It Takes Time to OverCome an Abusive Past When History Repeats itself.

I went through many different cycles of abuse, during my childhood, at school and in adulthood. Up to the age of 22 I was physically and emotionally abused. I am a friendly person, and very sensitive. It seems my sensitivity was seen as a vulnerability for others to use against me. I went through many different cycles including physical violence, rape , break ins and people took advantage of me left, right and center. Some of it I spoke out about and reached out for help, but that fell on deaf ears, landing me in a very vulnerable position where I almost died, and I have spoken about that in my article 'I found love on a Psychiatric Ward.' This is a follow up from that article, and talks about how these issues affected me in more detail.

Before the admission to the psychiatric ward in scarborough where I found love, I had several admissions elsewhere. These admissions started to become normal and frequent for me, and they started during a time when I was being severely abused. Most of these first admissions were just after 1997, at a time when I was being abused in my own home, in the town where I lived and on my doorstep, and I want to talk more about this.

As I said before I am a friendly and very sensitive person, after a bad start and starting out as a single parent who had already been through alot of trauma, I wanted to try and make friends with other parents. I started talking to people who lived in the same block I was living in, because most of those people were parents. To start with, they seemed friendly, and I was very wary of letting people into my home because of what I had been through. I had been badly hurt, and as a new single parent who had gone through violence, I was also very vulnerable and I didn't have much help with that either. When I first looked round the area, it seemed quiet, however after I got to know it, it was less than ideal for someone like me to be living in. I got to know a few people, only to find out that these people were not nice and many were drug dealers and criminals. After a short while these people became increasingly violent to me, and there were gangs of them turning up on my door, pushing their way in and literally kicking my door down to get in. It was an impossible situation to deal with as a single parent, and I refused to let them in, only to find myself threatened and hurt in more horrible ways than I can say here. This happened day and night, and my home became a nightmare. It got to a point where I couldn't even take my kids to nursery without being mugged or getting hurt, I was also raped a few times during these events, and they were extremely hard to talk about because the authorities didn't seem to care and often either put it down to domestic incidents or blamed me for being irresponsible. However, how is a single parent with vulnerabilities supposed to protect herself and her children from gangs when she is being ignored by the very people who have the power to deal with it, and are supposed to protect her and help her protect her children? I started living in fear, being forgetful, paraniod and I couldn't focus on my children which noone even picked up on. I started self harming to rid myself of the pain, and I felt worthless. Nothing, not even my money belonged to me anymore, no matter what I tried to do to stay safe. Then one christmas I was attacked again, broken into, my home wrecked and my children's christmas presents were stolen from me. I spent that christmas in a safe place for women, where I was stolen from and abused again.

I was in this 'safe place' for a little while, then I moved to a different safe place which was supposed to be a place of support, but was full of drug users. I moved out of there to a new area where I stayed with someone else for a while until a house was found. When I got the house, I struggled for a little while but I was learning to manage, until I was broken into and raped. I was petrified, I was so distraught by this, I almost forgot I had children with me, I called for help, but they didn't find the man who did this until many years later and I didn't want to talk about it because of those horrible memories. During this time, my children had to live elsewhere for safety, and because my mental health was also suffering severely. I was increasingly self harming and overdosing, and that landed me with another hospital admission. After this admission, it was said I could leave with support, so they put me in another support hostel. However they put me back in an area where I had already been hurt and attacked, so after a while of trying hard with this support, I wasn't coping, I was fearing going out and not eating properly. I took of to the coast with a friend, which was my mission to change my life, but yet again went badly wrong.

I liked the seaside where I was living. I had been on daytrips there with family as a child, however I wasn't exactly safe there. I moved into a place that classed itself as a 'hotel' but was more a hostel for the homeless. To start with I felt safe here, and I attempted to make friends. At this stage I was able to manage and see my children for a while, but suddenly my cheques started going missing and my fare to see my children had been stopeed. When I managed to resolve my cheque issue, my benefits were suddenly stopped without a good reason, and I was left with no help with this, unable to feed or clothe myself for months, although my payments to the place I was staying were still being made. I had no joy in finding out why they were stopped and I was never told. At this place, I met someone who I thought was a friend and we got close after a few weeks. I spent time building trust and talking to this person, but he was a drinker and I was raped and after that I fled the place through fear, because everyone knew him and stood by each other here, and later, I found out the place was full of criminals too. My payments for the place at this point had also now been stopped. I was left homeless, and I was extremely torn and deppressed, and as mentioned in my previous article, I had become severely unwell.

So what happened afterwards before I married and settled down? I developed a variety of mental health problems and most of my diagnosis's were PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, BPD/EUPD. I did not know who I was, and I was very scared of people. I kept reliving the trauma, and people found me very difficult to talk to. They often referred to me as 'psycho, stupid, dumb, worthless, violent, agressive,' and I was bullied even more. Even professionals found me 'complicated' but they gave very little understanding to my experiences, often seeing me as a 'drama queen' when I reacted out of fear. However going through repeated cycles of abuse, in reality DOES cause a person to react out of fear, because that fear of being abused again plays out like a camera inside your head which causes the person to relive it more than once, and it doesn't take much to trigger it either, it can be as simple as a car door slamming shut or a colour that reminds you of the past. Crowds, people fighting and even loud laughing can trigger a reaction. I dealt with these reactions every day, and the fear that goes with them, is not really something I can explain.

For many years after, I doubted my self worth, my looks, my ability to believe I was worth being loved and that someone could be faithful to me, my parenting skills and I couldn't stand up for myself because of the extreme anxiety. I was very submissive, and I often did things to please others, just to avoid being abused. Yet at times I also became very panicky and during in an attack of PTSD I would often react out of impulse if I feared being hurt again. These reactions were more due to the PTSD and living with the trauma I had been through, they were protective impulses, some of which I wouldn't remember after an attack, but were my mind trying to stop me from going through it again. Often with PTSD, there is a fear in everything, even a minor disagreement can send your thoughts racing, and cause you to believe your going to be hurt again, and often the impulsive reaction is to 'protect' and go back inwards, but that can sometimes lead to reactions often misunderstood as 'violent' when what is happening is the person is back in the past, and is trying to 'escape' in a bid to protect themselves. It is a very frightening place to be, and not really one where the person should be labelled as 'complicated' like I was. It is the situation that is complicated, not the person. Often a person with PTSD can calm and be helped, if someone can show patience, understanding, compassion and caring without judgement. It isn't easy to do this, and sometimes help from someone experienced or a friend who has some knowledge can be a good idea.

All in all it took from my 20's to my 40's to actually feel safe and get over the severe symptoms left from my past, even after I married. However, my partner had to work hard to gain my friendship and trust before marraige, and even after that, there were many things he had to be able to understand and work with me on. Sometimes the 'word salad' in an attack could be frustrating, and my panic attacks were sometimes frightening. He had to go slow with me, so he started with friendly conversation to get to know me before the trauma, and supporting me with things I needed in order to learn to look after myself. After some time, I was able to move our friendship to the next level, though my partner had to accept that sometimes it was going to get rocky along the way. Its not easy building trust and learning to love after trauma, also learning to trust the one you love can be very hard, even if you know you do love that person. What I learned during my recovery is that I thought I was 'complicated' because the trauma had taught me that. In reality, I wasn't complicated, I was stuck in a cycle of self doubt which was caused by the trauma for many years after the cycle of abuse I had gone through.

It is important when befriending a person who has been through a cycle of abuse that has been repetitive in many ways, to understand it takes alot of support, help, understanding and patience in order for them to recover. In my experience, I never fully recovered, but because someone was patient with me, stood by me even when it got tough, and didn't judge me for being this way, I was able to regain much of my sense of self, confidence and self-esteem. When you have been through trauma, the memories don't 'just disappear,' even after recovery, there can be certain triggers that can cause a temporary relapse. Whether your friends, professionals, family or partners, it is important to understand this, and not stigmatize the person with labels such as 'complicated.' Also, when the person does try to reach out and tell you what has happened, believe them and show them you care, because that person has been through so much, not believing them and listening to them makes recovery complicated for that person. Most of all, remember it is the trauma that is complicated, not the person themselves.