When I was a child (around 9-10) I felt really depressed and angry, and I didn’t know why. At this point in my life, I had bought into the gaslighting. Everyone kept telling me how “great” my parents were (if you didn’t live in our home, I can see how you’d think my parents were okay. They kept us fed and clothed and bought toys and such for us often, but looking back I can see that it was all an act. They were, and still are, obsessed with looking like a happy, wholesome family in public, which is why I was actively discouraged from telling anyone anything about what I went through at home, especially school counselors, teachers, or other parents.)
My parents ignored how depressed I was for years. They tried to convince me that I was choosing to be sad, that I was lazy, that “depression doesn’t exist! You just need to learn how to cope!” My mom, having experienced panic attacks when she was in her 20’s, tried to tell me how my anxiety wasn’t even bad compared to hers (like she can experience my anxiety just by looking at me) and that I needed to just “be happy, get outside, and get off the video games!” This scared me, because video games were my only form of escapism as a kid. Whenever my parents started screaming at each other, my brother, or I, I would play Animal Crossing or Pokémon on my DSi and try to tune them out.
Eventually, my parents ended up seeing how bad my anxiety and depression actually was when I started biting my wrists and knees, and digging my nails into my arms whenever I got upset, causing them to bleed pretty badly. I’ve talked before in this subreddit about how I used to intentionally get hurt as a kid, but that was reserved for school sports and the occasional dramatic trip down the bottom two stairs with my friends. This was something else. Those things were planned out, but when I got upset, it’s like I blocked out any ability to think and hurting myself was the only thing I could do to relieve the anxiety and anger.
My mom sat me down, and explained to me that I was making her upset when I did that, since she had a friend in high school who used to cut herself, and that it was selfish of me to make her feel like that again. She told me that I was making them look bad when I went to school with all those marks in my body, and that people would start asking questions, and that I was “making them look like bad parents.”
I told her that I wanted to go to therapy. She was very hesitant, but eventually agreed to send me to therapy if I stopped being depressed(?). I agreed, managed to fake being happy around them for a couple weeks, and then eventually started going to a therapist.
My therapist was extremely soft-spoken. I don’t remember most of what we talked about, since I was too scared to get into any actual details about my home life, and just talked to her about how school was going and things like that. She let me draw when I was there, and said that when I get upset, I should try to draw how I’m feeling. I thought it was stupid advice at first. The kind of thing that my parents made fun of therapists for saying. But I started doing it and it really helped me. I eventually stopped hurting myself and picked up a sketchbook whenever I was upset. Sometimes I would draw myself crying, sometimes I would just maniacally scribble all over the paper. I credit that therapist with sparking my interest in art and drawing.
My parents were not happy about this. They saw my sketchbook, full of sad and angry pictures, and told me that it was making them upset and that I shouldn’t carry something like that around with me, because it would “make them look like bad parents.”
Then, they started getting angry whenever I got back from therapy. They would grill me about what I told my therapist. If I didn’t want to tell them, they would get even angrier and accuse me of talking bad about them to my therapist. I eventually told them that I didn’t want to go back to therapy anymore, and they told me how relieved they were that they didn’t have to pay for it anymore.
11 years later, and I’m considering going back to therapy. And this time, I WILL talk bad about my parents. I will not be scared to speak up about my abuse anymore. This subreddit has proven to me that there ARE people out there that believe me and want to hear my side of things. Who won’t shame me for what I went through.
Thank you to everyone in this subreddit for helping me see that my situation deserves to be spoken about, and that I shouldn’t be scared or ashamed of seeking help.
Submitted March 21, 2019 at 01:38PM by M0u53trap https://ift.tt/2TprBKA
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