What is the defining trauma of your life?
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Anonymous
PP here. Please don’t try to give them the benefit of the doubt. My mom would roll her eyes when I would make a reference to it being cruel, and say that I should’ve known that no one could fit through the tiny window. One of them, I can’t remember which now, put on a work boot and stuck their foot through the tiny little basement window. They weren’t shielding me from anything, and the other kids were toddler-preschool age on the main floor or upstairs playing. Everyone was fine, there was no danger. It was a bunch of bored, immature adults, who probably had a few drinks, and were perpetuating the abuse cycle by bullying a child. One aunt eventually apologized and acknowledged it was cruel and things just got out of hand. She said she felt guilty about it for years but never brought it up because she hoped I had forgotten about it and maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought. It was. I’m estranged from most of them. The bulk of my childhood was like a Jimmy Kimmel prank where the parents tell the kids they ate all the Halloween candy. Then there were worse pranks, like the basement thing. And that was just the emotional abuse. That’s the one that stuck with me, and the taunting after. I was ashamed of crying and being scared, because I was told that was the bad thing that happened in the situation. There were good moments too, but it’s a sad day when you realize your mom will do almost anything to you without regards to your feelings just to entertain herself. I was an adult before I understood it was abuse, and it wasn’t until I had children before I realized just how cruel my family was. |
Anonymous
| For me would say it's my parents divorce and the custody issue's that came afterwards, I will likely never marry because of it for fear that the same thing could happen again with any kids that i might have. |
Anonymous
| After multiple suicide attempts, having to call Police to involuntary commit my teenage son to Dominion hospital . And the daily fear of is today when I get that call. The fear never leaves. |
Anonymous
| My brother had a psychotic break and was in jail for six months. During the same period, I had a stillbirth at 30 weeks and my best friend died on a car accident. |
Anonymous
| My husband's death at 37 by a drunk driver, leaving me to pick up the pieces and raise three children without him. I loved him so much. |
Anonymous
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Raising kids and not knowing a lot. And THEN knowing a lot thanks to better resources later.
So now I live with guilt of how terrible I did with younger ages when it was easy. My kids are harder than they need to be, not only because older ages get so hard, but also because I screwed them up. My trauma is me + kids and not fully knowing what I was doing. And now knowing. My patience now is sometimes great, due to those resources. But the kids are not alright. |
Anonymous
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Another product of severe emotional neglect here. My parents also physically abused us a but the emotional neglect has been much harder to live with long-term. And continues to impact me in surprising and frustrating ways.
In the last few years (I'm mid 40s) I've realized I'm probably never going to heal from it in the way I once thought possible, and that's been tough to accept. I'll just live with this gaping hole forever where loving parents would normally go. Giving my own kid what I didn't have has helped, but it's also a daily reminder of what I didn't have. |
Anonymous
I’m the basement kid. Same age range. What’s been hard for me is when my kids hit ages when bad things happen to me. You’re right though, it helps to get through it as a better parent for my kids. It’s sort of cathartic. |
Anonymous
| Mothers gambling addiction when I was in teens and early 20s. She left us kids alone for days in days before cellphones and we’re lucky CPS wasn’t called. She lost her professional job, almost lost our house, totaled her car due to sleep deprivation and had to move home. |
Anonymous
| discovering DCUM |
Anonymous
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My mother did not want to be a mother and she let me know it for my entire life until the day she died. My earliest memories are being aware that she didn’t like me and didn’t want to take care of me. She was never subtle about it.
By today’s standards it was neglect. She bought herself clothes, shoes, makeup and always looked fancy. but i never had more than one or 2 changes of clothes and wore the same winter coat all through middle and high school. We didn’t have food in the house. As soon as I was old enough I got a job at grocery store and stole food so that I could eat. I was always hungry. I felt like I didn’t have a mom - even though technically I did. I was extremely promiscuous as a teen. I think this had to do with lack of self-esteem because of my mother’s neglect. And absent father. I had more sexual partners in my teen years than most people do in a lifetime. Eventually I had a “relationship” - with a married man who was 12 years older than me and sexually abusive. By 20 I was putting myself through college by working in the adult entertainment industry. Very cliche I know. But at least I got a degree. My mom was disgusted with me for how I was making a living and suggested that I clean houses “since you don’t need a degree to do that.” I did not take her advice. She did not attend my graduation. For my entire adult life my mother acted like I owed her something. I wound up taking care of her when she was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. I don’t know why I felt obligated but I did. She resented me up until the very end. I do not miss her and rarely think about her. The trauma of not having a caring mom will always impact me. |
Anonymous
“We are a prank family” means DH loves pranks. PP accommodates and keeps her fingers crossed. |
Anonymous
Sometimes it’s the mom. Sometimes it’s a different form of queen bee/mean girl abuse, just directed at their own kids. Don’t be so quick to assume pranks are bro behavior. PP sounded like she wants to play it off as dark or dry humor but she knows she goes too far sometimes, so she pretends she can tell where the line is. I’m sure she’s quick to point out how much better her kids have it than she did, and to tell some horrible thing her parents did as a prank that made her cry as a child if her kids complain about her fun not mean (from her perspective) pranks. It could be the dad taking the lead, but I bet PP has led the charge a time or two. I bet she’s even modified some of the mean pranks that happened to her to make them funny for her kids. I could be projecting, but that’s how her post read to me. |
Anonymous
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Growing up with a hoarder mother and a father who couldn’t protect me
My ex making my life hellish while waiting for our green cards, followed by a nasty divorce when I needed to pick up all sorts of odd jobs Getting back on a job track after not having work authorization for years, and then being laid off soon after due to covid I believe the uncertainty about immigration status/divorce/being knocked down just as I managed to climb up was the triad that broke me, to a large extent. I am not the same person as before, for sure. |
Anonymous
| Nothing crazy compared to many PPs, but I think my growing up in a house where my sibling hated me and treated me with contempt and parents who were pretty indifferent to it. It’s difficult to be unloved in your own home. |