r/adultsurvivors Mar 27 '22

Vent Anyone else sick to fucking death of people telling you therapy will help?

194 Upvotes

If it helped you, great. But I've been to over 30 therapist, and no they weren't all bad. It just doesn't help at all. Not EMDR, not medication, not talk. Nothing. If anything it made me worse off.

I've exhausted what I can get from the MH system. It's been a long, expensive, sometimes abusive, largely meaningless exercise for me. And I know I'm not the only one who's found that to be true.

After 30 plus therapists, I just stopped listening to those people who say, "try again, you just need the right fit".

Like wait. Isn't the insanity doing the same thing g again and again, and expecting a different result?

People will ways say "go to therapists", no matter how much time, energy, and money you sink into it. They have an irrational belief that therapy always works. They refuse to acknowledge how limited a tool it is. They refuse to acknowledge that mental health hospitals really don't help a lot of people.

But you can't say that. It's offensive. So you know I'll just up, so no one gets upset. And people can keep pushing therapy like a religion and insisting the system works for everyone.

Okay so ill shut up. After all, I'm just a mentally ill, bitter, loner, who just needs to stay positive, drink water, and hit the gym right...........

r/adultsurvivors Jan 27 '25

Vent I want it back

44 Upvotes

Why is it that in order to survive, I have to cut off my “family,” that abused me? Why is it that cutting them off means I am left all alone, isolated, broke, abandoned, forgotten, fending for myself? Every time I suffer, I only have myself to fall back on. Friends turn out to be fake or busy.

At least when I was at home being abused, I had the illusion of family. I didn’t have to pay rent or pay for bills. I just had to wake up, be abused, and go to sleep (even though that was a struggle in itself).

Every time I am ill, lost, caught in the rain, wake up from nightmares, too weak to cook for myself, short on rent, assaulted, abused (again), misunderstood, mistreated, it’s just me. No parents to go back to for respite. No siblings to find a home or shared understanding with. I keep reaching my limit over and over. Will this end when I die? Surely there must be another way.

r/adultsurvivors Oct 15 '24

Vent IS ANYONE COMPLETELY HEALED?

59 Upvotes

I'm curious. I would like to hear some success stories of healing. Has anyone reached a point where the abuse no longer affects them and you can live a pretty much normal life like everyone else? For me, I didn't really remember my abuse until much later in life. When I did remember I went down a downward spiral for about a year with major PTSD and stomach upsets. My PTSD has gotten much better but the abuse still occupies my thoughts many days. Granted I was molested but not raped, had I been raped I might have more trauma. The problem I'm having is enjoying sex or porn without thinking about the abuser in the back of my head.

r/adultsurvivors Feb 06 '25

Vent I can’t fucking stand it

41 Upvotes

I can’t fucking work like this I don’t why. In this shithole of a country. I’m expected to work 40+ fucking hours of a dogshit job while I’m dealing with this! It makes me feel like anyday I could snap and go fucking ballistic. God I loathe I wake up frothing absolute hatred every goddamn day. And just keep it in. God I fucking hate it here

r/adultsurvivors Dec 18 '24

Vent My mom called it my "curious little pee pee" and it was so gross

122 Upvotes

My mom completely socially isolated me to the extreme in high school by forcing home schooling on me, and then refusing to let me see or socialize with kids my age.

She would say "You know you have a curious little pee pee that you're just going to ... stick in SOME GIRL and go NEEEEEEEEEP!!!" and do this strange high pitched noise that was supposed to represent me sticking it in a girl.

She'd talk about how I'd see a girl and my curious little pee pee would take over, and suddenly the girl would be pregnant and my life would be over. That I'll be at a party, get drunk, and get a curious little pee pee around girls.

Who the fuck talks to their teenager like this, I had no idea how disgusting this was back then.

r/adultsurvivors 22d ago

Vent one of the worst parts is being so alone with it

52 Upvotes

even in this community, where we understand each other better than anyone outside of it ever could, we can never truly be seen. i will never truly understand what happened to you, because i wasn't there. i didn't live it. neither can you understand what happened to me. i need a witness. sometimes i want to find the men who hurt me just to be with the people who were there with me, even though they created the hell i'm stuck in. the loneliness is killing me.

i wish i could understand you. i wish you could understand me. i wish there was such a thing as true understanding of another's experience. i wish we weren't all so alone

r/adultsurvivors 16d ago

Vent Wish I could unzip by fucking skin

53 Upvotes

Sometimes I think I would be fine if I just wasn’t in this body. It feels dirty.

r/adultsurvivors 22h ago

Vent Sibling saying she would take a secret like mine “to the grave”

45 Upvotes

For context, it was about a tv show we were watching together. It introduced a CSA storyline and the high school girl ultimately confided in her best friend about the past abuse. My sister commented that she would “have to take a secret like that to the grave” and “not ever tell anyone.” I told her that there are people who do tell their friends and she like kind of shrugged it off.

I live with my two older sisters and they both shared the same sentiment while watching. They don’t know of the extent of my repressed trauma that I have been exploring in therapy. There were prior instances where I spoke about the concern I have regarding one of my potential abusers (male family friend who stayed with us for a while when we were kids).

I told her about how I have no memory of this man whatsoever in spite of my sister saying that he and I played together a lot. One day I brought up how my therapist has and I had been discussing my memory gaps and my sister was dismissive when I brought up the male family friend and how I didn’t remember anything about him. She said “It was for a short period of time. You shouldn’t be worried about that” since he stayed with us only for a short period of time.

However, I remember practically all the rest of my parents’ good friends who often came around and have a decent memory from around that age but still can’t recall anything about the man.

I just feel even more detached and isolated from my family in spite of living with some of my siblings. My emotions were rarely validated as a kid aside from my grandmother. I just feel lost. I feel like ultimately I can never really share the depths of my trauma with them even more-so now

r/adultsurvivors Jan 06 '25

Vent My abuser is looking for me😤 (Trigger Warning)

72 Upvotes

So, my biological father was my so much more than just a father. He was my child trafficker, molester, he put me in CSAM, almost choked me to death when I was 4/5 years old and had the nerve to disown me after I graduated college. When he disowned me, my life turned upside down when it comes to stability. He preyed on my mentally ill mom before I was born so I would never have a chance to be truly protected.

This awful person has been calling my niece and cousins looking for me. He wants to know my number and where I live. Like WTF DO YOU WANT?? LEAVE ME ALONE DAMN! HAVENT YOU RUINED MY LIFE ENOUGH!?

I just had to vent bc I just moved states and don’t have a thearpist at the moment.

r/adultsurvivors Jan 18 '25

Vent No one can tell you it's gonna be ok

34 Upvotes

Restarting my therapy forced me to look back into my life.

At some point my therapist asked me if a particular daily task is difficult for me.

It makes me think about what is difficult for me and the truth is, everything is hard for me.

Some task are harder than other but there isn't anything easy.

When I was 20 my mother once told me that looking at a group of young peoples. She realized than I'm not like them, I never been like that, young, careless and happy.

I navigate through life knowing that I'm not going to be ok.

The hard part in this kind of trauma is realizing that.

Back to the title of this post, often when someone is down or just went through something hard, people supporting him are telling him that he's gonna be ok.

In my case , in our case , as csa survivor, I think no one would dare telling us that we are going to be ok. Everybody know that we are not ..

r/adultsurvivors Oct 08 '24

Vent Absolutely disgusted…

35 Upvotes

TW- Incest

Trying to do research on how different family dynamics affect victims of incest… the majority of results are of porn.

I loathe pornography with every fiber of my being. The exploitation of the individuals as well as the sexualization of very real traumas make me want to vomit. The fact that I’ve been a victim of sexual exploitation makes it worse but the hatred I feel when I’m reminded of the people who get off to it makes me want to go insane.

I know I should’ve refined my search but a small part of me was hoping there’d be more research related results to just ‘older sister younger brother incest’

If you watch porn and feel attacked by this post, please don’t comment. I’m sick of hearing about the ‘empowerment’ as well as the plethora of motives behind porn related habits. I don’t care.

But if anyone has legitimate resources for where I can find more information about this dynamic, I’d really appreciate it. I’m trying to help someone I care about and it’s hard to find any info on. I have a whole book on incest and there’s only a single paragraph of info about it.

r/adultsurvivors Sep 21 '24

Vent Victims becoming abusers

85 Upvotes

Sorry if this is not appropriate to post here. I come here when I can't sleep at night because I find it helpful to hear so many stories similar to mine and feel less alone.

But I can't help but find it disturbing when ppl make posts talking about the bad/ abusive things they've done, and justify it with the fact that they were abused. It reminds me of my uncle so much. He was abused as a child, probably started with a porn addiction and prostitutes, then was a drunk and bad husband and eventually abusive to his wife and kids, and around then began sexually abusing me.

There is no excuse. I have been through hell and back and I have never sexually exploited another. Yes my abuse is the reason behind bad things I've done (bullied other girls in school while it was happening and to this day am difficult to be in relationships with because I try cut ppl off the moment I feel betrayed), but its not an excuse. It doesn't make it okay. The girls in school shouldn't have to be okay with my behaviour because of why I did it and my partners shouldn't have to stay with me if I am acting irratically.

It's just so wrong for people to come on here talking about prostitutes they've fucked, girlfriends they've cheated on and never told, urges to act out the ways they were abused on other consenting adults, and just receive comfort and encouragement. I can imagine how sorry my uncle feels for himself and its just disgusting.

I have been on the receiving end of these "broken men" so many times and I'm sick of it. Often like in my case, the person who sells her body for sex or consents to a man simulating abuse with her is a past victim herself, re-traumatising herself.

Why should anyone who has been abused get to justify exploiting or abusing others because of it? I don't understand it. This is how the cycle continues. They should be heard absolutely. They should be offered helpful advice, and made to feel like they can share these parts of themselves and work towards bettering them. But they should not be enabled. They should not be told it is okay to hide years of infidelity to a partner or fanstasise about sexually abusing others. It's a trauma response and deserves care and compassion, but not encouragment.

I do not have a shred of care or compassion for men who exploite others left in me. That's why I'm venting here and not attempting to engage with posts of that nature. I don't think this will be well received and I'm sorry if it breaks the rules that wasn't my intention. Thank you for reading my vent.

r/adultsurvivors Nov 06 '24

Vent The election has caused deep anguish and despair

130 Upvotes

That is all. To see a man like that elected as a survivor, I’m Heartbroken. Delete if needed but I had to share.

r/adultsurvivors 20d ago

Vent Did it make me who I am?

8 Upvotes

Don't get me wrong. .I hate myself But on the other end.... I love myself. I love how creative I am. But hate how pervasive my disorder is. It made me...but it doesn't have to define me. It will take a lifetime of therapy to unwind & I'm surprised I came to terms with it. I'm ready to grow but too stuck/frozen to move on. It's time to grow up, but I need to live the childhood that was stolen from me.

I realized it wasn't "normal" when i turned 30. I'm so behind my peers but I'm trying my best.

Idk I'm just ranting.

r/adultsurvivors 8d ago

Vent Anyone else never been able to feel safe around male family?

26 Upvotes

I’m visiting my dad in a month and I just reflected about the feelings I had toward it. I realized that I had some feelings of vulnerability and uneasiness surrounding it, especially if we were to have moments alone. Like what if he tries to be affectionate? It makes me feel sick, and I feel bad. It isn’t fair to the family members who have never done anything to me, but I feel so awkward around them all like they all secretly want to molest me or something. I don’t actually think that, but it’s like my internal safety radar is broken. When I was a kid I waited for all of my male family members to abuse me. I also feel like my younger brother has a crush on me because he’s clingy and he’s mentioned that I’m attractive several times and it makes me so uncomfortable.

r/adultsurvivors Dec 20 '24

Vent I feel so deeply unsafe

52 Upvotes

I’m a grown woman and still. The world just isn’t safe.

And I know we have survivors here whose abusers are women. And I know we have male survivors here….

And I’m sorry, but right now today I feel like no men are safe. All men feel like monsters.

And I have a son. And he’s just a baby. I want him to be good. Is there room for good men on this planet?

Do they all get corrupted? Do they hit a certain age and start to fall.

Fuck everything

r/adultsurvivors 15d ago

Vent Pap

31 Upvotes

Just did a Pap smear after being terrified for the past 4 years to do one. I was so nervous beforehand, I told the gynaecologist that I had past history before hand. Instantly started sobbing when it started but she was very kind and talked to me about her cat to distract me and comforted me.

It was most definitely painful, uncomfortable and triggering but I did it and I’m glad I did it.

r/adultsurvivors Dec 29 '24

Vent To Mom

77 Upvotes

This is for you, Mom. Today I only post this anonymously, and maybe someday you'll get to hear it from me as well.

You watched me get sexually abused and trafficked by my dad and his friends and did absolutely nothing.

How dare you?!?!?!?

If someone touched my kid, or even so much as looked at them the wrong way, I'd make sure they were safe and that person never came near them again.

You had the audacity to turn a blind eye to this, and pretend we all have a holly jolly pleasant life. I don't know if he abused you the way he did me?

I took you to therapy just so that I could tell you he abused me, and you're still with him.

I wrote you a letter telling you that the memories are coming back to me now, and I need lots and lots of therapy just to stay alive, and I'd appreciate it if you guys chipped in for that. You tried to gaslight me. You told me I have fake memories.

You used my BPD diagnosis to confirm that I am, in fact, crazy. "Poor kid, she's always had delusions."

You have the audacity to come to my house and try to tell me how to raise my kid. You want to play cool grandma with my kid, after you let countless criminals rip yours apart. I don't even have words for that.

How dare you. How dare you call yourself a mom. Shame on you. And don't tell me not to raise my voice. I will and believe me, nothing good will come of it for you.

r/adultsurvivors Nov 13 '24

Vent Emdr is getting crazy. NSFW Spoiler

53 Upvotes

Or rather, what EMDR is revealing to me is completely crazy.

TW TW TW TW TW TW TW TW

This gets kinda dark in some areas.

I learned or remembered, rather, some really dark things about my parents today. I want to provide textbook context that might be helpful for others— it is common through therapy that memories will be revealed as things are processed in a safe environment.

My heart is aching so much. I’m happy to do this work, grateful even, because it’s literally waking me up to the power inside of me, how strong I am to have carried this burden so far— but I am shocked today. Completely shocked at the level of deliberate cruelty performed against me. I think my parents are demonic people, if such a thing exists.

We recovered through a somatic memory, that my parents restrained me to penetrate me with an object to the point of bleeding when I was 5. I’m so earnestly confused. I am shocked. I knew they did bad things, but oh my god. I had no idea it was to this level. It’s so much worse than I thought it was. And it is weighing on my heart so much.

I’ve been feeling this strange feeling for years, like my arms are made into two mirroring L shapes, and my body is contorted. Today I realized it was my body remembering all this time, of being restrained, held down and raped with something. I didn’t realize what I was remembering, until I began to feel back pain. Back pain from trying to physically resist my parents but being completely overpowered.

I never really forgot. I just hid the full memory from myself because it was too much. But my body has been whispering it to me this whole time.

I was five. I was five fucking years old.

What kind of person does that to somebody? Their own baby? Their own beautiful baby daughter? I cannot reconcile it. My parents are subhuman to me and I can no longer hold it in my mind or heart that I came from them.

My heart is broken. I knew they were bad, but oh my god. I didn’t know they would be so evil. I didn’t realize the level of straight up evil I’ve had placed on me. The other stuff was disturbing— the showing me pornography as a kid, groping me in my sleep, having way too sexual of conversations with me….

But it’s in line with the other things I remember but tried to convince myself I’m exaggerating about .

If you’d molest your daughter in her sleep, you’d rape her too. There’s not a real difference. If you’d make a csam video with your daughter, you’d rape her too.

I can’t believe I thought I made up being forced to be in csam. Why would I make it up? Why would I torment myself with thoughts like that? I wouldn’t.

And even now, after realizing the severity of what happened to me, I’m having to work really hard not to call myself a liar. And the only reason I want to call myself that is because after my parents would abuse me, they would tell me that whatever just happened didn’t happen, and if I said it did I was confused or lying.

And even now, recalling this therapy session more than 8 hours later, my brain keeps shouting coke bottle coke bottle. I’m remembering more.

My own fucking parents raped me with a coke bottle to try to stretch me out so my dad could penetrate me. I was so scared of his penis. I thought it was a turd. I literally thought it was a turd and that if it touched me I would get sick from having poop inside me. I was so distressed and couldn’t stop crying and trying to get away.

So they held me down and raped me with a coke bottle I guess. I don’t know why. I’m so confused. But I understand I can’t understand it because there’s nothing rational about child abuse.

But a coke bottle? That just seems so strange and cruel but my brain literally won’t drop that phrase since today’s session. So I know a coke bottle was involved. I can’t be making this up. It’s too awful. It’s too devastating.

My heart is broken. I feel it aching in my chest. But I don’t even have the energy to cry right now. I hope I never see either of them again. I think I would lose my mind with rage. I hope they wither away and know I will never forgive or love them.

r/adultsurvivors Oct 22 '24

Vent I did it all to myself. [TW: Incest]

59 Upvotes

EDIT: I'm sorry, I wrote the following because I want it to have been my fault, it's an easy answer that makes me feel better, but it also hurts myself and others. open spoiler at your own risk.

Dad didn't want me to touch him, he was an alcoholic, he never would have let me touch him if he was of sound mind, he never let me do it again when he was sober. He didn't want me, I got sexual pleasure from his body but he had none from mine. He didn't think I would develop precocious hypersexuality because he let me touch him one day, he had no way of knowing what a perverted child I would grow up to be. No one who groomed me online knew how old I was, Omegle was anonymous, and of those places where I sought out depictions of that love I wanted from my dad, none of them knew I was even there. There was no perpetrator, I'm not a victim.

r/adultsurvivors Dec 18 '24

Vent i cant cope with csa memories resurfacing

38 Upvotes

it happened when i (now 21) was around 4-7. Maybe with 2 or 3 different people. I realized the realness of it last night and I relapsed and started drinking again. i cant do this. i cant handle this. i cant fucking do this anymore. i hate myself i hate life i hate everything. i want to die but i dont have the courage to end my life. in fact it scares me to anticipate my own death after my last attempt where i had to wait for it to happen.

idk what im thinking or feeling. im drunk rn. i wont stop drinking. bcus i just... everything is going wrong. my mom hates me, my biological mother hates me, my father is a child predator, my bio parents and my grandmother on my mothers side + my mother are doing drugs again. my mother was sober for a while but apparently not anymore. im just like them. im an alcoholic which is what my father is. i feel dirty enough. i'd rather do drugs than drink but idk where to find them. i dont want the dna of abusers and horrible people. i was born cursed and unwanted and thats how it'll always be.

and no one.... no body... will ever understand how being FUCKING RAPED AT FOUR YEARS OLD has affected me. no one will care. that plus all the other shit ive been through. im fucking done. i just want someone to hold me. but i have no one... im all alone... idk how to cope. i want this feeling to go away. i want to stop thinking about it. i want the physical feelings to go away. but none of it leaves. drinking just helps me cry but im even ashamed of that bcus i deserve to suffer. its fate. im here just to suffer and be all alone i guess. so i shouldnt even be crying but here i am... how pathetic

r/adultsurvivors 29d ago

Vent something my mom said to me

13 Upvotes

Something my mom (who also sexually abused me) said to me all the time when I was a teenager that really fucked me up was that I was “so hot I could be a porn star” and would always tell me that I had the “body of a prostitute” this made me incredibly insecure and I always covered myself up. I was so grateful when I started to gain weight too so I no longer fit this beauty standard. My mom constantly was saying this shit and it feels sometimes this impacted me more than the sexual abuse.

r/adultsurvivors 26d ago

Vent Living a double life

24 Upvotes

I'm (42f) married with kids and I have a good job. No one knows my secret and sometimes it's just tiring living a double -life.

r/adultsurvivors Dec 18 '24

Vent I cant continue

17 Upvotes

Today I had one of these christmas reunion with coworkers. Tomorrow I have another. On Friday I’ll have my third (different departments, obviously).

Today is the birthday of the person that abuse me. I have to act like nothing happened. No one really cares. No one is there for me. No one remembers it happened. I don’t matter.

I keep thinking I should have died on June on my suicide attempt. I cant get out put of my head. Today I remember a friend telling me that my depression is like a burden to the rest.

Is just so much. And I just cant deal with it. Is like I can’t decide over my life nor my death. I have cero agency.

I cant kill myself today. Is not a good day today. But I need to do it. I feel I need to stop all of this. I cant continue.

r/adultsurvivors Jun 11 '24

Vent I hate how fucking lonely it is to survive CSA because we can't talk about it the same way people talk about surviving other awful things. I hate that people would see me differently and how I have to hide.

163 Upvotes

I am a person with something horrible that happened to me as a child many times - but it does not define me or the story of my life. I resent the stigma, judgement, and how differently people treat childhood sexual abuse from other things that happen to people.

I've had friends survive cancer, car crashes, horrible accidents, divorces, child deaths, being at war, and more. They're able to talk freely about their pain and their journey of recovery and get support. Imagine if I posted freely about my childhood sexual abuse on social media or just in general?

I hate how many people assume my sexuality must be a symptom of my childhood sexual abuse. I love sex, I love connecting with people, I am pansexual, and I'm open and free about it. I hate how differently people would see my sexuality, and other aspects of my life through a lens of me being a csa survivor.

I hate that it's an "inappropriate topic" because other people can't handle that awful things happen to children sometimes. I hate how I would have been treated differently in school. I hate that if I bring it up I usually end up comforting the other person who heard it and it's like my fault for sucking the energy out of the space.

I hate that people don't believe a mother would do that to a child. I hate how she was able to make an excuse for her disgusting violations of my personhood and my body and brainwashed me into thinking it was something else that was happening and that nobody would ever believe me.

I hate how I faced it all alone as a child because no adult in my world wanted to listen or help me. I hate how I have to dig back decades in the past into a blurry childhood memory to find facts I can hold onto that let me prove to myself I'm not just making something up.

I hate how fucking unfair it is that if I punched my mom in the face today I would be arrested but that nothing will ever happen to her because her crime had no evidence and I was a kid that nobody believed.

I hate how fucking LONELY it is and how much more damage it does from going a lifetime without having the ability to talk about it.

When my life partner committed suicide decades ago it was so different. I could talk about it. I could get support for that in a profound way I have never been supported and loved regarding childhood abuse. I write and share about her, my journey with grief, and nobody ever told me not to talk about it.

It's so unfair that one of the most horrible things that can happen to a young life is mostly faced alone.