Problems with discussing one's childhood trauma with others as adults

[godwin_anarchism]

Stefan:

I haven't heard about this topic in your videos much, except for the part in "why you are so alone" around the taboo of discussing this subject. I'm curious what your analysis is of common responses when the topic of childhood is brought up and one discloses an abusive childhood to a friend. I am sure you have heard these. I will start with the most common ones I've experienced. I don't want to get into the details of the actual trauma in this first post ... let's just say I scored 8 out of 10 in the Kaiser online study you talked about in one episode.  I'm more interested in your analysis of what's behind why people respond the ways they do.

1) The most common response is "but you seem so normal" along with confused, astonished expressions on their face. Then some try to minimize it "you must be exagerrating", "you're being dramatic", disbelief "you're kidding". Some try to turn it into something good, saying it benefitted me, made me smarter, tougher. Look at how good my life is, so I should be grateful for having hardships that challenged me and made me who I am.

2) One I hate the most is immediate empathy and sympathy for abusers, but none for me, and instructing me to feel bad for the abusers, and make excuses for their behavior. examples: "You must have been very difficult!" "Gosh what did you do to them." "Imagine what kind of horrible childhood they must have had." "Imagine if you had to schlepp around kids all the time right now" "Well, why should your older sibling like the responsibility of looking after you?"

3) The ones that seem like okay friends who afterwards treat me with disgust and lose respect for me. They act like there's an axe murder in me waiting to come out at any time with the proper trigger. These reactions made me avoid the topic for many years, or lie that my childhood was happy and wonderful. I didn't want people suspecting on some level that I was a horribly deranged, damaged, or unworthy person that's going to turn into Norman Bates. Some would joke about it, start talking to me in harsh, abusive, or condescending manner that they did not before. If I call them on it, they'd sneer and say something like "I'd think you should be used to that by now" or "that's because you are messed up".

There are more but I'm stopping at 3.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

I'm sorry to hear that you've been through such a rough time. No child deserves to be abused in any way.

 

Anyone who responds to your history with anything other than empathy and sympathy is avoiding the task of facing their own childhoods. And, if they are parents, the abuse they have inflicted on their own child(ren).

[godwin_anarchism]

Thanks, bbeljefe, for your understanding.  It was much tougher as a kid because there was no way to make any sense of the random madness.  As an adult, I was able to find out much more about my parents' childhoods and make some sense of their behavior, which helps a lot.  Some psychotherapy, and the FDR videos also help.

I'm so puzzled by how taboo the subject is and why it causes such inappropriate reactions. 

Especially the third reaction, since those people (four different serial serious boyfriends) had horrible childhoods that they confided in me about, and I would listen to them with compassion and try to make them feel better.  Yet when I shared my backstory, they turned cruel and verbally abusive.  I thought they should be able to sympathize and reciprocate, but they (all) did the opposite! I'd end the relationships pretty quickly.  I realized I was in a bad pattern, and went into therapy.

The second reaction was from good friends & colleagues of mine.  They had doctorates in psychology from a prestigious institution.  One told me about his horrible parents that he avoided any contact with as an adult.  Their reactions made no sense to me.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

I haven't really shared my childhood experiences with many people and fortunately, I only scored a three on the ACE, so anything I share with most people might seem mild. But I have experienced the things you mentioned just in talking with people about childrearing in the abstract and, in talking with them about their childhoods. My wife and I have a very good friend whom I talked with about her childhood as a part of a conversation about raising her two neices she has recently adopted from an abisive environment. It's so bizarre because in one sentence she'd be telling me about how her mother left her alone at home with her stepfather whom she knew was a pedophile and in the next sentence she'd be defending her mother for doing the best she could.... Her dissociation was so bad that it took a long time to get her to see that he mother had actually not done the best she could and in fact, had done her tremendous harm. And, this is a woman who is honestly interested in doing a good job in raising the two young girls she now has. Frankly, I still don't think she get's the connection between what her mother did to her and what she tells herself. In fact, I know so, because she still visits her mother and the stepfather who molested her. That's why people react the way they do when you bring up your history. Even if they've talked about their own, I think that by looking from the outside in at someone else's abuse, they have to somehow face the tragedy and feel empthy for you that they cannot feel for themselves and that dissonance causes the irrational responses. Or so it seems to me.

 

In any event, I really do think those of us who are facing our histories are much better off than our dissociated comteporaries. I know that for myself, once I gained self knowledge and an understanding of what happened to me, I was able to shed fears and bigotries that had been like a ball and chain tied to my leg. I very rarely get angry anymore and when I do, it's for a rational and valid reason, my friendships (the ones I have left) are more intimate and meaningful and in general, I'm a lot happier. And... I can look in the mirror and say those words.

[godwin_anarchism]

 

I haven't really shared my childhood experiences with many people and fortunately, I only scored a three on the ACE, so anything I share with most people might seem mild. But I have experienced the things you mentioned just in talking with people about childrearing in the abstract and, in talking with them about their childhoods.

 

I think in that ACE test, people would tend to score on the extremes, low or high.  Dysfunctional people tend to attract other crazies, as well as opportunist sociopaths who find them easier to manipulate.  Functional people would have low tolerance for disorder and violence, and avoid those people.   So, abuse would multiply if it existed at all in an environment. 

Judging from the number of people who've told me about their childhood traumas, it is a minority that experience happy, carefree childhoods.  I was extremely lucky to have friends in early childhood with loving families that would allow me to participate in their family functions.  I was able to see the enormous contrast.

 

 It's so bizarre because in one sentence she'd be telling me about how her mother left her alone at home with her stepfather whom she knew was a pedophile and in the next sentence she'd be defending her mother for doing the best she could.... Her dissociation was so bad that it took a long time to get her to see that he mother had actually not done the best she could and in fact, had done her tremendous harm. 

 

 My mother exhibited that sort of dissociative behaviour.  She'd complain incessantly about my father (who abandoned her while she was pregnant with me, and I found out myself when I met him much later, was a sociopath). As soon as I tried to be supportive of her, she'd flip and defend him as if I attacked him, and will yell at me, how dare I think anything bad about my father. She's a big maze of contradictions, denials, and alternate realities.

 

 That's why people react the way they do when you bring up your history. Even if they've talked about their own, I think that by looking from the outside in at someone else's abuse, they have to somehow face the tragedy and feel empthy for you that they cannot feel for themselves and that dissonance causes the irrational responses. Or so it seems to me. 

In any event, I really do think those of us who are facing our histories are much better off than our dissociated comteporaries. I know that for myself, once I gained self knowledge and an understanding of what happened to me, I was able to shed fears and bigotries that had been like a ball and chain tied to my leg. I very rarely get angry anymore and when I do, it's for a rational and valid reason, my friendships (the ones I have left) are more intimate and meaningful and in general, I'm a lot happier. And... I can look in the mirror and say those words.

 

Abusers always make the victims feel like they were bad and deserved their punishment.  It's their fault, they are the one to blame for the abuser's suffering.  Even if we try to reject that as adults through logic, it's still ingrained in our brains from repetition and emotions.  My theory is that my "friends" probably saw me as a good person up until they found out I was also abused, and because in their brain still exists the programming that an abused person is a bad person, they then saw me as someone to punish and blame.  I am just guessing now.   I hope I am not falling in the trap of creating an alternate reality.

I know my anger and guilt went away when I fully believed it was not my fault.  It was only after I knew the details of my parents' and abusers' lives and childhoods (through the bios at funerals, and stored documents), that I could understand their behaviors and know where they were coming from.  Their childhoods were extremely violent ... total abandonment, infanticide of siblings, child slavery, years of civil war and foreign occupation.  Of course, they never talked about it themselves.  I just saw and felt the effects.    FDR explained some of these horrors in the pre-Nazi Germany child rearing series.

[godwin_anarchism]

 My original topic ...

I am trying to make my way through the vast past material on FDR.  I only found Stefan videos accidentally in December on Youtube, so I am trying to catch up.  So far, I hear a lot of his analysis of abuse (and how it relates to the State and violent society), and he frequently encourages people to discuss it in their relationships.  He'll then say it is taboo, and talking about it will cause all sorts of problems, and end there.

Why doesn't he go on to describe what kinds of reactions to expect, and how to prepare for them.  Also, discuss why people will react the way they do.   Otherwise, he is just pushing people into a situation they might not be ready to confront.  Once you put the information out there, you can't take it back, and you're making yourself vulnerable in new ways.  He should go into detail in warning about that, and urge caution.