Forgot what the fear was like (Strong triggers!)

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Forgot what the fear was like (Strong triggers!)

I rarely share here in the public forums anymore, but I think this is one I shold do here.

I am 47. Childhood was a long time ago. Mostly shrouded in darkness and haze. I had forgotten what it was like back then as far as anything but the abuse went. It never comes up unless I talk about the abuse.

But there was a lot of physical abuse too. For the slightest infraction, I could be beaten, burned or thrown down stairs. I haven't ever remembered the fear about that until today.

Someone sent me a PM, totally innocent I am sure, that triggered the old feelings. I can barely believe that I could still react like I did when I was a little boy. I was so scared. And promising to be good and not bad. I haven't used those terms about me in decades.

It's like "Daddy, I'll be good! I promise! Don't hit me! I won't be bad any more!"

I have no idea how I survived all of this. But to feel like that again chills me. Remembering the fear of the SA was bad enough, but remembering that I always felt in danger and trying to please him, it's worse.

How did I survive a childhood that was filled with nothing but fear? How could I have survived wondering when the next blow would fall or the next incident of SA would happen? I just don't know. How could I have made it this far? It's a mystery. I either can't or won't understand it. Damn, it's so confusing and jumbled!

Sorry about the ramble. But I needed to get this out.

Marc
 
Hi Marc - I can really relate to what you're saying about still feeling those nervous feelings of trying to do everything "right" in order to please, and being triggered by the most innocent of things. The thing that started me dealing with all these issues started back in May when I was with my father, and in his frustration with what he was doing at the moment he snapped at me. It was like being transported back 30 years ago, and it triggered me so deeply that I finally began to deal with all this. My first instinct at that moment was to say "F*** you, old man!", but I didn't, I went into weak, compliant child mode again, just like 30-40 years ago.
 
Marc,

I'm sorry you were triggered like that.

My father, my biological one not the @$$hole who brainwashed me, was not physically abusive, but emotionally and verbally. He was a yeller, and I'd cringe whenever he raised his voice.

It was like seeing a storm coming, and doing what you could to find safe harbor, or the harbor that woul offer the most shelter.

Dammit, I wasn't beaten, but it sure felt like it.

We survived, I think, Marc, all of it, because we were stronger than our abusers tried to make us believe. We survived despite them. We survived because we were what they couldn't be. Human. Gentle. Compassionate.

I used to think (a part of me still does - you know what I'm talking about :rolleyes: ) that compassion was for the weak when it came to hating those who hurt us. Now, I see it as a strength.

MLK tought me (I'm still learning even after all these years :D ), and Gandhi as well, that there's no greater strength and courage than passive resistence. Accepting the horrors of oppressors stoically and giving back only humanity allows us to keep it. If we ever crossed the line and became abusive ourselves, we'd become just like them, and that would destroy us.

Instead, we kept our humanity, and it saved us.

I hope that made sense. i'm rambling.

Peace and love, my brother.

Scot
 
My wife dropped a couple of dishes the other day, just everyday ones, and they broke.

I apologised like an axe murderer, but I was in another room at the time.

What was that all about then?

Dave :confused: :rolleyes:
 
Boy, do I relate to this. It was about a year into therapy that I first even considered the fear and physical abuse that went with the sexual abuse.

My therapist asked the question, what had I been afraid of. And I finally started considering the physical abuse. It's like I never even really considered it before because the sexual stuff was what I was trying to deal with. But without conronting it, I'm not getting to the bottom of everything.

I remember so vividly this thin stick the minister carried, about 18 inches long. It was like a switch, but it wasn't hand made. It was white. I don't even know what it was. He used it as a pointer. But when my brother or I would speak out of turn, he was smash us with it. Usually just across the hand. Sometimes if we'd pull away, he'd make us put our hands back out. Sometimes if he was really mad, he'd lose it and just start whipping us with it on the arms or legs and occasionally in the face. Those times you needed to just cover up quick until he stopped.

As I write this, I can remember the feeling of a big welt across my cheeck and a bloody lip from one smack that I had across my cheek for about a week. I would have been about in third grade then. He'd hit us with other things. He had an aluminum clip board type of contraption that he'd smash us with. But that little stick, man, that was his favorite.

I think he liked it because he probably knew it wouldn't do big-time damage; no matter if he lost his temper as long as he was using that stick he wasn't going to kill anyone. He'd break the skin and leave some good welts. But I don't think you could break a bone with it. You might hurt someone's eye, I suppose, but it was pretty sure that it wouldn't require a trip to the hospital or anything. Boy did it sting. And it kept us in fear while we were little kids. We had a couple altercations where I pushed back years later. And he was generally just as happy to get me out of the house later when I got to pushing back.

I still remember once when I would have been 12 or so, he was going off on me about taking drugs. Everything he did was in the name of God and protecting us from the evils of the world, like drugs. He was accusing me, (incorrectly, though facts never particularly bothered him) and I declined to answer. I saw his hand reach for that little stick and I didn't shrink back. I just sat there, I think he must have seen it in my face that he better bring something bigger than that stick if he was going to hit me. He was big man, about 250 pounds and strong as an ox.

That incident is so sad for me to recall because it was the first time I recall actually just giving up believing that life was worth living.

I don't get locked up in fear often. It's usually that pattern I've repeated for a long time. I'd be in a bar and you could push me a long way. I was always incredibly mellow, but then I'd draw a line in my head and if someone crossed it, we were going to fight. And at that point, I really didn't care if I lived or died.

I can recognize getting that same feeling at age 12 where an acceptance of death, a backward suicidal expression, served me as a defense mechanism. But today I really need to work to understand and short-circuit those feeilngs.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded sharing. You just got me thinking -- always dangerous.
 
Dan,

It was not my intention to bring these things up. I am so sorry about what you went through with this "minister".

I put the warning of strong triggers up because I know a lot of us did not just go through SA, but also PA.

Marc
 
Hey Marc,
No apology necessary. I need to sort through this crap. And it's often by coming here and seeing what other guys are facing that I'm reminded of what I need to be looking at.

I went into therapy because of the SA, but my therapist wisely points out that there are a whole slew of other issues hanging around that I should give some time to. Sorry I sort of went overboard.

Take care
Dan
 
Marc. My childhood, as you know, was one of constant physical abuse. I was the reason my parents HAD to get married. Both sides of the family blamed me and all the men took all their hostility out on me. Broken nose, ribs and once an arm. I was a loner. When my father came home from overseas he started in too. I ran away so many times it was like almost a weekly thing. When the sexual abuse started at Military College it was preceded by physical abuse and pain. That I was used to and meant I was getting attention. Then the sick sex stuff was added and although i loathed it my body thought differently. Yeh it triggered me too and I am sorry for triggering you. :confused:
 
Sometime the fear is so much more overwhelming. It is truly possible to be back to being a child again. I am scared of thunderstorms. I usually can get through them rather well, although I don't like them. But if they are fierce enough, and loud enough, I will sometime hide in the closet like a child. We have been harmed beyond what most people could imagine. The effects will linger after. I think you, I, everyone here is doing quite well, considering the shit we went through already.

leosha
 
Marc,

It must be so hard for you to tell about these things, I am very sorry you had to go through so much as a kid. No kid should ever endure anything like it.

My abuse had a kick back effect on me, my brothers and sister would always blame me for everything that God damn well happened, so I got belted for things I did not do :(

I never minded being beaten, for the things I did do, and there were probably loads of them, caused by the aftershock of what happened to me, but it all compounds into a childhood of chaos and despair :eek:

I was glad to see the end of my childhood, and now all I want to do is reclaim it, and it will happen.

take care,

ste
 
This topic, and talking in our group therapy, has made me wonder about the climate of violence and fear that seems to surround so much abuse.
I also wondered if ti was more common in 'institutional' situations rather than 'family' ones?

The boarding school I was abused at was run in a climate of fear by the majority of the staff.
I had the unenviable record of most entries in the "Caning Book" when I left, the most 'memorable' caning being the 12 strokes from the long bamboo cane on the day I was gang raped by older boys, 6 for having cigarrettes and six for telling lies.
But I was far from alone and saw teachers hit kids with fists, feet and anything they could lay their hands on. One teacher threw wood working chisels, hammers and chunks of wood at us, and often cut boys badly when he did! I'm about 80% certain he was also a perp.

Possibly it's a climate of inadequacy on their part that leads them to this behaviour, and maybe the sex abuse as well?
But the two things do seem to have a very close relationship.

Dave
 
Dave,

I remember being caned loads of times, the headmaster used to give me six of the best for something I never was even part of, I remember getting six of the best for being constantly late at school, and I took it, I just looked at him, and thought, if only you know how you abuse me.

The headmaster whacked me extra hard, because he knew I could take it, he did it until there were tears running down my face, I still have the scars on my hands, I remember he asked me to take down my pants to whack me from behind, and I refused, he would never do that, so I got the caning I deserved.

I have weals on my right and left hand from caning, and the strap, because I took it so good, he would make it strong enough to make me cry, even then I could take so much pain, but they are not satisfied until you suffer.

Yes, I suffer, I humiliated you though, by not taking my pants down, nobody did that after SA, so you cane me till I cry, and then you feel sorry???

You feel sorry because you take out anger on a little boy who is already beaten into submission, and you take advantage of that, but I made him feel humitiated when he could not fathom out, just how I took the initial beating without me feeling the pain.

Fortunately, he got to a point where he apologised, because maybe he knew I was hurt, and my problems where not mine at all, but he knew I had suffered, a bit too late, when you look on them as your protectors.

I wonder, if he would have done these things, knowing what I had really been through?

He brought me onto the stage at assembly, and he pointed me out as being the kid who lived across the road from the school who could never get in on time, my form teacher humiliated me in front of the whole school one morning, and I snapped at him. "You don't know what goes on"!!!

From that point, standing up for myself, I got some (help)???

My father was brought into the school to explain my behaviour, it was as though they thought he was the one who was behind my being late for school.

The real reason, was that I was so scared to go and had to make real detours, and make sure nobody was following me, the other reason, was that I had to stay behind and break up the arguments that my father and mother used to have, about me!!!

I used to soil the bed after nightmares, and needed so much more attention, and I had to get over it and just try to be a normal kid.

No wonder we screw our minds up, when we think of all the challenges we faced???

I came to a point of ultimate respect with my teachers, no-one ever asked me to remove my pants, Hey! You don't do that, beat me as much as you want but don't even think about that one.

ste
 
Dave,

You bring up an interesting question. As I already mentioned here, the abuse at home was of all three varieties. Sexual, phyical and mental.

But when you brought up institutional, that set me to thinking about the psychologist that was one of my abusers at Circle S Ranch in Arizona.

This man had TOTAL power over all the boys there. Even if we could have gotten away, where would we have gone? It was in the middle of the freakin' desert!

This guy was something else. Yes, the sexual abuse was there. But this made me think of his way of handling "problems". Such as making groups of boys attack the current object of his anger. Playing basketball, God help you if you were on his team and screwed up at all. You'd be amazed at the pain of a basketball hitting you in the head at full force. Or getting a football in the back.

You know, I think you've got something there with the climate of fear and violence. But even worse is when the abuse is cloaked in "love". At least in my opinion.

To this day I despise Football (American) and Basketball with a passion. :(

Marc

P.S. I AM a soccer fanatic!
 
This was a difficult post for me to read - we have all coped with the after effects of abuse in different, perhaps similar ways.

All of the time that I kept my 'dirty secret', I used to think that if I had some physical scars that people could see, then maybe people would look at me with empathy and say 'I wonder what happened to him - that looks bad'. I thought that if people could see the damage and discovered my secret then they would at least think that I had been forced into doing things.

I know now, that was just distorted thinking & that to have had physical and mental scars would have probably made me even worse. It's obviously not good for anyone to suffer abuse of any nature.

My perp never used violence and seemed like the kindest person on the planet. That's what I found so hard to face up to, that I was not beaten into submission - I let it happen (I was just turned 12, it was 1969, I was just an innocent kid with a deep voice that came from my boots).

I know that I didn't have the frames of reference to extradite me from the situation at that time - now I do and I have truly forgiven myself. Until only recently, I used to use my deep voice as an excuse for him - but I was in school uniform the first time he approached me.

One thing I've discovered here - psychological, sexual, physical abuse - they all cause damage...there is no scale for suffering.

Strength to you all - Rik
 
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