i‘m nobodys first choice. instead, i’m everyones last resort. the only thing i‘m good for is being used until i‘m no longer wanted. i‘m the broken toy rotting in the corner of the room; used, replaced and ultimately forgotten about

No child deserves to feel like their existence is a burden.

No child deserves to feel like they shouldn't exist.

No child deserves to hate themself.

No child deserves to live their life in fear of angering their parents.

No child deserves to live their life in fear of disappointing their parents.

Children deserve to be loved. They deserve to feel safe, cared for, and wanted. They deserve to enjoy their life.

It is never the child's fault when the parent fails to provide these things. It is the parents fault.

The child never asked to be born. It is the parent who wanted this, and therefore it is the parent's responsibility.

Living in long term abusive situation, the abusers will often require you to ‘act normal’, as if everything is fine and good, even if you don’t feel okay. They present it to you as necessary, polite, 'don’t be rude to xyz’ or will straight-up belittle and humiliate you until acting 'normal’ will be the only safe option for you. It creates the illusion that everyone is secretly falling apart inside and suffering silently only to be polite.

Acting normal in every situation can become a compulsion, something you do automatically to protect yourself against possible or imagined backlash; you live as if you’re unphased by anything, because showing pain feels like showing weakness, and being hurt while you’re weak is worse. You additionally might feel that your feelings are too much, nobody would want to deal with them, you’re oversensitive, overdramatic, over-emotional disaster of a human and you keep it all in to save yourself rejection and embarassment.

The abusers will enforce the 'play normal’ rule even when the situation is desparate, when you’re seriously hurt, panicked and in need of help, you’ll find that you’re expected to extend any effort to 'act normal’ or else. They also use the fact that you’re able to 'play normal’ to prove that 'nothing is actually wrong and you were just dramatizing for attention or pretending to make them feel sorry for you.

After being gaslit like this for a while, you start to believe it. You start to think that if you can still play normal, then you’re clearly not suffering enough for it to be adressed. Even if you’re in such bad state you’re dissociated for the most of the time, you dismiss your own pain and fear just like the abusers do, it must be nothing, if you can still keep yourself from screaming, you must be okay. You wonder if everyone lives feeling like this, and envy their acting; you’re barely holding it together. You feel ashamed and pathetic for every second you’re not able to 'keep control of it’, or every little feeling that bleeds out thru your pretense. You feel like you’re weak and failing to control yourself, when everyone else does it so easy.

So let me relay some facts: Most people don’t act. They’re allowed to be upset, and don’t try to control their feelings at all. Most people aren’t exposed to the amount of trauma that would require them to control their feelings 24/7. Most of people were never told to 'keep it in’ or to 'act normal’ when everything is falling apart. The amount of effort people put into being polite is way below containing trauma. What you’re enduring is completely unimaginable pain to them. You’re keeping together what they never would, or could. You’re not weak for a moment of distress; anyone else in your situation would be fully freaking out, full time.

Even if it’s possible, by insane effort, to act okay when terrified and hurt, it doesn’t mean you’re 'okay enough’ to dismiss it. Your abusers lied. Being forced to keep horrible feeling unexpressed makes them that much worse; not only you’re in pain, but you’re in danger, unsafe to express distress, unable to call for help. It’s being trapped in a world where only 'acting okay’ is safe, but there’s a time limit to how long you can do it without breaking, and every time you break a little, you experience terror and shame. You don’t know how to keep it up, and you blame yourself for it. It’s a world where nobody cares what you’re going thru, and you can’t make anyone care.

This is what abusers do to gaslight, isolate and force the victims to hide the trauma and abuse that’s been caused. It’s a tactics to protect the abusers, at the immense cost to the victims. If you felt this, your abusers are monsters, and they lied to you; you’re not supposed to act okay. You were supposed to get a relief from pain, you were supposed to get help, comfort reassurance, to be taken seriously, to get protected, safe, understood, and your pain removed. They denied all of this to be able to abuse you some more. Your self control was never the problem. Their control of you was.

fun fact: not being able to remember information about people, no matter how much you are shamed for it, does not make you a bad person. you weren't just "not paying attention", you forgot because forgetting is a natural process and sometimes your brain dumps the wrong things out. forgetting does NOT make you a bad person!! especially if you have disorders that give you memory loss!! also, chronic fatigue really does fuck up your memory, and people who say "oh you must not care because you forgot" have no idea what you're going through!! it's an asshole thing to say and you are NOT at fault for not remembering.

you see, the problem is: i don’t feel bad enough to be hospitalized, but i don’t feel good enough to be a somewhat functioning member of society either

Dismantling the Lies of Abusive Parents Masterlist

Resources

Physical abuse

Blatant Lies

Psychological abuse

If this hits home, also read Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

original writing / do not repost

Rest is a requirement.

Trauma takes a heavy toll on the body's energy reserves. To constantly be in a state of fight, flight, fawn, freeze, to be stressed out so often and so hard, it's exhausting.

And when you're that tired, even the most minor of tasks feel like scaling a mountain.

You aren't lazy, you're struggling. You're fighting against the toll your trauma takes.

You need to let yourself rest. Rest, and don't blame yourself for needing it.

I’m rooting for you✨❤️

this is not what I signed up for

How to (slightly) calm down about being criticized while having cptsd:

Since this is trigger for your childhood abuse, it will take a While because you’ll have to dismantle all the horrific things you were told about yourself in your youth, and be 120% sure none of it was true, you’re not a burden or a failure, and there was malicious intent behind saying these things to you. You were a good kid, and you will always, now and forever, be a valuable part of society, regardless of how well you do in any area of your life.

This is likely to take years, in the meantime you can also try these steps:

1. Realize that nobody on earth is open to criticism at every moment in your life, and you don’t have to be, either.

We’re all sensitive to criticism, and none of us would be able to live our lives constantly bombarded by criticism for every single thing we do. People usually allow only a select group of people whose opinion they highly value, to criticize them, and will rarely if ever accept criticism from strangers or people who are not a part of their professional or personal life. You do not need to be open to criticism at all times, from everyone, in order to grow and better yourself, especially if you’re traumatized! In this case, you’re already harshly over-criticized and need the exact opposite in order to learn and grow. In your case, criticism paralyses and stops you from growing. It’s not what you need to heal.

2. Who is criticizing me?

Ask yourself, if this criticism is coming from a source whose opinion you value and respect? If it’s one of your abusers, ex-abusers, or their associates, the criticism is 100% likely to be delivered with intent to control and hurt you, so you can write it off as manipulation, and divert with ‘ya that doesn’t work anymore lol’.

If it’s someone else, ask: Is this a person who continually has my good interests at heart? Do they actually understand the issue they’re criticizing me about, or is their perspective shallow, misinformed and skewed? Is this a person I would ask for advice? Do they continually do work equal or better than mine? Are they giving me positive feedback as well, or do they only ever criticize everything I do?

Because you don’t ever have to be open to criticism from a skewed, misinformed and ill-intentioned source. You don’t have to accept criticism from someone who takes confidence in putting you down. You especially never have to take criticism from anonymous source, as they’re keeping themselves hidden for good reasons. Remember the rule: If you wouldn’t take an advice from them, you don’t have to take criticism either.

3. Does this need to be criticized?

Am I hurting anyone doing this? Am I doing this just for fun? Am I doing this in private and it doesn’t affect anyone whatsoever? Is this a matter of my personal time? Am I obliged to explain myself for indulging in my own interests in my own time?

If you’re doing things for fun, for free, in private time, hurting and affecting no one, and it’s getting criticized, while you’ve never reached for any criticism? You got scammed. Criticism is invalid. Throw it into the dumpster. 

4. Is this criticism constructive at all?

If you are opened to criticism in a certain area, but feedback you’re receiving is not only negative but completely shutting you down and putting you in a place where you feel like you should just quit, then that is debilitating, paralyzing, ill-intentioned insult, and not a useful piece of criticism. Trying to get better usually simply means doing something more and more, and generally what will help you do more and more of it, is encouragement, support, someone pointing out what you did well, and believing in you. If you’re not at a point where you actively look for criticism and are ready to hear concrete ideas on how to grow and develop, you don’t have to be receiving it.

5. Do I have a baseline perception of myself that enables me to deal with the criticism?

Most people rely on their family, circle of friends, or a relationship to provide them with a sense of social identity; when you’re surrounded by people who value and enjoy your company, who seek you out and offer you caring feedback, any criticism you receive outside of this circle will not become a definition of you. You already have a good baseline perception of your self worth, so any malignant criticism will sound obviously untrue, and any fair-sounding criticism will not be the end-all, decisive factor in how you see yourself, it will only build on your baseline and create a more complex image. It will not keep you up at night, it will not make you feel desperate. If you don’t have this baseline, and you’re already plagued with negative or even horrific perceptions of yourself from abusers who used to be close to you, the criticism can and will fall very heavily on your self worth because you never got a chance to develop it properly. In case of a no-baseline, all criticism is likely to be harmful, and it’s okay to keep to yourself until you have a very good idea of who you are and what you stand for. Once you know this for yourself, criticism will not be able to make you forget it.

6. Is this a criticism or abuse?

Tactics of abuse often include criticizing when you want to control someone; if certain types of criticism of your character come only after you refuse something, it’s not criticism, it’s berating you into trying to appease them (if you allow yourself to be controlled, the criticism will stop.) If criticism is wildly inaccurate of your behaviour, it’s possible for it to be projection, or baiting, or fear-mongering, or catastrophizing. They’re all designed to shut you down, make you feel guilty and afraid to make your own decisions, poke at your insecurities and make you easily controlled. You’re free to refuse the intimidation and do as you please. Abuse masked as criticism is not a reflection of your character.

7. Is this criticism something I want consistently in my life?

The truth is that nobody enjoys criticism, and it’s okay to decide that you’d rather have support. It’s support, encouragement, and faith in you that builds passion and resilience, not constant pointing out of your flaws. If you’re continually bothered by a person criticizing you, it’s okay to get some space and get away from them. It doesn’t mean you’re weak, or running away, the criticism will eat up your fulfillment in life, and you do not have to let it.

8. Am I being criticized for actually doing harm?

Prevention of harm is a a good time and place for criticism; if you’re criticized by a group of people on whose human rights you’re infringing, that is something you should sit with, and look at from their perspective. This doesn’t mean your identity needs to get crushed by it, as these people will not benefit from it at all, it’s just the time to listen and understand. This will rarely be personal, and more concerning the power imbalance you might not understand, and it can be fixed by you understanding them.

9. TLDR

Even as there is a time and place for criticism, it’s not constant, everyday, discouraging, triggering and controlling that victims of abuse are often used to. Criticism that attacks your character and tries to make it seem irredeemable is nothing but a manipulative lie, and criticism is not something you have to be opened to every day, on every area of your life, from anyone who feels like criticizing. It’s okay to set boundaries in who is allowed to criticize you and on what. It’s okay to establish that your opinion of you matters more than an opinion of a stranger, peer, a friend, or anyone who isn’t in your shoes. Shame, guilt, anixety, panic, pain and self-hatred are not constructive feelings, so if criticism invokes all these in you, it’s not productive, it’s not helping, it’s stropping you from growth, and you don’t have to take it.

You’re not over-reacting, I promise. You’re experiencing traumatic level of pain because criticism was used to demolish your self-worth and you never deserved to experience that once. You don’t deserve to experience it again either. Until you feel safe and valued, believed in, encouraged and supported, criticism is not vital for your growth. 

original writing by @traumacure | do not repost

Sourced from ‘real depression project’ on Instagram.

[ID: Pictures with white writing on purple backgrounds, first & last pictures are pink writing on purple backgrounds. Words in quotation marks are also pink.

Picture 1; ‘childhood trauma isn’t just the result of being abused. It can also be the result of…’

Picture 2; ‘Being left to “fend for yourself” when you needed safety and security’.

Picture 3; ‘Having your feelings invalidated and denied whenever your sought emotional support’.

Picture 4; ‘Being forced to “self sooth” alone and find escape from your painful reality (eg. Video games)’.

Picture 5; ‘Having to hide your true self because it wasn’t accepted by those you craved to be understood by’.

Picture 6; ‘Having your parents constantly prioritise themselves (or their work) over yourself’.

Picture 7; ‘Feeling like you have to compete/prove yourself to receive the love and attention you sought’.

Picture 8; ‘Please know you are worthy of love & compassion- don’t let your parents inability to give you this make you conclude otherwise’. /end ID]

If a child is so afraid of getting in trouble that they don't come to their parents when they make a mistake that could possibly put their health or even their life in danger, then those parents have failed.

If something goes wrong, and the first thing that child thinks is, "oh god, my parents are gonna kill me," then the parents have failed.

If a child is afraid of their parents, if the child sees their parents as an active threat instead of a source of safety and guidance, then the parents have failed.

A parents job is to protect, to teach, to guide.

If a parent makes themself a danger to the child, in any capacity, then that parent has failed.