Abuse

I had therapy today; we did IFS. It was hard and I was very dysregulated.

Historically, my mom and I have had a rocky relationship. We are very different in our approaches to things and ways of thinking.
Some of my trauma stems from my childhood. My mom and her husband have been together for a long time- maybe 25 years? Her husband was abusive to me when I was a child and I easily spotted his lies as a teen. Him and I hardly have a relationship and we can’t be in the same room together for very long. My mom didn’t defend me and didn’t see the things he did as abuse until I explained it later to her as an adult who is good at advocating for herself.

I live in Ohio, my mom lives in Indiana. A couple of months ago she told me her husband was cheating on her. She said it but kind of dropped it until last week when she told me again and said she was thinking of leaving him. We talked about it a little bit and I told her to move back home because there is no reason for her to stay in Indiana. I told her she could stay with us since we have an extra room.

She called me about an hour ago. She is leaving her husband in October and moving in with us. We will come up with a plan then.

I am a little concerned because my mom doesn’t go to the doctor, is a tobacco smoker, and also is a heavy drinker. She has experienced trauma but I think she has numbed herself to it. She also struggles with anxiety. It makes me cry when I think of what my mom has had to go through and I wish i could encourage her to go to therapy or AA. She doesn’t want to go to therapy and I don’t think she would go to AA, even if I went with her.

I guess we will see what happens. I hope I can make the best out of it. 😬

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MentalHealth #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #CheckInWithMe

It's not a secret for anyone in my family that I'm autistic, I tell my grandma to not treat it as taboo when she mentions about it for someone else, because she always go awkwardly like "She... She has social difficulties..." And I correct her saying "I have autism, it's okay to say that".
But that's not what bugs me, but how my family doesn't take it in consideration. I do forgive my mum for not being able to give me accomodations and proper help when I was younger because autism wasn't very much studied and not even considered enough for a female. So I know she was trying to find answers for questions not even she would know to ask.
But nowadays she is very thoughtful, she tells people that will meet me for the first time about my ways, she respects me needing to use ear mufflers. The only thing she fails is to take my moments of meltdown because it's hard to her and the way she grew up to accept someone screaming, crying, hitting the head, throwing stuff. I get it.
The real issue is with my grandparents, I'm particularly really tired tonight, they have a dog, a rottweiler, super sweet but extremely needy dog. I usually go to sleep at 4 to 6 AM because I'm basically a night owl. He himself barks too much, I'm able to hear him barking from the bus stop. Once I suggested they bought those collars that teach the dog to avoid barking. I know that being shocked is a bit cruel but it's not a form of animal abuse. My grandpa said "it's his way of being", ok... But not ok. I sincerely get totally drained when I go upstairs help with the kitchen and have my meals, because he barks so loudly that I can't take it.
This dog is also really anxious, it's crystal clear that he suffers a lot with anxiety. My mum (who's a vet), suggested we gave him an antidepressant that helps with anxiety, which I had a bunch I was planning to donate back to the healthcare unit since I wasn't using it anymore. So I gave it to my grandparents so they can give him the medicine and help the poor dog with his anxiety, but just because in the second day he got sleepy, they stopped giving him the med, so he is back at being extremely anxious and I feel hurt for him because of his struggles.
We barely are able to take him for a walk as he is really strong, I'm legally blind so I struggle a lot on taking him to walks because first: I can't bring my cane with me because it has a risk of getting broken. And second: I can't see other dogs. Particularly bigger dogs he only likes to play with, but small dogs he goes for attack, and I'd normally walk him during the night, like, after 10-11PM so I would avoid other people walking their dogs and I felt safe taking those walks at such late time, because who wants to mess with a person and a big rottweiler? But then, at around 11:30 PM one night that I was taking him back home, some guy that was walking with a dog so tiny I didn't notice passed through me and the rottweiler went for attack, I fell basically face flat on the street, except for I didn't really hit my face, and held firmly his guide so he wouldn't be able to run after that little dog.
Honestly at first I was baffled with the question in my head "Why the heck is a guy walking with this tiny dog at over 11PM?! Isn't he afraid of getting muggled?!"
My neighborhood is very safe, but I usually won't trust anywhere at that time unless I was with the dog. And I'd arrive past 11PM after college, it was never comfortable.
So we now have the factor that he barely goes out for walks, because all of the people in this household that walked with it, ended up falling because he pulled too hard. So he gets walks when my mum and my stepdad come to visit. So we already have a very anxious and needy dog, and this dog doesn't leave for walks, which boosts his anxiety and my grandparents don't want to medicate him because he got sleepy!!! A week or two with the med would get him used to it and stop getting sleepy.
But worst of all is that he howls, and it's a high pitched howling that lasts for about 5 minutes and it's not continuous, he howls and rehowls. And that's what bugs me more. I'm tired tonight not because I did plenty of work, although I'm almost finishing my programming lesson, but because I was barely into my sleep in the morning, after I went to sleep after 6AM, and he started howling like his life depended on it. My grandma is travelling so we try to understand that he is missing her, but not only I was sleeping but he howls while my grand uncle that works night shifts has to sleep. I went to take a few hours nap during the afternoon, basically an hour into the nap I woke up with him howling. I went back to sleep. Woke up at 6PM, went to do work on my computer, he howled during it, and I could hear despite having a very potent headset, so there was I getting more tired. And my grandfather... Well, there's a lot to talk about him but I won't tonight, but he doesn't understand that there are people that feel better waking up in the morning, and people that feel better in the afternoon. He ignores science and believes that we just need to get used to the time we need to get up. I told him that even if I need to get up early, if I have a job in the morning, I will still feel horrible until it hits after noon. But he basically called me a pushover and said that when it's the time I need to stop being a pushover I will know how to regulate my internal clock. Like it's super easy to get an effing job!!! Like people want a disabled person as their employee!!! Like I'm not making a single effort!!! Like I'm not giving my soul into my studies!!! Like it's basically useless my ability to speak basically three languages!!!

So like... Yes, I get the dog needs care, I get he's always jealous when he sees us giving attention to my cats, I get he misses my grandma, I get he's very anxious. I get all of it. What I don't get is the way my grandparents accept his behavior, even more with, when he's being too unbearable they give him a treat so he will shut up, but that's basically teaching him that he will get a treat if he is unbearable.
And I don't get how my grandparents don't respect that by being autistic and already having really sensible hearing, I get overwhelmed and tired by just being a few minutes in their house with the dog barking. They don't respect if I get my ear mufflers, they don't respect I don't want to be around with the blender because of the noise. They think I'm fussy and that, I don't know, that I should grow up??? Well I'm sorry if I have a condition that makes my brain different from yours and that really causes a immense debt in the entirety of my life, being it personal, academic or professional!

(By the way for context, me and my grandparents don't live together but it's the same plot. Our houses are divided by a wall, so in theory I live by myself and that's basically what matters to the government. But I always go upstairs to eat and spend some time with them, because my grandma goes "cry" to my mum if I don't because she feels I don't love her (—_—"))

#PTSD #MentalHealth #AspergersSyndrome #Anxiety #Abuse

I've been in a very dark moment, I am living with government aid and it's barely enough. Family is basically pressuring me on getting a job and they don't realize that I try, and I try, and I try! They don't live my reality, although some of my family members are also autistic, they handle it way better than me, since I'm level 2 of support, I am far from able to get a grip and hold tight when things go south for me. I have severe depression alongside with anxiety and PTSD, that in my opinion slow even more my life.

But that's not the worst, although it does harm my career choice or any social related situation. The worst is the prejudice I get... I have a great resumé, full of experience, I speak three languages and I am learning four more for gods sakes! I've been to courses and done a lot of online learning to buff my skills. But as soon as a recruiter see I'm blind, I'm turned away, they think I'm useless, they think hiring me will mean having to basically hire a babysitter to lead me to the restroom when needed, they probably think that all accessibility needs will be expensive when just by installing a free screen reader on a computer (NVDA) is basically everything I need.

I got to work in a library targeted for blind people, but the amount of abuse I got, and an almost death experience that was brushed off and my boss told me that I should have stayed in the library waiting for my allergic reaction to go away, I was in biomedical science uni at that moment and my pathology professor told me I was really lucky to survive.

I apply for job opportunities I'm very capable of doing the requirements, but apparently I'll always be dismissed because I'm disabled, or worse, I recently found a job opportunity that I didn't apply for because our minimum wage is BRL1,518.00 and the salary they were proposing was BRL1,500.00; it feels humiliating and also make me feel in a position that I don't have the dignity of being treated as a human being, because just by being disabled I'm not worth paying the BRL18.00 to achieve a minimum wage. By the way, that job opportunity was targeted for disabled people as here in Brazil we have laws that protect disabled people from not being hired, well at least in theory, because in real life, prejudice will always exist and hiring teams usually will pick the "less" disabled person. Because a person that lacks a single finger is disabled so let's hire the person missing a finger instead of hiring the person on a wheelchair, a blind person, a deaf person, and so on. I don't want to sound bitter against those that are hired because they don't have a finger, that must be very uncomfortable to live without, but it take the chances for people that need higher accomodations to work and surviving by government aid is basically impossible.

In my area, 7 people were recently indicted for Medicaid fraud- they were all providers billing for services that weren’t provided to clients.

This isn’t the first time I heard that providers are often the ones who are responsible for the (relatively small) fraud that occurs. And in fact- it reminded me of something.

When I was unhoused, an agency was supposed to be giving me case management services (especially for housing) and didn’t for months. I lost my housing voucher. I had to final a grievance against the agency all while telling them that they were billing my health insurance for services they weren’t giving to me. Then I had to file a grievance with the adamhs board. All those months they were billing for services I wasn’t getting.

If this is the waste, fraud, and abuse that’s happening- why are we scrutinizing the people who need it rather than the agencies? My previous posts on here detail the amount of times I have had to switch agencies because someone at an agency was violating my rights. I know i am not the only one who experiences this.

#Disability #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome

Trigger warning: violence, sexual abuse, cutting
This is a long one...
I wonder if being an #Adoptee is the reason I get in horrible relationships.
My former husband was a horrible person. It was very hard to fill that emotional tank with hatred today, to stop giving him excuses.

- He was traumatized as a child, with an abusive father.
And when he was abusive toward the kids he would say "his father wás so much worst";
-He is still verbally and emotionally abusive with me.
Anger bubbles inside him, and his explosion is hurtful and scary.
-He was physically abusive and sexually abusive.
And only after I cut myself in many places over my own body he did let me go.

I was incompetent and scary enough to not be able to have my kids with me after separation - it was 50% 50%, when they should be with me.

What I need is feel hate, because I still cry because of this man! I feel guilty for my immature way to fight back (I cheated on him, for companionship and validation), I feel.guilty for allowing the kids to be with him.

If I were one of this women from movies and books I would fight back, take the kids away, hide somewhere with them!

My kids are so scared! And it is all because of him!

All these years I keep blaming myself!

And I don't want find forgiveness anymore, I want to hate him! I want to cry over the love that I thought existed and never did!

I want to mourn the man I thought he was, the couple I wanted us to be! I want to mourn the dream marriage, the dream family! All that is a lie!

That's the reality of two damaged people together: not the love story from movies where they walk hand in hand in the end: it's the horror movie where I need to survive for my kids, where we all end with the scars made by the monster that was never destroyed, that keeps coming back over and over again.

All I wanted was a "real family"... All I wanted is fill my heart with some hate because the battle is not even close to be over.

Hi, my name is Rachit Madeshiya. I'm here because I am having a lot of issues in my life recently. My parents, they abuse me a lot and mostly talk in a bad or high tone with me. Also, I am also in a lot of depression, a lot of times it has happened that there have been many incidents where I think that nothing matters anymore. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis (i think) in both of my ankle-areas.

#MightyTogether #RheumatoidArthritis #Anxiety #Depression

The more I think about things, I get all the more angry about the complexities involved in generations of abuse. The same people who taught me to have self-respect for myself and how to set somewhat reasonable boundaries in relationships are the same people who didn't have it for themselves. It’s like realizing that your heroes who seem to save everyone were incapable of saving themselves from tragedy. My grandparents' relationship was abusive and codependent, and I think it's the same with my mom. Her husband can't make certain life decisions without someone telling him what to do. My mom, who has not only been said person, but I also believe that she can't be by herself for extended periods. Things seem to be back to normal after he had discarded her for the last few weeks. As angry as I am about all of this, I truly believe neither one is ready for change. A narcissist and an eternal hopeful person are a painful combination to watch. #MentalHealth #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Anxiety #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #Abuse

Okay, so this is the most painful movie for me to watch, but it's also my favorite. I watched this movie when I was around fourteen, and let's just say it caused me a lot of problems. I never realized before that point that what had happened to me when I was little was bad. In fact, I just tried to push it out of my mind for years, couldn't think about it too much. Anyway, yk that scene where Charlie's aunt puts her hand on his knee? That's how it started the first time when I was around five or six. Yeah, that triggered a lot of stuff, I got up, went to the bathroom and puked my guts out and cried. I don't remember what happened for a long while after that. Fast forward a while, I watch it again, this time noticing the fact that Charlie listens to the song "Asleep" by the smiths on repeat. That was a sucker punch to the face for me because that song describes how I'd been feeling for a long time. I realize that all of his behavior throughout the movie is linked to when he was a kid. So, I do a little research, try and see if I do things that might be related to the abuse I went through. I came up with a little list I think could make sense with my experiences.

*I hate being touched by anyone, but especially women. As a kid I found other females disgusting and ugly and I had a deep untrust of women. (Don't tell anyone, I still do.)

*I can't stand people standing behind me, and I have to have a running list of everyone in the same room with me. I also count people and check what their wearing and try to figure out what their mood is the first moment I walk into a room. It makes me nervous not having an escape route ready.

*When I was a kid, I would wait until everyone else was asleep, then get out of bed and hide in the closet or under the bed sometimes. Until closets themselves became a trigger. Lol.

*I have an actually, literal safety object. It's this necklace I found on the side of the road, and I can't go anywhere without it. I don't even take it off in the shower. Which leads me to the next one.

*Showering. I always feel dirty, like there's an inch thick of this invisible substance, and I feel like showering would help. So, I get in the shower, but the sight of my own body scares me and makes me cry. Fun stuff.

*I always see myself as the outsider, even if a group of people seems to have accepted me, I always think they can't stand me and are just being nice. Oh, there's only four chairs? I'll sit on the floor.

*Like Charlie, I have blanked out before like the fight scene. I was defending my friend at the time, but I blanked out and then like, woke up kind of, and my friend's brother looked freaked out and called me a freak. It turns out I shoved and hit him, all because of a stupid paper airplane. I can't remember this, I figured it out eventually after asking around pretty awkwardly.

*I'm fine under really hard circumstances but get upset from little things. I said, "That's too bad," when my childhood honorary aunt figure got hit by a car and died, but if someone looks at me wrong or something, I go hide in the bathroom and cry. (It's been over a year now, and I still can't make myself sad about the lady dying, even though I always loved her.)

*I have a fear of certain wooden benches, fall weather, little white flowers, little white dogs (Bichon Frises? I think that's what their called), this one smell that's pretty common in my area, like moss or fungi or something. All things present when I was raped as a little kid. It happened outside. And I got a job at a summer camp this year. Because I'm smart like that.

*I have an obsession with traumatized characters in movies and books, but when I watch or read them, I sometimes get triggered and have to take three days to watch a two-hour movie.

That's all for today folks. This might all be unrelated, but at least for me it feels in line with everything. What's some behavioral stuff you guys deal with that seems almost normal before you think about it? And sorry for going on like this lol.