Childhood abuse and the eternal expectation of compassionless punishment

 A few days ago, I was suddenly reminded of a dream which I have had a few times by now over the past decades. Each time it is essentially the same dream: I find myself at what seems like a party or gathering, with people sitting around a number of round tables, busy chatting, drinking and amusing themselves. Meanwhile I wander between those tables, feeling invisible as I at the same time deal with the knowledge that I'm a condemned person. That tomorrow my execution will take place and that this is my last day alive. Invisible. Ignored. Irrelevant.

Until I was reminded of those dreams again, I had not been able to place them, or make sense why I would have that same dream over and over. Then it hit me that I could connect my feelings and experiences in those dreams with the feelings that often crop up when I'm dealing with strong negative emotions, usually as part of a negative or stressful event. Feelings of feeling worthless, defective, disgusting, revolting, deserving of punishment and so much worse.

Seeing those two things side by side and seeing how they fit together also allowed me to connect them with the details of the traumas which I have suffered over the past years, starting with the presumed childhood abuse at around age five which seems to have started all of this. Although part of me still struggles to accept that I truly did suffer childhood abuse, the circumstantial evidence is just too overwhelming. That just leaves the frustration that I cannot remember many details of what exactly happened to me, or who was involved.


While reading up on the topic of childhood abuse and the far-ranging emotional, neurological and social consequences that this has on the lives of victims, I came across a lengthy but excellent article by Beverly Engel over at Psychology Today [1]. Reading it allowed me put a few more things together. Most of all the visualisation I had of child me still being stuck in the dark room that I can remember, with the child crying and feeling so horrible about everything that had happened before being abandoned by one of the adults responsible in that room.

I described previously how it felt to me like I had found a way to this room with the traumatised child inside it [2][3] and had managed to open the door, leaving the previously dark and cold room instead empty and sunny. This to me seems like a first step towards healing and self-compassion. Instead of leaving the traumatised child part of myself alone in that room, I instead allowed it to become a part of myself again, ending that fragmentation.

As Beverly Engel describes, often the problem with childhood abuse is debilitating shame and guilt. Whatever happened as a child established those patterns, leading to subsequent behaviour that devalues one's own existence, one's body and one's place in society. Due to being unable to feel like anything one does is good enough, combined with any praise feeling far less genuine than the opposite leads to a constant sensation of being invisible or unwanted.


Looking back, I can see how easy it was for me to discard any compassion expressed by others towards me. I was waiting for actions that would show me that those words of compassion were genuine. Amidst cruel and compassionless acts from people like psychologists, doctors, landlords and many others, it only reinforced the feeling of being led to my eventual execution day. Ergo those dreams.

What I also felt in those dreams was a feeling of sadness, but at the same time a sensation of relief that it was almost finally over. That I could be free of... the guilt and shame, I would say. Very similar in a way to those moments between me deciding to take my own life in early 2011 and executing the plan. Reading Beverly Engel's writings and articles by others I can now see those lines running from five year old me to today. As lines of fate or perhaps more accurately doom.


The obvious therapy to heal from childhood abuse is thus compassion. Compassion from others, but also compassion from oneself. I feel that I have taken the first steps with the latter, which should also improve the way that I respond to compassion shown by others towards me. The difficulty for me being that I have to reprogram parts of my brain which have been running the same trauma-born responses for decades now. For me to really feel a connection with others and not merely as an unwanted guest wandering unwanted through a crowd. How do you fix the way one's brain perceives social interactions?

In that respect, it's good for me to practice self-compassion and to be... nice to myself instead of acting like an abusive adult would towards a terrified child. Being non-judgemental is one of the points of self-compassion which are also mentioned. All so that one day I can feel like I'm an actual human being who also has every right to exist and mingle with others, while living their life in this universe.


Maya


[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201501/healing-the-shame-childhood-abuse-through-self-compassion
[2] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/to-finally-wake-up-from-life-long.html
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/freeing-child-overcoming-childhood.html

One doesn't simply grow up to become an adult

Each of us is the product of our past. Every part of our childhood, teenage years and the years afterwards have left their mark on us, whether positive or negative. Our personalities have been shaped by these experiences, and the way that we responded to them back then. As a result, much of our behaviour as adults is the result of these earlier years. This shows us both why these years are so important, and also why it is so hard to change one's personality and behaviour afterwards.

Recently, a friend pointed me towards schema therapy [1], which is a form of integrative psychotherapy, aimed at addressing and treating personality disorders which result from such issues in one's past. The concept is that by reflecting on one's past and analysing one's current personality traits and behaviour, one can link the two, deducing the kind of deficit or traumas in one's past that led to these personality disorders.

Schema therapy uses the concept of 'modes', to group certain states of mind, differentiating between 'child' and 'parent' modes. The child mode is hereby essentially about one's own behaviour, whereas the parent mode is about how one judges one's own behaviour. Every adult human has a child and parent mode, which allows a healthy human being to switch between the responsible state of being an adult (healthy adult) with the carefree state of a healthy child during which the person can relax and have fun. The latter being crucial to avoiding burnout and other effects of stress.


Sometimes when reading stories or playing certain video games which have the themes of growing up into adulthood I can feel this understanding of what is involved in this process of growing up and learning to deal with not only oneself, but also others and society. It also makes me painfully aware of this child that found itself too afraid of contact with others because of childhood abuse to do anything but hide, read books and lose itself in the world of science and technology. A child whose emotional state of maturity is consequently wholly insufficient to match the demands of adulthood.

There are hints of 'healthy child' and 'healthy adult' in my behaviour, but what strongly resonates with me is the 'Vulnerable Child' mode, with the 'Detached Protector' as dysfunctional coping mechanism. Dysfunctional adult mode is the 'Punitive Parent'. Essentially this means a personality with at its core a child that tries its best, but finds itself falling short by the standards of its parent mode, with reprimands and other (perceived) signs of negativity or indifference from both the parent mode and one's environment triggering the dysfunctional coping mechanism.

"Detached Protector is based in escape. Patients in Detached Protector schema mode withdraw, dissociate, alienate, or hide in some way. This may be triggered by numerous stress factors or feelings of being overwhelmed. When a patient with insufficient skills is in a situation involving excessive demands, it can trigger a Detached Protector response mode. Stated simply, patients become numb in order to protect themselves from the harm or stress of what they fear is to come, or to protect themselves from fear of the unknown in general."

While obviously one cannot travel back into time to undo the events and choices that led to such a personality disorder, being aware of it is the first step towards being able to address it. For myself, the struggle to understand myself and my environment has been something with which I have dealt for most of my life. The perceived rejection by my environment, the sense of not living up to anyone's standards, as well as my difficulties with social interactions and relationships, all of it is making my life today so much harder than it should be.

One cannot just decide to become a healthy, functional adult. Most of the responsibility there lies with one's environment as one grows up, with especially the way one was treated and taught during the early formative years having laid the foundations of one's personality and sense of self.


One day I hope to find a way to become a better parent to myself, to the child that still finds itself trapped in this dark room, with the abuse and accusations still fresh in its mind.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy

Childhood abuse and the fear of becoming an adult

After one has become aware of the realisation that one's childhood wasn't was as trouble-free and happy as one may have assumed, it is this realisation that provides the mirror in which one can finally reflect on one's life so far. Especially the troubles one had and possibly still has, such as the trouble to blend in with other adults.

Thinking about it, one wonders just what it is that makes one so different. I mean, sure, one's past has been rather traumatic, and nobody expects someone who has been afflicted with PTSD to lead a perfectly normal life. Yet this is more than just trauma like that which a war veteran or a victim of violent crime might have. They can actually remember a life in which things were more or less normal, before the traumatic event.


Part of the reflection process when coming to terms with childhood abuse is the acknowledgement that the monologue which one kept repeating when tasked to think about one's childhood, along with some choice memories that would fit with a carefree childhood alibi, that all of this was just part of protecting oneself from the truth. That in reality, nothing about one's childhood was happy or carefree. At least not until the thing happened that apparently shattered one's mind at a young age.

When my mother described to me the drastic change that I underwent very suddenly around the age of five years old, transforming from a happy, carefree child into a withdrawn child who rejected any form of physical contact... it is now that I can look back on the years between now and then, and see that little has changed. I made this coping mechanism part of my new 'self', and I still am that traumatised child.

It isn't just physical touch that I find repulsive or terrifying to this day, though it is the most obvious sign. Whatever it was that adults did to me at that young age, it appears to have instilled such a strong and fundamental sense of repulsion and fear of anything to do with 'adults' that trying to grasp the full scope of it is impossible.


I think that adults as a whole have made a pretty miserable society, in which nobody can agree on anything, where help is often nowhere to be found and the wealthy freely exploit the less wealthy. I can see that an individual's life has little value in society and that for all but the wealthy it is merely an exercise in self-exploitation at the behest of others until one's last breath. The lucky ones will not have to deal with being exploited as well.

I cannot forgive the adults who made me feel this way. Who took away most of my childhood and ruined my life in so many ways. I just wish that I could remember more than these half-remembered glimpses and sensations of intense terror and panic. Who it was, and why.


I don't feel like I am a complete human being at this point. Having been emotionally and psychologically withdrawn for so many years obviously didn't help. It's only recently that I am beginning to regain a sense of self, and discovering that truly a lot of time has passed since I was that five year old kid.

Yet it is with absolute terror that I find that my view of society and this world isn't changing along with it.


Everything about society is terrifying, unforgiving, cold, harsh, unhealthy, deceiving and delusional. The only escapes that I can see are those where one can flee into the realm of logic and reason, like that of science and technology, or into innocent fun like that of cutesy video games. I feel that intellectually there is a lot in this world that I can and would love to learn and understand. I can see that there's a lot of beauty and a true sense of wonder, yet this too lies beyond the realm of human society. Human society only faces inwards and only concerns itself with humans and laws and regulations and conflicts between humans. It stumbles around blindly.

For the past decades, the realm of science and technology has been where I have been hiding, mentally. Here there are none of the requirements of human society. Only the willingness and capacity to be curious and learn.


What terrifies me about becoming an 'adult'? Part of it is simply the terror of becoming like all of the adults who have harmed and hurt me over the years. The mere thought of accepting any part of what they are and stand for is truly repulsive. It feels as though I would somehow approve of their actions towards me, by becoming more like them.

That is the core of it all, I guess. Inside of me, I can still intensely feel the pain and terror of the child. In the way that I react to situations, and the mindsets that I slip into when my post-traumatic stress disorder gets triggered feel as if regressing to this terrified child. Far too often, adults today still manage to hit exactly on those trigger points, where their actions, words and so on can only be interpreted by my mind as being threatening. Threatening in the way that shattered my mind once, years ago.


It makes one wonder whether there truly is a way to deal with, or even give childhood trauma a place.


Maya

How to tell a child that the next adult won't hurt them again

As a child we learn what we can expect from our environment, and how to adapt to best survive in it. Or even build up a life that fits our expectations. Most children learn that communication and honesty are important skills to get ahead in life.

Some children learn that there are monsters lurking among adults.


I know that every adult is a potential monster. Because I have been there already. I have seen the monsters in human disguise.

I can still feel their hands groping me. I can still feel the terror. The helpless anger as they savaged me.


I never got away. I never truly escaped. Because I know that there are monsters out there. And any adult can be one of them.

I do not know which one it will be. The next one to attack me. So I have to be wary of all of them. What's more important than to defend yourself against monsters, after all?


I wish I could forget the groping hands. The hands painfully grabbing me and treating me like a piece of meat. I'm glad that so far I cannot recall everything that happened, though I'm well aware that the memories are slowly coming back. I can feel them crawling back inside of me, like slimy, rotting pieces of a nightmare that should have stayed forgotten.


How do I tell the child in me that then isn't now?

How can I possibly tell the child such a thing, when I know that it is a lie? For I have seen the monsters. I know that they are real.


How can I ever accept a person's touch on my body again without my mind reeling in disgust and withdrawing itself, just like my mind did back then?

How can I know when it's really a person, and when it is a monster?


Even as I become more and more aware of this deadening of my emotions and this seemingly infinite divide between myself and something as seemingly uncomplicated as physical contact, I do not see how I can deal with it. Maybe I'll never be able to.

Why would I want to be able to accept any attempt at physical contact from another person again?

To be able to hug another person and not feel like one's body is just a piece of dead flesh. To perhaps feel more human.


It's so isolating to always feel this wary of everyone. Every adult. Every potentially dangerous situation. To even imagine getting kicked and beaten up while lying in bed. To have one's mind work through some flashbacks for the heck of it.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't something which one 'fixes' by simply 'getting over it'. Those feelings of horror and disgust aren't getting any less.


If this was a fairy tale, I'm sure that there would be an easy fix like 'true love' or something equally cheesy, but this is real life. With real monsters. And pointless deaths and suffering.

Real life is rather short on happy endings, sadly. Real life prefers to teach you to accept that you cannot change some things.


I do wonder how this story continues. Every child deserves it to grow up happy, after all.


Maya

The brain of a childhood abuse victim

The realisation that we are our brain rarely feels more relevant than when considering the impact of childhood on an individual's development and the adult which they'll ultimately become. With half of the neuronal connections within the brain getting pruned between the age of 3 and adulthood, massive structural changes occurs occur within the brain during this period.

Little wonder, then, that essentially anything that a child experiences will impact which connections will get pruned or rewired and what the child's adult brain will end up look like. This is most apparent when it comes to victims of childhood abuse and neglect [1]. By exposing the young brain to a high-threat environment, it has been observed that this makes the amygdala (part of the emotional regulatory system and fight or flight mechanism) less responsive.

Along with the hippocampus (responsible for short-term memory handling), both regions thus become optimised for a high-threat, high-stress environment. While great for surviving such an environment, this adaptation makes it hard to impossible for those such affected to thrive in an environment where no such threats exist. Especially dealing with diverse, non-threatening emotions becomes exceedingly hard, with in the most extreme cases children being unable to distinguish between emotions such as sadness and anger.

Along with the hyper-vigilence and inability to regulate their emotional state, this can pose severe difficulties in the interaction with others. Since the child's brain is tuned for a high-threat environment, warnings by adults or certain actions by peers can be interpreted as a prelude to imminent danger, causing the child to display overly aggressive or aversive behaviour. In turn, this leads the former to issue sterner warnings and proceed with more aggressive forms of punishment and the like, continuing the cycle.

Abuse and symptoms

Not all types of childhood abuse are the same, obviously, and each will have a different set of common symptoms in the affected children [2]. In the case of sexual abuse victims: "Disclosure is the most obvious indication of sexual abuse. Age-inappropriate sexual behaviour or excessively sexualized behaviour might be an indicator of abuse. Indirect signs can include any of the following:"

• acting out (with aggression or anger);
• withdrawal;
• regression;
• fears, phobias, and anxiety;
• sleep disturbance or nightmares;
• changes in eating habits;
• altered school performance;
• mood disturbances;
• enuresis or encopresis;
• running away;
• self-destructive behaviour; or
• antisocial behaviour (eg, lying, stealing, cruelty to animals, fire-setting)

   
This combines with symptoms from Box 2 in the previous link, which includes an aversion to physical contact, even with caretakers and close family, as well as low self-esteem and the feeling that one deserves anything bad that happens and any form of punishment, since obviously one is a bad person.

Adulthood

For most victims of childhood abuse and neglect the consequences persist into adulthood, where their struggle with emotions and stress responses causes many issues [3][4][5][6]. Their views of the world and other people will be more negative than average, and the difficulty in recognising positive emotions causes significant friction in the interaction with others. Many will end up in abusive relationships that imitate the original environment in which they grew up, others will exhibit risky and/or extreme sexual or otherwise self-destructive behaviour as they find themselves struggling with a low-threat environment. A number will attempt suicide.

Other common issues include homelessness, substance abuse including alcohol and drugs, criminal and violent behaviour, as well as mental health issues. The latter includes depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and a range of related disorders. Finally, another major impact of childhood abuse appears to be medical, in that the affected individual will suffer more medical issues over time, likely caused both by the effects of the initial high-stress environment on the child's development immune system and the results of the later high-risk behaviour and unhealthy life style choices.

A personal note

Repressing memories of the traumatic events is apparently also quite common, even as the neurological effects do not change. This is how I was able to believe for many years that I had had a normal childhood and youth, with a caring family and a safe environment. Even as I was exhibiting many of the symptoms of child abuse during this time and well into adulthood. By being ever more confronted with my own behaviour and the reasoning behind it, it has forced me to quite literally dig into my oldest memories to put things together.

A few years ago this led to the resurfacing of a recollection of being physically or sexually abused. Likely the latter as I remember lying on this surface, with two or more adults present, touching my undressed child's body. I think I must have hurt one of them as I struggled to get away. Next I remember is me running and ending up in this dark room with no way out. Then this adult male standing in the doorway and yelling at me that it's 'all my fault' before slamming the door close. Leaving the child alone in that dark room.

If it was just that apparent recollection I might have dismissed it as just a dream or fantasy, but long before this my mother would tell me that around the age of 5 I suddenly went from this open, energetic and super-friendly child to a withdrawn child, who didn't even allow their own mother to touch them, instead flinching away from any form of physical contact. Over the following years one can then track a pattern of similar symptoms that are typical of abuse as discussed earlier.

I still do not know who might have abused me, how many times or for how long it happened. I do know that a cousin of mine committed suicide after growing into a young adult because she could not live with the memories and lack of support in the family where an uncle and grandfather sexually abused her along with a number of other young girls. Especially after a legal error set the two criminals free again. Things like that are too close for comfort, and it makes one wonder about other dark secrets. Maybe even ones involving one's 5-year old self.



I'm beginning to realise that what I'm struggling with for years now are essentially the results of childhood abuse, combined with years of social rejection and bullying at school, followed by years of rejection and ridicule by doctors and psychologists regarding my intersex condition. Oh, and getting raped, sexually and psychologically abused on multiple occasions because I too fell for the lure of high-risk, abusive environments like so many of child abuse victims.

In a sense it's comforting, I guess, that I appear to be such a textbook-style case of child abuse. By realising that what's 'wrong' with me is that my brain is simply tuned for an environment which hasn't really existed since I was a child. That the way to hopefully fix this is to correct for this behaviour by being more aware of it, hopefully forcing my brain to stop living life as though there's a child rapist and murderer behind every corner. In the midst of a war zone and zombie apocalypse.

The many years of doctors and kin mistreating me the way they did has done me no service, and they will likely never relent, but there are things which I can control and fix. Together with my therapist I can dive back into what really happened, finally release that child from the dark room and show it that there can be a life after such an event. To evaluate life and other people not as a potential source of threats, but as a potential source of interesting and fun interactions and experiences.


It sounds terribly easy when I write it like that. And that's sadly the thing with cases like mine. One can cover up the literal emotional damage to one's brain with intelligence and reasoning, but in the end one is still one's brain, and just like a broken leg one cannot just wish the physical damage away. It will take time and good care to make things heal and go back to the way things were. Just like a broken leg it will however never be quite the same again.


Here's to the long road to recovery.


Maya


[1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/3/667
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3743691/
[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/somatic-psychology/201104/the-lingering-trauma-child-abuse
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117717/
[5] https://www.nap.edu/read/2117/chapter/8
[6] https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/effects-child-abuse-and-neglect-adult-survivors

The worst part of PTSD is not feeling anything any more

It almost doesn't seem fair that when you have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), it set ups your brain to work against you. Apparently all due to self-protection mechanisms that got pushed too far. One of these involves the amygdala and other parts of the brain involved in dealing with stress and pain regulation. In PTSD sufferers the recollection of traumatic events (consciously or as part of a trigger event) leads to what is called stress-induced analgesia [1].

Essentially this deadens one's perception of pain along with other sensory input. Another effect of this is a lack of emotions. All one can still feel are the negative emotions along with fear and varying levels of apprehension. The result of this when one is exposed consistently and for extended periods to those triggers which cause stress-induced analgesia is often that one begins to harm oneself [2][3]. Usually this involves hurting oneself in a way which may or may not cause permanent damage. This has some overlap with Borderline Personality Disorder [4].

Suicide is generally not the goal PTSD sufferers in this situation are aiming for. As mentioned [3], it's often a form of coping mechanism for upsetting feelings and emotions. It also helps to reduce the feeling of being dissociated from one's body and the general feeling of numbness.



I guess it took me a long time to realise for myself that my level of emotions and feelings is not regular. I had noticed on many occasions even as a child that the only emotion which I could feel strongly was that of sadness. As a teenager I'd often try to provoke this feeling by watching sad movies and series as it'd allow me to feel something.

The other thing that would evoke very strong emotions in me was gestures of kindness. When for example in a documentary or movie it'd be described or shown how someone or multiple bystanders would selflessly dive into the fray in order to save one or more people. Or someone being taken into a person's home after losing everything, for no other reason than to help that person out.


Any other kind of emotion, though? It's weird how you don't really realise that you haven't really been capable of experiencing such emotions for many years because the last time you really felt them was when you were like five years old. I'm not sure that it's better or worse that I cannot recall feeling such memories the way I did as a young child. If I could remember, it might convince me that such feelings actually are real and that I can feel them again one day.

As things are, however, I'm in a horrible situation, where I cannot find that new home, where I had to give up on trying to find medical help for my intersex condition, where I'm in a strange country and where I am at severe risk of becoming homeless or worse.

If I had found that home. If I felt safe and secure. If I had no big worries about the future. If I felt that I didn't have to push myself beyond what I'm mentally and psychologically capable of every single day.

But as things stand I don't know what'll happen to me next week, let alone a month from now. This basically means that I'm almost constantly feeling this numbness and dissociation, of none of this being truly real and - worst of all - that nothing matters. The point where one can think about taking one's own life or dying in general and only feeling a slight sense of relief as it'd end the sensation of pain.


The frustrating thing there is that the solution to stabilise my current situation is so incredibly obvious: find that home, ensure that I have nothing immediate to worry about in terms of my living situation or finances for the immediate future. Yet when one has 'mental health issues', then the only 'solution' that's on offer is apparently to be stuffed full with drugs, whether SSRI anti-depressants or others, and kept in a barren room with staff constantly checking up on you to see whether you have managed to hurt or kill yourself yet.

Maybe there truly isn't a solution, no way out of this situation.

That'd be tragic.


Maya


[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004970/
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4155484/
[3] https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/self_harm.asp
[4] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20370237

Mental healthcare: madness within and without

A major part of me is still this five-year old child, lying curled up in that dark room, sobbing to themselves as the harsh, loud voices of those adults resonate in their ears. As the sensation of their hands groping, grasping and pulling on their body doesn't seem to want to fade.

It'll always be my fault. I'll always feel that I am the problem, that I just have to make things more difficult than they should be. How could I deny such an obvious fact?


Childhood abuse trauma is still special kind of madness. Left unacknowledged and untreated, it comes to define one's very existence as a child, as a teenager and finally as an adult. It means feeling unable to establish an emotional connection with others, as well as a general inability to rely upon and trust others.

It means struggling with a lack of self-esteem and of being overly critical of oneself. Of feeling that those adults back then were right to blame it on us, on somehow being responsible for the horrors that they inflicted upon us.

In my own situation, I wasn't aware of what had happened to be for the longest time. Not consciously, at least. It was always there, affecting my behaviour and life from right after those childhood events until the memories began flooding back, decades later.

It's horrible to see how much those events have changed me as a person, and affected my life. From turning that happy, carefree child into this withdrawn, quiet child who wouldn't even let their own mother touch or hug them, to the young adult and finally adult who simply could not get over what had happened. Who would remain stuck in that dark room, crying and feeling too terrified to move, let alone leave that room.


The events that happened after the initial traumatic events served to feed and reinforce it. From getting bullied during most of my time at school, to later having doctors and psychologists try to make me believe that I had to be transgender, or simply crazy, dismissing my intersex condition as an infantile fantasy.

Finally living together with an abusive flatmate for months with things totally spinning out of control at the end and losing all of my money and possessions. Months of being told how everything was my fault, how I wasn't doing enough and was weak and incompetent.

Then years of dealing with slumlords after moving to Germany, having them play the 'justice' system like a fiddle to make my life hell and drive me ever closer to either accepting homelessness or seeking to commit suicide once more. Of course everything is always my fault. It's pointless for me to hope for a better life, as me being alive makes things by definition worse. Such happy thought processes.


That last situation leading to me ending up at the psychiatric hospital for a few days recently. Not that this was the first encounter with mental healthcare, of course. I had seen plenty of this back in the Netherlands already, and had just stopped seeing my regular psychotherapist after one and a half years of weekly appointments, on account of this therapist constantly retriggering severe post-traumatic stress disorder triggers without seemingly understanding what was happening.

I'll be the first to admit that there's this madness inside my head that I keep struggling with, every day, with the darkness trying to claim my every thought and action. Some days there's too much darkness, because of other people's actions. Not because I want to feel like that.

Being at this closed, high-priority psychiatric ward was... a different kind of madness. While there, I was stripped of my identity, of any freedom and choice, while limited to this one, shared room and shared facilities. Shared with others who were struggling with their own madness and darkness.

There was the bossy woman, who seemed to be living some kind of fantasy, the tall guy who seemed to be mostly trapped inside his own head, always talking to himself and sometimes screaming for hours during the night. The girl with whom I shared the room had this massive burn on her left hand. It seemed like she could no longer use that hand, and was completely withdrawn into herself.

There were others. Each different. Each making me want to get away from that place. To return to the outside world, with the people whom I felt are more like me. Who show me the brighter parts of life. Not these shambling wrecks of human beings, who through no fault of their own are kept inside what is essentially a prison, where they are surrounded by the madness of others. Slowly forgetting what it is like outside, in society.


I am glad that I am no longer in that psychiatric hospital. For now. I hope I won't ever have to return there. But there are people here, outside the hospital's walls, who bring darkness. Who make one feel that life is about suffering and loss. That life maybe is too hard, that one cannot do it. That's it all too much, too painful.

I want to get away from this darkness. To get away from this current slumlord, to get that job, follow my dreams and ambitions, make more friends and hang out with the friends I have. To feel alive and happy.


Yet I fear that all there will be for me is the darkness of that silent room, with five-year old me lying on the floor. Alone, sobbing. Right before I give up for good.

I wish I could see the light.


Maya

The child, the adult, the tears

The child who's crying in the dark room, as the sound of the angry man's voice still reverberates in their mind. The sensation of adult hands painfully clasping around their limbs and grasping at their body remains, as does the realisation of being all alone in the world. None of this is right. None of this will get better.

The same person, years later, finding themselves back in that same room. Crying. Feeling the pain all over, as they anticipate the next act of violence. What can one do but submit oneself to those adults? You're just a child. They know better. They have the strength.


Dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder is... well, you're not really dealing with it. Especially for childhood traumas it's just something that is there. It's become such an integral part of who and what you are that it's almost inconceivable that you can ever change.

I know that all of those horrible things which I remember, all of those sensations, that they are a thing of the past. That those adults who hurt and harmed me can no longer do so.

Yet today as I got the conclusion in the eviction case against me, I'm right back in that dark room, crying and feeling violated. I haven't even looked at it beyond the summary provided by my lawyer, and I'm already in such a state. I will have to wait until tomorrow, to read through it together with my psychotherapist. It's too dangerous for me to do it by myself.

Even though I already know from the summary that I can stay in this apartment, just nothing about any fines yet, it's not about those details. It's about the experience, of being dragged through the mud for two years, of having my integrity as a person question and having felt terrified for all that time that something horrible might happen to me any day now. Of feeling adrift and uncertain about my future.


If there's a bright spot in all of this it has to be that my search for a new job may have resulted in me scoring something pretty close to a dream job. Next week I'll be flying over for an on-site assessment. With any luck I'll not only get the job, but also assistance with finding and moving to a new home.

I'm honestly looking forward to this, and the positive impact it would have on my psyche. In some ways it'd feel like a little bit of justice still exists in this world.


Maya

Monsters inside your own head

I have always felt drawn to video games such as Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and films and series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Saishuuheiki Kanojo, Interlude, Kanon and Zegapain. Not so much for the horror, survival or action aspects, but mostly for the general theme of uncovering the truth through a haze of delusions, lies and deceptions. A journey which will inevitably lead to the harshest of realities.

Maybe it's because my life has felt like it carries a similar theme. From discovering that everything that I thought I knew about my body was a lie, to finding out the horrible truth about what was supposed to have been a care-free childhood. It makes one wonder how one can so successfully and fully deceive oneself. Or rather, how one's mind manages this.


Everything we experience is merely an interpretation, filtered through our memories, past experiences and biases. What I am finding is that I never managed to actually grow up. Intellectually, sure, but emotionally I never did. There was just this terrified child, shivering and trembling in that silent, dark room, always trying to forget the feeling of those hands groping around its body. Never more than that child.

But one has to grow up one day. One just has to find a way to stop being that child. To give those absolute horrors that were inflicted upon an innocent life a place. To accept that one's life did not end there, in that room. To banish those monsters, that darkness that feeds upon one's fears and terrors.


To accept reality, no matter how harsh. There is no escape. There is only the truth.


Embrace it. Accept the pain. Tolerate the suffering. Life is pain, suffering, agony, hatred and rage. Life is gentleness, a caring gesture... love?


To see the whole of reality. Of life. Of death. Of darkness and light, and the inevitability that comes with it. Joyful laughter drowned in screams of agony. A colourful flower blooming on a fresh grave. A birth. A wedding. A funeral. All gone in the blink of an eye, to start anew again, and again. The insignificance of a single life, and yet the incomprehensible preciousness of one. Until the universe ceases to be and everything is gone.


Is reality too much for a single mind to take in? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Only one way to find out. Beyond that silent, dark room. Beyond this body. Beyond this life. There is so much out there. So much time has passed and so much time will pass again.


Just hampered by those dark monsters inside our minds. Monsters that make us feel small, weak and insignificant. Which makes us prey on others for our own gain. Monsters which trap us in the darkest periods of our forgotten past.

One must fight back.


Maya

Not wanting to keep living in the face of everything one stands to lose

Homelessness. Again the loss of all my possessions. Losing large sums of money. Becoming paralysed. Suffering increasingly severe chronic pain. The further loss of any remaining sense of freedom and happiness.

This month the eviction case against me continues, as the pain in my abdomen, appendages and neck becomes nearly unbearable as well. I don't know what will happen with either situation. I do not expect anything but continuing injustice. I also do not expect a doctor to care as my physical condition keeps degrading ever more rapidly.

Sleeping poorly is standard for me at this point, with usually a collective 4-5 hours of interrupted sleep, usually from physical pain. I'm worn out from feeling pain every single moment. The ibuprofen and diclofenac together just manage to get the pain in my abdomen and neck down to a dull roar from an unbearable agony. This morning I awoke after another restless night feeling exhausted, but the diclofenac couldn't reduce the pain sufficiently to allow me to sleep a few more hours.


I must continue to fight. Fight against... everything, I guess. My body is dying. I don't have a home. There's no medical help forthcoming. I can see no future for myself.

There's so much that I can lose this month and the next few. No rest. Just more fighting, more physical and emotional pain as well as likely more loss.

I wish someone could tell me why I'm still fighting. There doesn't seem to be any real point to it. I don't have the energy any more to really fight. I cannot trust others. I cannot escape this place. I'm trapped. All I can do is wait and see whether I'll live, or die.

Maybe it's not so bad to die. I think I would enjoy live if I wasn't forced to suffer through all this stress and pain. But that isn't changing, or going away. I cannot take any more of this. It'll just continue like this, forever. That's not a depression speaking, but many years of bitter experience.

Doctors don't care about me. Others would rejoice at my death. Yet others wouldn't care. Some would be sad.


I cannot change my fate. I can just give up and await whatever will happen to me. Accept it. I'm not an adult. Still a child awaiting to be punished for not obeying. Even if I know obeying would have been the wrong choice. I must obey authority. I must kill all emotions. I must keep fighting. Surviving. Maybe all of it. Maybe by giving up on fighting back will I survive. Stop thinking.

I don't want to keep thinking. I want this all to be over. All the pain and suffering.

I can't stop crying.


Tonight another sleepless, pain-filled night awaits.


Maya

Never an adult. Always ever a child

A couple of years ago I had a dream in which I found myself lying on a surface that could have been a table of some kind, with people who I presumed to be doctors or surgeons standing around me. They were discussing me, talking about how they would carve up my genitals and 'fix me'. I was just lying there for what felt like an eternity, listening in horror to what was being said.

Eventually I managed to get myself together and scrambled off the tablet to flee. I found myself running through corridors, knowing all too well that they would still catch me in the end. That there was nothing that I could do to save myself.


The memories which I now seem to have regained of the childhood abuse which I would have suffered when I was about five or six years old seem to mirror this dream in a way that's almost frightening. Maybe I did begin to remember some of those old memories, just seeping through into my dreams as my mind sought some way to give shape to my terrors I was experiencing at the hands of doctors and kin.

Doctors seeking to alter my body without my permission, or adults seeking to use my body without my permission. Me resisting. Fleeing, yet knowing that I cannot escape. In both dream and memories a child.

Did I ever really escape as a child? Did I truly leave that darkened room after the man forcefully closed the door? Or did that child remain there, in the darkness, with the sound of the man's voice and the slamming of the door forever echoing in their mind?


I can still feel those hands grasping and clawing at me. I still don't like people touching me, even if it is with my explicit permission. There's always this lingering sense of terror that those hands will hurt me again. That any adult is to be distrusted as they may seek to harm me. I don't like adults. I'm glad I'm not one. I don't want anything to do with adults. They frighten me.

Yet a child cannot accomplish anything in this world without support from adults. Or by becoming an adult themselves. I'm not sure I'm ready for such a thing. I'm still that terrified child, curled up in terror and sadness in that dark room. I am not sure that I can ever find the courage to face the world outside it ever again. Not after what happened. Not after what keeps happening over and over again to reinforce those notions about adults.


There's no adult body waiting for me outside that room. There's no home waiting for me, either. No hope. No happiness. Just more suffering.


It truly doesn't matter what I do. Nothing will ever change.


Maya

Amnesia, or: Why it's all your damn fault

It's one of those images which just remain with you forever. Seeing these people whom you know to be classmates come walking around the bicycle shed and crawling through the gap between its boards and the concrete foundation, as they make their way towards you. Slowly, inevitably. Standing on the field behind the bicycle shed, you know that all you can do is await the inevitable. There were probably a few dozen of them. It felt like hundreds.

As they circle around me, the jeering, insults and egging on starts. Pushing my way through the throng, I leave them behind, but knowing very well that I cannot escape them. They'll always be there. Each lunch break. And outside school time as well, as I noticed one day when they tried to block my way while I was cycling home. Only by quickly leaving the bicycle path and passing their blockade by using the road was I able to avoid whatever would have come next. Nothing good, I imagine.

I remember well that time I got punched in the stomach. It hurt so much. As I stood there on the parking lot, buckled over in pain, I just heard others laugh at me, and call me weak and a sissy. Or that time when someone spit straight into my face. I never told a teacher about any of this. I ignored it all. Maybe it would go away?

Years ago I learned that I had apparently taken on the main bully from back then, during primary school. Apparently I had confronted him and beaten him up something fierce. After that he stopped bullying me and we sort of became friends. Funny thing is that I do not remember any of this. A lot of my primary school time is like that: gaps where significant events should have been. Things which I should have remembered. Like getting revenge on this bully.


In hindsight it was likely that I suffered a blackout, as a result of the trauma I suffered as a young child. Abuse is all the same, after all. Likely something had finally snapped inside of me, after suffering all of that abuse. Same as how I suffered a blackout a few years ago, due to the abuse I suffered at the hands of doctors and psychologists. There's a lot one can take psychologically, but at some point something just... breaks.

When possible, one's mind seeks to just cover it up. Put the memories deep away, where they can fester and hurt without one consciously realising why one struggles with all of these painful feelings and weird if not disturbing impulses. I guess in that sense I'm glad that I'm beginning to remember things now. Things of my childhood, mostly.

The memory I recalled a while ago of the big man standing over 5-year old me is becoming more clear now. Most recently I seem to remember him yelling at me. Accusing me it all being my fault. Everything that had happened. Everything that was just done to me. All my fault. I did it. If only I hadn't been there. If only I didn't exist. Everything was my fault. I should just have cooperated. Followed orders. I think that after this I was left alone in that dark room. To cry and feel horrible. To leave and try to forget what had happened. Maybe it would go away?


It never goes away.


I always feel it's my fault. Something is just wrong with me. Something which justifies getting abused as a child. Which justifies getting bullied during primary and high school. Which excuses everything about the horrors inflicted on me by doctors and psychologists. The very reason behind why I'll never find a home again. Ending up homeless and dying on the streets is the only fate that's acceptable for someone who is such a terrible person like me.

I cannot stop hearing this man yelling at me. It is my fault. I believe it, somehow. If only I hadn't resisted. Hadn't struggled. I am just a child, what do I know?

I'm still that 5-year old child. I'm still suffering the same abuse, the same yelling, the same terrible darkness and loneliness afterwards. Over and over again. It never ends. I try to argue that it's not my fault, that none of what happened to me was my fault. Somewhat like the struggle to stop blaming myself for being raped in 2006. Anger is helpful there when it's a past event.

When it's still ongoing, one can only keep putting the feelings and memories away. To let it fester and sap away one's mental strength. Things like the medical madness, with doctors and psychologists blaming me, saying that it's all my fault. If only I would just accept what they keep telling me about me being just a boy. Why can't I just follow orders? I'm less than them. They know better.

Or with the eviction case. It's my fault. I shouldn't have reported issues. I shouldn't have attempted to reach an agreement on reduced rent. I should just have suffered the abuse. Like a good little child. This is an adult's world. Your opinions and thoughts are irrelevant. We know what's best for you.


It's all my fault. It has to be. Or maybe it's just that man's voice which keeps haunting me. Yet I do not feel the confidence to say that what this man yelled at me was incorrect. Maybe everything is my fault after all, even if other people tell me it's not. I don't know who is right. Between all of these horrible memories and fragments of this rapidly fading lie of a carefree youth, I'm not sure who is right, or what reality is any more. Who to trust, either.

Why are people such horrible creatures who have to keep inflicting so much pain upon others?

I don't understand any of it. I just want to get away. Somehow. Make this pain inside of my head stop.


Even if...


Maya

A question of identity

It's interesting to contemplate the meaning of 'self', in the sense of one's identity. What I have found over the years is how tightly this is bound to one's body. Naturally I learned this by having the very definition of what my body supposed to be repeatedly completely changed from what I and others believed it to be.

During my youth and puberty I was supposed to be a boy, so I tried to be one. The past decade could have been spent on me coming to terms with the fact that this assumption was essentially wrong, if it wasn't for those always helpful doctors and psychologists insisting to me that I was and always would be 100% male. Maybe I might be transgender, but that would be about it.

The resulting confusion would last until late 2015, when my body was found to have entered a proper female puberty, with my ovaries producing normal levels of oestrogens, and with my breasts and further accessories growing as expected. No matter that I had been on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for years prior to that. This time my body would show how it was done.

It's now approaching two years since I went off HRT, and my periods seem to be getting slightly less painful now, though in how far that's to do with the effects of the contraceptive pill has still to be seen. My breasts are still growing, with me having to change bras repeatedly and with me having to face the reality of having actual cleavage. Suddenly I am confronted with the prospect of becoming an actual adult woman. It's a very different image that I have to confront in the mirror, suddenly.

The impact is that of me wondering about how old I truly am. Physically my body seems to be that of a 16-year old girl or thereabouts, at least considering the current developments. Having to deal with the joys of acne and the emotional realisation of a changing body further add to this. I definitely feel that in my current state I might fit emotionally far better in back in high school.

It's all very confusing.


So then what or who am I? The 'what' is hard to answer, as I have no idea what my body is doing, why it's doing it, and where it'll end up at. Maybe it'll turn out to be a 'regular' puberty and eventually everything will flatten off and normalise. At this point I'm also a bit amazed about how quickly some of my old scars seem to be changing, possibly disappearing altogether. I wonder what it all means.

As for the 'who', the remembering of those old childhood memories of me suffering some kind of abuse have forced me to look at myself in ways I had clearly avoided in the past. Along with many answers I also found many new questions, about many things. I think the worst realisation that came out of this was that my supposed 'care-free childhood' as I had often referred to in media interviews turned out to not really have existed. A few happy years, probably, yes. Yet looking back with new eyes now, I can see how troubled and unhappy I was.


So who am I then? Someone who likes to lose themselves in science and technology, because they are fully rational, logical worlds. Everything there makes sense, or can be made to make sense through study. As for me in a more social and emotional sense, I don't really know. I know that people often regard me as 'distant' and 'without emotion', but that's just the shield I have put between myself and everything that I do not understand about myself yet. I cannot open up myself fully without having made sense of things, emotionally, first.

There are too many questions, uncertainties and terrors that I cannot trust or rely on people. Thus I prefer to approach a situation logically and rationally, not letting emotions interfere. Because this is safe. Yet it's not really 'me'.


I am well aware of the fact that 'personality' isn't a fixed thing, but shifts and changes with one's collective experiences and memories. Thus my ego and self are both bound to this collective mass of recollections and experiences. Both the traumas and the positive events. As a result I seem to bounce between two extremes within my psyche, between a state of severe depression and helplessness, and one of boundless energy and optimism.

I feel that the latter state is more natural to me, that it reminds me of all the aspects of myself which I appreciate and like. I want to be like that all the time, if I can. I also feel that the former state is merely one that has been forced upon me by my environment. Brought into being by childhood abuse, by being constantly bullied, ridiculed, called a liar and worse. By rarely having anyone put actual faith into me as a person. By always being the odd one out, due to being too smart, too different, too weird.

I absolutely hate the person who abused me as a child. I both despise and appreciate getting bullied, because it hurt like hell, but also taught me to fight back. I find the behaviour of most doctors and psychologists so far despicable, in that they didn't dare to admit to their own ignorance, instead seeking to actively harm me. Something of which they'd presumably have been aware.

Yet I do not wish to fill my heart with hatred and darkness. I want it all to be gone. To be a thing of the past. Yet nothing I do seems to suffice to make that happen. Worst is when people start accusing you of looking for trouble.


Maybe I already know who I am better than I have yet realised. Maybe this realisation merely waits for this long-awaited spring after more than two decades of confusion, pain and darkness. The light at the end of the tunnel, to put forward a tired cliché.

I'd like to just sleep until spring, really...


Maya

Child abuse and the end of one's life

It's been quite a few years now since a cousin of mine committed suicide. Through my mother I have learned much about what she had to suffer through. From the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of an uncle and grandfather - along with a number of other girls - to the wilful denial and dismissal of what she had gone through by her family, including her own mother. This all culminating in the criminal case against this uncle and grandfather for multiple cases of child abuse getting dismissed in court due to a formulation error on the side of the defence.

I used to think that I understood why she decided to took her own life. Both my mother and I sympathised with her decision and were nothing short of venomous about the actions and outright betrayal of her own family and the justice system. Yet now I realise that I didn't understand it at all. Before I was just able to sympathise on an abstract level. Now I can directly feel the pain she must have suffered.

Looking back, it's amazing how long these memories have remained buried, even though I always wondered about this sense of incredible sadness and loss that I seemed to harbour in the depths of my mind without understanding why. Now that I am finally able to give these feelings a place and context, it's possibly even worse. What used to be dampened and lessened in its impact through the veil of ignorance, I now get to experience directly.

What happened to me when I was five, maybe six years old basically ended my life. What I recall most strongly is this figure standing in front of me, like a dark shadow, reaching up so high and appearing so incredibly threatening to me. I try to defend myself. Brace myself against what I know will come next. Knowing full well that there is no way that I can do anything to help myself.


Of course I didn't want to remember any of this. I might have been much happier if I had never remembered any of it, but unfortunately its impact has reverberated through and largely shaped my life. Just because I could not remember what had happened didn't mean that it didn't affect my life. Maybe it was the generally safe environment in which I grew up which allowed me encapsulate these memories and pretend none of it happened. Maybe I just couldn't deal with it and pushed it away.

I don't know what I should do at this point. Part of me knows that I died back then, at the hands of this monster. Another part of me is just in pain, unable to function any more. Only a sliver of me seems to be still capable of dragging myself through daily life, as I noticed today at work. Everything is just pain, incredible sadness and rage.

I need help at this point. Some kind of support. I hope that my psychotherapist can help me there. I hope that the court can protect me and not fail me like they failed my cousin. I hope that I won't find myself alone and abandoned like my cousin did, whose own mother called her a liar. What she went through was the worst kind of loss, first of one's body, then one's self, then to be cast out and thrown away by everyone else, thus losing literally everything.

Deep inside I can feel this terrible sense of loss. I finally understand why I was so negligent and abusive towards my body and myself over the past years. Why at some points early on I tried to deal with this loss by reflecting what had been done to me onto others, maybe in the hope that it might help somehow. Which of course it didn't. Most importantly I can see this hole inside of me now where the real me was supposed to have been. Not this scared, terrified child that could never grow up because it never could trust others again.


I will not just submit myself to the eviction case or anything else like it, like a willing victim. I do not care if that's 'how it's supposed to be'. That's what I got told as well while I was being abused as a child. It's likely what my cousin and all those young girls got told as well by those monsters. Cease your questions and objections. Just go along with it. We're older and wiser. We know best. This is how it's supposed to be. How it's supposed to work. Now let us do our thing.

Whether it's a black-hearted landlord or family members, doctors and lawyers devoid of empathy, or just regular people wrapped up in their delirious layers of ignorance, most often it's not consciously observed by most what damage is being wrought, until it's too late. Every person has a right and duty to defend themselves against this, no matter what. To survive and hopefully live on to maybe thrive.

Sadly, at some point the only way to stay in control of one's life and not submit to injustice and suffering is through the abandonment of one's very existence. Anything else is to accept the death of one's Self. Since nobody reached out to help my cousin, she had to take this last, terminal step to remain true to herself. I share her pain and grief, as well as the rage she must have felt at a world which abandoned her like mere trash.

I mourn that she was forced to take this step. I pray that I won't have to follow her footsteps. Even though I try to keep an open mind and stay positive, it's painful to be reminded over and over again how little the average person truly cares about others. Maybe it's because they have never truly experienced suffering that such a level of empathy remains closed to them. I do not know, but it makes me worry that in a matter of months it'll be my turn to definitively take back control over my life.


Please, do not abandon me. Please, protect me against those who seek to harm me. Just this once.

Please make this nightmare that I had to keep reliving since I was a child finally end.

I cannot do this. I need others to help me. They must.

If they do not...


I guess I was already dead anyway. This was just one long nightmare before the curtains finally close.


But what if...


Maya

Truth always beats ignorance, even if it hurts like hell

After my sudden recollections of youth trauma yesterday, both friends I talked with and myself questioned whether it were truly memories of what happened to me when I was about five years old, or that it was just an interpretation of my mind, mixing real memories with recent traumas. After one night and most of today to reflect on these recollections and my response to them, I'm convinced that they're real.

It all fits together too well. It explains so much about myself, about the things I have struggled with for so many years. It also feels as if a part of me which had remained a child has... vanished, for lack of a better word. It also hurts so much. At this point I can barely function, feeling emotionally distraught and prone to fits of crying. I mostly feel intensely sad and angry, as well as frustratingly helpless.

I also know that what triggered these recollections was mostly the prospect of the eviction case against me soon continuing, with an official inspection of the apartment in November. Previously I didn't quite understand the blind terror which this evoked in me, but now I do. Me trying to get away from this... person who had done something so unspeakably terrible to me, and the complete loss of trust in others which this triggered in me as a young child, it's all just being repeated again.

No matter what I do, no matter what I try, this person, or even just a representative of him will always be there, always to haunt me and continue the raping of my mind and body. It's been like that since I was five years old. It will continue forever. I cannot, will not ever trust others. Yet I cannot get away from them.

I don't understand why it had to be me. Why all of it had to happen to me. Why it keeps happening to me. If there's nothing that I can do against it, then I may as well... give up. Just walk away from everything, whether in the literal or figurative sense.

I fervently pray that somebody will interfere, to shield me from this new horror that comes hurtling towards me like a freight train. Just dealing with these recovered memories is bad enough. I do not think that I'm strong enough to take any more stress. I really want to live through this year, to maybe reach a point where I can actually feel safe and not feel forced to think about terminating my own existence or just walking away to never return as the only two options available to me.


Yet even though these recollections and new details that I can now remember have completely unsettled me, the change that has come over me will in the end be positive. Finally I am able to understand so much about myself, to grasp why I felt certain ways. It feels as though I can now finally proceed with my life, after having been partially stuck in the past for so many years.

I just hope that I get to live to see it.


Maya

Recalling childhood trauma really hurts

For the past days I felt quite fearful, without any real reason, though likely triggered or at the very least worsened by the noise of presumably construction in the apartment above me at very early and late hours, often startling me. This sensation of being fearful just kept increasing.

Today I woke up from extremely loud drilling in the building, shaking the entire building and making me decide to leave for the office instead of staying at the apartment. There are the office I had quite an okay time, enjoying the peace and quiet while working on some projects, both private and for work. After the thunderstorms had passed in the afternoon I went back to the apartment.

Once back, I was relieved to note that the drilling had ceased. Beyond some shuffling, scraping and bumping on the floor upstairs for a bit everything was quiet again. I took that opportunity to read a few more chapters in the book which I'm currently reading while relaxing on my bed. I felt okay after this, though with a slight headache, still.

Then, as I sat down on my computer chair, something hit me. Suddenly I was a child. A young child. Some figure was looming over me. Threatening me. A man, I think. I felt terrified. I had to protect myself, shield myself. Get away. I felt exposed in my genital area no matter what I did. I think something was hurting there.

Even though I was still aware on some level that none of that was real, the sensations and feelings of terror were too real to ignore. I found myself cradling myself, shielding myself from this horrible figure that was threatening me. Running away and hiding. Cowering. Crying.


Eventually I managed to pull myself out of that state, but the memories remain. Even now they're recollections more real than life. I feel that something has changed inside of me, as if part of me has been ripped open and something oozed out of the wound. Something terrible. Something of which I had always felt that it was somewhat there, but this is the first time that it has felt this real.

It's no longer something distant or theoretical to me. Not a vague if disturbing sensation that just nags me in the back of my head. This is reality.


As I type this my head hurts and I am struggling with chaotic feelings. I had expected that I would one day be able to recollect again what had happened to me as a young child, but I had not expected it to happen like this. To be so incredibly painful and disturbing. So terrifyingly real. I think I'll be okay again. Eventually. Once this horrible pain stops and I can breathe again.

I'll get through this. I must.

I must accept this. I can no longer hide from the truth.

I cannot believe this is real.

I cannot believe this truly happened to me.

Please let it just be a nightmare.


Please let me wake up. All safe.


This hurts...


Maya

The struggle to recall buried memories

Usually in films the process of recovering buried memories and similar involves flashbacks and sudden flashes of recollections. As I'm currently finding out, it's somewhat like that, but also completely different.

For me the goal is to figure out what happened when I was about five years old, which apparently involved a single or multiple events which led to me withdrawing into myself, refusing any form of physical contact for many years afterwards, along with the development of an intense hatred of sexuality and a strong distrust of people in general, and men specifically.


So far I haven't been able to uncover any concrete memories, even though I have a significant number of memories of things which happened before and in the years after the event. What I have so far is this very strong feeling of... wrongness that has bothered me since I was a child, but which has become more pervasive over the years.

As I'm working through things with my psychotherapist, I'm often asked to remember things from my youth and childhood. Over the past months I have found that this is slowly making me remember things from my childhood. Mostly neutral memories, of sights, smells and sensations, such as me holding and looking at a dried sea horse at my grandmother's place as a child.


Alongside all of that there is this strong feeling of having been violated. Assaulted. Humiliated. Of feeling terrified and apprehensive of something or someone. Just no associated memories. This part of my recollections where the distrust of others and hatred of sexuality culminate is still blocked off to me. Only these feelings related to that time are readily accessible.

They are horrible feelings.

Earlier this week I got to this point with my therapist and as soon as I opened myself up to those emotions, I simply broke down into tears and could not talk for minutes as I struggled to regain my composure. It's just a raw feeling of wrongness. Of having been forced to do horrible things, or having them performed on me.


I do have some idea of what likely happened to me, as in the years afterwards I would suddenly show very unusual sexually dominant behaviour, essentially seeking to victimise others. This is commonly referred to as inverting or reflecting traumatic experiences as a way to deal with them. If that's the case, then it appears that one or more men forced me to perform sexual acts and likely were very rough about it, to leave me feeling so distraught.

I guess I can kind of understand why. Imagine being a five-year old child, who suddenly finds themselves in a situation that's so unfamiliar to them, and then there are these scary men saying and demanding things which just make you want to run away. Find someone who can protect you. But there's nobody there. There won't be any help.

And then it's over with, and you're let go, never to speak about it again. Only it's still there, all the memories and experiences, to gnaw at your very being like a slow cancer for the rest of your life.


I just wish I could remember what happened exactly and who did it to me. Something to allow me to make some sense of it all and give an opportunity to give it a place, instead of having it eat at me like this. To give me an opportunity to maybe learn to trust people again.

Somehow I think that it's still going to be a long and difficult road.


Maya

I want to stop being the eternal victim

For a while now I have been trying to recover the memories associated with whatever happened to me as a child when I was about five years old. It was an event which my mother and others in my environment saw as me changing practically overnight from an open, energetic child who loved to hug and befriend people into a withdrawn child, terrified of others and refusing to be touched or hugged, even by my own mother. A child which would later display bizarre sexual behaviour reminiscent of role play one would see in sexual abuse.

As I come closer to the truth I'm ever more reluctant to uncover what happened. At times I can almost feel as though I can reach those memories. Amidst the memories of losing that blue balloon, playing on the farm, of getting that new puppy, family visits, birthday parties and sleep-overs there is... something else. It's so strange that many of the memories of when I was around five or six are so clear, yet when I try to follow my development and my attitude towards others around that time it's as though there's this wall of translucent ice I can't get a hold on.

For each memory of me as this child, I have to change it from the third-person perspective into a first-person perspective. Recall my emotions and feelings at that time, then follow that thread to earlier memories. Then do the same with those memories. Until I hit that same wall again. There's something there of people being horrible to me. Of things happening which I did not like, but which I was powerless to fight against. Because I was just a child.


It makes me wonder whether part of the reason why I stayed a child - emotionally - for so long was also as a form of defence against the world. So long as I did not grow up, I wouldn't have to face reality, or something. I don't know. I'm an adult now, so I don't have that excuse any more. Just these horrible memories and sensations of being victimised.

Memories of which I wish they were just limited to early childhood. Not that I needed them to be compounded by the horrible acts committed against me during primary school when I got severely bullied and made to feel like absolute trash. And again during the first few years of highschool. Just a freak and trash. That's all I really was.


Losing my way in life after finishing highschool and getting rejected by my father after my parents divorced. The hell of trying to find some kind of acceptance for me being gifted and lost in life. Then the far worse hell of finding out about being intersex and suffering the horrific physical and psychological abuse by doctors and psychologists as they abused, humiliated and brainwashed me. Because I'm a freak. Because I'm trash. Because I'm crazy and refuse to accept that I'm male and transgender. Or just crazy. And delusional. They all knew so well what was wrong with me.

Getting raped by a 'friend' because I thought I could trust this person, but that was not what he wanted from me. Me making one poor decision about who I could and couldn't trust after another. Getting stalked by those who wished to bully me into me trying to commit suicide again. And succeed this time.

Having all of my possessions stolen and becoming homeless. Living on the scraps others would toss at me, out of pity. The continuing abuse by doctors and psychologists. Then getting deceived and abused by landlords as I try to find a place to live. Today again getting an update via my lawyer making it clear that my current landlady would gladly ignore the signed statement by my psychotherapist indicating my fragile psychological state and risk of suicide. Supposedly I'm just stalling to keep off the eviction.

They're okay with me committing suicide. It'd probably make them overjoyed as it'd speed things up significantly. Too bad for them so far the court has decided to wait until November this year before the building inspector will take a look at the issues in my apartment, meaning that nothing is likely to happen until then. It's a small comfort.


Part of me wonders whether the abuse which I likely suffered as a young child is something that continued afterwards up till today, with no end in sight. Especially dealing with this eviction case and the fear that there's nothing standing between this horrible landlady and me losing everything again makes me consider that possibly the only way that I can make a fist against being the eternal victim is to commit suicide.

When I'm dead, I'm free. I'd no longer be a victim. Nothing would matter any more.

Of course, that's the easy way out, or so people keep telling me. The real way to make a fist and to get revenge on all of those who have wronged me is to live a great life. I'd love that. I really do. I just wonder how realistic it is.


This past weekend I have spent in pain again, as whatever is happening inside my abdomen at the peak of each monthly cycle is causing incredible pain and discomfort. Today as well. It has me regularly bend over from the pain in my lower abdomen, which along with the sharp pain in the vaginal area is at times too much to bear. Toilet visit have become the usual nightmare.

Next month is the follow-up appointment with the neurologist. He'll have looked at the scans of my brain and spinal column and likely conclude that there are no signs of inflammation or other issues would would offer an explanation for the numbness and pain in the right side of my body. The next possible diagnosis of endometriosis is then likely the correct one, also since now after a couple of months of using the contraceptive pill again I can conclude that with it I seem to barely experience this numbness and other symptoms. Just the horrible pain and discomfort in my abdomen.


To have that examined, however, I absolutely need to see this intersex specialist. Even though my medical coach has been calling after this for months now, progress there is slow. Maybe I'll have an appointment this year. Maybe not. I have been at this for over twelve years and counting. It may very well take twenty years in total to get some kind of proper diagnosis of my intersex condition, and possibly a treatment for, or solution to these horrible monthly pains.


I'm just tired of feeling like the eternal victim. It's as though I am a horrible person who deserves all of this. Maybe this already is Hell. It might very well be. I keep trying, yet with every setback I have to really wonder whether it's worth it to keep fighting. If I will always keep having horrible stuff happen to me, it has to be a problem with me, no? In that case there really is no point in trying to continue to live if I cannot seem to fix whatever it is that I'm apparently doing wrong.

...yet that'd also make me into a victim again. I don't want to die or commit suicide, or even think about such horrible things. I want to tell all of those horrible people that they can go f*ck themselves, catch spontaneously on fire and die horrible, agonising deaths. Because a bit of anger is good and proper here, I think. They want to screw me over along my future? Not like I am going to care in the slightest about their well-being, then. F*ck that.


It's the classical struggle for any victims of severe, long-term trauma, I think. Part of one's psyche wants to blame oneself. The other part wants to lash out at those monsters who caused the trauma. There's the blame, anger, self-doubt, suicidal thoughts, crying, depression, self-harm and rage at the world in general. Just the process of trying to make sense of 'why'. Why me. Why did they have to do that. Why did no one stop them. Why didn't I say no. Why didn't I just leave. Why. Why. Why.

I guess I am beginning to slowly accept that I am most definitely not doing okay, and that me accepting help from not just one but two psychotherapists for simultaneous therapy is an absolute necessity. Me handling both the psychological and medical problems in addition to my daily struggles was more than any person could possibly take. Off-loading most of the first two to others likely will save my life.


There was a time when I'd smirk at the thought of psychotherapy. I always figured that I didn't need to talk about things. That such things were useless. I figured that I'd be strong enough to handle any emotional issues on my own. Maybe some day I'll write that long-promised autobiography so that others can read about how incredibly weak, and yet how incredibly strong I was throughout this ordeal. Weak and strong in so many different ways. Ways one doesn't truly realise until long afterwards.

I'd like that.


Maya

Understanding an intense hatred of sexuality

For the past years now, there have been a number of things which instantly make me feel sick to my stomach, but without knowing or understanding why. Usually this takes the form of people showing (intimate) affection to each other, but things like pregnancy also triggers this strong sense of nausea and dull headache. Something about it physically hurts me.

Not that it's something limited to just the past years, either. I remember quite well how at the beginning of puberty, I felt disgusted by these sensations of physical lust. I wanted no part of it, and sought to banish any of such feelings from my life.

Part of those feelings of disgust may have been because of some weird sexual experimentation and experiences before that. I remember showing behaviour that was definitely over-sexualised, while not knowing why or who had shown or taught me anything like that.

For some reason it seems to come down to whatever happened to me when I was about five years old. Whatever happened back then might explain why I showed such bizarre behaviour, a couple of years later. Behaviour which unfortunately led to things which I regret now, or which hurt me in ways which I cannot begin to formulate, such as getting raped by a 'friend'. Experiences which led to me hating sexuality and everything related to it with an intensity that is simply absolute.

When I can only summarise it in terms which generally upsets others, it makes me again feel like something else is broken about me as well. From presumably getting sexually abused as a child, to not being able to give sexuality a place as puberty came and went, to finding out about being intersex, but having to fight over what essentially amounts to my own sexuality with doctors and psychologists.

Ever thought about what getting regularly 'physically examined' in one's most intimate regions by doctors who couldn't care in the slightest about one's well-being would do to one's emotional health? I didn't, and now I regret it. Last time a doctor asked me, I refused to comply.


I hate men. I want to see them all die horrible, agonising deaths for the monsters that they are. I hate women for being dumb creatures who just go along with whatever men tell them to. I hate that I feel this way, and do not understand why I feel this way.


I try to understand. I try to dig into my psyche and my memories as I attempt to find some clue, some memory which might offer an explanation. Yet I cannot find anything. There are just these intense thoughts and feelings which seem to spring forth out of a part of my psyche to which I do not have access. It's like a phobia, but even stronger.

I do know that it's not something about individual humans. I do not have a problem with them. I just have an issue with sexuality, with the entire physical part. I know from what my mother told me that before whatever happened to me as a child, I was a carefree, open child who loved to hug and be hugged. Then practically overnight this changed; I shut myself off from the world and did no longer want to be touched. Only a couple of years ago did I reach the phase where I allowed my own mother to hug me again. With other people it's still complex and generally I will pull away from any attempt at physical contact.


I hope that through therapy and by hopefully soon reaching a more quiet period in my life that I will be able to access this part of my psyche and memories where whatever causes these super-strong sensations are located. Just ignoring it and pretending it doesn't bother me doesn't work, much like how I could not ignore getting physically tortured and beaten.

I would love to reach a point where I no longer have to feel this horrible again due to this 'sexuality' thing. Maybe it will even allow me to reach a stage where I would actually be okay with entering into a relationship: being able to trust another human being to such an extent that I would simply not feel apprehensive or terrified around them.

I might even let this person hug me, a lot.


Yet for now, I'm basically more of a really smart machine. A machine which does not try to feel too much, too often.


Maya

Trauma and our blurred perception of the world

Perception is what shapes the world for each of us. It's our interpretation and assigning of value to parts of the world around us. Just how we perceive the world is coloured by our experiences and thus also any traumatic experiences we have gone through.

As I'm typing this I know that I'm trapped, doomed to a horrible death of which only the details are missing, yet it's a death which will be drawn out and horrific.

I also know that nothing of that is true. Not at this point in my life at least. I know it to be just a collection of feelings, flashbacks and sensation of terror originating in my post-traumatic stress disorder. Having been there in that situation once. Having experienced those terrors for real have made it into reality.

Yet I am trapped in this prison cell. It has a small television built into the wall with a few channels on it, showing pictures of a world I can only dream of. A world in which people live their lives, have fun, fall in love, making friends, get to feel relaxed and bored, and enjoy themselves. I have a small shelf with a few books and other knick-knacks which I treasure and which keep me somewhat from going insane.

I occasionally get taken out of this cell for more beatings and interrogations, even if I do not know or understand why they keep doing this. I don't know anything. I just want to escape. Live a life like I have seen on TV.


I remember living a life like that, many years ago as a child. But that was a different life and a different person. Now a room and an apartment isn't a home, but just another prison cell. Moving apartments is just being relocated to a different cell block.

Freedom is one of those things people like to use a lot. Happiness, too. I barely even know what these words mean any more. At the very least my own association with them is what one feels when one manages to ignore the daily beatings and pain. A temporary, blissful moment of ignorance.

Even though I am often aware of the way my PTSD distorts and colours the world around me, I do have to admit to there also being very good reasons both for me thinking this way and for me being traumatised. Human society is one of the most cruel and unforgiving environments humanity has created for itself, outperforming its world wars and making nature look like a petting zoo.


I guess I have to keep living like this. Because I have to. Because.


Why again?


Maya