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Being inordinately hung up on past abuse/bullying

Started by madhair60, September 06, 2019, 02:17:43 PM

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Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: madhair60 on September 06, 2019, 03:58:10 PM
It could be worse. I'm grateful for the personal successes I have enjoyed. I should probably make that clear.

Well, let's not get carried away, here. Space Cunts ain't all *that*, mate ;-)

madhair60

Quote from: Buelligan on September 06, 2019, 04:00:34 PM
Point is madhair, you do have value.  People genuinely like and admire you - including me.

That's what makes this so fucked up. I'm one of the best people on the planet. It's like that wasn't obvious to them.

Jerzy Bondov

Your childhood tormentors might have material success but their souls are tainted. They're also benders.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on September 06, 2019, 03:48:44 PM
Yeah, if you're still giving those fuckers house room in your head, then they've won; and they don't deserve to win.

Good thing that forgetting trauma and letting go is so easy then!

Ah...

Actually, is there any real way to do this? Anyone tried CBT? I've had counselling before but I have found that dredging up old memories often just makes me feel worse, and I like the idea of a form of counselling which is more about looking forward.

Cuellar

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:17:29 PM
Anyone tried CBT?

Yes, and as soon as I stepped into the therapists office she kicked me in the knackers.

Helped though.

Poobum

Absolutely ruined by bullying and castigation. Was always a shy kid, but managed to have a small group of friends, also liking football helped, but as I went through puberty things got worse at home with my mental parents, especially after we moved into a two bed flat. I withdrew more and more, becoming an easy victim for bullies to humiliate daily. Stopped eating, lost the ability to sleep, still have chronic insomnia. The nadir was the despair of lunchtime after lunchtime spent having to walk around friendless and alone, my only interactions being insults and mocking.

I had a nervous break down at 20 whilst in college pretending to be a person I wasn't and spent the next 9 years pretty much never leaving my room. Self-esteem is still fucked, and this week has been a bit triggering since I'm back in full time education at nearly 34. Internaly I felt like a scared 5 year old, but thankfully years of retooling meant I was able to imitate being normal. Still having random spikes of anxiety though, and feeling that I'm gonna crack at any moment and Forrest Gump it out of there.

My problem is most of my anger is directed inwards. I cut off contact with old college friends, I choose to hide for nearly a decade, I denied myself the chances of a relationship, which something I was obsessed with, and it's me still fucking myself. I mean since 30 I've done loads cool stuff, dreams coming true, but the brain isn't as plastic as when it absorbed and distorted to all that trauma, so it doesn't stick as easily. Still feels like I'm a sub-human loser desperately trying to pass, and is always about to be found out. It's what ruined my, as yet, only relationship because I was too keen on reminding her how shit I was, like I was being dishonest if I let her percieve my as a normal human.

Great White Ape

Took me 10 years to move on from the bullying at high school. Fucked up my A-levels off my own steam, and was never a confident go-getter in the first place, but definitely it contributed to my being a miserable, fascist piece of shit in my teens and early 20s. My brain still treats me to the key players in my dreams every now and then, even though they only very rarely factor into my daily thoughts.

The worst prick is now a doctor in the NHS, like the rest of his family, so I wouldn't even feel good about doing him in, knowing that people rely on his skills and expertise. A shrewd move on his part. He was a real brown noser and one of the more academically-gifted in my year, which meant most of the teachers couldn't (or were unwilling to) see past the facade and deal with him appropriately. I'm more angry at their passivity these days, though none of them were horrible people and were generally very kind.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: madhair60 on September 06, 2019, 02:37:50 PM...and annihilate myself off a cliff I reckon. Finally live out that sunny hunny annihilation dream.

Please don't.  I was put off that method myself after I read that some terrifyingly-high percentage of jumpers who survive say they regretted it halfway down.  About 80% or something.

Or as one survived-jumper put it a few years ago (approximate quote): "At the moment I jumped off the bridge, I realised that all the other problems I'd had were insignificant compared to the one I was now facing."

Absorb the anus burn

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes..... To virtually everything in this thread - and some! I was once in hospital for two weeks with an internal injury that nearly offed me.... Still recovering, growing (sorry for the cornball sentiment) and trying to forget and forgive. Some days easy, some days not so.....

Try to spot patterns of abuse and move cautiously around the bullies (be they family, colleagues or school-yard thugs).... They aint monsters, but fuck can they lay a minefield.

Attila

I wonder how different my life personality would have been had I not been pulled out of my elementary school (went there for 1st - 4th grade) and plunked down into an awful Catholic school by my madly religious mother. Two years of relentless bullying later, I'd had a complete personality change, went from being fairly sociable with a little circle of friends, to being almost completely withdrawn, mistrustful, and so stressed out I had an ulcer by the time I was 12 years old. It also made me a target for subsequent bullying when my mother finally sent me to a different school; for the next few years I had to put up with a new round of bullies -- the ones on my schoolbus were so nasty that by about midday every day I was ill with anxiety. There is not a single subject that I passed if it fell in the timetable after about midday, because all I was doing was clockwatching and dreading what those fuckers on the schoolbus would do to me that afternoon.

It's one reason I'm very secretive now, isolated, and terrible at social things. I can lecture, give public talks, do conferences - I love it. But any situation where I have to mingle and small talk and all that stuff -- nope. Absolute torture.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Poobum on September 06, 2019, 04:25:14 PM
also liking football helped

At primary school I was bullied relentlessly for being hopeless at sport. At secondary school it was more often the sadistic PE teachers who were the problem. I've grown up seeing exercise as a complete chore and it's something that still makes me really anxious. Now I'm 37 and need to stay healthy I've been trying numerous forms of exercise and still struggling to find the one that's right for me- I feel exercise won't ever be something I fully enjoy, it will never be anything more than a necessary evil.

I never understood the way people who are good at PE are revered, yet people who are good at classroom-based subjects are mocked. Surely being good at PE is just another way of being a swot? Also why do people celebrate being good at useless things like lacrosse and rounders, while being good at things like maths, science and writing- things with a much better chance of making you rich and famous- is sneered at?

Whatever, I'm a techbro now and none of my classmates are professional netball players. Needless to say etc.

Attila

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:17:29 PM
Good thing that forgetting trauma and letting go is so easy then!



This. Nothing is more aggravating than someone telling you to stop living in the past -- I can agree with that part, but it would be nice if some people would actually lend an ear and some empathy to understand why I have difficulty processing certain things (comments from people, looks/expressions on people's faces) and understanding that being bullied as a kid, being bullied by your family, and then landing in an abusive marriage fucks you right up. How in the hell I've accomplished anything with all that baggage, I do not know -- but I know without all of that shit, I would have done much much more by this stage in my life.

Instead I just get someone who tells me to 'man up' when I'm upset over a situation, and that it's my own fault if I let people walk all over me. Cool, that's just what my mum said, when I was a skinny teenaged girl and the (male) bullies on my bus used to hit me, trip me, spit on me, &c. 'Just slap them, that'll get their attention.' Had I ever done any of the things my parents told me to do in response to my bullies, they would have beaten the shit out of me.


had to edit because I'd written 'message' rather than 'marriage'!

Twed

Bad teachers, shitty parents, shitty kids. The perfect ingredients for a big pot of revenge stew.

Buelligan

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:17:29 PM
Good thing that forgetting trauma and letting go is so easy then!

Ah...

Actually, is there any real way to do this? Anyone tried CBT? I've had counselling before but I have found that dredging up old memories often just makes me feel worse, and I like the idea of a form of counselling which is more about looking forward.

I've found yoga practice, living alone and repetitive manual work and exercise helped.  On my extremely long walks I would let my mind go where it would, go over and over things, just letting them run, re-experiencing them, somehow, eventually, they became empty of power.  I also have a practice, which I've mentioned before, of marking, noticing, all good things, no matter how insignificant.  Those small win feelings of being in the presence of beauty or having a positive moment reinforce one another, building a kind of internal bulwark of security and a feeling that things are good, worthwhile, not hostile.  And I try to have compassion, for others and myself, on a loop in the background all of the time.  It has taken me all of my life so far.

bgmnts

Going for walks is the absolute worst for me, the negative, hateful thoughts increase to the point where it physically hurts.

Being alone with your thoughts is the worst thing for you. I'd suggest drowning yourself in stuff to distract you, video games, tele, youtube etc

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:33:13 PM
At primary school I was bullied relentlessly for being hopeless at sport. At secondary school it was more often the sadistic PE teachers who were the problem.
Not PE, but a physics teacher in one of my first lessons with him, aged 12 or so, commented that a tall lad like me would make an excellent <insert rugby position> if I just bulked out a bit. When I responded I didn't like rugby at all, he roared "are you a puffter?" to the amusement of most others. So naturally when we had to get changed for PE, I got the "careful he's not staring at your arse" comments (made all the worse by the fact I did have a bit of a crush on another boy in my year).

Anyways, he's dead now, the fat bastard, was aged about 55 or so when his heart went pop. My mam hated his guts and I'm sure she took she relish in informing me of that.

Buelligan

Quote from: bgmnts on September 06, 2019, 04:59:47 PM
Going for walks is the absolute worst for me, the negative, hateful thoughts increase to the point where it physically hurts.

Being alone with your thoughts is the worst thing for you. I'd suggest drowning yourself in stuff to distract you, video games, tele, youtube etc

I found that I needed to wear out the terror, by facing it and looking at it until it was boring.  Hiding from it meant that there was always a girl screaming inside me whenever the outside noises stopped.

sevendaughters

I don't have this issue but am in close quarters with someone who is. In fact just took a 40 min phonecall from them, retracing the circles of ancient pains that resonate in the present. Don't really know what to say and sometimes my, err, practical kneejerk leads to greater upset. Does therapy help any? Not for me, obv.

Not inordinately, but this thread is making me feel very anxious about the futures of my offspring :-(

chveik

Quote from: madhair60 on September 06, 2019, 03:57:05 PM
I only have one life and the formative years of it - because of these people - are lost. There will never be any candour, never be any retribution, justice, satisfaction to be gained. There is no reasonable course of action I can take that will make up for any of it.

yep, I feel the same way. I was a bright kid and I may have done good things in this world if it weren't for those years of bullying.

reading this thread & the worst day at school one, I feel like the bullying I've experienced was pretty mild compared to some cabbers' accounts but it still fucked me up & it was partly responsible for the deep depression I've had between age 20 to 24, and the occasional psychotic (the paranoid kind) episodes I have suffered. I've never been beaten up, it was more the constant humiliation kind of abuse, which can probably explain my inability to really trust people now. I never had that cathartic moment of standing up to the bullies you sometimes see in films. I still feel a bit resentful of my parents (which thankfully are great) who didn't see (or more likely didn't want to see) how bad I felt. now that I take drugs for my brain & exercice a lot I don't have these murderous fantasies you're talking about anymore but I doubt I will ever be completely cured.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Emotional Support Peacock on September 06, 2019, 05:28:51 PM
Not inordinately, but this thread is making me feel very anxious about the futures of my offspring :-(

This may sound excessively paranoid, but school is a big part of the reason why I don't want kids. I wouldn't want to send the thing I love most in the world to school- in fact I want nothing to do with schools ever again.

My secondary school had a reunion in 2010. I didn't go.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 05:36:34 PM
This may sound excessively paranoid, but school is a big part of the reason why I don't want kids. I wouldn't want to send the thing I love most in the world to school- in fact I want nothing to do with schools ever again.

My secondary school had a reunion in 2010. I didn't go.
There's a part of that for me too, but I would add that having a good family (as I did) can be an absolute lifesaver. I used to take out all the horrible shit on my mother especially, screaming that I hated her for being born - she'd wait till I was all cried out and then say "OK, but would you like sausages and potatoes for dinner?"

Blue Jam

That's nice, but I'm also paranoid I'd be an absolutely shit mother, and I couldn't live with myself if I fucked someone up, whether I sent them to school or home-educated them.

Tell me about it :(

Day after day after day :(

I should never have bullied them kids hahaha! :D

Nah just kidding, trying to lighten the mood. I never bullied anyone or got bullied but I defended a lot of people from bullies. I've always hated bullies and any group pile on. Always hate cheap laughs at people's expense, absolutely hate it. Thick and lazy. No humanity. Sad thing is some cunts don't learn or get better and I understand a lot of high school psychos, not the supremacists or whatever, they really total cunts, but the downtrodden nerds who just flip and try to balance the books. Usually very misguided and end up killing totally innocent people just because they're 'normal' but I can understand how they get to that point. Fact is that they also probably didn't know the harm they were really doing because they didn't have much empathy. Maybe that changes, maybe not. When I worked in schools, a lot of the bully kids had bully parents and to be honest, they were the most tormented cunts, always thinking they needed to be on the front foot and act tough and threaten me or whoever colleague. Then kind of people who don't sleep too great and are always frowning, thinking the world's gonna get them. I'm not trying to comfort you with bullshit because I know the toll it must take but in my experience, apart from the total empathy void droids, most of them seemed desperate and wracked with hate for themselves and everything. Just a shitter they have to spread that to others.

Puce Moment

I'm 45 and I have had to cancel two (pre-paid) therapy sessions in the last month because I am not able to talk about childhood abuse in detail. It really only ruins your life if you let it, and I would say that with me it has just made it vastly harder. Abuse creates shame, guilt and self-hatred which are just about the most stultifying emotions you can drag around with you. Hyper-focusing on the people responsible is a cruel game, although I have been lucky that the main bullies who made my life hell are in prison or dead thankfully.

My Father, however, has enjoyed a long-life - he is now 70. Ideation and thoughts of violence is normal but ultimately they are self-damaging, compounding the problems created by the abuse in the first place.

My advice is to cheer up.

Kryton

Quote from: madhair60 on September 06, 2019, 04:08:14 PM
That's what makes this so fucked up. I'm one of the best people on the planet. It's like that wasn't obvious to them.

I dunno mate. I like you a lot but your comments on Dark Souls II made me want to steal your lunch money.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:17:29 PM
Good thing that forgetting trauma and letting go is so easy then!

Ah...



Thanks for calling me a glib cunt, and encouraging those who have been cowed in their formative years, more often than not by complete wastes of skin who were vastly inferior to them in various ways, to spend the rest of their limited lifespan on this earth going about like the walking fucking wounded. Much appreciated.

EBGB

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 06, 2019, 04:33:13 PM
I never understood the way people who are good at PE are revered, yet people who are good at classroom-based subjects are mocked. Surely being good at PE is just another way of being a swot? Also why do people celebrate being good at useless things like lacrosse and rounders, while being good at things like maths, science and writing- things with a much better chance of making you rich and famous- is sneered at?
Oh god, this.  The hours spent sitting through assembly updates on what the 3rds had achieved against another nonentity hockey team from another nonentity school.  And it continues on in the media.  The coverage of athletics vs (e.g.) the Nobel Prizes.  WTF is that about?

I had the joy in the 80s of being trapped at boarding school for seven years with a bunch of contemporaries who didn't like me, didn't want me around, and told me as much*.  In no uncertain terms.  I've since discovered that the ringleader had her own problems - sexual abuse resulting even now in anorexia and bulimia, nice - but I'm still damaged for life too.  Due to a career change I've wound up living on my own in a shit town in order to do a job I love, but which is phenomenally solitary.  Painfully, tediously celibate.  Haven't even had a hand hold in over eleven years.  (Canned the long term ex because I didn't really get a lot out of being throttled whenever I had the nerve to be winning an argument.)  I'm shit at small talk and convinced that people don't want to be around me, so I either shut myself away or fuck it up when I do venture out of the house.  If people cancel on me, I wait for them to try to rearrange, and they don't, which in my head is because I'm shit rather than because they have lives.  I've been out socially of an evening four times this year, and half of those were last month.  So yeah, I'm definitely inordinately hung up on what others might breeze past, and I'm fed up of it. 

*The mother of one of them told me a couple of years ago that she remembered well "when you all used to come and stay at the weekends".  I looked at her blankly.  Not me, I said ... can't blame her for looking deeply uncomfortable.  It really was the first I knew of it.

Mr_Simnock

Quote from: bgmnts on September 06, 2019, 04:59:47 PM
Going for walks is the absolute worst for me, the negative, hateful thoughts increase to the point where it physically hurts.

Being alone with your thoughts is the worst thing for you. I'd suggest drowning yourself in stuff to distract you, video games, tele, youtube etc

I've always found that a good way of getting rid or dealing with stressful situations, just distract yourself. I do think though it is important to be able to find a way of realising the past is in the past, best to try (if possible) to leave it there and just try and look to the future and the here and now. I've had idiots pick on me over the years but TBH it has only been a tiny % of my life which it truly disturbed, the other 99.9% I was away from these people enjoying myself.

Emma Raducanu

Not relevant really but this got me thinking. I went to school in a shit Northern town full of people with no prospects. Bullying should have been rife and yet I cannot for the life of me remember seeing any bullying. Not in the persistent, long term sense where you imagine a person might become isolated or in fear of going to school.

Even the people I remember as being disruptive, disinterested and sometimes mean, appear, at least on Facebook to have 'grown up' however successfully. People I remember as nobs send their condolences when a teacher dies and it makes me think, really?? You were s total shit in their class.

But yeh, lucky as fuck I guess to have made it through school years when they can be the worst and most lonely.