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I'm near the end of my rope: How do you deal?
Between things that happened, bad childhood with a sadist father and a mother who was always just on the couch and never there for me. Often at 3 and 4 left at home alone Most interaction with my father was him beating my bare ass with a belt. As I grew my parents got a little better but still most interactions were about discipline. My mom started to take and interest occasionally but still in her ow world . Mt dad cheated on my mother with a lot of people including under age girls. I didn't know about all of that at the time. I got married and we had a bay girl ant at 3 weeks of her age her mom took off leaving me and the baby and I was 23 and just a year prior I was a party monster. I drank a fair amount in bars, never at home, I did a lot of cocaine huge amounts of acid and mushrooms and a lot of Extasy when it first came out on early 80's and was pure. I met my future wife and stopped doing drugs and we got married and had a kid. My party days were over but still fresh in my head. I moved n with my father near my hometown he was on his second wife at the time and he was a paster. One day there was a 13 year old girl and her family talking to my dad and I was hit with a disgusting wave that my dad was attracted to her physically. A few months later the girl made a complaint on my dad. I was never sure what exactly the complaint was except it was a sexual abuse one. The church likes to hide that stuff and moved my father a few hundred miles away. His second wife covered for him with an alibi but then left him right away. I got my own home and my younger brother was in Kansas and wanted to come back east and I invited him to live with me, he and his wife. They baby sat for me while I worked and I cut off communication my father, after that. My family thought we were estranged because he beat me when I was young but the reason is I saw him as a deviant and was a pastor. One night when I came home from work I heard my daughter crying, she was 3 I go into her room to see my naked brother on top of her. He just got up and walked away. I was standing there in shock and he just walked past me like he didn't see me. I then grabbed my daughter and took her to my bed. I found another place to live and moved out. The signs were there that my brother was raping her on a regular basis. She never wet the bed after 2 years old and she had just started almost nightly and always wanted to sleep in my bed with me. When we moved she never wet the bed again and slept through the night. The change was immediate. My brother was later arrested for various crimes all alcohol related and even a felon. He beat the felony or got it reduced because my grandmother got him a good lawyer. He was brandishing a shot gun at a cop. 33 years later I heard my father was in bad shape and dying. He had congested heart failure and it was getting worse and he caught COVID. So I went from Colorado to FL to seem him. He didn't recognize me and what was funny was hearing him tell stories about me like I wasn't there. he was a pitiful mess and on his 4th wife by then. Of all his wives I met she was the best. I don't know if he was ever lucid enough to know if was me there and really don't give a fuck. There was no funeral when he died a month after I saw him. I received nothing from his estate but a little bible he carried around. I felt absolutely nothing when he died. I didn't cry I didn't dwell but I did use it as an excuse to miss some work and laughed about that .I had surgery as a kid and have a very bad back, during the surgery I received tainted blood, tainted with Hepatitis C, later in life several other DX an d the virus never responded to treatment. Today I have severe chronic pain, muscle nerve joint and bone. Spinal injections and Lyrica help take the edge off the nerve pan. My depression deepened and I was literally screaming in pain every night. I am isolated in a very rural area family angry because I exposed my pervert publicly on social media. I'm about ready to off myself.
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I have severe scoliosis. I had half a vertebrae in my L2, birth defect. Parents ignored me complaining of my back hurting thinking I was trying to get out of school .One day I couldn't straighten my back. Surgery in 1976 at 12 (after 6 years of crying to my parents) the bone fuses all my vertebrae in lumbar. As I grew the muscle pai worsen. People always telling me to sit straight even though my curve was 46 degrees. Now the deformed Vertebrae is crumbling and sic bulging and surgeons can't get in there because of the bone graphs. as I had 60 my pain became more constant and years of compensating my posture has cause a curve in my upper spine and compressed vertebrae in my neck causing nerve pain down my arm. now at 62 my pain is constant. I also have liver disease and hemochromatosis. The nerve pain down my hip and leg was so more pain than I could imagine someone enduring. It made sciatica look like a picnic. On 300 MG of Lyrica and had a spinal injection a week and a half ago. It did help the pain that was making me literally scream in the night. I had also started falling. Oh I severely broke my hip 30 years ago and the joint is arthritic and has bone spurs , same side my disc pain was on. I'm not screaming at night anymore and sometimes I don't have to use my cane but this muscle pain and neck pain and joint pain still exist and the pain down my leg still happens but not as severe. The injection helped some but I am so tired of being in pain. Suicide is thought about frequently. hourly, My therapist has me at high risk for offing myself and has me on valium and heavy dose of Wellbutrin, in the past SSRI didn't work. I don't know how much longer I can fight of these thoughts. my depression anxiety come from my dad beating me and then about 35 years ago
i walking in my 3 year daughters room t see my brother raping her. It has divided my family and I am the outcast for going public with my brother being a pedophile and now My family doesn't speak to me. Between my depression and chronic I am searching for even a small reason to live. I also can still have my brother prosecuted even 35 years later. If I do my family will really hate me but I need some closure before I die.
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2 Reactionssomeone asked how I deal, I have cats they are my support especially since my family disowned me for going public that my brother is a pedophile.
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1 ReactionNothing has worked tried almost all anti-depressants, serotonin and dopamine low dose of valium. I still get intrusive thoughts of killing myself as well as my mind drifting to it. I do not know what to do, in therapy once a week, my family hates me for exposing my brother is a pedophile.
I am sorry for the trauma you experienced. Please keep yourself safe. I have 4 phone numbers in my contact list for myself . All our behavioral health crisis lines. One is 988
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3 Reactions@billa1962, welcome. You’ll notice that I merged your 3 newly started discussions into one discussion to help others follow your story and to connect with you. You’ve lived through heck and back. I can hardly imagine experiencing repeated trauma to yourself and to your baby girl. It sounds like you have found a lifeline through your cats. They can provide an incredible bond.
I agree with @kb2014, if you ever need to talk or text with someone when in crisis, please call or text 988. https://988lifeline.org/
Do you still see your kids?
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4 Reactions@billa1962
You are not alone. I don’t have exactly the same past as you but my father was abusive (mentally/emotionally/sexually) to my older sister and me. He was an atheist and my mother took us to church so our home was very confusing. Like your daughter, I wet the bed up until 11 and believe it was tied to the fear and abuse in my home. My mother was also neglectful. It is hard to deal with the fact that your own family would treat you the way they do and you carry the pain for life.
I also deal with chronic pain and have had 2 spine surgeries (cervical and lumbar) and now dealing with major depression for over a year. My doctors have been trying different medications but they haven’t found the best combination yet to manage all of my symptoms. A recent medication is making my pain worse. Some days I feel like I can’t do life anymore but my teen son needs me as his sole caregiver. I want him to have a better life than I did and have broken the chain of abuse and neglect for him. I have not had contact with my father or sister for over 14 years and purposely chose to never to be in contact with them because they are both abusive and mentally not stable and didn’t want my son to be exposed to abuse. My father is a pedophile and I will not be attending his funeral when that day comes (he is 78 now and not sure where he lives in southern CA and I am on the east coast).
If you haven’t already, make sure to get a good therapist to work through your childhood abuse/neglect, substance abuse to mask the pain and cope, relationships, etc. and get a good doctor/psychiatrist to help with medication for depression/chronic pain. I have taken Cymbalta for nerve/arthritis pain and depression plus Wellbutrin which helped also with depression.
My faith in God has helped me know I am unconditionally loved by Him and He is our Father when our human fathers have failed us. God has a purpose for you and He wants you to lean on Him for strength and guidance. We can’t do this life without Him.
I’ll be praying that you get the help you so deserve. Take good care of yourself now. Your parents may have neglected you but you do not need to neglect yourself now. Give yourself the love you deserve. That is what God wants for you. To know you are loved❣️
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1 ReactionThe anger that rises up in me when I am made aware of accounts such as yours is overwhelming. I can't imagine what you are dealing with! But it also puts my own life in perspective. Despite what we may think we all have those in our lives who need us. Keep in mind that your daughter needs her daddy. From what you posted, she loves you even if your relationship with her is strained (I'm just mentioning that as a possibility since you haven't mentioned the current status of your relationship with her). If it is, I am convinced that the conflict can be resolved. And clearly, your cats need you too!
@billa1962 My very good friend grew up in a family just like yours.
His life as a child is one horror story after another. The sad thing is he had no idea that what he experienced wasn’t “normal” until he joined the military. There he heard the stories of others whose father took them fishing, and mothers who baked cookies etc. That’s when he became very angry. He turned to alcohol and wild actions. He has had 5 wives.
Now, he is in his mid-70s and via the Alcoholics Anonymous program has not had a drink for 34 years.
He has forgiven his parents, and is very willing to help others anyway he can.
Now, he has been diagnosed with Dementia…
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1 Reaction@SusanEllen66 - talk about a kick in the head, eh!?
@rashida I feel sorry for him.
When he was little, his father kicked him around the house when he was drunk himself.