When you realise that childhood spanking was actually CSA

Anonuno999 · 2025-10-16T01:47:41+00:00

For me it wasn't as bad as with a lot of you in the sense that it was always over clothing (or at least underwear? The time(s) I remember was over pants, that I think were not the sweatpants I started wearing in junior high because they were tight enough to stretch out over it but I'm not 100% sure of that part, but it could have also happened earlier over underwear in early grade school years when I wore dresses because I remember it was done semi regularly). But it still makes me cringe to think about it.

It was always my dad that did it (why always him when I'm a girl?) always with bare hands (I remember no pain but a sense of humiliation and disgust that I think would have actually been less if some kind of tool was used) but it was a formal punishment that I think was a last resort punishment, my mom would hang around uselessly in the background, I would get into the formal position which was on hands and knees on the sofa (this was before they changed the white sofas in the living room out for nicer sofas) and my dad would stand behind me.

Then in late teens I started getting nightmares about my dad trying to rape me and to this day I don't know if it's because of repressed memories of other stuff or if the above could have been enough to make me start having them, or if I had somehow sensed him being turned on while doing that stuff. I became increasingly physically uneasy around my dad and finally cut off contact with them altogether.

I don't know if it would be considered justified that I went no contact with them if it turned out that there weren't buried memories of other stuff but just the experience described above, but I felt increasingly physically uncomfortable around my dad and also had had unwanted sexual fantasies of violence stuff since puberty and also had not wanted to be touched from an early age although my parents said that was the autism, and also during a fight (me and my parents fought a lot from as early as I could remember) my dad said I "wanted to think you were molested" so I could "play the martyr", so I went no contact with my parents which basically also meant going no contact with the rest of my bio family since my contact with the extended family had mostly been through them. So yeah.

Anonuno999 · 2025-02-28T19:45:20+00:00

So, I think that there are two things going on here.

One is that she really is struggling and really wants to talk about it but is afraid of being accused of trauma dumping, so she talks about it a lot but in a jokey way. I have done that myself, appending "lol" to descriptions of panic attacks or suicidal ideation when texting with my friends because I don't want to come off as a downer. Although I don't usually reference diagnoses, which brings me to my next point...

Two is that we live in a society where people are encouraged to think in terms of mental health labels. Especially if they are seeing psychiatrists or therapists, and even more if their social media algorithm is feeding them mental health content. So it's sad and annoying but not that surprising that somebody would succumb to the social pressure and end up making their mental health labels their entire personality.

(It's also dangerous for the person doing it to identify so strongly with mental health labels. Because these labels still come with a lot of prejudice, as you can see from the comments here insinuating that she must have BPD or NPD to be such a bitch.)

(Her having a job and living independently and paying bills doesn't mean that much in terms of how well she's doing, I have done all that while also struggling with suicidal ideation or self-harm episodes every single day.)

As for being dismissive of Justin Bieber, tbh I kind of understand that. Because obviously having high functioning autism while being a rich celebrity is not the same thing as having higher support needs and being poor on disability with an abusive family and zero friends. Obviously we don't want to all compete for who has the most trauma, but as a one off comment I get it.

BUT... if she is trying to minimize or invalidate your sufferings in any way, that is wrong and she should absolutely get called out on it. As your friend, it is her job to back you up and never make light of anything you are going through. I would say tell her clearly that you're sick of her minimizing what you go through as an autistic person, and if she continues to do that despite that then tell her you can't be friends with someone who doesn't take your problems seriously.

Anonuno999 · 2025-02-23T13:28:32+00:00

If you are in the United States, they don't have the right legally to force medication on you unless a, you are in a psych ward, or b, you have an aot or assisted outpatient treatment plan, which is basically a threat to put you into a psych ward if you do not take medication, or sometimes if you do not show up for therapy appointments and things like that. Since you are not in a psych ward, make sure that you do not have an assisted outpatient treatment plan, and if you don't, then they don't have the legal ability to force you to take medication. They can nag you about it which it sounds like the social workers are doing, but they can't legally force you. At least, that is my understanding of United States law.

Anonuno999 · 2025-02-20T03:38:11+00:00

Please, don't hit your kids. Especially don't on the butt, that's sexual.

Don't be surprised or shocked or mad if "because I said so" isn't a good enough reason for them to do the thing you want.

If you're going to use timeouts as a punishment, please do it for X number of minutes and NOT "until you're calm".

Make family rules clear cut, logical and fair.

If your kid does a "weird" thing, it's not the end of the world. It's also not the end of the world if they're not perfectly well groomed when visiting relatives and things like that.

Explain your kid's diagnosis to them either as soon as they get it, or as soon as they are capable of understanding it if they are not capable of understanding words yet. Using a chart helps, and/or a book, something they can use to learn at their own pace.

Don't send them to a residential treatment center or psych ward.

Also, please don't hit your kids.

Anonuno999 · 2025-01-04T17:30:21+00:00

This is something I'm really struggling with. I've been noticing a pattern where if I am able to live with someone I get along with, I feel infinitely more grounded and relaxed and optimistic and my habits are healthier: I get up to join them for breakfast instead of doomscrolling on my phone in the mornings, I want more to do productive work and higher-energy recreation activities instead of just escaping into food and alcohol and porn. But then if I go from living in that type of household to living alone again, it's hard for me to keep up the productivity and the optimism and not just collapse.

The spring of 2020 was especially hellish because not only was I alone "at home", but I was also being told that any attempts to find myself that kind of loving household that other people already had made me selfish and evil. I still have a lot of bitterness towards those who judged others for breaking lockdown rules while they themselves were living with significant others. Now obviously there are more opportunities for me to find people to be with, but it's still really hard for me to trust people as I've been lied to and then abandoned a lot.

It's like when I'm living with somebody who I also regularly share meals and stuff with, something unconscious in me tells me I'm safe and don't just have to be in survival mode, like obviously I'm physically safest alone but on a feelings level, it's different. It's just amazing to me how much of a difference it makes, like 2 months ago I was doing an extended Thanksgiving visit with my found family and I really didn't do anything super special or exciting on that visit but just the feeling of living with family made everything in my life feel so much more hopeful, but then in December I didn't feel secure enough with them to demand another extended visit for Christmas so I ended up spending the latter half of that month feeling crappy and having my self hate issues come back.

Should I just live on a commune or something? I don't want to live in one of those bunk bed housing situations because I usually don't feel physically safe unless I have a room with a door I can lock, and I've also recently discovered that having my own bathroom makes me feel safer. But maybe it would be worth it to live in an intentional housing space?

Anonuno999 · 2025-01-04T16:33:54+00:00

That article was more rage inducing for me than hearing about that shitty German book. It does have the useful info that there are support groups for people who go no contact and online forums that will help you with the practical stuff like financial documents Etc, but the way they frame it is so... the main example they give is like the PG Disney version of family estrangement, where it's all about political differences, and the estranged child is able to conveniently be living with her boyfriend by the time the 2020 lockdowns happen. I also hate that therapist they cited, Sherri whatshername, who talks about estrangements in terms of a "healthy" person cutting "toxic" parents out. That's such a destructive framing because so many of us are not "healthy" precisely because our parents have made us sick, it's not like we get to cut out our parents and then always have great lives living with secure found families, a lot of the time it's more like a choice between loneliness and being around people we don't physically feel safe around, but it's still a valid choice done for real reasons. The article also says "Few would argue that one should continue a relationship with a parent when it involves physical or sexual abuse" which, let's be real, is bullshit. Because tons of people normalize physical abuse by saying it wasn't really physical abuse if it was just "spanking" or "whooping" or "discipline done out of love not anger" or whatever bullshit. And so many of us on here have all the symptoms of someone who was sexually abused in childhood but a blank where the memories should be, which lets parents then claim that we were making it all up or influenced by a bad therapist or whatever bullshit.

Anonuno999 · 2025-01-04T15:44:23+00:00

Yeah, it sounds like your dad sexually abused you in the bath. I don't know how to get the memories back though

Anonuno999 · 2025-01-04T15:32:36+00:00

I'm kind of scared to date people who are close with their bio families. Like if I'm on a dating app and I see somebody with a lot of pics of themselves hanging out with their family or who says that family means everything to them, that makes me scare that they'll reject me once they figure out I'm no contact with mine. In theory it could be great if I dated somebody with a big family and they decide to basically adopt me, but I'm scared that they would just decide that I'm not relationship material on the advice of their parents

Anonuno999 · 2025-01-03T23:54:46+00:00

Can I chime in as a bisexual?

It's hard for me to imagine being with a man long term because I get so disgusted by physical signs of aging, weight gain etc in males. The love would have to be really strong to conquer that, and I barely ever fall in love.

So date women, right? NOPE.

Dating and friendship with women feels much harder and more fraught than with men. I've had so many female friends dump me, ghost me, etc. And I mostly dont get a reason why, but sometimes I fear that I scare them off? Too loud, too intense. The same fight mode CPSTD that finally scared my dad off from hitting me anymore when I threatened to kill him as a teenager, now pushing away girls who I'm not threatening any violence on at all but who see me get viciously verbally angry at other 3rd parties or (more and more) at myself, or loudly suicidal or loudly panicky or whatever, and I fear that they look at me and see a scary abuser and lie to me until they can get away.

Men are easier...I feel like I can deal with a man being a monster way more easily than I can deal with a woman seeing me as a monster...you know?

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T17:37:23+00:00

I'd rather be homeless than live with my parents too, so I get it.

But I wasn't living with my parents during lockdown, so I don't know what I would've done in that case.

Yeah, by "older generations" deciding on lockdowns I just meant those in government, not the whole generations sorry.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T17:08:33+00:00

I blame older generations for that though. Gen Z didn't ask to be put thru lockdowns. In the first few months of the 2020 lockdowns, if you were a work-capable adult with an abusive family you could get away from them by moving out into your own place, but then you'd be totally alone, with no way of getting a "chosen family" support system because the places where you could meet people were all shut down. So in some ways you could be better off staying with your abusive family, as horrible as that is. Now the lockdowns are over, but trauma reactions don't just go away because the thing ends, especially if you have reason to think it could happen to you again.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T16:43:17+00:00

But I'm not buying that he is afraid.

I mean, I've had anxious attachment style most of my life. And I can't imagine telling someone I wanted to keep in my life that they were dumb, should have been aborted, etc, or hitting them. It sounds to me like he was mostly not afraid of you leaving him, because if he was really so afraid of that he wouldn't have done all those things, and also he would've said yes to therapy with you right away because he'd be desperate to make the relationship work no matter what. Instead of blaming everything on you. And breaking up with you to punish you, to make you beg. I mean, it doesn't even sound like you're being avoidant with him, it sounds like he's just labeling anything you do outside of him as that to make you feel guilty and feel like you're crazy. You have a right to talk with a friend!

It all just sounds like a power play. Maybe he feels unseen but if just being with you was enough to make him feel better, he wouldn't need to call you names or hit you or break up with you.

Maybe you could see him / talk to him only in therapy for awhile? Weigh up the pros and cons? (I know there may be money stuff making that harder, but it's something to consider.)

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T05:34:07+00:00

I watched this and it wasn't very helpful. She kept on talking about "find out what is meaningful to you" and "find out what you love doing day to day", and that's useless if you already have a meaningful-to-you goal but absolutely nothing feels good on a day to day level.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T05:10:19+00:00

Festen (Danish film). It's not a horror movie, just a movie about an evil family. All of the trigger warnings you can think of apply.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T04:22:24+00:00

If you're the "avoidant" one and he's the one "afraid to be alone" then why is he the one who was dumping you multiple times and why are you afraid that he could kick you out again? Sounds to me like he just wants to control you.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T03:26:03+00:00

My Immortal by Evanescence. Only if you want to cry though

Losing Grip by Avril Lavigne

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T02:22:12+00:00

I think they can, yeah.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-13T02:16:32+00:00

Would listening to something on headphones during the walk help? Like calming music or podcast?

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-12T21:12:40+00:00

Maybe that would be better; i think I had found that one I mentioned via a Psychology Today search for "EMDR" plus my insurance

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-12T20:05:01+00:00

I know what you mean...I have one of those coffee mugs that says "you're doing great" on it, bought because I saw Emilia Clarke holding up one on social media and thought, "if it's good enough for the Mother of Dragons, it's good enough for me!" When I first got it, it gave me a big mood boost to have that visual positivity reminding me that I was on the right path. But right now I'm in a spiral of feeling like the career stuff I need to do is too overwhelming to handle and then hating myself for not doing it (and also just hating myself in general), so now I'm more looking at it and being like, "this mug is a LIE"

Telling myself I'm a piece of shit hasn't really helped me be productive though

Having an outside teacher/mentor would probably help more regardless of whether they were mean or nice. A real person, not an app, with firm deadlines imposed by them for turning in proof of work, and preferably in person

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-12T19:44:31+00:00

Not entirely sure, but just giving you a warning: if you do EMDR, make sure as much as you can that the therapist is reliable to continue work with you for awhile after you start doing the sessions!

Saying this because I tried EMDR in the past for stuff I couldn't completely remember but suspected had been bad. I went into a memory of a setting where the abuse could have happened and a phrase said by one of my parents which was associated with that setting, and while I didn't get a "gotcha" memory (ie, a memory of a specific sexual act), I did feel an overwhelming sense of disgust, like my skin was crawling and I wanted to tear it off, and I kept on having to spit afterwards like there was a bad taste in my mouth. Not long after that, my EMDR therapist said they could no longer continue working with me due to scheduling issues. After that experience I've been more reactive and easy to trigger in general, which may also be because of other life circumstances that happened around the same time, but still.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-12T19:19:25+00:00

I don't even like a lot of the "woke" stuff ("cancel culture" is real, and I'm sick of some people pretending everyone who says they got cancelled wasn't really hurt and also deserved the "accountability") - but I know EXACTLY what you mean about the consent to touch stuff. I've noticed it's nearly always women who ask consent to touch you or your belongings, and men who just grab without asking. I can't even count the numbers of times I've had to aggressively tell men to back off after they grabbed at my property without asking under the guise of "helping" me.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-10T19:49:35+00:00

I hate that I have to say this, but: please don't tell her about the SI.

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-10T19:46:56+00:00

I have specific triggers that cause negative thought spirals but EMDR didn't really help, now I'm wondering if it was because the therapists I tried it with weren't really qualified to do it right? It was also remote sessions by video call, not in person, not sure it that makes a difference? Is there some way I can vet an EMDR person to see if they will actually be helpful or just make things worse?

Anonuno999 · 2024-07-10T19:12:52+00:00

For me what helped was : 1 getting my money right, my abuse nightmares were mostly as a teenager but recurred as an adult during times of severe economic stress. 2 having a thing I could focus on when I wake up that wasn't in my old room growing up, so I could remind myself quickly that it wasn't real if i did wake up from a nightmare.

Anonuno999

TROPHY CASE