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New here
I’m very trauma, bonded, and struggling to move from a partial separation to a full separation from my abusive husband of 33 years. Any suggestions or support from those who have experienced the similar struggle and been successful would be much appreciated. #DomesticAbuse #DomesticAbuseSurvivors #DomesticViolence
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New to the group
I’m new to the group and just wanted to say hello to fellow survivors of childhood and domestic abuse. I hope to be able to connect with others here. I in a partial separation from my abusive husband, but I am extremely trauma bonded so it is difficult to move to complete separation. However, that is my goal and I would love suggestions from others who have struggled with this and been successful. Thank you. #DomesticAbuse #DomesticViolence
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Undiagnosed (C)PTSD
How is this possible??!! I watched Peter Cottontail and when the farmer chases the bunny my chest tightens, I can't breath, the panic grasps me and I begin to cry hysterically. Yet I can't get a Mental Health professional to diagnose me with PTSD let alone C-PTSD. It is the very organization of Mental Health that is driving me to a mental breakdown and insanity. When is it ok for the 'professionals' to become our abusers, tormentors and creators of immense trauma? Am I the only one that feels this is wrong on every level!!?? How is it that it is the very Mental Health system is 'allowed' to do this to innocent victims just looking for help to ease their pains? #CPTSD #MentalHealth #Undiagnosed #insanity #despondant #Trauma #Abuse #AbuseSurvivors #DomesticAbuse #ChildAbuse #ChildhoodAbuse #EmotionalAbuse #SexualAbuseSurvivors #I may look alive #Broken
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Honesty #PTSD #EmotionalAbuse #DomesticAbuse #SexualTrauma
I just remembered something and I wanted to share it with you all. When I was at a Rehab facility for 15 months I had group therapy for domestic violence and drug abuse. I also went to individual therapy as well as sexual assault therapy ( which went at my pace). My first time at individual therapy and sexual assault therapy I just kinda sat there trying to make words form that would let my therapist know how I needed help. I than told my S A therapist that I have difficulty speaking what's on my mind because of years of being told that what I had to say didn't matter. But, I can be very talkative when I write what I want to say down on paper. I would put it under my SA therapist door when I was finished so she can read it before our next appointment and she can ask questions. When I got in her office the next time she was all smiles. Because I had wrote about one instance that I've had flashbacks about. She was surprised I was very explicit with details and revealed what I felt afterwards. I told her that if I can't be honest and open about what's messing up my head, then you don't know how to help me. I was told by different case managers, instructors and staff that I was brutally honest and they thought that it did help me along my healing journey.
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*TW* Abuse and the Cone of Silence
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I’m watching the Jimmy Savile documentary. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse myself, the thing that intrigues me is how many signs there can be about a person, and even more shockingly, how often society ignores such red flags.
As an example, I reported our garden landscaper to child services for endangering his children some years ago. He had brought his young child to work on our property with an open industrial cutting blade in operation… and as we later found without any insurance. I was deeply uneasy about the child essentially working on our property and eventually my husband asked him to take his kid home because though he was ‘spending time with dad’, he was also doing so unsupervised and anything could have gone wrong. When it became clear that he had no intention of completing our garden, I started to gather screenshots from his social media to pass on to the authorities as evidence. It was then that I found pictures of both kids from when they were even younger regularly ‘helping dad with work’. He even bragged about one of them getting better with their garden skills, amd that is when I decided to raise my concerns with child protective services.
Because if I know one thing to be true; whatever questionable material someone is willing to post online, is the merely tip of the iceberg in terms of what they’re actually willing to do, or have done.
In our guy’s case it turned out money laundering, was also something he was willing to engage in—yet he isn’t in prison or on probation, he’s out there possibly looking to line up the next victim because I think conmen seldom know how to do anything other than con. Manson, Bundy, Zodiac, Madoff, Ponzi, Delvey, Holmes, Shkreli, Epstein, Maxwell, and Savile are all united in the sense that the accumulation of power and a desire to wield the hammer of power is at the heart of all acts of abuse. As the saying goes: absolute power, corrupts absolutely.
Though our conman has been reported via the appropriate channels, the wheels of justice in a country that is supposedly a first world nation, move painfully slow. And I’ve learned by baptism of fire, that the wheels won’t move at all unless you make enough noise—in my case I was forced to act as an unofficial coordinator amongst the victims at the urging of government agencies. Had I not used up my own time in this manner, the case against this person would have never amounted to anything at all.
And yet this is just a straightforward case of a cowboy builder… which begs the question of what hope do the victims of physical crimes stand? Or worse, those that are so vulnerable, that they cannot defend themselves?
Whether it is sexual, physical, psychological, emotional or financial abuse, it seems to me that there are always enablers.
For Jimmy Savile it was the BBC, the media, and his connection to public figures such as the Royal Family to all manner of celebrities, that likely stopped the CPS from investigating him several times throughout his career. For my conman I had every ‘bloke’s bloke’ in the village tell me off for “ruining” this man’s livelihood , including many verbally abusive messages from one of his mates undoubtedly with the intention of intimidating me. And yet I was not the one who had chosen to defraud members of our village to the tune of over £50,000, though I’m sure the true figure is likely much higher. And so many people who I got in touch with, told me that they’d simply written their financial loss off as a bad experience.
Here is where I take issue. For if every person before me had reported this man, chances are he would not have been free to continue his grift for as long as he did. And, it seems people don’t give much thought to elderly people who if conned, cannot simply go out and earn more money—they go without basic things like food and heating during the winter. Which in my mind to have contributed in any way toward the suffering of another is frankly unconscionable, even if the link is not direct, our failure to act on knowledge is to enable someone.
For my part I wish every person who looked the other way, was were forced to wear a Cone of Silence for upholding the Code of Silence that goes hand in hand with all instances of harmful conduct. If I witness a crime, flee the scene, and refuse to give testimony, then I would be perverting the course of justice (a fitting, yet unintentional pun).
This is not to say that the person committing the crime is not solely to blame for their actions, or to shame the victims. I’m saying that for every Jimmy Savile; there is at the very least one person who knew something and failed to do anything about it. The look the other way mentality that allows many abusers the freedom to keep abusing.
Abusers do not truly act alone, the Code of Silence becomes their co-conspirator and in my opinion those who areof sane mind who enable abuse of any kind should be held to account for their silence. And we as a collective society set the stage for perpetrators to more easily get away with abuse by upholding idioms and credos like “bro code”, “snitches get stitches”, “don’t tattletale”, “what was she wearing”, “stay in your own lane”, and that festering old chestnut “it’s a family issue”.
It is for this reason in my opinion; that as long as society continues to justify looking the other way in this manner, abuse will be here to stay.
#Abuse #AbuseSurvivors #DomesticAbuse #DomesticAbuseSurvivors #EmotionalAbuse #PsychologicalAbuse #SexualAbuseSurvivors #SexualAbuse #ChildhoodSexualAbuse #ChildhoodEmotionalAbuse #Trauma
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To say your name
It's funny isn't it, even when we were together I would never call you by your name because I knew I would get hurt so I gave you nicknames. Never did I think you would rape me. Then again no one ever think it is going to be them right? I always try to see the best in people and no matter how awfully you treated me I still saw the good and thought you were just misunderstood and my friends didn't know you like I did. How wrong I was. Was I just naive? Even after it happened I questioned myself, I told myself that it couldn't of just happened. That wouldn't happen to me. I have been through a lot of shitty things but never did I think i'd end up here. I can't even say I am a survivor of rape, because i am not surviving. I don't know when this pain subsides, when do I stop being afraid to leave my house, when will i not be on high alert when i will get to leave the house it happened in when will i get to move away from you. I can never heal whilst you're so close everywhere i go, there are memories of you and i. the inly thing i can say that i have gained is the ability to say your name out loud. It is the only power i hold. Not only did I question whether it was rape before someone told me what happened was rape, i never even realised there was domestic abuse all the way through. How do i ahve anyone else to blame apart from myself there were warning signs, my friends tried to warn me but i didnt listen and now i am here #Rape #DomesticAbuse
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A follow up to my last post #CPTSD #DomesticAbuse #ChronicMigraines
Pt 2: yesterday I was driving through the same town where I went to the hospital and I felt such anger. I very rarely feel angry and I never act on it. But yesterday I did. I pulled into the hospital and was shaking as I requested to speak to someone about what happened Sunday. I used to advocate for myself relatively boldly but I have been so dehumanized and that advocating gave me more labels than help. But I thought “well, if they are going to say I’m paranoid and suicidal when I am not, why am I trying so hard to mask my distress?”
I went in there and told my story. I told them I don’t need them to do anything. I don’t care what they do with that information. I don’t need an apology. I just needed someone to hear what happened.
I was given a few numbers by the woman at the registration desk and she talked to the ER head nurse. It was acknowledged that they definitely should have stopped drawing blood if I was in pain.
Again, I just am so proud of myself for not reducing myself more.
#CPTSD #ChronicMigraines
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Staring Down the Barrel
So my adoptive dad was obsessed with money… because my adoptive mom once had a severe gambling addiction. So my mom would spend money sometimes to piss him off. He was abusive to her just fyi.
So it’s my 12th birthday and my mom buys me 4 red eared slider turtles who I named after the ninja turtles 😅 However I decided one or 2 appeared to be female so I gave them female renaissance artist names. She bought a tank, heat lamps, etc. all the stuff… so it was expensive.
My dad was an alcoholic and as me and my mom completely setting up the turtle tank my dad walked in angry. When he saw the tank he demanded to know the price. My mom said, “We can talk about it later, it’s our daughters birthday.” My dad was still pissed.
He demanded we go buy him more beer. My mom was tired of being his enabler as people called her so she refused. Said she wasn’t doing it anymore. So my dad got out his hunting rifle and pointed it at me and her (I was standing beside her) and demanded again that we get him more beerS She looked at him in shock and I ran out the door after a moment of being froze. I had to force my legs to move.
I ran as fast as I could down my neighborhood street to the only neighbor I trusted and banged on their door in a panic. They didn’t answer so I kept banging on the door. The neighbors across who I didn’t know at all were suddenly standing behind me. They told me those neighbors were on vacation. They asked if I was okay and if I needed help. I couldn’t speak. I was filled with terror and questions. Do I tell them? Do I keep my mouth shut? Why couldn’t my trusted neighbor just be here?
The next thing I knew my mom was there beside me. She puts her arm around me and tells them that everything is fine and I’m just mentally ill. We proceeded walking home in silence. As we neared the house I stopped. I asked my mom why she said that and why she didn’t ask for their help. She said it was because it wasn’t a big deal and everything is fine.
My mom had stored the gun and said she knew it wasn’t loaded. Clearly my father hadn’t known that. I spent my whole life trying to get my mom to understand how messed up that event was. She always convinced herself it wasn’t a big deal so I’m like, “mom you’re husband should never ever pull a gun on you or me. There is no circumstance where that is no big deal.”
Today my mom and dad both understand how horrible it was. My mom more so than my dad. And my mom now hates guns. Which is why it took a lot to get her to ok me buying one. Including taking a safety class and training class. But I still appreciate that she cares.
Thought I’d share my story with gun violence.
#CPTSD #PTSD #Trauma #Abuse #DomesticAbuse #ChildAbuse #GunViolence
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“If I don’t make it out of this alive, please do not let my story end here.” #CPTSD #DomesticAbuse #Agoraphobia #ChronicMigraineSyndrome
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This is the first thing I said upon arriving in my therapist’s office yesterday. I really feel this sense of impending doom and I fought too hard to not have a portion of this heard.
I have CPTSD from a couple of abusive relationships/childhood trauma/a hostile work environment. I have been unable to gain stability since early 2016 when I left my (now ex-) husband. I am unable to work, considered disabled, unemployed, homeless, mentally and physically unwell, etc.
My story isn’t this. It is that I already overcame trauma, superseded the expectations of anyone, and became a reputable professional with leadership roles and a network of colleagues that I collaborated regularly with. I had friends, the best of friends, through thick and thin, until they were not.
Now I don’t remember who I am. I don’t have an identity. My future is beyond dark. Even if I do make it through this; what’s the point? I don’t feel depressed as much as acquiescent (IDK if that can actually be a verb but we are working with it). I never was depressed until lately.
I have a voucher but my case manager has done nothing. Literally nothing but caused problems. I am not getting my basic needs met at all (such as, you know, my prescribed medications 😑)
My options are basically nonexistent if I want to maintain a modicum of safety. (Currently considering asking a church if I can stay in their parking lot). Or- my ex boyfriend I recently reconnected with is offering to get a place with me. And my therapist at the domestic violence agency who knows my situation doesn’t condone this but also acknowledges this may be the only option I have.
Taking a moment to really drive that home: my situation is so dire that my therapist (whom I respect and supports me entirely and I have a good relationship with) is acknowledging that moving in with him is likely the only quasi-option.
This is already rambling so I’m just going to stop. Idk if anyone will see this. I’m just so scared that I am coming up on the end of my story due to a lack of shelter, support, and hope.
#CPTSD #DomesticAbuse #Agoraphobia
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