In a Pickle
Thanks everyone for your support. I know counselling will help me. I just have a bad association with it from last time.
My mom didn't want me to go, and we fought a lot about it. It made it twice as stressful. She was afraid of social services getting involved, so she told me if I told anybody, they would take us all away into foster care, and kids always get abused in foster care, she said. It would all be my fault if that happened. So I tried to bury it, like she wanted. except that doesn't work for very long. It always comes back to the surface.
When I was 17, I started having a few panic attacks, depression, self destructive thoughts, and sometimes more than thoughts. I shut everyone out. I isolated myself emotionally from everybody. If I couldn't feel anything, then I couldn't feel the hurt.
After a while I went to a counselor at a church I was attending. My mom and I fought a lot then. It helped me, but at the same time it drove a wedge between us.
Eventually I moved out, and didn't talk to her for almost a year. I know
she blames herself partly, but she also blames me. She told me
outright, it's my fault for letting him.
The hardest thing of all so far has been to stop blaming myself. That's one huge victory for me. I don't hate myself anymore, just the life I'm stuck with. I still have bad days, and fall back into old patterns of thinking, but I'm learning to direct my anger where it is due.
Thanks for listening. It feels good to talk and not be judged. I want to get past this. I don't want to stay how I am. I don't know what my future is, but I don't want to face it with this so heavy on my heart. I'm getting tired of carrying this around.
~Corinna
