First, let me start by saying wow Im so glad that there is a place to ask questions like this! So here goes... I have seen my fair share of domestic violence. I was scared one night when I had enough of my stepfather beating on my mother, so I decided to end the fight by throwing drain cleaner at him the only problem was it back splashed on me. I ended up with scars on my face, neck arms legs and stomach. It was very hard for me. I was just about to start high school and just enter into the phase of my life where I should have been expressing myself and getting to know myself as a person. Instead, I spent most of my teens and twenties hiding from the world and sleeping. My mother never took me to talk to anyone or ever really spoke about it again. Now in my adult life I find that I am struggling to keep from being depressed the scares have lessened, on the outside but the inner ones seem to reopen and fester occasionally. I pray and read the Bible to keep me going, but how do you heal something that touches your life in so many ways?[

Hi, Imsospecial!

Was there more going on concerning you and also in the home that you're not telling us here? If so, it would help to know that. Seems like you've just touched upon the tip of an iceberg here.

Group therapy and individual counseling can be helpful to get over something. If you'd like to discuss things with people here, then please do feel free. Depending on how things go, I do know just the right people to alert to a thread. There are quite a few shoulders on which to lean and also cry on here.

Please do continue to share!

It wasn't until my adult years that I came to the realization that I was physically and mentally abused as a child by one of my siblings. It still does affect me at times in a number of ways. But, through the years, I've learned positive and proactive ways how to cope, mainly because of the individual counseling and group therapy that I've received, along with just tremendously solid support and advice from both friends and family.

Thanks!

Yes there is always more to tell. I'm just not sure what parts of the story go together. From the very beginning of my relationship with my stepfather, things were just wrong. I don't know how I knew from the very beginning, but I did. He was in the military, a marine. I think that he must have been fighting his own demons (of domestic violence); because from the first time I saw my parents fight it was physical. He was very physical with me from the beginning as well. I can still remember getting my first "punishment", I was 5 we had just moved to Japan and I can't really remember what I had done, but whatever it was it was enough to get me beat with a belt so bad that I had whelps all over my body. So much so that my mother had to soak me in a bath tub for 2 days to help ease the pain. Now that I think about it 5 was a very tuff year for me. This was also the year that I became sexually active (totally against my will). Looking back at this time in my life I know that had I had family support I might have been able to reach out and tell someone what was going on. I tried to tell my mother, but she never really listened. She would say things like that can't be happening, stop telling stories or my fav, just behave yourself and everything will be fine. I know that she too was fighting demons. She was young and admittedly selfish. She didn't know how to raise a child. My mother had me when she was 25. She was married to her husband at 22 and their relationship was doomed to fail because none of the families liked each other. She had an affair with a co-worker and here I am today. I have her husband’s last name, but that’s it. There is no DNA here. I'm not really sure who my father is. She did tell me once that he was Spanish and married. She told me that he had a family and that's why they couldn't be together. All my life I have always wanted to know him. Wondered what it would have been like to have him in my life. Wondered if he would have, could have saved me from some of these experiences. I can see how a parent’s demon can attack a child. I find myself lashing out at my own children now. No where near the level that I was, but I do. I think that my abuse of them is more verbal then anything else. I know it's wrong, but that's why I'm asking for help. I talk with a social worker here and there and I did see a life coach once in life, but I feel funny talking to someone that can see me. I feel like they are judging me. I know that “crazy” is not a word that I would like to use to describe myself, but I can see how others might see it that way. I once heard that these type of life experiences are more common then not, so that I should just bury them and move forward. That these things don’t shape my future, but the how could they not when I feel like they help shape me into the person I am.

I have written about the five steps of grief and would like to share them with you also.

Grief can occur as the result of a number of different events-someone we know dies,a relationship ends,we lose a pet,we have to give up on a long held goal in our life,or any number of situations.But there is one common denominator in all of these events,and that is loss.grief is a process of physical,emotional,social,and cognitive reactions to loss.The grieving process is often a hard one to work through.It requires patience with ourselves and with others.Although responses to loss are as diverse as the people experiencing it,patterns or stages that are commonly experienced have emerged.These stages were identified and named by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.Knowing these five stages can sometimes help in coping with the process of grief and recognize that there is light at the end of the tunnel.It should be noted that although most people experience all the following stages,they do not experience them with the same duration,or in the same order,or with the same intensity.It is a unique process.

Denial

Denial is generally the first stage in the grief process.It can be experienced as numbness or avoidance or isolation or direct denial.It is a stage in which we just cannot believe that the loss is true.We may tell ourselves that it did not really happen.It does not seem real.

Anger

Another stage of grief is anger.At this point,we have gotten past some or all of the denial,but now we are angry about the loss.We may want to take it out on something or someone,or we may just express our anger in ways that are familiar to us.

Bargaining

In the bargaining stage,we are trying to come up with ways to get back what we lost or just find someone or something to blame.Common thoughts include,"If only I had just ..."or"i wish we could have ..."or "Maybe if I do this ..."In the case of a lost relationship, we might actually bargain with the person we lost in an effort to get them back."If I change my behavior,will you come back?"

Depression

The depression stage is just as it sounds,a time of sadness.It generally follows denial,anger,and bargaining when we feel helpless to stop the loss.It may include crying,withdrawal,or any other way that expresses sadness.

Acceptance

The final stage is acceptance.Most often we have gone through all of the above stages and in many cases cycled through the above stages more than once before getting to acceptance.At this stage,we have(to some extent)reorganized ourselves and our thinking to incorporate the loss.This does not mean that we no longer get sad about the loss from time to time.Over time, the intensity of the sadness generally diminishes,but may never entirely go away.

Armed with the knowledge of these five stages,we can now better understand ourselves and others who are going through the grief process.Recognizing the stages can increase your empathy and support for others and provide permission for yourself to go through the process in your own way and in your own time.

Copyright Lori Godin,Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.She can be reached in San Jose,California,at 408-260-9996

The reason I printed this is the ideas I came up with while reading your posts.

I would like to share my thoughts with you if you'd like.

KBC

Imsospecial: what you have gone through sounds HORRIBLE! And iunderstand that you have been wounded by these experiences. Clough may have a good point about the therapy. Therapy helped me. (I grew up with an appcent father and a pill addicted mother, the latter was mentaly abusive at times. Luckely she was just a periodical pill popper, i.e. she could be on pills for 3-8 weeks and then of for about 4 weeks and up to 6months)

Therapy helped me get through the depressions I have struggled with from the age of 11 until the age of 22, I'm 25 now. And it helped me organize my thoughts and get over the worst of the emotions. I've also have had some bad battles with exsemia (spelling) where ca 60 % of my skin was covered in wounds and scaring and a rash. Its wired of the physical you can stop the social you...

Kbc: I really like that. The 5 stages of grief. And happy to say that I'm at acceptance when it comes to my parents. I've even been able to find strength in my upbringing. I am who I am because of what has happened. I'm a strong woman because of it.

But of course I didn't have to indurure the physical torture that imsospecial had to go through.

So I in no way want to sound like a victim. I just want to know that I'm not insane. I just want to be able to get past the feelings of wanting to climb in a hole and pull the dirt over. I'm tired of being tired. Whoever said depression hurts really knew what they were talking about. I just feel so heavy, like I have the weight of ten life times on my shoulders sometimes. This is not my everyday, but this is apart my life. I can understand when you say that your mom was not always a pill popper, that she had times where she was normal. I'm afraid that is were I'm at. The really scary part is now you say that you have had issues. I really don't want to pass this along to my children. I really don't want to pass along the child abuse, the depression, the low self esteem.

I don't think of you as a victim, but I do feel that what you have been through is enough to break a grown man if it happened to him all in one day. Depression is such an ugly emotional state... it really is like siting in a hole... I've been there and quite honestly I wish I, along with the others here, can pull you out of it.

How often do you pop pills? Are you knocked out once you do? My mom takes a ot of different medication. Barbiturates, pain killers, valium, and the most confusing thing when I was a kid was to see her mood change from hour to hour depending on what pills she was on.

I understand your apprehensions about passing this on to your kids... until I was 24 I was completely sure that I didn't want kids, now a year and a half later I know I want kids... but I want to be better. The depression is gone and now there is only the anxiety left...

Once again... I don't know what kind of medication you are on, or if you have a pill addiction... but maybe I can explain what my mom has been like? Its kind of hard to explain. Not because its still sore, but because its hard to put it into words. She could be fine for months and then one day;BOOM she was zonked out when I came hoe from school. Once my brother and I found her bag of pills and we hid it in her bedroom, mom totally snapped and she went staggering up the satires and she threatened us to give it back (not physically, but she used a lot of mentally abusive ways and manipulative tactics to get us to do as she wanted)

Are you talking to someone else outside this board about this? Do you have deep depressive episodes... are you suicudal?

I'm not on any pills, they tried to give me some but I wouldn't take them. It's just something about taking pills that rubs me the wrong way. I don't want to have to use something to feel better. I think that a person should just be able to "get better" on their own. I'm too afraid of death to be sucidal. As much as sometimes I wish that I wasn't. On my really bad days I just sleep. The problem is that my days can last for up to a week. I just stay in bed sometimes I don't eat or wash or even speak. I just lay there drifting in and out of sleep. I dream a lot during this time really bad dreams. Sometime I wake up in a cold sweat. I'm not sure what this might be doing to my girls to see me like this. I don't want to be in this place anymore. I kind of want to talk to someone but I'm not sure who. I don't want to go to someone who is going to offer me drugs. There has to be another way.

Have you looked at what I wrote?

Anything jumped out to you?

To address a problem you need to be willing to face the problem,it seems like you looked over the post I sent and are continuing to pursue the chaos.

What have you found as a possible solution so far?

Medications are not detrimental to recovering from trauma.

If you can't accept where you are,and continue to do the same things you have tried in the past,what do you think the results are going to be?THE SAME!

I hope this reaches you.

KBC

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Imsospecial

I'm not on any pills, they tried to give me some but I wouldn't take them. It's just something about taking pills that rubs me the wrong way. I don't want to have to use something to feel better. I think that a person should just be able to "get better" on their own. I'm too afraid of death to be sucidal. As much as sometimes I wish that I wasn't. On my really bad days I just sleep. The problem is that my days can last for up to a week. I just stay in bed sometimes I don't eat or wash or even speak. I just lay there drifting in and out of sleep. I dream a lot during this time really bad dreams. sometime I wake up in a cold sweat. I'm not sure what this might be doing to my girls to see me like this. I don't want to be in this place anymore. I kind of want to talk to someone but I'm not sure who. I don't want to go to someone who is going to offer me drugs. There has to be another way.

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I understand your concerns about pills. I've been lucky with both my doctor and my psycologist. They are both sceeptical to pills, especially ones that are know to be addictive. I also feel that the best way to recovery is to see the problems and not bury them with medication.

Its good your not suicidal. I'm scared of death as well, although at times when I have been suicidal... I always had my siblings to keep going for. I practically helped raise them. My sister is so afraid of death that she has actually planned her own funeral as a self-therapeutic measure. She has one for natural death and one in case she is murdered (she's 20)

Is it possible to call around to therapists in your area and say that you wish therapy WITHOUT medication?
Your depressive state sounds awful and it sounds like a very tough situation! :(

Medication is not the bad thing, and pills help many people,
If you had high blood pressure you would take medication, if you are having a problem, often pills can help get your mind to a point where you can think clearly to find ways to solve your problems.

And yes, doing it yourself is great but knowing and being smart enough to know we all need help sometimes is important also.

IT is true that pills can be helpful. I'm very apprehensive, but from march until June I was medicated because of anxiety... to help me through a rough patch. Therapy alone wasn't enough because my head wasn't clear long enough and my body wasn't calm long enough for me to deal with the issues that triggered the anxiety...

KBC~ It's not that I'm not listening to you or didn't read your post, I did. It's just that I'm not sure where I fit in. I'm not in denial, I know that these things have happened. I'm not angery about them anymore. I'm not sure how I fit into "barganing", the only person that I have really barganed with has been God. I will admit that I am depressed. I guess that I won't be able to get to acceptance until I get over the depression, but I do feel to a certain extent I have accepted this situation. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with taking pills, I just know that they are not for me. I have watched people in my family go down that road and never come back. I've seen a tooth ache turn into full blown drug addiction. I've seen depression and low self esteem turn a vital member of society into a crack head. I don't ever want to be so weak that I need a drug to pull me out. I want to believe that I am stronger then that. But I guess the truth of the matter is maybe I'm not. If have to turn to a web site asking for help.

That last few lines look like the depression talking.

As to the medications,what someone else does while taking meds,isn't what you will do.

Just because someone else had a result which they say wasn't what they expected is not a good reason for you to not seek the avenue yourself.

I can find more people who complain about their reaction to medications,than those who say they are content with them.

WHY?

The 10-100 rule.

For every satisfied recipient,they will tell 10 others.

For every dis-satisfied recipient they will tell 100.

Only your ACTIONS will change this situation,complaining about the cause will not resolve anything,just spin your wheels.

Medications don't make crack heads,full blown drug addicts,etc.Those who know addiction know it takes the personality to become the product.

AND,psychiatric medications are not addictive,such as depression medications,mood stabilizers,etc.Others are only given for a specific use and dosage,the person taking it must take it as prescribed,or risk that addiction.

I hope this helps you see some of your answer as your depression,not rational thinking.

KBC