TLDR:
Picture what you think is the right way to treat an abused child - and treat yourself this way
I was born to a teenage mother. Her family was messed up. She wanted to get out of there by crook or by hook. I suspect that I was the ticket.
My dad's family was also messed up, but in a different way. They were higher up on the socio-economic ladder.
Both sets of my grandparents came from families that were messed up. Childhood trauma of abandonment and neglect is always inter-generational.
My parents divorced when I was 3.
My first stepfather tried to drown me twice to spite my mom. Today she chooses to think that it never happened.
They would lock me at home and go to work. One day when I was 6 I tried to escape through a window and made it as far as the outer window sill. Stood there for a while, thinking "And then what?" As no answer was emerging, I crawled back in and returned to browsing books that I had browsed 100 times before.
This window in the photo. It did not have the iron grate back then. Note that little rectangle in the top left corner of the highlighted window - this is what I crawled through to get outside. And then back in.
When I was 7, I apologized to my mom for existing. This is a big red flag for anyone who pays attention, but I was not surrounded by such people.
They divorced when I was 8.
When I was 9, I almost died while playing "Let's press on your chest till you pass out" with my classmates. The key element of this game is counting to the right number, like to 20 rather than to 40. I guess my buddies got carried away, because I fainted (that was expected) and started dying (this wasn't). It was the best thing that happened to me ever in life. Because now I know how it feels when you run out of time. In earnest, for good, irreversibly. I know what I will have to go through at least once more.
My next stepfather tried to strangle me only once, bless his soul.
His preferred method of dealing with me was to see as little of me as possible. To make sure that I spend as little time home as possible he would enrol me into all sorts of activities and send me away for whole summers. I hated activities, summers, and this home. I did not hate him, because by that time I thought this was what life was about: being punished for existing. Nobody was there to support me against a bully twice my size who lived in the same apartment.
He never taught me anything, but he always punished me for not knowing how to do things. Being noticed meant being punished - this was a major building block of the CPTSD.
I lived in that "family" for 11 years. There was not a single second, not a single second without hyperbole, that I wish to relive. I could not stand this place.
Mom never cared.
When I was 19, she moved on to the next husband in the US. I interpreted it as "You are worth neither staying for nor taking with." Her previous husband, the bully, decided that I was big enough and kicked me out. I understand that some people found successful companies at 19, but all I knew by then was people-pleasing and not being noticed. I had no opinion. I liked whatever I was told to like. I wanted nothing, but was very good at knowing what I did NOT want. I could not say "No". Yet I had a girlfriend whom I loved to the moon.
I was still 19 when she left the country for the US. I understand today that this relationship had no future, as my love's trauma demanded somebody rude and selfish, which I wasn't. But back then I unterpreted her departure as "You are definitely not worth staying for." I don't blame her, but it hurt. Especially a few months after getting the same message from my mom.
I discovered alcohol. It worked wonders at stopping the 24/7 voice in my head that was going "You are worthless. This is a stupid idea. This won't work, because nothing you do will ever work. Anything you want to do is terrible. You are terrible." By knocking myself out I could silence this voice.
If anyone said or did anything good to me, I saw it as a setup. Why would anyone be good to a person who is worthless?
If I liked a girl, instead of trying to approach her I would get drunk to shut down the voice that went on and on like this: "Just the thought of assuming that she would want to associate with… this… is an insult to this amazingly attractive girl."
Why try ANYTHING, if the result is known: failure, then punishment?
See how it looks very much like depression? But it isn't.
Trying to escape this voice, I went through 2 immigrations.
I switched jobs.
I found a wife, whose trauma required someone like me: a fawn-freeze yin to her narcissist yan.
Everything changed when my first child was born. For the first time in my life I felt a Purpose pouring into me, there and then.
I was still drinking, because I still "knew" that nobody wanted me, but I cared less now: I had a child to be responsible for. I wanted to be a parent that I had never had.
The bar was low. I would only think "I am not trying to kill my child, ergo I am a model parent." And I would go binge-watch TV series with a bottle of rum.
My wife would say things like "I hate you, I cheat on you, I will take everything away from you, buy me a house, I never said that, I can't wait for you to disappear, you will prove nothing in court." And "You don't do anything" while I was paying all bills, but at the same time "Anyone can do whatever you do." And "You pay while I save for when you finally rid me of yourself." Funny that I kept trying to win her warmth and affection. How I have always thought that it could work, that I can make just another little effort - and she will see how she has been hurting me. UNFAIRLY has been the name of the game for me.
Just what a survivor of emontional abuse needs to hear from his alleged partner. It was impossible to please her, of course. She was not in it to be pleased. I married my parents.
I would hide in the basement and drink. I would compare my intake to that of my grandfather. He had been devastated by the war and perplexed by why he survived while so many next to him were ripped apart by German shells. He drank A LOT, also to shut down the voices. Compared to him I was a tea-totaller, so I kept going.
Then in 2012 I went to see a therapist, just to try and earn my wife's love. (Love cannot be earned, but I did not know it then.) Why would I need to see a therapist, I thought? I was absolutely normal, I thought. I did not need to be fixed. The world was broken, for sure, but I was fine.
That therapist did not magically change things, but I understood that I could look for another.
So I found 8 more.
Along the way I kept drinking, not wanting anything, and hating myself for it.
Then I was warily diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and it felt great. "Hey, you, happy hamsters around me! I will never be like you, because I can't. See, I have a paper that says «He can't», right here."
Then it hit me that I don't have to wallow in it. This is not a ground for feeling superior. I can and should DO something - if only because I don't want my children to be me.
Fortunately, the same therapist who diagnosed me with depression, also told me to try neurofeedback, and this is where my life began to change enough for me to notice.
You might wonder why I haven't killed myself along the way. By the end of the 1990s I was lost enough to be exposing myself to suicide-by-[various agents, like cops, mobsters, heights…]. I was saved by logic. While I am alive, the chance of something wonderful happening to me is never zero. If I am dead, this chance is nothing but zero. Therefore, it pays to be alive, even if right life sucks, to put it mildly.
Death will get me with or without my help, so that slightly-above-zero chance of something good makes all the difference.
Actions I took
CPTSD makes it impossible to do anything for yourself. There is no reason to do anything for this guy who does not deserve it. It is impossible to interrupt the following inner dialog: "Why contact a muscle for this guy (myself)? Nothing is rewarding and I don't deserve to feel good. What I want or how I feel is irrelevant, according to my training. If I want anything, so what? The world had been doing perfectly fine without my actions for billions of years and will keep doing equally fine for billions of year more after me. So why bother?"
Impossible until you realize that you need to ask a different question.
"Why bother?" is not the right question.
"How can I hug and appreciate myself?" is the right question.
Why? Because this is what every human must receive as a child.
I did not, but it does not mean that I don't deserve to. Somebody, not I, decided that I should not get their love.
It makes them bad, not me.
Nobody was there for me, but now I am here for me.
Now I am my own parent. I need all the love and support I can give myself.
I owe that poor little abused, neglected, abandoned, lonely boy what nobody else ever offered him.
I realized that I had to start forgiving myself, loving myself, supporting myself, being kind to myself. Only after that I could hope to be kind to others.
Picture what you think is the right way to treat an abused child - and treat yourself this way.
Talk therapy did not work. Unconditional positive regard was the last thing I wanted - remember that any kind word was a trap in my eyes.
EMDR worked, but for 1 minute. The contrast between where it sent me for that minute and how quickly I would crash back to my normal misery made it frustrating.
What really worked was neurofeedback. It took me more than 70 sessions, and I need to return for an occasional tune-up, but it was worth every second and every dollar. I will go as far as say that my journey can be split into Before and After Neurofeedback. (Some of this effect can be due to other factors that just happened to coincide chronologically, but I still think that it was neurofeedback that changed my life.)
Another thing that really, really worked for me is IFS. I don't need alcohol anymore.
Physical activity works great. When endorphins hit you on the third hour of walking under a heavy backpack, it's pure paradise.
Art - music, drawing, and photography in my case - works great. It turns off my self-analyzing, censor's mind, and the negative voice disappears for a while.
Meditation works great, but I am too lazy and probably poisoned by phone scrolling. The real effects begin after the first 30 minutes of just sitting and breathing, but it is hard to maintain such focus. Don't drink coffee before a meditation!
Books about trauma are excellent. They made me feel understood. I understood that not only am I not alone - I was a worthy human being who fell victim to circumstances beyond his control. These books made me realize that I should not set unrealistic goals. They made me feel like living is, after all, possible. And some books even told me what I should do to reduce my suffering.
Where am I now?
I do what I can and don't do what I can't.
I am not comparing myself to anyone, even to an imaginary "better me". I listen to myself and forgive myself. I don't reproach myself for anything, even in jest.
I have no Facebook, no TikTok, I watch no TV, I read very little news, and barely touch Instagram. There are very few people whose opinion matters to me. My peace comes before anyting.
I am deeply grateful for being alive. For having honestly lived the life that I was assigned to the best of my crippled ability. For being able to see, hear, smell, and touch things. For a choice to give my kids a better childhood than mine. After all the abuse I have subjected myself to, every day is a generous bonus.
Imagine the entire infinity, no, wait - five infinities of creatures that were never and will never be born. Being alive is a lottery with impossible chances, and I won it.
I don't know how to be happy or how to want things, but I know how to appreciate what I am given. And I am not abandoning my efforts towards learning to be happy and maybe even wanting something.
The chance of winning a lottery is small. So the chance of winning an anti-lottery and have something Really Bad happen to me is equally slim. Nothing I do matters, which means freedom to do whatever crosses my mind. The worst has already happened: I am already born into the world where CPTSD, dentists, and taxes are possible. There is nothing to lose.
If you feel that I left out important details, use the Contact option below. I don't promise to act on your suggestion, but I promise to read.