Gabor Maté's powerful words.

Gabor Maté's powerful words.
i-m-Bri

i-m-Bri

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Staff member
A friend shared this 2-minute video of Mell Robbins talking with Dr. Gabor Maté.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Tr8n-qTfdgI
***TRIGGERS***
It punched me in the gut.
"...didn't feel safe talking...that's the trauma. The trauma began before that happened."
With those words, everything is explained.

I couldn't go home and say a horrible thing happened. That isn't what I did. Why not? We were told over and over that we could tell our parents anything.

A boy jumped me from a tree, pinned me, pulled out his dick, and demanded I put it in my mouth.
Bad enough.
In front of every kid at school: worse.
In front of my twin sister: degrading, humiliating, and devastating
No one could look at me after he ran off.
No one said a word.
(as an adult, I know they were in as much shock as I was...But I was 5)
I was ostracized.
Alone, shunned and ignored.

In my isolation, I believed my parents knew (because my sister was there).
I "KNEW" my parents never spoke of it out of deep shame.
I "KNEW" they knew.
I was terrified that they might bring it up as a weapon to torment me.
That was hell living with that dread.
I withdrew even more...but I wasn't stupid, I couldn't trip the switch...I pretended to be a member of the family.
But I knew I wasn't.

That's the boy who ten years later was kidnapped, trafficked, and believed he would be killed.
When I escaped and returned home, Dad tossed out the word "runaway".
Sure, I went along with that explanation.
And rotted in a private hell.

Sorry, that was a long response to a short video.
 
Hugs, Bri.

Those really young incidents... burned so deeply into our emotions. And we didn't have the cognition or ability to process any of it. We took cues from others to interpret it - and usually compounded the shame we already felt.

I have been learning a lot about my 3 yo self. Just last week, I was thinking about some things in the present and said to myself, "I really fucked that up," and all of a sudden I morphed into that 3 yo boy and was looking out through his eyes. He was alone in that hotel room after the first abuse had happened and the abuser had left - but my father hadn't returned. All by myself, staring at the door, and he thought, "I really messed up!"

Every memory I have since 5 years old - I never, ever blamed myself or thought I was "bad" or had surely done something wrong to end up being fondled and sucked on and abused. I knew it was wrong - and it was my dad who was wrong! But at 3 years old... apparently I did think I screwed up. What else would a child at 3 or 5 years old, experiencing sexual abuse for the first time, think? It absolutely kills me to know that I, or any of us here, thought that at that age. My therapist, as I recounted this to her, asked me what I wanted to say to that 3 yo boy, and so I told him: "It is absolutely not anything you did wrong. You didn't do anything wrong. That man, and your dad, they hurt you - they did wrong. Not you," and I told her I longed so badly to hold that little boy in my arms and give him the comfort and love he so desperately needed in that moment.

So Bri, I'm so sorry your own father didn't comfort you. I'm even sorry he didn't know what happened to you that first time - even if with adult eyes we know maybe he couldn't have known. To your 5 yo self - that doesn't matter. He should have known. And he should have been who you needed so desperately for him to be. So, if you can, hug that 5 yo boy.
 
MO-Survivor said:
your own father didn't comfort you.
Click to expand...
I can't tell you how creeped out I was reading that. I can't imagine allowing him to. OMG, even decades later, my impulse is to push away and run...at an imaginary scenario!
Thank you for helping me know me better.
If I could go back and comfort myself, I'd tell myself he did the right thing..."keep it to yourself...these people won't understand and it will be more muddled than it already is. HIDE."
That may not be the healthiest, but I know my family.
 
I guess in a way mine’s related to family as well. When I was traffic, I lived with my family. They didn’t know uncle Bill was my owner. They friended our family him and his wife and son and I became part of their family. With my dad gone at work Monday through Friday And my mother with a young sister. I guess I never really thought about it in this way, but there was no way I could tell that was impossible. Uncle Bill made sure that. So even though I was his slave, any traffic me for years I live at home Apparently a normal life, normal child. I was anything but that. There was no way they could’ve known, nothing they could’ve done. The traffic me was very experienced. Everybody knew all Steve love to go on car rides with uncle Bill when he was doing his errands. Except they really weren’t errands. They were uncle Bill taking me to other men to use me and he did it right in front of everybody and nobody noticed. I remember my dad even asking me, are you behaving for uncle Bill. And asking uncle Bill, he’s not giving any trouble is he, he does behave himself doesn’t he. Everybody thought I just left to go for car rides with uncle Bill. If they only knew. But I was only four when it started. Next part of my story is where it gets really bad. And I indoctrination phase, there was no grooming, nothing so pleasant as that. Just raped, show a boy beaten to death, and they told four year-old little Steve this is you if you don’t behave. And then I was thrown in a cage and left. How does a four-year-old even describe that? What’s worse was I kept hoping that my daddy would save me then he would come and protect me, take me away from all of this. He never came.
 
That’s why it’s taken 60 years to breakthrough.
 
Yeah, that was my grooming experience. It’s really bad as it get worse from there. No way four or five-year-old can even begin to describe something like that and if you did who would believe him.
 
LittleSteve said:
I guess in a way mine’s related to family as well. When I was traffic, I lived with my family. They didn’t know uncle Bill was my owner. They friended our family him and his wife and son and I became part of their family. With my dad gone at work Monday through Friday And my mother with a young sister. I guess I never really thought about it in this way, but there was no way I could tell that was impossible. Uncle Bill made sure that. So even though I was his slave, any traffic me for years I live at home Apparently a normal life, normal child. I was anything but that. There was no way they could’ve known, nothing they could’ve done. The traffic me was very experienced. Everybody knew all Steve love to go on car rides with uncle Bill when he was doing his errands. Except they really weren’t errands. They were uncle Bill taking me to other men to use me and he did it right in front of everybody and nobody noticed. I remember my dad even asking me, are you behaving for uncle Bill. And asking uncle Bill, he’s not giving any trouble is he, he does behave himself doesn’t he. Everybody thought I just left to go for car rides with uncle Bill. If they only knew. But I was only four when it started. Next part of my story is where it gets really bad. And I indoctrination phase, there was no grooming, nothing so pleasant as that. Just raped, show a boy beaten to death, and they told four year-old little Steve this is you if you don’t behave. And then I was thrown in a cage and left. How does a four-year-old even describe that? What’s worse was I kept hoping that my daddy would save me then he would come and protect me, take me away from all of this. He never came.
Click to expand...
All of this completely evil. As I told you before our stories different and yet similar. I wish you peace and healing. Take care.
 
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