PTSD

[TinyDinos]

I’m having an anxiety attack and I’m trying to ground myself but I’m really worked up.

My parents have been divorced for almost 4 years because my dad has really toxic anger issues. He threatened to punch my sister (13) and had made many other threats to our physical health including threats of beating us with wires, making my other sister (12 now, but 8 at the time,) clean up broken glass on her bare hands and knees, make us regret being born, etc. He was kicked out of our house because he started yelling at 13 (10 at the time) and screaming that she was a bad daughter and that she’s the reason that him and our mom were divorcing. 
 

He then moved into an apartment and hardly visited us despite only being 15 mins away. When we finally did visit regularly, he had several aggressive outbursts and at one point kicked my sisters and I out of his house, saying that my sisters could return, but I couldn’t, and brought us outside the community’s gates in 36(F) deg weather to wait for our mom to pick us up.. (13 was 11 at the time and wearing a tank top and Pyjama shorts. We insisted he get anger management classes before seeing us again.

Fast forward 3 years and we’re at his house that he lives in with his gf and her daughter. There really hasn’t been much incident since, until now. My mom requests info on his gf before we’re allowed to spend the night bc she has 100% custody. He gives info (the first time she asked he refused. He agreed this time) and she says she needs to think about it. He goes on this whole tangent with me after he hangs up with her and tells me about how he lost everything and he didn’t even do anything wrong. He asked if I knew what it feels like to lose someone you love more than anything else, to lose your house, lose your friends, and wish things were the same as they see to be, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I do understand and I felt it twice. I lost both of my parents after this whole endeavor and I can’t be social anymore. He was crying and stuff and I felt helpless because I feel bad for him since he’s clearly upset, but I remember things being violent and scary. I still have night terrors and tremors and I’m very sensitive. My mom says it’s due to the trauma I’ve experienced, but when I see my dad like this I can’t help but wonder if I over-exaggerated it all or if I was really the victim. I don’t know how to feel anymore about it.

I’m shaking uncontrollably and my heart is racing. Please help or send advice.

(they’ve been divorced for a while and my sisters and I are physically safe. I don’t wish to commit, I’m just having some strong anxiety.)

[-Leila-]

6 hours ago, TinyDinos said:

I’m having an anxiety attack and I’m trying to ground myself but I’m really worked up.

My parents have been divorced for almost 4 years because my dad has really toxic anger issues. He threatened to punch my sister (13) and had made many other threats to our physical health including threats of beating us with wires, making my other sister (12 now, but 8 at the time,) clean up broken glass on her bare hands and knees, make us regret being born, etc. He was kicked out of our house because he started yelling at 13 (10 at the time) and screaming that she was a bad daughter and that she’s the reason that him and our mom were divorcing. 
 

He then moved into an apartment and hardly visited us despite only being 15 mins away. When we finally did visit regularly, he had several aggressive outbursts and at one point kicked my sisters and I out of his house, saying that my sisters could return, but I couldn’t, and brought us outside the community’s gates in 36(F) deg weather to wait for our mom to pick us up.. (13 was 11 at the time and wearing a tank top and Pyjama shorts. We insisted he get anger management classes before seeing us again.

Fast forward 3 years and we’re at his house that he lives in with his gf and her daughter. There really hasn’t been much incident since, until now. My mom requests info on his gf before we’re allowed to spend the night bc she has 100% custody. He gives info (the first time she asked he refused. He agreed this time) and she says she needs to think about it. He goes on this whole tangent with me after he hangs up with her and tells me about how he lost everything and he didn’t even do anything wrong. He asked if I knew what it feels like to lose someone you love more than anything else, to lose your house, lose your friends, and wish things were the same as they see to be, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I do understand and I felt it twice. I lost both of my parents after this whole endeavor and I can’t be social anymore. He was crying and stuff and I felt helpless because I feel bad for him since he’s clearly upset, but I remember things being violent and scary. I still have night terrors and tremors and I’m very sensitive. My mom says it’s due to the trauma I’ve experienced, but when I see my dad like this I can’t help but wonder if I over-exaggerated it all or if I was really the victim. I don’t know how to feel anymore about it.

I’m shaking uncontrollably and my heart is racing. Please help or send advice.

(they’ve been divorced for a while and my sisters and I are physically safe. I don’t wish to commit, I’m just having some strong anxiety.)

Hi tiny dinos,

im so sorry to hear about this. Firstly, are you and your sisters in a safe place? If not, is there anywhere that’s safe you could go? Your safety is important.

this is not your fault, your dad shouldn’t of treated you like this, I hear how it has affected you. None of this is your fault, I want to try help you in the best way I can.

when someone we love acts out like this it causes anxiety, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. You deserve to be happy. 
 
have you spoken to anyone about this? Talking about what’s happened to us is a great way to explore our feelings and to wonder why we are experiencing these thoughts. I know it’s hard to explain to someone what’s happened to you.

im here for you beautiful, I love you  

[TinyDinos]

20 hours ago, _Leila_ said:

Hi tiny dinos,

im so sorry to hear about this. Firstly, are you and your sisters in a safe place? If not, is there anywhere that’s safe you could go? Your safety is important.

this is not your fault, your dad shouldn’t of treated you like this, I hear how it has affected you. None of this is your fault, I want to try help you in the best way I can.

when someone we love acts out like this it causes anxiety, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. You deserve to be happy. 
 
have you spoken to anyone about this? Talking about what’s happened to us is a great way to explore our feelings and to wonder why we are experiencing these thoughts. I know it’s hard to explain to someone what’s happened to you.

im here for you beautiful, I love you  

Yeah we’re safe. We only visit him on weekends right now, but go home to our mom every night. 
I know, but it’s still nice to hear it because I feel some sort of responsibility thanks to the things that have been said to me about the matter. I really appreciate your help. 
I wish I knew what exactly triggers it because I really hate feeling that way. I also wish I could communicate better when I’m uncomfortable or disagree with someone, but more often than not I’d rather just avoid the confrontation all together.

I have, but my mom will never fully get it, and any adults I would’ve talked to before this all happened are now split into three categories: 

 

-The ones that choose a side (either my mom or dad) and argue that one of them (depending on which side their on) should’ve handled things differently and talk badly about the other parent and blame them for everything. Then take it a step further and try to convert me to their respective side.

 

-The ones who stopped talking to the kids all together because they disagreed with one of the parents. They cut all contact with us and it sucks because some people that did this are either blood family, or people who practically raised me and now want nothing to do with me.

 

-Or last but not least, the reason I don’t talk to people anymore: The ones who cut me off with/ignore everything I told them. They always have a response or excuse for what happened. Here are a few things people have actually said to me when I told them what my father did to me:

“you’re just a kid, you don’t know what you’re talking about”

“you’re just angry that they’re divorcing so you’re acting out.”

“You’re just trying to get attention”

“that didn’t *really* happen, trust me- I’ve known your dad for years”

“you’re just repeating what your mom told you”

“you haven’t done the research, *I* have. This is entirely legal”

“you’re just being overdramatic”

“that’s normal, you don’t realize just how good you have it. There are kids all over the world who have it much worse than you so stop whining because you got parented”

“you just don’t like being corrected”

 “Are you on your period or something? Because you blew things WAY out of proportion, and I think you might be coming up on your cycle.”

“You deserve everything you got and worse. Your dad should’ve made good on those threats because you and your sisters are nothing more than a bunch of disrespectful, ungrateful, little girls.

The worst part is that a majority of these are from people at our old church that have watched my sisters and i grow up over the prior 10 years at that point. The rest of them were blood related family members, the most prominent of which being the last quote I put on the list. My uncle said that to me over the phone when I tried to tell him about what my dad was doing to my sisters and I. After he said what he did, I talked to my mom about it and she called him, my other uncle on that side, and my dad on a group video call (they’re all brothers). The second uncle who has been supporting us since day 1 was shocked and said he can’t believe that behavior and was telling uncle 1 what he did was not okay. Uncle 1 repeated what he said to me in front of my parents and uncle 2,  as well as telling my mom to “stop causing drama because all she does is sit on her lazy ass and be my dads baby mama”. Needless to say, my dad didn’t help or intervene on any part of it. But he actually laughed.

His kids were being berated by his brother.

and he laughed.

at the time he was trying to get us to spend time with him again and he said to us that what had happened was wrong and he apologized and stuff. But when he had his brother on his side, that was all gone. 
 

Memories like these replay in my mind all of the time, and I can’t forget them. I can’t trust anybody anymore because of this. I can’t make friends the same way I used to. I can’t see my dad the same way despite his changes since that time. I’m not okay anymore. This is why I really want therapy because I know I’m mentally screwed up.

 

(I’m sorry this got so long)

[Luie]

On 1/15/2023 at 4:05 AM, TinyDinos said:

I’m having an anxiety attack and I’m trying to ground myself but I’m really worked up.

My parents have been divorced for almost 4 years because my dad has really toxic anger issues. He threatened to punch my sister (13) and had made many other threats to our physical health including threats of beating us with wires, making my other sister (12 now, but 8 at the time,) clean up broken glass on her bare hands and knees, make us regret being born, etc. He was kicked out of our house because he started yelling at 13 (10 at the time) and screaming that she was a bad daughter and that she’s the reason that him and our mom were divorcing. 
 

He then moved into an apartment and hardly visited us despite only being 15 mins away. When we finally did visit regularly, he had several aggressive outbursts and at one point kicked my sisters and I out of his house, saying that my sisters could return, but I couldn’t, and brought us outside the community’s gates in 36(F) deg weather to wait for our mom to pick us up.. (13 was 11 at the time and wearing a tank top and Pyjama shorts. We insisted he get anger management classes before seeing us again.

Fast forward 3 years and we’re at his house that he lives in with his gf and her daughter. There really hasn’t been much incident since, until now. My mom requests info on his gf before we’re allowed to spend the night bc she has 100% custody. He gives info (the first time she asked he refused. He agreed this time) and she says she needs to think about it. He goes on this whole tangent with me after he hangs up with her and tells me about how he lost everything and he didn’t even do anything wrong. He asked if I knew what it feels like to lose someone you love more than anything else, to lose your house, lose your friends, and wish things were the same as they see to be, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I do understand and I felt it twice. I lost both of my parents after this whole endeavor and I can’t be social anymore. He was crying and stuff and I felt helpless because I feel bad for him since he’s clearly upset, but I remember things being violent and scary. I still have night terrors and tremors and I’m very sensitive. My mom says it’s due to the trauma I’ve experienced, but when I see my dad like this I can’t help but wonder if I over-exaggerated it all or if I was really the victim. I don’t know how to feel anymore about it.

I’m shaking uncontrollably and my heart is racing. Please help or send advice.

(they’ve been divorced for a while and my sisters and I are physically safe. I don’t wish to commit, I’m just having some strong anxiety.)

Heyy @TinyDinos, I've read all your messages in this chain and am sorry that you've been going through a lot of things for a while now. I wanted to check with you if you'd prefer speaking on community or would prefer more one to one communication on confidential support?

[TinyDinos]

46 minutes ago, Luie said:

Heyy @TinyDinos, I've read all your messages in this chain and am sorry that you've been going through a lot of things for a while now. I wanted to check with you if you'd prefer speaking on community or would prefer more one to one communication on confidential support?

I don’t really have a preference.. I’m just getting things off my chest I guess. I’m trying really hard to just get over the whole debacle but every time I think I’ve moved forward something like what happened a few days ago sends me spiraling back.

[Luie]

20 hours ago, TinyDinos said:

I don’t really have a preference.. I’m just getting things off my chest I guess. I’m trying really hard to just get over the whole debacle but every time I think I’ve moved forward something like what happened a few days ago sends me spiraling back.

Heyy @TinyDinos, I can tell how hard you've trying and how much you've been carrying inside of you for so long. I am so sorry that you and your siblings were ill treated by your father. I wanted to check with you are mandated by court to meet your father or is it a choice you and your siblings are making because he reached out? I am asking because you mentioned that due to safety your mum got custody three years ago. Also, something stood out to me from what you shared 'I wish I knew what exactly triggers it because I really hate feeling that way. I also wish I could communicate better when I’m uncomfortable or disagree with someone, but more often than not I’d rather just avoid the confrontation all together.' I wanted to share a few things and also hear your deeper thoughts and feelings on it if you'd like to share with me.

When you've grown up in a household where you've always been on a survival mode and making sure that you do not trigger the person perpetuating any form of abuse you tend to avoid any form of confrontation. In general avoidance often occurs as a result of someone trying to limit contact with triggers for anxiety, fear, or memories and thoughts about a traumatic event. This is understandable as your emotions and thoughts can be incredibly distressing. And hey, you are in no way to be blamed for anything that happened, the fact that such kind of abuse and threats were happening for a long time leaves an impact and the body and mind do keep score of these events and it shows up in different forms in our lives, whether in a physical manner or towards our mental health. You spiralling is normal, I can sense how difficult it is for you. 

[TinyDinos]

11 hours ago, Luie said:

Heyy @TinyDinos, I can tell how hard you've trying and how much you've been carrying inside of you for so long. I am so sorry that you and your siblings were ill treated by your father. I wanted to check with you are mandated by court to meet your father or is it a choice you and your siblings are making because he reached out? I am asking because you mentioned that due to safety your mum got custody three years ago. 

Thanks.. I always had to deal with it by myself because I genuinely believed that nobody would believe me about it and I didn’t want to worry my siblings. I now know that the opposite is true, but because I ignored it for so long and “handled” it by myself I’m having problems I don’t know how to fix. 

My dad has visitation rights as long as it is possible for my mom to accommodate when and where to have us available. I’m not required to spend time with him,  nor are my sisters. After the legal stuff was all settled with the visitation rights and such, he would only reach out to us if it was a major holiday or one of our birthdays. The reason being, he was posting pictures and videos of us being with him because his friends kept asking him where we were. Any time outside of that quite literally took my sisters and I begging to see him because he just wouldn’t reach out and we really needed our dad. I guess we craved stability that we didn’t have, or wanted things to be normal again, but part of us still couldn’t let go of the fact that he was still the monster we knew, and for the first year and a half or so we only agreed to see him under supervised visitation so we’d have our mom accompany us to our visits. After a while we were comfortable enough to see him without our mother as long as it was in a public place, so like going to the park or going to a restaurant for lunch dates etc. After we were comfortable enough in that, my sisters would decide that they were okay with seeing him at his house alone and I’d go with them to make sure they wouldn’t get hurt.

I distinctly remember that I’d be nauseous to be away from them is they were going to be with him, and being on high alert while we visited because one second he’d be okay and the next he’d be yelling at us. I wouldn’t go anywhere without knowing at least one escape route, and had a back up plan in case he got violent and made good on his threats. I used to stay up late the nights before seeing him and thinking to myself “okay, if he starts standing up while talking, he’s about to yell. If he raises his voice, he’s going to threaten to hit you. If he decides to hit one of us, get in the way so he can’t hit whichever sister he was gonna hit, or take the hits if he wanted to hurt you, and give the girls a chance to get away.” I hated that i had to think about stuff like this about my own dad. There were lots of backslides as he’d lose his temper and shout or hit things (he never hit us, just threatened to do so) and scare my sisters and I. We’d call our mom to pick us up, and often times wouldn’t be able to be without her without crying in fear because he threatened to show up at the house and claimed that my sisters and I wouldn’t have a choice but to let him inside, and if we didn’t, he’d let himself in and we’d be sorry. Even before he moved out, we’d beg our mom to take us to work with her because we’d rather sit there and be bored and safe then be alone with him (he used to only yell and threaten to hit us when my mom wasn’t home so it was our word against his and he’d make it seem like we were being over dramatic, eventually my mom caught him in the act and he was busted to say the least.) After that we refused to see him without our mom until he got a legal anger management class and showed us the certificate proving that he did so (he lied to us a lot). He refused for months claiming that he didn’t need anger management c,asses and opted not to see us rather than just taking the stupid class. After he actually took it, he showed us the certificate and it was a four-hour long class. I looked up the class he took and it was advertised as an easy anger management class, that had no quizzes or tests. It quite literally said on the website itself: you can’t fail. 100% success guaranteed. He didn’t even try. On top of that, he’d text me pictures of slides from the class and said that that particular section reminded him of me and he thought that I should read it because I could learn something from it. He then said: “maybe the problem isn’t me, it takes two people for a relationship to work. I think you’d benefit from this class. If you want, I’ll even pay for it for you. But I think you should take it. Then maybe we can actually stop fighting.” As usual it was my fault.
 

My mom didn’t let me take the course. My sisters were okay with seeing him again after seeing the certificate so we started visiting again, and now we visit him at his gfs house, but we really only go over when we ask. He still doesn’t make the first move most of the time, but last year was the first time he tried to have us for thanksgiving and Christmas without taking photos and stuff so it’s progress I guess. 

[TinyDinos]

12 hours ago, Luie said:

 Also, something stood out to me from what you shared 'I wish I knew what exactly triggers it because I really hate feeling that way. I also wish I could communicate better when I’m uncomfortable or disagree with someone, but more often than not I’d rather just avoid the confrontation all together.' I wanted to share a few things and also hear your deeper thoughts and feelings on it if you'd like to share with me.

When you've grown up in a household where you've always been on a survival mode and making sure that you do not trigger the person perpetuating any form of abuse you tend to avoid any form of confrontation. In general avoidance often occurs as a result of someone trying to limit contact with triggers for anxiety, fear, or memories and thoughts about a traumatic event. This is understandable as your emotions and thoughts can be incredibly distressing. And hey, you are in no way to be blamed for anything that happened, the fact that such kind of abuse and threats were happening for a long time leaves an impact and the body and mind do keep score of these events and it shows up in different forms in our lives, whether in a physical manner or towards our mental health. You spiralling is normal, I can sense how difficult it is for you. 

 

I think that makes a lot of sense… I’ve learned that my mindset is perpetually pessimistic because I always had to prepare for worst case scenario. My sisters’ safety was at risk, and I kinda just filled the role my dad left behind because I just took it upon myself as my responsibility as the older sister. I even made it my own responsibility to distract them whenever I’d hear the fighting start while my parents were still together. I always had distractions ready so they wouldn’t have to be scared. I hate those memories so much because of just how bad everything was and how hard I had to work to make life as normal as possible for my two sisters.

it was so. Hard,

I was the only one out of the three of us who really understood what was happening. I was the one who they’d both talk to. The adults told me everything that was happening and the kids told me everything they were scared of. It was my job to hold it all together as best I could, and nobody would ever know what that felt like because all of my friends have both parents and they wouldn’t even believe me anyways. All of the kids I knew with divorced parents got two birthdays and two christmases and I got fear and anxiety. They got families who loved them, and I prayed that I would go to sleep and never wake up because maybe if I disappeared, my parents would love each other again and my sisters could be happy again.

And the icing on the cake was the stupid COVID-19 pandemic hit the globe right as my world went up in flames. My house had just become a prison.

I think I just got used to the way things were and decided that if I couldn’t erase myself from the picture and get rid of the problem, I’d settle for rocking the boat as little as possible. Everything is just coming up now because it’s caused problems in my every day life, I can’t even tell my mom that a dress she suggested for me to buy isn’t a style that I like, or say where I want to go to lunch out of fear of hurting someone’s feelings. I have incredibly low self esteem and just assume that when I get a compliment it’s because the person giving it is being manipulative. I assume that everyone is close to me purely out of convenience. I apologize for everything no matter how small it is because I don’t want anyone to get upset. I put unreasonable expectations on myself and I assume everyone else does too. 

 

[TinyDinos]

Guess who’s back at square 1.

me.

More visits with my dad are like reaping fruit from a diseased tree.

then eating it

all day.

then wondering why you can’t stop vomiting. 

it’s because you were literally just ingesting literal poison.

my dad wants to move away

he told me so

he told me how close he came to doing it without saying anything and cutting us off forever.

I got glared at today

because I had chores to do that my sister let slip through the cracks

because I clean up everyone’s messes

i got yelled at today

for helping a lost dog find it’s way home

after it was almost hit by a car

i got gaslit and manipulated today

the conversations I had three times over never happened 

I am only disrespectful 

thats it

i got harshly judged today

because I didn’t make it about him.  

apparantly

I t s  n e v e r  a b o u t  h i m .

and that’s my fault.

it’s 

always

my

fault.

amd im sorry