. This behavior seemed completely normal to me, for a long time
One day, when I was in middle school, my father left a large bruise on one of my younger brother’s arms, and a teacher noticed it. They called CPS, and a person ended up reaching out to me, and they wanted an in-person conversation with me, in order to observe whether the environment was abusive. I am ashamed to say that I believe I defended him, or at least did not prove that he was abusive; My defense of him caused my brothers and I to be abused for about 4 more years, and I am so ashamed of that. I’ve spent a lot of days in quarantine, thinking about how much I wish I could go back in time and implicate him, or get him out.
In addition, he was abusive in other ways. He frequently demeaned us, gaslit us, and devalued our worth. I grew up feeling like I was worthless, and that my only value that I could have was by making him happier.
From ages 7 to 14, the abuse continued like this. At some point, around the age of 14, I began to distance myself from my father. But I wasn’t over his ideas, I just knew that there was something wrong, and that my relationship with him wasn’t healthy. However, I was still severely skeptical of everyone else. I began to follow isolating behavior- I began to walk to school, in order to avoid any personal time with him. I avoided nearly everyone.
I was still severely scared of my mother, and my friends, and everyone, and I believed that I had no one. There was no one for me. At this point in my life, there are a lot of dark things that happened. I began to think about suicide. I didn’t think I would do it, but I began to write letters, just in case, and hid them in an old poetry book that I made, because I thought someone might find them there if I passed. I never told anyone about this, because I was horrifically embarrassed that my mindset was once there.
I just felt so confused, and angry, and scared. I didn’t feel like I had anyone who was looking out for me, after I had spent the last 7 years fixated on the approval of a single person, who hurt me. I felt like I had nothing. Luckily I did get better, as I continued to find myself able to trust a few more people.
Around 15, my father began to unravel. He was suffering from early onset dementia, and began to become even more confrontational, as well as more physically violent. If he disagreed with me about something, we would often have screaming matches. Often, he would begin the screaming, although I will admit that I also often rose the intensity. He wanted control over my life: what my future was, what my relationship were, if I was going to college, etc.
The last day that he lived in our house was explosive. The dementia was slowly getting worse. He began to directly accuse my friends of stealing items from our house, even though the items were still in our house, and there was no way they snuck out of the house. He said he didn’t want me hanging out with them, and that he would go over there and confront him. I stood by my friends, and told my father that he was wrong, and that he had no right to go over and confront my friends over a false claim. He got up and charged at me, trying to punch me. He got very close, but my mother ended up restraining him at the last moment. In shock, I left the house, and spent some time at a neighbor’s house. My father ended up being taken away by the police, however, they attempted to release him back into our custody the next day, and beyond a psych eval, I am not aware of any consequences for his attempted domestic abuse. I’m still kind of mad and distrustful of the police because of that incident.
Over the next four years of him being gone, I went through a lot of different emotional states. I often wished that he didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t want to hear about him anymore, I didn’t want to think about him. I wanted him to hurt, like he hurt me, in the weeks following him first being gone.
I was angry that so many people seemed to be on his side. He was charming, and came across as a natural talker, and often framed himself as a victim. So, when it first happened no one really believed us, no one really vouched for us, and it feels like I had to fight an uphill battle to prove that he was awful. I had to tell a lot of friends that our seemingly close relationship was a façade, that it was abusive.
I’m no longer as angry at him. I just think he is an awful father, and I wish that he didn’t do the things he did, because he hurt me, my brothers, my mother, and many other people. He died last year, but I still feel really conflicted about the whole situation.
There are certainly complications that have occurred from that abuse, which take form in two different symptoms, namely, I have had struggles with Codependency, as well as suspected PTSD, although I haven’t been able to be officially tested. However, on VA tests, I have scored anywhere from 30 to 60, which puts me in the middle to higher range. The PTSD started about 1 year ago, at least the first time that I noticed it. I was on my computer at my home, when I suddenly had a flashback of the day where he tried to punch me. I tried to play it off, and not make a big deal of it. However, over the last year, whenever I am in my family house, the flashbacks get worse, and more frequent. There are other triggers, as well. For instance, a janitor at my university looks like my father, and whenever I see him a get super scared and anxious, even though he is a nice guy. I feel bad for avoiding him. I’ve seen people wearing the same coat as my father used to wear and I’ve broke down because of it. I’m terrified of reminders of him, so much so that I changed my name, because I didn’t want to look at that last name anymore.
Recently, I had a reduction in my anxiety medication, which ended up being a massive mistake. When I returned from college due to the stay at home order, I had some of the worst symptoms of PTSD that I have ever had. I began to have dreams about the incident. In addition, I was feeling nauseous, and often had uncontrollable shakes in my hand when I began to spiral. I had extreme difficulty concentrating and would often find myself staring at a wall for long periods of time or zoning out during conversations. I began to experience more flashbacks, where they were occurring nearly three times a day on the worst days. I thought I would see my father out of the corner of my eye, or I would hear our fight on that last day, as if it were still occurring. I felt like I was going insane. At one point, I was looking up psychiatric wards nearby and the process of self-admittance, because I didn’t feel like I was safe. I began to blame myself for feeling this way. I don’t feel like I have control over when it happens, or over myself when it happens. I stopped talking to most of my friends, and the one’s I continued to talk with, I was toxic, and angry and scared. On the worst day, I stayed up for like 34-ish hours, and spent most of the morning throwing up, as I was just so nerve-wracked.
Recently, I downloaded the VA’s app, as well as increased my medications, and returned to therapy. The symptoms are better, and I feel saner, but there are still rough days. It’s hard to distance myself from these symptoms.
The second problem is this Codependency, and fundamentally broken ideas in relationships. Because of the way that I got value in childhood, I continue to place a lot of my self-worth in what other people think of me. I drop boundaries, I do things that I am not comfortable with. I’ve had people ask me to help them through issues or help them in a way that didn’t make me comfortable. However, I couldn’t say that I wasn’t comfortable, because then I would disappoint them, and that would be a problem. This exists in nearly every single close relationship in my life, with the exceptions of the few friendships I have from before I was 7. I feel perpetually afraid of abandonment, and I can’t deal with the idea of someone leaving, because that says something about me. Because of that, I try to be on my best behavior, and always be as nice as possible, always be as accepting as possible. Because if I make someone happy, then maybe they will make me happy. It’s a really broken ideology. Often, after I have broken this boundary, I will resent the person, even if they had no control over my choice.
However, this is also complicated by a personal oath that I have taken; because of my abusive past, I refuse to be in any relationship where I believe that I am being taken advantage of, or any relationship in which someone may have an ulterior motive. In addition, I have let boundaries slipped, and then been frustrated with my friends when they did not appear to be putting in the same unhealthy, manic effort into relationships, because a part of my brain decided I was being taken advantage of.
The truth, as I now know, is that I have the problem with boundaries. I am no longer lying to myself, about how much I care, or that its just the way I am a person. I am fundamentally struggling. I am now working with CODA in order to fix these issues, as well as reading some Melanie Beatie. However, its still a problem daily, and I catch myself falling into these same traps.
The worst is when these two issues combine, to create a spiral. If I’m struck by a series of intense PTSD episodes, I begin to feel like I need to count on my friends and people close to me in order to help me, and that I am helpless. I need their reassurance that I am loved, that I am cared for, that I won’t be hurt, that everything will work out. But no one can fix me, or make me suddenly not have an episode, so I feel like they aren’t putting in the effort, or that I’m alone. And then I feel more like I’m where I was when I was in the abusive situation, and the PTSD gets worse. And then the Codependency gets worse. And so on.
I don’t feel like many people in my active life relate to where my mind is. Thankfully, I have groups like CODA, and support groups that help me, but my friends and people in my life don’t really have that shared experience. A lot of times, even my closest friends feel at a distance. Like, I love them, and I care about them, but I don’t feel like they connect with me, and understand where I am.
That’s the reason why I am being honest about this. Because I am tired of being dishonest, or not me. I’m going to be honest about how I am feeling, maybe for the first time in a while. So I don’t have to worry about whether or not someone knows who I really am, because this exists. Its public knowledge. There is no need to hide anything.
