Punishment

Hey guys,

well I am free!!!!

As usual I went to Survivors support group on Tuesday and this has led to this post.

First of all, I am writing this to all survivors, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! How I know that sometimes that this is hard to believe, and in a way I am being a complete hypocrite by writing that as personally I feel that it is my fault that my life happened, and this is why I need the punishment that I want to talk about in this post.

I believe completely that I am Evil and born that way, and this is why my dad did what he did, he was trying to cure me, and save people around me and society in general. However if I look at it intellectually and as if the story was someone elses, I can see how he used his power, Job (vicar), and grooming to keep the person quiet and to pass blame onto them rather than himself. What he did was WRONG, a child (or even an adult) is never to blame, those that a*use that power are. I will (or more likely we will) be taking it from this position rather than my emotional, core belief system to my own history!

I punish myself in so many ways, I believe that I need this punishment as it is my fault and that I deserve all the punishment in the world. I turn my anger inwards and hurt myself in order of a way of coping with the past (and present, the physical stuff may not be going on, but they are still in my head, repeating all this stuff.

A definition of Self Punishment can be found here. But is pretty self explanatory and from people that I know I feel that it is a common feature in those that have experienced a*use. This is because the perpetrator will either blame the victim or be so nice that someone may feel that they saught it out (there may be other reasons that I have not thought of) and so feel that they deserve to punish themselves rather than the people who are really to blame, this is not just for those who have been se*ually a*used by any type!

The way that people can punish themselves is endless, and I don't really want to go into them, as I don't want to give people new ideas, but need to focus on the fact that a)Anger is a natural and OK emotion (I hate writing that as seems so alien to me!!) but it needs to be aimed at the person that is to blame, and not at yourself. Obviously I am not talking about if someone, anyone did something wrong and then the anger can be justified, but that is the exact word that needs to come out of this, ANGER IS JUSTIFIABLE, BUT A*USE IS NOT THE SURVIVORS FAULT, THE JUSTIFIED ANGER SHOULD BE AIMED AT THE PERSON/PEOPLE WHO TOOK ADVANTAGE! I am not giving anyone permission to go and be aggressive or even violent towards anyone (including themselves) but as I said its OK to be angry for your innocence to be snatched away!!!!

Right, back to myself. I have repeatedly said that it is my fault, and therefore I need to punish myself for what I have done wrong (being born evil/disclosure and everything that followed etc etc) but by thinking this way, and acting in this way (whether it through the self harm that I used to do or the severely controlling my eating, putting myself into dangerous positions etc) I can remain in control in a situation that I am repeatedly told was not in my control (intellectually how can someone who can barely talk be responsible to anything To Be Honest!!!). Also I am absolutely terrified of emotions (rather be shutdown and numb) especially anger, as scared of its power

Good ideas for coping with the need for self punishment can be found here.

Sorry this is so disjointed and not up to much tonight, but I am extremely switchy which is making it difficult.

Till next time guys,

Lou and Us.

Guilt and responsibility

hey guys,

I went to my support group last night, and we had a long talk about responsibility and guilt, and we all pretty much felt the same. First thing I have to say though is ITS NOT YOUR FAULT ANY OF IT, YOU CANNOT CONTROL SOMEONE ELSE, IF YOU DIDN'T TALK AND IT HAPPENED TO SOMEONE ELSE THAT'S THE ABUSERS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS!!!

This is where I am a complete hypocrite as I feel completely responsible for the risk of the abusers I had hurting others. I have got better with my dad as I did try and get justice and it was the CPS who decided not to take it further, but I still worry to the point it makes me ill that he'll hurt someone else. But my biggest guilt is around the ritualistic abuse and the fact my brain wont tell me enough to know who the abuser’s are, and I am completely convinced that I cannot of been the only one,

its a horrible feeling to have, the guilt that you think that you may have been able to stop someone else suffering but my friends tell me (as I just cant see it yet) that I was a child, programmed by my parents to keep things secret and its never a child’s responsibility (or anyone who is abused) to stop others hurting, they just have to do what they have to do to get through and survive. For me this was dissociation and “splitting (bad word for it but cant think of another one) into my different parts.

I have to remember that I have survived, I have survived seriously terrifying and horrifying things that should happen to no one, but I have done it. I struggle with it, and I still feel my parents have a lot of control over me through their grooming of me. I just hope that one day that I can truly break free from them, not just physically (Which is have) but also repair all the stuff they have ingrained into my head so that I can actually enjoy life. At the moment it just doesn’t seem possible, I still feel that it was all my fault because I am inherently evil and they were all just trying to make me good....what they told me.

Children look to adults, especially parents, for guidance and love and I didn’t get that, I got narcissistic mother who wants to throw everything under the carpet to make sure the world sees us as perfect family...in other words so people see her as a perfect mother (so far from the truth its ridiculous) and my dad sexually abused me or 20 + years, but yet its my fault....writing that makes it seem what I think is stupid. However i'm struggling to see it any other way, especially as this way gives me some kinda of control over something that was completely out of my control. Maybe this is why I struggle with using food as a way of control...but that’s for another post.

Hope you all stay safe, and this helps in some random way. Sorry

Lou

Its not my fault

Its not my fault – by Seren.

Why do those four words – its not my fault – send us into panic? Its not like if it was anyone else I know, I wouldn’t dream that what happened with the abuse to be their fault. But its ours!! what makes us so special? Even if we imagined the abuse we suffered was someone else, we still wouldn’t blame them. I wish that there was a simple solution into not blaming ourselves and internalising all the emotions that should be thrown at my parents. I hate to think of us as special, we hate being the centre of attention we just want to fit in (and never seem to). However we are the only abused child that its our fault....if only we could change how we perceive ourselves and I am sure that many other survivors feel the same.

I did some online research and found that adults who abuse, paedophiles, must except control and this is one of the ways that they do it. They don’t just hurt us physically and sexually but also emotionally. This emotional abuse is the centre to it, its not so much a sexual thrill they get (I think) but its the power balance and how they manage to transfer the blame to the child. They can do this in a variety of manners, through actually saying its the child’s fault, to giving them “presents” to keep them quiet. In our experience and those of people I know, it often means that we are the ones left wondering if we had done or been x y z then it wouldn’t happen. And so further believing it is our fault.

Having done some reading around I have realised that it was just the punishments that put me into the situation, but also the presents I used to get. This is a huge realisation for us, as we thought that was showing his “nice” side the side society sees, but from what I have read it was further bringing me into the damaging relationship. Having said that no person is all bad or all good. We all are a unique mixture of both. (I have mini dad (one of the alters) shouting in my ear that YOU ARE ALL EVIL NO GOOD CAN COME OF YOU) having DID does make things complicated!!!! anyway back on subject, my dad and mum do have good qualities just when it comes to me they turn bad. What Mini Dad was shouting is what I heard constantly for well over 20 years. And that is the part of the reason that my dad got away with it, I knew that it was my fault, and he was trying to help...after all 5 year old believe just about everything a parents say. Its not been programmed into my brain, and Mini Dad keeps reminding me of that very reason. And so the guilt continues. The guilt of turning them into the police and what happened from there I do see as my responsibility, although as some will tell me that they had brought it on themselves.

This is something that we struggle with a lot. People ask us why we are so different and special that if it is our fault why isn't it anyone else's. This question I cannot answer, maybe cause there is no answer, but we have been programmed for so long that it is our fault that in a way it lets feel that we have (non existent) control over our life for so long, its our fault therefore we deserved it. It also allows us to still see my parents as parents rather then them messing up our lives, which everyone else can see. I have to feel in control, we all do. I am guessing that it has a lot to do with our childhood and early years. Currently we are trying to do with with food :s if I am honest a lot of my life I was out of control, not with substance misuse, but because both my parents controlled me so much as I wasn’t the perfect vicars daughter that society believes I should have been. I wasn’t that happy go lucky child, I was suffering from the abuse my dad and his friends inflicted on my sexually and the emotional abuse from my mother. I wasn’t allowed emotions, and so I still internalise them as its safer, safer than getting rejected by the two people who are meant to be my care givers.

No child should be inflicted to what I was. However I was, and the reason for that is my evilness, I was born with it and they were just trying to get rid of it, and then using my to be for blame for everything because of it. This thinking is so wrong in a way, being a child includes innocence. Its all so conflicting.

Grooming, as they call it, meant that I didn’t talk for 20 years about what was going on, but I find it difficult to accept that it is his stuff that has made me feel like this. I feel responsible for so much including what happened to me. Will I ever feel differently? How will that affect how I see myself. I see myself with such detest, and distance myself from the body as its not ours, it belongs to them. In a way when I am hurting myself I’m not, I'm hurting them as it belongs to them always.

What gives the adults the right to transfer what they want to on a child? What gives them the right to use a child’s body as an adult plaything? Why when the adult may feel the guilt they transfer this to the child. I have no life really, I am only existing, as the past rules my life forever.

[EDIT: Seren had some help with this from some of the others, sorry its so difficult to understand.]