YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

This week was absolutely exhausting... I've been working with a counselor for 6 months or so and at one point I discussed with him how my mom cleaned my mouth out with soap and spanked me when I was little. He looked at me shocked and I thought about it and said "This is a pretty common consequence for people my age to have dealt with." He looked at me and said, "No, it's not, and even if it was common it's still abuse."

Fast forward about 3 months to this week, and I'm reflecting a lot. First, I've disassociated a lot of my life away as a coping mechanism for stress and trauma because that's how I coped with childhood. I've also realized that since my mom is covertly abusive, it's not very visible to most others, and so it was easy to assume that I was just too sensitive when I was younger, It didn't help that my father was emotionally neglectful.

I am constantly seeking validation and approval as a result, so work has been incredibly crushing because my work employers provide no appreciation to there staff, despite the hard work and effort with put in, and I'm so self-conscious that I keep everything to myself because I feel as though the conversations by fellow staff tend to be shallow.

Anyways, I'm coming to grips with the thoughts of being emotionally/physically abused and emotionally neglected, and how much this has rippled into my present life, and why I get so uncomfortable and anxious about anything that I want to do and bonus marks on this one, my mom will only give me validation if I'm in tears and I ask "Do you and dad think I'm essential to the family" thank god she said yes as I was having a bad break down, but then 2 days later I call and let her know I'm doing a bit better and she says "I knew you would get over it." and now I'm thinking to myself "welp, guess it doesn't really matter how I felt.

Fuck my life...

punched_by_thoughts wrote: ↑November 20th, 2021, 7:46 am He looked at me and said, "No, it's not, and even if it was common it's still abuse."

Word.

Now, years later, society sneers and snivels are us that “Family is everything!” [Use the most annoying voice you can imagine.]

Your counselor is a human.

How bizarre that you are treated better by your counselor, and me by my kettlebell instructor, than we are by our own mothers.

Yes, please tell me again how great families are. /s

Perhaps they have to keep repeating it to convince themselves!

I suspect that parents more or less teach them to dissociate, from an early age, when they spank children. And the other incident (I can barely refer to it), suggests abusive levels of control. Also, inter-generational transfer of trauma. It might also indicate that finding the words to speak to your mother; in a way that is comfortable and easy for you, might always be somewhat difficult. Sensitivity is a common accusation leveled at children by an over-controlling parent. In that context, it’s unfair and untrue.

I don’t know the exact term, but adult-children can end up seeking treatment not because they are sick, but rather, because they are the only family member in the group who is having a normal (distressed) response to the toxic issues harbored in the family setting. You’re the presenting patient, as it were, for your whole family.

Don’t be in a rush to work this out. It’s gonna take a while and go through stages. Finding a way to get distance from your mom, without being shot into outer space (emotionally speaking) requires delicacy, patience and strength. It takes time to build up the resources elsewhere, that your parents withheld; or indeed, are actively drawing from you to dull their own wounds.

It’s a long(ish) search for the language and tone, to talk safely and responsively about difficult (for everyone) stuff.

Agreed with our dear friend Beany Boo.

Today, now, washing a child’s mouth out with soap is absolutely abuse: I can’t imagine being such a depraved person as to do that to another human.

Yet, years ago, as you say, it was common, a joke, even.

Hey punched,

I identify so much with the things you have shared.

My mom did that to me, too. I was much too young to understand what I said, (I’m assuming that I must have said a swear word or something) but I’ll never forget the punishment. She wouldn’t let me rinse, so I sat on my bed with my mouth open, not wanting to swallow. I don’t remember ever feeling comforted by her. I only remember being terrified of her, she was always so angry.

My mom also presented a wholesome image of herself; she worked for the city government, played piano at church, etc., so when I became a rebellious teenager, people just thought I was a spoiled rotten kid, and she was just an innocent victim of my monstrous behavior. I overheard one of her church friends telling her that I just needed a “good spanking”. I was 16 or 17, ffs.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing on your thread… I just saw the similarities.

I’m almost 54 years old and I still struggle to make sense of the world. I don’t fit in socially, and I continuously fail to create meaningful social connections with people, which has cost me everything in terms of basic survival; i.e., jobs, etc. I never had kids; never really wanted to.

And I also continue to struggle with the idea that, maybe it wasn’t really so bad, maybe I’m too obsessed with my childhood and should just “get over it”. You know, snap out of it, and just set everything straight. Right.

The way I've only really been able to accept that I was abused was by thinking "Would what happened to me when I was younger, be appropriate for one adult to do to another?" It's weird how we think about children as something different from adults, or at least myself and some others that I've met see it this way at times.

I logically believe children are just Humans that are foundational, and adults are just the products that are almost finished. I believe that we can repair our foundation, but it can be difficult as adults because we have all that structure on top already.

fuck... tired after even writing this and don't know where I was going with these thoughts.

Another way I like to look at it, using some imagination, is like, imagine what would happen if a celebrity or politician was caught on video doing to one of their kids, the same thing that happened to you. Twitter would blow UP. I imagine people generally would be outraged if they actually saw someone like, Kim Kardashian washing her kids mouth out with soap (I’m sure you have plenty more where that came from). One would hope anyway.

Hopefully this is helpful.