***TRIGGER WARNING*** The following article discusses traumatic events, including sexual abuse.
The word PTSD is often thrown out there into the ether of speech or within news broadcasts as a category for someone who has “mental problems.” It is often used in a derogatory way by people who have no real understanding of what they have just insinuated. PTSD is a condition that happens to an individual who has been through a single trauma like a car accident or witnessed a homicide. Living with PTSD can be very difficult and should not be glazed over as if it is nothing. I have heard people say, “He has a bit of PTSD,” like that person was having a case of the stomach flu and could just get over it in a few days or after a magic pill. It is so much more complicated than that because being traumatized changes a person forever. It can take years of therapy to heal from a traumatic event, depending on how severe it was and how an individual is being helped to cope.
Complex PTSD is a second condition that can be even more serious than PTSD because of the very nature of how it presents itself. It can develop in an individual after having sustained prolonged traumatic events like child abuse, a kidnapping, or having been in a war zone. Such trauma happened over a long period during which the individual was stuck in that harsh reality with no way out. Years later, when that same individual has gotten their life back into a settled and safe environment, Complex PTSD rears its ugly head. Living with Complex PTSD is harrowing and can be life-threatening. It is not something you can get over, but you can survive through healing.
As an abused child, you cannot just run away because the law is against you as a minor
My name is Elizabeth, and I am a survivor of child abuse and horrific trauma. As a result, I developed Complex PTSD, which became severe in my late teens, hitting me hard at a time when my prefrontal cortex was still developing in my brain, and I was completely alone. Survivors of child abuse often find themselves in similar situations and become outcasts because of the abuse but also by choice. When you’ve been imprisoned, your first thought is to get out of that situation and run away. As an abused child, you cannot just run away because the law is against you as a minor. You cannot get work as a minor. If you run away and are homeless, child services will find you and send you right back to those parents. Then, trust me, the abuse will get worse.
Traumatic memories force a survivor to turn inwards to block out the pain. I can liken this situation to having fallen off your bike as a kid and broken your wrist. The first thing you do is cover the agonizing pain and cry out. That is exactly what you do with traumatic memories, although the acute pain you feel is not from your wrist but from inside your head. You may also not be able to cry because those tears do not often come. You are simply too deeply traumatized to cry. There are many outlets traumatized people use just to get through the day.
In this article, I want to explore strong emotions of love and connections between people after an abusive childhood. Survivors struggle with connections between people because there is a fundamental lack of love in an abusive home. Love is the feeling that was ultimately betrayed by those the child was supposed to love. Having been deeply unloved develops a scar like no other.
How can you love someone who hurts you daily and in the most profound way?
The simple answer to that question is that you cannot love that person. I’m going to introduce to you a scenario where you will find the exact opposite of what I’ve just suggested.
Imagine a world where you are a four-year-old child. You live with your drunk, narcissistic father and a mother who doesn’t care about anything other than him. She pouts and prances around him, waits on him, and makes herself look pretty for him. You are invisible to your parents, but you try every day for their attention and to be loved. He drinks beer or hard liquor whilst he watches football on TV and shouts at her to be his servant. At night, he is so drunk he can barely get off the sofa, and that’s when the beating starts as a result of her dinner being too hot, her lipstick imperfectly applied, or her habit of sleeping around, which is something she never did. He accuses her of something she didn’t do, like sleeping around. Once he has reduced the woman to a hurting mess somewhere in the apartment, he targets his daughter by attacking her in bed. It happens all the time. He even loans her out to his friends like a honeypot or piece of property.
Such scenarios devastate children around the world. Children are abused, hurt, and exploited by sick human beings, many of whom are often close family members. Such scenarios happen in all families, rich or poor. One of them could be happening in the house next door to you. Our survival stories are so similar, and yet these awful childhoods keep happening.
What happens to these kids when they grow up? Who listens to them, and who can help them?
When I fully understood the extent to which I was a survivor of abuse and trauma, it hit me hard. I had no help, and I was alone. I had left everyone I knew, and I lived hundreds of miles away in a world I didn’t fully understand. I felt like I was a child trapped in an adult’s body. I picked myself up like I always had and carried on. A day went by, and no one found me or hurt me, then a week passed, then a month. I settled down in a safe place and had people all around me, but no one knew me. I started feeling more settled and fell into a routine of work and sleep. Then BAM, those pesky emotions started attacking me in my nightmares and even weaseled themselves into my days. People at work heard the funny twang in my accent when I spoke and teased me. They made me feel like I didn’t belong and that I should give up and go back to where people spoke like me. I had to face those emotions and felt shame. Shame for having lived with people who spoke with a weird accent. They were monsters who used pain and hurt for narcissistic self-gratification, but I couldn’t say that. It was my secret to bear.
Emotions, you say. Well, I don’t feel a thing!
Sure, you do, because even not feeling is feeling something. The absence of feelings is just as powerful as acting out and fighting. That silence says it all. You are most definitely feeling. You feel so much that your nervous system shuts down. I’ve lived as a selective mute because opening my mouth opened me up to more abuse. If I made a noise when the monsters attacked me, they got more excited and hurt me more and for longer. My abusers enjoyed hurting me and seeing my pain, so I turned my emotions off.
Imagine, then, that you are still that abused child, and you start growing up. You go to kindergarten and elementary school and get thrown into a class with kids from all over your city. You see those kids who look like you as they hug and laugh with their parents. You try to hug your mother, who gives a stiff shove in return. You then ask yourself, why bother when they push me away?
Why do we hug and smile with our children?
It’s simple because we love each other.
An abused child has never felt that love.
As an abused young girl, that image right there of kids hugging their parents freaked me out more than anything else. I knew anger would bring fists on my skin, which would bring bruises and pain, but smiling and hugs? I wanted to disappear into the concrete flooring of that warehouse. That is where the people smiling took me; every time I was back in that warehouse, I was hurt. I was so scared of those adults smiling at me all the time. For me, that smile brought me indescribable pain and suffering. I couldn’t understand it, but that pain was something so deep I blacked out.
An abused child doesn’t understand love and connections. They don’t know what it means to be loved because they have been fundamentally broken by those people who should teach them what love feels like. Love and touch only equaled pain for me growing up, and I am sure most survivors like me felt just like me. Being touched was a big taboo.
How do we fix someone who has been deeply hurt and has no clue about love and connections between people?
A child growing up is naturally inquisitive and wants to learn new things. It’s a survival instinct for us as a species to want to live and explore what life has to offer. Normal families nurture their offspring in a rich and safe environment with plenty of opportunities and people to explore narratives and situations. They learn quickly by being immersed in love. A child growing up in an abusive home is often stifled to be quiet and left alone. They may even be locked up in a bedroom while a bruise is healing or to hide their hysterical crying from people. They are taken out of school for days to be abused even more. These children do not learn how to socialize with others or how to act in certain situations. They certainly do not learn how to love and connect with people. These children grow up to be different, and they have a distinct disadvantage in life.
Love and connection bind us together as humans, but if all you have known is abuse, then love is not going to be easy
Imagine you are that abused child again, and fast forward to the teen years.
This is a time when most adolescents act stupid and make mistakes by trial and error. Those hormones that make us grow up into adults also make us do crazy things as we become young adolescents. We explore relationships in combination with drinking and partying whilst we are supposed to study and pretend we care about our futures. We feel invisible. Teens don’t have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and often make the wrong choices or are easily persuaded to do the wrong thing. This period is particularly hard for someone who has been a victim of abuse. We often fall into the wrong crowd and the trap of substance abuse as an outlet to numb our pain. We are often exploited and hurt even more during this time because there is no safety net. Nobody is sitting up waiting for us to get home after a party. There is no ride waiting on the corner of the street that will take us home. We are usually alone. Eventually, we find our way and seek help through therapy.
Love and connection involve the emotions survivors struggle with the most. The deep hurt that our parents inflicted on us is ingrained. We learn that love is the same as pain.
Who wants to feel pain every day?
Survivors turn off their emotions to avoid being hurt again, but we still have eyes, and we see people. We see it all, but we choose to turn off the emotions that go with actions. This way of living might be fine for a while, but then you get to the age when your friends start settling down and getting married. You think they are crazy, but you see how happy they are, and secretly, you want that too. By this time, you may have tried out so many potential partners, but the very idea of living with someone and sharing your life is absurd. Or you might never want to be intimate ever again. You are just fine by yourself, right? Well, you miss so much by hiding your emotions away. We all need someone to lean on, and that takes trust and love. We all crave that connection, but it becomes so much more complicated if you were once deeply hurt by it.
To take that leap and feel, you need to try to switch on those emotions. Let them come out and take them for a test drive. Allow yourself to feel once more. How did that feel? Keep on trying those feelings and situations, but make sure you have a way out if you feel overwhelmed. Call it a safety switch that you can deploy if you need to. If you go out to a bar, you might choose a window seat instead of the back of the room. If you feel that it’s too soon to go out, have a look online. There are millions of videos on social media that are full of emotions. Use them and have a go at feeling what they are feeling. Watch TV and put yourself into the characters’ lives. How would you feel if you were in that person’s shoes? Try out those pesky emotions and get used to feeling them. Once you feel you can handle them, try them out for real.
Once you have started to feel again, you will be more accepting of connecting with people. The main thing is that you feel in control of the situation and that it is on your terms. A relationship is built on trust, and if it’s going to work, you need to be honest with the person you choose. Listen to what your heart tells you. If something doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t. You will know when something feels right. If you allow yourself to feel, your life will start to fill with color again. You go out there and see the world for what it is. You will meet people from all walks of life. Prepare yourself to get knocked down a few times. It happens to all of us. If you listen to your heart and let those feelings guide you, you are back in control. Don’t allow your abusers to control you anymore. You need to live your life. You are important, and you have so much to give.
My name is Lizzy. I’m a survivor, and I am feeling again.
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.
Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. She suffered sexual abuse throughout her childhood and witnessed unspeakable events. Elizabeth survived in an environment where most people would not. She is now able to help other survivors heal from trauma through her writing and blogs. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. There is always hope.
Elizabeth is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Offenders-Daughter-Story-Survival-Against-ebook/dp/B0BBSV97VF/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=0pSdX&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_p=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_r=134-9913214-5397651&pd_rd_wg=MPpMc&pd_rd_r=d375a758-2d9b-4c6e-9aee-52c1f5a4e6f7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith” available here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQRNST2B?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1711883073&sr=8-2&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin
Thank you 🙏 This is thorough, honest, and relatable. It takes guts to face feelings, and it’s just as tiring as hiding them. We hope that, upon revealing and experiencing them in a supportive environment, we may actually come to a greater tolerance of the difficult ones as well as an appreciation and enjoyment of the ones that make life worth living.
Thanks Rosie. Yes, a supportive environment is key to healing.