My mum relied on me emotionally because she could not provide emotional stability for me. Dad ended up not getting any emotionally stability from mum either the person he married. I gave everyone including my younger sister emotional stability there was nobody getting me up for school only me I supported mine and my sisters routine. I even got my dad and mum ready for their own work I thought this was normal. At 31 I nearly died of an alcohol overdose due to stress and not taking much care for myself. I have a learning disability and never had the right support or stimulation to grow as a person.

At 32 I got into an abusive relationship ending up having a traumatic breakup and miscarriage into the new year before turning 33. The year I turned 33 was a turning point I saw and felt the pain conflicting me not only from the breakup, or even the pregnancy lose but the feeling of no support from my family and the realisation that my friends are my true family. At that time my friends where trying to get me help and 33 and a half I made the decision to sell my home and move to a new town.

I now share my home with my chosen family a best friend and someone I consider true family. Life since has given me symptoms of trauma as I journey into my new chapter feeling the pain that I was not allowed to feel when I was wee.

After having hurtful and empty messages and promises sent my way the least I deserve is the joy I thought I was freely handing out to people I cared about and loved who in the end let me feel like a failure. I am ready to continue to spread joy and love to the community even if I do not get it back in return because to do a little good is healing for the soul.

Mainly I’m starting to see how drug use when younger, alcohol abuse, frustrated sex drive/masterbation and porn are all signs of a dopamine addiction and needing to fill a gap I couldn’t understand was there due to trauma. My mother was very loving and great but both her and my dad had massive unresolved childhood traumas. The words you use describe the situation exactly – being the youngest of a large family also meant experiencing collateral impact on siblings. My awareness started when my wife asked me in a game ‘what has been your driving ambition in life’ and I couldn’t answer as never thought of what I want. I’d never thought of it as was so busy horizon scanning and walking on egg shells to keep everyone else happy. Feeling isolated, lonely and unwanted by family had a huge impact, even if not intended (probably made it worse tbh). Anyway thank you for this post!

I think at 26 she’s looked back and now has identified her trauma when being a child was feeling bad , and they need to take on everybody else’s emotional issues as well as feeling the need to walk on eggshells.

All I’m gonna say here, is that I don’t believe it’s anybody’s fault, but I do believe the definition of what trauma originally was defined as being, has drastically changed, and somehow acclimated and adapted to people’s pain. It’s not what it was once was..

Thank you so very much for your share. I’ve been in trauma focused therapy for two years and still struggle to accept that the verbal and emotional abuse dealt out by my mother is responsible for the many cPTSD symptoms that I have at agr 72! The problem is complicated by the responses of many people who knew both my parents well (including my siblings) and idealized them. I recognize now that whereas my childhood includes a great many happy memories, my relationship with my mom as a small child was what would now be called an “anxious insecure” one, and that even as a child, I was very depressed. I made my first suicide attempt at age 12.

Thankyou. Like you I had a happy childhood, and for the most part of my life I’ve been happy. I’m over 50 now, male, and my emotions leak out everywhere. I’m almost in tears having just read this article. Yes I had a happy childhood, happy memories, loving parents… But I do remember ‘theres always someone worse than you’ and words to that effect.

Thank you, I felt a huge wave of relief and permission to acknowledge my own feelings after reading the first few words in your article. I’ve had people tell me that because I had both parents and they loved me that I couldn’t possibly understand “real” abuse. Yet here I am at 45 years old , no healthy relationships , spouse or friends, a list of jobs or responsibilities I’ve managed to screw up and living in my mother’s garage. I’m a mess of a shell of who I started as and I’m exhausted of scratching the proverbial rock bottom. No money for a therapist and desperately trying to prevent any of my ill formed habits or traits from rubbing off on the most important person in my life, my son. I’ve battled addictions of all kinds from sex to drugs and alcohol and I win for short stents but I’m running out of steam and desperately seeking a way to confront and conquer my inner demons once and for all. I hope that running across your article is a sign that the universe is throwing me a little help.

Megan- I had identifiable trauma my whole childhood- as I have often wondered so kids who have good parents and childhoods have any type of trauma? After reading your article – I see that it can happen – but what exactly was your childhood trauma ? What you described is what I wished for growing up . This article has me stumped …

Megan, thank you so much for this article! You are spot on in this description. It took me until I was 58 years old to acknowledge the abuse that was intermingled with my happy childhood. I grew up with six brothers and sisters, my parents were married for 67 years until my father passed away in 2017. We had it all. Christmas mornings filled up both the living room and the den. We had long cross-country drives in the Chevy station wagon to visit relatives in the Midwest, or go to Disneyland in LA when it opened, or go camping in the Rocky Mountains. We did talk about how we loved each other, how lucky we were to have such a strong, close-knit family. But we all got “spanked” when we misbehaved. Mom would abandon us to our room to wait for Dad to come home and ask us if we preferred his hand or a belt or a hairbrush or a switch from a tree outside. When I was 16 I went to swimming practice with bruises that went from the middle of my back to my knees and I told everyone I crashed my bike. When I was 17 my little brother tried to kill himself at 11 years old.
I got married and left my hometown at 23 years old. My rage destroyed that marriage and my two kids still talk about how awful it was. At 35 jobs in 30 years of working. My rage almost destroyed my second marriage. The book I want to write is titled “Waiting To Die, or how my happy childhood ruined my happy adult life.” You can’t tell by looking at me the PTSD that I live with, as I share this with friends they are shocked. The thing that shocks me is not that I was abused, but that the abuse I suffered was actually so pervasive.
Please keep writing about this. I think this is vital work in slowing the tide of abuse. Thank you.