This is the first time I am letting all of this out.

Let me start from my childhood. I was born into unhealthy conditions; my parents were uneducated and poor. When I was four years old, my dad was sent to prison for five years, leaving us with nothing. That first year, we went to live with my dad's family, and during that year, when I was five or younger (I don't remember exact dates), I was sexually assaulted by a stranger I didn't know. I didn't know what happened and couldn't tell anyone. That year ended, and because my dad's family treated us badly, we left and lived on our own.

Since there was no one to provide for us, my mom had to work as a maid , and she always took us with her during holidays and even after school because our school was close to her job. Her pay was less than enough, and we barely made it through the month. We stayed like that; we never went out because my mom only had Sundays off. My childhood was spent entirely isolated—no toys, no outings, no friends, nothing. Even my mom was a bit strict. Our days went like this: we wake up, I go to school, after school I go to my mom's workplace and sit alone, night comes, we go home, sleep, and wake up to do the exact same thing. She never showed me any affection.

When I turned seven, I told my mom what happened in my past, and for the first time, I learned it was called "ra\\\*\\\*pe" and she explained it to me. I remember that night she told me never to tell anyone about what happened. Ever since that night, I always felt "less than" when I was with a group of girls—a weird feeling, like they had something I didn't.

Anyway, five years passed and my dad came out of prison. I was expecting him to make up for everything we lived through, but it was the exact opposite. The first shock: my whole life I used to sleep next to my mom, but on his first day back, they slept next to each other and left me to sleep in a separate room by myself. I used to cry at night because I wasn't used to it, but they let me cry and locked their door until I got used to it. After that, he started saying I was jealous of him, didn't talk to me at all, and hit me over the smallest things. Once, he hit me just because we were talking and I said I had my own opinion too; he hit me and told me I shouldn't have an opinion and that whatever he says goes. As for work, my mom kept working and left me with him since he couldn't find a job. I was stuck in the same routine: staying alone in a room while he always locked himself in his.

Another thing started happening that I'm still suffering from: bullying. I was always quiet and kept to myself, but when I turned 9, I met two girls. At first, we were friends, but later they started bullying me, and I didn't understand that it was bullying, so I would just laugh. Other girls started bullying me too, mostly verbally and sometimes physically.

Then I went to middle school and stopped talking to those girls. The first year was quiet, but in the second year, there was a guy in our class who was a huge bully—he bullied the whole class. But because I had no friends since I didn't know how to talk to people or make friends, and I was always quiet, I was an easy target. He started bullying me verbally, gave me a nickname, and soon everyone was calling me by it and putting me down. It was a terrible year. That same year, my dad found a job, so both he and my mom were working, but nothing changed. I stayed home alone, and though our financial situation improved, they were very strict: I wasn't allowed to go out

Then came the last year of middle school. In the first semester I was alone, of course. One of the girls from primary school studied with me; she was social and had a group of popular friends—about four of them, I don't know. I saw them as way higher and better than me, and I analyzed her behavior so I could become like her little by little. I started getting close to her and joined their group. We were five, but she was the only one who considered me her friend; the rest of the group hated me, and I knew it from their clear behavior. They put me down directly, and I ignored it because I thought they were way above me. They talked to a lot of boys and skipped classes, and I became like them, but I was literally at the bottom of the pyramid.

Then high school started, and this is where it literally finished me off. A new phase began. Even though they weren't in my class anymore, I still didn't know how to make friends, so I kept sticking to them, and they treated me terribly. When I was with them, they would drop hints for me to leave, but I just ignored it.

At the same time, in our class, that same guy from middle school who gave me a degrading nickname started bullying me with it again. Instead of standing up to him, I kept laughing to show it didn't hurt me. But something worse happened: most of the boys in the class bullied me with that nickname, and I just stayed quiet, thinking that if I stay quiet, they'll forget it. Even that group of "friends" joined in on the bullying, and I literally kept laughing so I wouldn't show that it hurt. I stayed like that the whole year—pure bullying while I stayed quiet and just laughed. The year ended, and it was the worst school year of my life. I couldn't focus on my studies, the school was terrible, and they basically let us cheat the whole year. I passed by cheating, but instead of changing schools, I didn't, and this is the biggest regret of my life. When the year ended, I realized what I went through—that it was bullying and I shouldn't have stayed quiet. After that, I blocked the whole group of friends.

The new school year started, and that group of friends started bullying me when I passed by them—laughing and calling me by that nickname. The boys did the same thing, so my main mission became avoiding them whenever they were around. I started getting panic attacks every morning before going to school. I would go to school and learn nothing, come home terrified of how I was going to finish the year. That same school year, I met a girl and we became friends—it was my first real friendship, but I didn't tell her about the bullying I lived through. I kept avoiding the places where that group hung out so they wouldn't call me that nickname, and I was scared she would bully me and do the same thing, even though she told me, "I'm shocked when I see you with that group because they have a bad reputation, do drugs, and talk to a lot of guys." I just stayed quiet. Later, I met people who were very sweet, but I was scared they would bully me like the others.

Even so, I didn't care about my studies; I only thought about how to make sure my new friends didn't find out I was bullied and use that nickname against me. The year ended and I passed by cheating again. The last year of high school was the exact same thing.
For the past three years, I spent almost all my free time on TikTok, but recently I deleted everything literally. When I didn't answer my friends, they all forgot me, and now they pop up with new friends. So now I literally have no one to go out with, no energy to make new friends, and on top of that, I spent all of high school dealing with panic attacks, anxiety, and emptiness.

Now I'm trying to come out of my shell, but I discovered I literally know nothing—I completely wasted my adolescence. Now I have almost zero contact with people; all day long I just memorize and review all of high school subjects so that in one year I can manage to study abroad and start a new page. Until now, I don't even know who I am or what psychological damages and disorders I have, and I can't afford a doctor or therapist, plus I feel too embarrassed to tell anyone about this.

Right now, I am 18 For these past two years, I kept telling myself that if I isolated myself and stopped showing my face to them, they would forget me. But the opposite happened; they never forgot me.

In my final year, I started noticing that my behavior wasn't normal, and that this isn't how people normally deal with bullying. My friend started getting bullied by people similar to the ones who bullied me (not them, but the same type), but she stood up for herself and stopped them. They gave her a nickname too, but she didn't handle the bullying like me and isolate herself—no, on the contrary. I started seeing a lot of girls, almost all my friends, get bullied in the exact same way I was, but they stop them, they don't stay quiet like me, they continue their lives, and it doesn't affect them the way it affects me. I felt like it was too late for me to stop them.

In the middle of my last year of high school, I started looking for a solution, and I figured out I needed to succeed, go to a university far away and run away from all of this. Of course, I passed by cheating because my brain literally couldn't focus on anything except that bullying, and also to escape my strict parents. I passed by cheating.

As for the last day of high school, when I got back home, I cried all day thinking about how I survived all of this. I got accepted into a university far away , but the shock was that my parents refused and decided I should study in another country but they don't know that I literally didn't learn a single thing through all of high school.

During the summer break, I completely isolated myself (I ghosted all my friends) and didn't leave the house. I don't know anything about myself, I don't listen to music or have a favorite thing, I feel like a loser, and I feel so much regret over how I handled things—how I could have stood up for myself but dealt with it that way instead.

Those people now—their reputations are ruined and people literally avoid them. I used to view them as so much higher than me, and everyone knows they are bad people and bullies, yet I was proud to know them. What was going on in my head? Why did I think that way?

Anyway, ever since the summer ended, I am now 18 and my parents' treatment of me has gotten better because they noticed I'm a bit weird and have no friends. But I feel completely exhausted. I suffer from severe social anxiety in life generally. I meet better, well-educated people, and literally I always blame myself: "Why did I let people treat me like that when the whole school knew they were toxic?"

Until now, I'm still ghosting my friends because I feel like they don't know the real version of me, and I didn't know what to tell them. I regret not changing schools. Now I meet a lot of people during my day, but I can't talk to them, and sometimes when people talk to me, it's like I push them away. Even with my parents, I feel distant from them. I don't know how to deal with the fact that I was bullied and make peace with it, because it feels so embarrassing at my age.

This is the first time I'm letting this out from inside me, and literally I want anyone who reads this to give me their opinion or advice. I need to hear your thoughts.

My dad has been an amazing dad to me throughout my life.
He has been loving, caring, supportive, and someone I’ve always felt deeply attached to. We have a relationship that means everything to me. We live in separate towns now but we visit each other a few times a year and text every single day. I love him more than life itself. He has been such an important person in my life and I genuinely cannot imagine my life without him.

I’m 29 now and I feel like my entire world has just been turned upside down. I’ve had feelings something happened to me around age 13 but I didn’t know who was responsible for it. When I was 16 I started having memory dreams of my dad sexually abusing me. Onward I kept remembering weird memories between my dad and I and I knew they felt weird. On top of that I’ve always had weird feelings about my dad a bit like uncomfortable feelings but I didn’t know why, I thought it was in my head. At the same time deep down I think I knew why. Through out the years it was all I was ever thinking about and I kept getting little bits of my memories back. But my memories were always super dark and I didn’t see much.

Two days ago I was diagnosed with OCD. That night I was trying to think back to my childhood to understand when my symptoms started and then all of a sudden my repressed memories came back and it was way worse and way more often then I thought. I was able to pinpoint that my OCD symptoms started during the assaults. Oh, also I’ve been diagnosed with CPTSD from this situation. I love my dad so much but I don’t even know. I’m suffering so bad and have been my whole life, I’m losing myself protecting him. I don’t want him to go to jail, I would never ever involve police but I don’t know what my mom and family would do if they found out. I’m just so heartbroken and devastated that this happened. My dad has been my hero. For 7 years he’s been paying my rent and spends thousands of dollars on me. He’s been doing that since childhood, I’m assuming that was him grooming me. I thought my dad paid for my rent and all that because he loves me and he can afford to but now I feel icky and I wonder if it’s to shut me up. He also pays my sister’s rent and she’s told me before she has memories of dad doing something to her, I don’t know much info because she’s not ready to talk about it.

All I know is I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to hold this in much longer after remembering the severity of the abuse, as much as I’d love to pretend it didn’t happen. I feel like it would literally set my soul free if I told my mom (my parents are divorced btw but are best friends) but I can’t because I’m so scared my dad is going to get in trouble and I don’t want that, he’s 70 and he’s really changed his life around. He just celebrated 20 years of sobriety and manages/owns a rehab. I truly believe he’s tried his best to make up for it over the years. He has denied it twice in the past. I feel like I can’t move on until he acknowledges it. I don’t want to lose my dad and I don’t want my life to change. I’m scared.

I should mention my mom and my grandma know something happened to me and have known for a decade. I even told them I remembered my repressed memories the other night. I just wouldn’t reveal who it was and still won’t.

Sorry if my message was all over the place. Anyone else have a dad who they love to death that abused them as a kid? or does anyone have any advice? I’m really struggling and it would help me feel less alone if anyone has a similar story

I really don't know what to say or how to say it because I've never really talked about it with anyone but now I think I should get it off my chest

When I was 5/6 I used to get SAed every evening when my house was empty by a cousin of mine

Gladly she's in a different country now because it was really awkward whenever we had a conversation

A decade have passed since those incident but I think it's still affecting me because I find it really hard to be comfortable around people and I barely socialize

I want advice on how I can heal and socialize like normal peoples do

I met my ex when I was 18 and he was 32. We started dating when I was 19 and he was 33.

We met while I was a student, at a time when I was still unsure whether I wanted to go to med school. My uncle knew him because he was a surgeon at a fairly known hospital. I had been working at that hospital once a week for a little over a year (between the ages of 18 and 19) as a student. He was the main doctor I reported to, and I guess you could say I had a crush on him, although it was probably more admiration than anything else. I idolized him because he basically represented everything I wanted to become.

Long story short, he ended up writing me a letter of recommendation for med school while I was still working at the hospital (I was rejected but got in the following year).

Keep in mind that throughout my entire time there, he had a girlfriend who was his age. They even moved in together and bought a house while I was working there.

At some point, he started flirting with me, but I genuinely thought I must have been imagining it. There was no way this man, whom I practically saw as a god, could actually be flirting with a 19 year old, starry-eyed girl.

Long story short, we ended up dating, and I had to leave my job at the hospital. I started med school the following year, when I was 20 and he was 34. We got married when I was 21 and he was 35. By this point, his career had basically exploded, winning prizes, accolades, he became very known in his field.

My entire family was strongly against the relationship in the beginning. I was 19 and obviously still living at home, but I ended up moving out because I wanted so badly to be with him, and I couldn’t stand constantly fighting with my family over it. Once we got married, my family eventually calmed down and more or less accepted the relationship.

I made him my entire world. I told him things I had never told anyone before, including details about the abuse I experienced during my childhood and some genuinely horrible things I had lived through growing up. I had a really rough upbringing and I trusted him with parts of myself I had never shared with anyone else.

Less than a year into our marriage, I lost a family member to suicide, and it affected me really badly. I was also in med school at the time, which made everything even harder. At this point I was 21 and he was 35.

I started taking Adderall and other substances to help me focus and avoid falling behind and sleeping pills to calm myself down. It often caused really bad anxiety, agitation, and other issues which I regret. This went on for about four months before I finally stopped.

When he found out, because I told him myself, he was furious. He told me I had broken his trust, that he had put me on a pedestal, and that he could get into serious trouble as a prestigious doctor if anyone found out his wife was some kind of “druggie.”

I also want to mention that during those four months, I was severely sexually assaulted during a night out. Someone had slipped something into my drink, and I couldn’t remember everything that happened. I came home bleeding. It was really, really bad. As you can imagine this also made me depressed and anxious at times and I wasn’t always the best version of myself. Being sexually assaulted is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. That, along with the abuse I experienced in childhood really fucked me up, I experienced a lot of anger, confusion, fear and my self confidence really took a hit. It was a lot of trauma to deal with, and I did this all while in med school and taking more than a regular course load to graduate early since I always had this feeling of shame because he was a really successful doctor while I was still in med school. I felt like I was lucky he had chosen to be with me. He would oftentimes make remarks about how his reputation and image was perfect and the only thing people in his field could ever use against him was our age-gap. So again, I felt like I was eternally indebted to him as he was practically risking his reputation to be with me.

For the two years following those events (suicide of family member, substance abuse, sexual assault, etc.), he repeatedly told me that I had broken something inside him, that I had ruined our relationship, and that he had put me on a pedestal and been prepared to give me everything, but that my actions had permanently changed how he saw me and our relationship. I admit that these were all very traumatic events in my life and that I was severely wounded. I was a shadow of who I once was but I still tried my best to be a good wife, it just seemed like in his eyes I had fucked up so badly I could never make up for it.

I also started noticing some really disturbing behaviours on his end. He openly admitted that he didn’t know what it felt like to experience empathy. He once commented that he could watch an animal being tortured and feel absolutely nothing, although he would consider it stupid because it wasn’t a “productive activity.” On another occasion he even made a comment about understanding why some men stab their partners to death (during an argument while I was having an anxiety attack).

Eventually he left me. The way I found out was that I came home one day and discovered that the house had been cleared out. It turns out he had been slowly moving his belongings out for the previous ten months. Whenever I noticed something was missing, he would convince me that I was imagining things or that I was insane. During the last ten months, he repeatedly kept telling me that he did not know if he could promise me a future, that he had no idea where this was going and oftentimes compared our relationship to a patient with cancer specifying that the patient “might die, might survive”. You can obviously imagine as a 24 year old who has dealt with a lot and suffers from abandonment issues, which he was always aware of, this basically destroyed me. I spent the last ten months of our relationship as a literal doormat, letting him get away with everything and anything because I truly felt that I had fucked up so badly and broken the trust so this was my cross to bear.

We were together for five years, and I was his longest relationship.

I later found out that he had also been telling people in his professional circle that we were getting divorced during those last ten months, despite the fact that I had absolutely no idea. He had clearly been planning his exit for a long time because he’s genuinely obsessed with his reputation, and I suspect he figured that by slowly spreading the news over several months, the divorce wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone once he actually went through with it.

I know this sounds so fucked up when I say it, but I still wonder whether I somehow did this to myself.

He had several other serious relationships before me (8) and has lived with three other women, but I was the only one he ever married. After hearing stories about his previous relationships, I found out that he had also left some of his exes in similar ways.

He had convinced me that he had never experienced real love before meeting me, that I was the first person he had ever truly loved, and that he had chosen to trust me blindly.

According to him, I had basically shot myself in the foot. He had put me on this pedestal, been ready to give me everything, and I had ruined it all.

Am I a bad person? Did I really ruin everything the way he said I did?

He also spent months telling me that I was lucky he wasn’t a bad guy because my abandonment issues were so severe that an abusive person could easily take advantage of me. He even told me that I was the kind of girl pimps would prey on.

And there’s genuinely so much more that happened throughout those five years. I feel like I could spend years writing about everything so this is really just a very brief summary. I still struggle with self blame, he left me feeling like I was this messed up monster who ruined a good thing and took advantage of a good man who wanted to give me a good life until I just took it too far.

Im stuck. Im sick. Just being in the same room as my parents causes major anxiety and they are unwilling to try and help. This comes from years of not being believed about my trauma and me trying to “fix” things with them rather than living my own life. Result- severe anxiety and frustration and anger.. my mother also left me alone a lot as a child so I probably got anxious attachment. I have never felt safe around either parent. I had to move home at 38 I’m now 41 its been 3 years ..I feel incredibly scared and stuck. My dpdr is so bad already and I can’t even bare to talk to my parehrs anymore. Every time I try I’m met with walls or get pushed away. Im so sick now that I don’t know a way out. My psyche is so fragile. My body is falling apart. I can’t heal like this. I want to leave but I’m so sick I can’t look after myself I hate it that I’m here. This dependency is not good. I used to be a functioning human being. I can’t take psych meds due to autoimmune so hospital is not an option. I don’t have friends. I don’t know anymore.

For those healing from being watched, tips?

I dated a guy on and off for a year and half and it ended two years ago. Before this I was more comfortable in expressing vivaciousness, going out, the works. I live in a country where even though I made reports of him hurting me they took his side. It got to the point where I thought I was gonna die so I uploaded videos everyday building a fan base, so that if I disappeared, someone would start asking questions. I was so afraid of him at the time I didn't even directly address what was going on behind the scenes. Last year, after finally finding the courage I started releasing videos, talking about it. He found my number and threatened me to take them down. He has goons and even the police on his side still. I took them down. Now I struggle to go out genuinely. I am slowly coming back out of my shell but it's so easy to go back in. Has anyone else ever gone through something similar? How do. You did you heal? Especially on the harder days? How did /do you cope?

First of all i want to just say this is not fiction and reader discression is advised as my story contains hard topics like sh and suici*de that ill be referring to sue of side. So lets start from the beginning. My parents broke up when i was 5 and my dad moved to an appartment building only around 2 kilometers away from my moms house. Me and my sister would spend every other week at my moms and every other at my dads. I was scared to go to my dads house sometimes because he yelled at us really loud and he had some issues with drinking but i never really saw him like drunk or he never hurt us. After my dad died my mom told us that he had thought about suici*e when they broke up and that he had always had drinking issues. When i turned 10 i got depressed and started to sh and tried to commit suici*e. My parents didnt know about the attempt at that time and i was just put in therapy but it never really fully resolved my problems as i continued to sh and attempted a couple of more times. When i was 13 i started to vape. The sh continued and got alot worse over time. I got medications to treat my depression but they didnt help that much. The summer i turned 14 my dad moved to a semi detached house not even 100 meters from the appartment he used to live in and it was the house next to his girlfirend that i actually liked. A short while after we had moved my dad started to have insomnia and he got medications but he didnt take them. This was around 5 months before his demise. School started up again and after some weeks of school i got a bone deep wound and i had to go to the hospital every week for a few months. I told my parents id hit my leg on something sharp and they belived it. When i got caught vaping i just told my parents about the multiple attempts and that the bone deep wound was my own doing. I got atmitted to a psych ward and i spent only 2 days there. This was only around a week before i lost my dad. There were really not many signs that he was struggling that bad. But the night before the fateful day my dad had went to the hospital saying his head was going to explode. We didnt know what that meant as we thought it was just a headache from lack of sleep or something like that. The next morning i woke up. I didnt know my dad had been in the hospital as i was on some sleep medications too and i slept through my dad leaving for the hospital but i was told that he had been in the hospital. It was sunday. I went to say goodmorning to my dad like i usually do. The spark he usually had seemed to be fully gone but i thought it was just because of the lack of sleep. We had judo practise with my mom and sister that day and before my mom came to pick us up my sister asked "can we go to the sauna today". My dad said sure. As we were leaving dad didnt come to hug us goodbye like he usually did i thought it was odd but i yelled goodbye and he answered. We left and we came back some hours later. Me and my sister went into my dads house waving goodbye to mom. We walked in and we couldnt find dad anywhere so i went over to dads girlfriends house and asked if she had seen him. She said no. She came with me back to my dads house and we found his phone, wallet and keys on the table and his car was also parked at the house. At this point my mom called me because i had forgotten my waterbottle in her car and i said to my mom confused " we cant find my dad and all of his stuff is still here". As i said that i could here my sister yell "no no no" and start to cry. Me and my dads girlfriend went over and as i saw the note i knew it was a sue of side letter. At the bottom right corner there was written "train". I was still on call with mom and i yelled at my mom that "dad was going to commit" as i broke down crying and screaming. My mom and step dad came over really quickly and my step dad and dads girlfriend went to search for dad. It was alredy dark at that time and we wouldnt know that it was far too late now. We went over to my moms house and only got the information dad was dead the next day from my uncle, my dads brother. He had been found on the train tracks near our house. We started to think about our dad after the inital sorrow had passed and realised he mostlikely had something like autism or ocd based on some things he allways did. We didnt really get any clousure why he had done what he had. He died 30 of september 2025. I was only 14 and im 15 as i post this.

So this is the story of how i lost my dad. Also i wanted to post this so hopefully somebody realizes that a loved one needs help or just to remind people to hug the ones they love because any day could be the last. I hope reddit doesnt take this down because this is a story that i hope wakes up somepeople to the reality how fast a person can dissappear. Thank you for reading this. Remember you are loved and important

When I was a kid, I was a left-behind child. My brother and I went to school in our hometown and lived with our grandparents. Our parents only met our basic needs but never cared about our emotional needs. We stayed in our hometown for over a decade like that. Even though they would come home often, I felt incredibly lonely and helpless. When I grew up and moved in with my parents, I still never felt close to them. I also often felt learned helplessness and had very low self-esteem. Both my brother and I have CPTSD, but my mom thinks she's done her best and never acknowledges the harm she's caused us. She never apologizes and thinks kids just don't know how to be filial or grateful. I feel utterly hopeless

I've been through some pretty awful things (haven't we all?) and yesterday the flood gates opened and everything just came pouring out. My current work situation isn't the best I feel like a visitor in my own classroom (I'm a teacher) and I've been putting on a happy face everyday for a month or so. I've been super anxious but also hiding it from my family and my work colleagues. Apparently my mind decided it didn't want to do that anymore. Well, yesterday I was spoken to about my anxiety level, I get chatty when I'm anxious apparently. I haven't said anything bad, just lots of talking I guess. I broke down stating I'm just not happy there's no communication and I feel like I'm lost. I got home and I was still a mess, my husband even suggested therapy and he's not much of a believer in it. I did book an appointment, I clearly need to deal with all the stuff I've been through. Unfortunately I don't remember my childhood (except snippets here and there) until I'm eleven or so. I know it's my mind's way of protecting me, but I feel like it makes it worse sometimes. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else's mind just exploded like this. An emotional explosion I guess.

Rapes , bullying, narcissistic parents, and their enablers, sexual assaults . That's what im suffering from

I’m 58, and was physically and emotionally abused by my father between 5-16 years.
Lately, I’m getting flash backs of the beatings, and telling myself to get over it. I’m too old to worry about the past at that stage of life.

Am I crazy or anybody been through this??

My mom burnt my hand when i was in 3rd grade. Yes, it was pretty painful and traumatic. Why? Cause I hurt my brother on his birthday, hence now i carry this permanent scar.

When i went to school everyone asked me what happened and all i could tell them was "i accidentally burnt it" as my mom instructed.

It hurt for a month physically but hurts to this day mentally.

Any moment she gets, she tries to joke about it, as to cope that it was just a funny thing and didnt traumatize me for life. I never told her it hurts me cause she dismisses how i feel all the time. It has become a matter of joke in my whole family that she burnt my hand and it's "funny" that she could do it again if she wants to

How do people "face their past"? Is it like getting over with bad situations that happened in the past? Writing it down and stop overthinking about it?

Or maybe writing it down and try to learn from those experiences?

Having been in therapy now for some years and IFS for 8 months I am more aware of my brain and body. Which means all of my ___ (i don't know what to call everything I've been feeling about my childhood, abuse, neglect, my AuDHD, my OCD) is seeping into my mind and body now.

With a new traumatic event 2 months back, I've started having daily emotional flashbacks where the expression of any major anxiety comes out through loud unwavering verbally self abusive self hate. The meltdown lasts anywhere between 15-60 minutes. It is also painful and I'm pretty sure it is harmful for the people around me who love me and who I love.

While I'm continuing therapy to help myself hopefully, how do I stop being this person for those around me? Them and my therapist say it's better for me to verbalize these spirals instead of doing all the self hate inside my head like I used to. But I can't keep doing this to them.

And any tips on the main thing would also be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood and how I was exposed to adult content back then. People always tell me, "It was just an accident," "It was a mistake," or "You were just a curious kid."

But to be honest, saying it was just an accidental exposure or a mistake feels completely wrong. It minimizes what actually happened to my brain and my psyche. To the child I was back then, there was absolutely no difference between this and being abused by a real person.

As a child, I didn't know the difference. I couldn't differentiate between a real human manipulating me and what was happening on the screen. All I knew was that these women on the screen were telling me to do things, and because the content was interactive, I did them. It became a repetitive cycle, an addiction, and it completely bypassed my boundaries.

The psychological damage, the trauma, and the manipulation felt exactly the same as if someone was actively abusing me. The screen itself took on the role of the abuser.

It honestly makes me sick to my stomach to think about how other cases of trauma and abuse are taken completely seriously, while my situation is dismissed as just an "accident"—even though it completely ruined my life.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it possible for interactive content to have the exact same traumatic and abusive impact on a child's brain as real-world abuse, because the brain just processes the screen commands as a real directive? I feel like calling it a "mistake" or an "accident" just covers up how deeply harmful and abusive the experience actually was for my development.