Psychological Child Abuse?

[Anonymous]

I won't go into the details of my past, but I'm sure I was emotionally abused as a child. Not in the "oh I never got the colour of bike I wanted" way... I was abused in the "you better live up to my unrealistic expectations of how a good kid should act, otherwise you're a terrible child that I should have aborted" way. I think this past is what is causing my current condition of being a person that simply cannot function on a healthy level in normal society. I've lied to friends and family to cover my irratic behaviours and lack of self esteem and I am, quite frankly, sick of it.

Does anybody have any experience with this type of thing? If so, what have you done to get your life on track? Is there any chance I can have a normal life, or did all hope of it go away as soon as I was brought up in a house where I was unable to be a normal child/teenager?

[gwahir]

Is there any chance I can have a normal life, or did all hope of it go away as soon as I was brought up in a house where I was unable to be a normal child/teenager?

I don't know, but given some of the kinds of things I'm dealing with, I have to believe that there's never no hope.

Other than that I have nothing to say.

[Absolution]

Well. Emotional abuse? Could you maybe give an example instead of just referring to "unrealistic expectations"? You're so vague with everything in your post. What was your life before (childhood, teenage years)? What's your life like now?

[MrShrike]

I'll tell you a very brief version of how my life went and where I'm at now. I hope that there is something in it for you.

I had a pretty wretched childhood. Being a teenager and a young adult was worse. From about age 12 I was an utter social outcast. I was diagnosed as manic depressive but never received treatment, my family was broken and my step father kicked me out home with only the clothes on my back at 17. I hadn't finished highschool and I had no future prospects whatsoever. I had already made several VERY bad personal choices with respect to the people and family I know by this point, which to this day are so shameful that I still really don't like thinking about them. I had exactly 1 friend who was even worse off than me.

I thought about dying for a very long time as it was the only way I could conceive of ending what was a hopelessly painful and fucked up existence, both because where I was at and because of all that I had been through and put through by my distorted family.

When I eventually realised that I didn't have the guts to kill myself, I worked out that either my life was going to stay just as fucking shitty forever, or that I must believe there was hope that my life would improve - and hope was something at that time which was almost impossible to imagine. But whatever else I was, I was a logical sort of guy and logic dictated that I had to choose 1 of 3 things; death, a lifetime of misery, or hope.

All I'll say about now, is that life is sweet. It's not perfect by any means, but it's what I've made it. And while it can ebb and flow sometimes, in general it keeps getting better.

But more the point of my story, is that my journey from that desperately miserable existence to the one I have now has made me believe that anyone can have the life they want - eventually. All it takes in the beginning is that you start make a few choices for yourself.

Once you start making choices, then eventually you will have to start accepting responsibility for the results of your choices, both good and bad. You also have to accept that it will take time to get what you want and that there will be setbacks along the way, and to choose not to fall into the luxury of self-pity and of despair when that happens. If you can do this, then it is INEVITABLE that your life will become what you want it to be.

It all starts with making 1 single choice. To choose hope. And then making another choice. And then another.

[simonj]

All the advice from this thread seems to be straight out of The Shawshank Redemption.

I'm not entirely sure what constitutes psychological child abuse to be honest so I'm not sure if I can offer any advice.

Hope is good, but it's nothing without determination and the cojones to make good of your situation.