More stuff from inside my box!

[DaveInOz]

Hi everyone,

In a carry over from my post to the new members forum I wanted to continue my story. As I've said before I can not change the past, but I think speaking about it maybe helpful and good therapy. Because for so many years its just festered inside me. Being able to release all this lightens my load and my head space, if that makes sense.

This will be a long one...

I hold the belief that my mother experienced Post Natal Depression when I was born. At the time she was 43. However as that was in 1961 I doubt anyone knew it existed. Hence I feel she went undiagnosed with this condition.

Of course all this is speculation but actions do speak louder than words. She was very cold to me; there was no affection. Mixed with other identifying traits and left untreated it has evolved into other disorders and further personality defects. My mother in my eyes displays narcissist tendencies which I'm sure will be identified further down my post.

All I've ever wanted to is be loved by my mother. My sister who is 12 years my senior gets all my mothers love. Which has in turn affected our relationship because my mother would always character assassinate me to my sister. She'd also plan ways to set me up and make me look like bad in front of my sister too.

To give an example to how my mother treated me...

NB - My father was a company director and was either on trips overseas or at the office till late. So at home it was my mother, sister and me a lot of the time.

I was 4 years old & at kindergarten (play school), I had an accident of the toilet kind. There were no spare clothes so my mother was called to collect me.

Arriving home she dragged me to the back yard, stripped me naked and ordered me to stand there. She went into the house and returned with a tin foil plate and emptied the contents of my soiled pants onto the plate.

I can vividly remember her saying "eat it that will teach you to poo your pants again."

She made me stand naked in the back yard for ages and returned. Although I didn't eat it and she didn't force me to eat it, I know realise that the experience had its intended effect.

From around that time I began to not eat or eat very little. This obviously affected my growth. Although I'm tall I've always been very thin. until 3 years ago I weighted 69Kg at 6'1" tall. Today I weight around 90Kg but

my wrists are still about the size of a 12 year olds.

By the time I reached 7 years old I was horribly thin, at that point I realised if I didn't start eating I'd die. However although I began eating again I stopped going to the toilet on a regular basis. Looking back now maybe it was a fear that I'd have another accident. Who knows, but even at that young age I think I was pretty much screwed up in the head.

At around 9 was the first time my father began beating me. I don't mean with belts either. I recall being woken at around 3am to a volley of punches to my legs and arms. Least to say I'm surprised that nothing got broken that night.

Around then I started wetting my bed, though I guess that's not a shocking revelation under the circumstances. However I was then made to wear nappies at bed time.

Although I wanted to refuse I couldn't because threats of violence were either threatened by my mother (I'll tell your father if you don't do x, y, z) always used to subdue me into compliance, or my father would just beat the sh#t out of me and I'd comply.

On many occasions I say my mother smile in what seemed a tribute win when my father would lash out and beat me. How on earth a mother could not only initiate & or manipulate such an horrific act, much less gain enjoyment from it, defies anything I can understand.

By the time I reached 10 or 11, I wasn't having a bowel motion for up to 2 weeks at most. However by that point I couldn't go and suppositories had become another ritual of my young life.

My fathers trips OS had decreased and because of this the beatings increased as my mother would consistently nag at my father to the point where he go totally ballistic.

Over the years I had:

• A rifle held at my head and the trigger pulled (the chamber was empty).
  
• A pitch fork thrown at me just missing my leg.
  
• Beaten with golf clubs.
  
• Had my head rammed into the side of a door arch.
  
• Kicked; punched; pushed; thrown
  
• And many other acts that would certainly have people like this jailed and the key thrown away today.
  

In additional to all this I was sexually abused between the ages of 10 - 12 by a 17 year old neighbour in our street for a couple of years. So were other boys too.

By this stage I'd turned into a rebel. Looking back I was like a wild animal at times. I attended a private school and if I wasn't being bashed at home, I was being caned at school or I was being ganged up on a bullied which always led to me losing the plot and beating up 3 or 4 peers at a time. Looking back on this, it reminded me of my mother. Some kids at school took a bizarre pleasure in getting me go crazy.

Throughout my childhood and teenage years I had no one to turn to, I remember at times inventing make believe friends and chatting to them. I also used to get into trouble with police as well. Things like trying to set the brush fence on fire, pinning my mother down behind the pool shed with my air rifle, every time she'd show her head I'd fire a shot into corrugated iron. Crazy stuff like that.

I suppose my respect for the police wavered when I went to them for help after my father had beat the cr#p out me one night. The Senior Sergeant called my father who as per always turned up in the flash car, nice suit and sporting a rolex.

A few words later and the Senior Sergeant comes in and tells me "If I was his son he'd take me down the cells and give me a good hiding for telling lies."

I guess that would turn anyone away from the people that are supposed to help you...

Anyway...this kind of brings me back to my original post:

http://community.mentalhelp.net/showthread.php?t=1324

And in some ways it points back to answering Alan's question.

I find myself wondering why you moved back to the state where your mother lives?

I think we call agree that what took place at the hands of my mother was pretty damn wrong. So too with my father.

For some reason I carry this guilt around. Stuffed if I know why though. My mother has been the scourge of my life.

Granted she's old now (89) and not well. But she's just as bad if not a lot worse. My sister lives 1Km and I she always makes excuses not to see me. He partner thinks I'm a A hole because...Get this...The way I've treated my mother...What tha!

You see even now she turns people against me...But still I move back here. Maybe I'm just totally insane and I don't realise it. Because frankly why would someone return to such pathetic and sad situation that causes past memories to spill over the flood gates?

Maybe as bizarre as it sounds I'm looking for answers. I think I'm looking for a reason(s) as to why I was treated like this throughout my childhood.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment.

Any thoughts or insight would certainly be appreciated, thank you.

Cheers

Dave

Edited March 24, 2009 by DaveInOz

[JustTrying]

Why do abused women go back to the abuser? Often telling all that tried to help to go away. And eventually they do. IMO it is going back to what is familuar. You still want your Moms love and aproval... ( although you know you will never have that). Familuar is safe....

Heck I don't know....

JT