Fellow former abused children: how has your experience ruined adult relationships for you?

[Weebster]

I can attract women, but I'm anxious, needy, clingy, etc and it repels them. It's a nightmare.

 

[84779943]

I'm terrified of them. I choose cruel or unhealthy people. I sabotage myself and withdraw and isolate. Mostly I avoid people

 

[Weebster]

I'm terrified of them. I choose cruel or unhealthy people. I sabotage myself and withdraw and isolate. Mostly I avoid people

Since you're terrified of them, does that mean you don't crave them deep down?

 

[stellabelle]

I almost hate to even answer this for the simple fact that people can use this information for harmful purposes (such as intentional abuse to achieve a disastrous outcome) rather than a positive healing purpose.

It destroyed every last aspect of my life.

My abuser who inflicted most of the damage is now deceased. But this has left a lot of residual anger and frustration which lead to poor decision making, mental breakdowns, lack of support, and the void of ME rather than just this shell (walking meat bag.)

My abuser continued to destroy my identity, interpersonal relationships, and dominated my life in the wave of destruction during my upbringing and early adulthood.

I am now in my late 20s and struggling with what I would describe as WORSE mental health issues than ever before.

I have so many problems as a result of the abuse that I feel like there will never come a day of reckoning.

So. Wonderful.

Not fun. Not funny. Not simple. Not easy.

And then. Added abuse to it.

It got progressively worse.

And then.

It really got even worse.

Bad to worse.

Then.

Fuck this. Bad and bad and bad.

Then.

Gone.

Then.

Struggle.

Then.

Positive.

Then a turn for the worst.

And then.

Light.

Darkness.

Bitterness.

Frustration.

More problems.

And more struggles.

Then.

More fucking stupidity on my part.

And then.

I just fuck myself so badly. So badly that things never improve. I fucked myself so fucking badly. So many times. And then now. It's just a sunken ship.

I have unintentionally harmed myself and others in this "process", "journey."

It makes me want to escape this shell even more.

 

[Red Scare]

Not necessarily all relationships, but it has ruined my relationship to my parents and in particular my mother.

 

[TotallyIsolated]

Relationships are impossible. I have never been able to trust anyone. I have friends but it feels like the more I get to know a person the further apart we are. I just can't let people in. I have never had a romantic relationship and at close to 40 it seems like I never will.

I desperately long for relationships, either romance/intimacy or just friendship, but I can't bring myself to trust anyone.

I feel like I'm unwelcome or unwanted. I have never felt good enough for anyone. I have to apologise all the time. I wish my friends had someone else instead of me. Someone better.

All relationships in my life are dominated by fear. Fear of rejection and abandonment, of being humiliated, or that I will hurt people or be a burden to them.

I never initiate anything. Ever. I never call. I never ask if people want to hang out. I never approach women. I always try to minimise myself. I walk back, lean away, and avert my gaze. I automatically assume that people won't want me around. That I am unacceptable.

 

[Weebster]

Relationships are impossible. I have never been able to trust anyone. I have friends but it feels like the more I get to know a person the further apart we are. I just can't let people in. I have never had a romantic relationship and at close to 40 it seems like I never will.

I desperately long for relationships, either romance/intimacy or just friendship, but I can't bring myself to trust anyone.

I feel like I'm unwelcome or unwanted. I have never felt good enough for anyone. I have to apologise all the time. I wish my friends had someone else instead of me. Someone better.

All relationships in my life are dominated by fear. Fear of rejection and abandonment, of being humiliated, or that I will hurt people or be a burden to them.

I never initiate anything. Ever. I never call. I never ask if people want to hang out. I never approach women. I always try to minimise myself. I walk back, lean away, and avert my gaze. I automatically assume that people won't want me around. That I am unacceptable.

I'm so sorry. You're older and your situation is much worse, though I can relate to a lot of it on some level.

 

[Deadly_Intention]

Basically the same as above for me too.
Trust issues.
Self sabotaging.
Never feeling good enough.
Being too needy or clingy.
Always over analyzing everything anyone says or does.
Wondering if people secretly hate me.
Constantly questioning if I have done something wrong even if I haven't.
Never feeling validated enough.
Basically waiting for people to abandon me as they always do cos I'm "too much" to handle.

List is endless really

 

[TriggerHappy]

yeah.
my father really didn't like me.
my earliest memory is him pushing me over the edge of the porch into rosebushes
then shitting me out cos i was apparently clumsy.
he was an abusive alcoholic to everyone but cos i was a bit effeminate
and anaemic as a kid he gunned for me. i didnt understand why i just had
to stay out of his way...
loads of event hilights :: hed get drunk and lock me in the carboot, or the cellar
or a cabinet or the avery so he didnt have to watch me.
as i grew up, i got into sports (national swimming team /bodybuilding for diving etc)
so i got tougher and eventually took andro and got madly aggressive
i started geting inbetween him and my mom when he got mad but never hit him.
was expelled from school for screwing the captain of the swimteam in the changerooms
- he was so ashamed. i didnt care got a bursary to artschool. suporting myself as a nude model
and later as a rentboy / gogo dancer in a club.
honesty moment :: while i tried to recreate myself into a macho portuguese sports stereotype to please him
i always managed to dissapoint him.
but deep down inside i craved his love and attention. got into muay thai and karate and learnt how easy it was
to fuckup the straights that harrassed us at the clubs...
im an addict (more) and sleep with people for money - work in advertising for fun. AIDS never killed me
but killed may of my friends / lovers so yeah i guess i was angry.
in rehab i was taught that i have internalised homophobia :: struggle to have gay relationships.
all the men im into or fall in love with have somehow had traits similar to my dad - typical alcoholic hot and cold.
masochistic and saditistic.
ive tried to date'healthy' men but they dont interest me. ive blurred lines with chemsex and multiple partners
and hae been addicted to heroin for over 30 years, also sometimes cocaine - now crystal gives me the madness
im into.
so yes. my father fucked me and fucked me up.
i dont bare grudges (he died a while ago cocaine induced heart attack)
im mostly a nice guy but too wild in relationships and am quite shocking in my behaviour.
in prison i was in corrective intervention for bieng 'rebellious' ..no...?!

i was a nice cute kid in the beginning i swear... not my fault my wounded child within swings an axe...

 

[radioschizoid]

I've had extremely poor, basically nonexistent boundaries.
I would immediately enter relationships with abusive men that I had zero interest or attraction to just for the fact that they "liked" me. I'm a people pleaser.
I have denied myself my sexuality since I was 9 because my family shamed me for it but yeah, I'm a lesbian. I've never experienced true intimacy.

 

[Livingvsdying25]

I have no interest in any kinda sexual or otherwise intimate relationship. All of that shit disgusts me. I have no interest in even friendships anymore.

I have no interest in this whole fuckin world. Everyone that abused me killed all the things inside for me to live and I have no desire to build em up anymore

 

[Ethereal Knight]

yes, 100℅.

 

[Marine]

I can attract women, but I'm anxious, needy, clingy, etc and it repels them. It's a nightmare.

First off I think needing security, closeness and trust after abuse (and in general) is normal and that shouldn't repel anybody worth anything.

For me, it's gone from :

1. being terrified of them since I was rejected and abused by most people anyway and shying away until I was 29 to

2. being abused by my first relationship to the point of complete existential annihilation, to surviving two subsequent suicide attempts against all odds for no apparent reason and feeling like a worthless zombie that needs rescuing

3. while afterwards being abused by worse quality people, to

4. full on curse where I can't seem to attract anyone remotely attractive nor decent anymore - fyi I haven't gotten uglier - (plus I lose everything I love in general completely outside of my control), I keep seeing people disappear for no reason at all, or be fake, or crazy / abusive / stupid and never getting to meet someone of the level of the first (who needs to be surpassed to have any chance of compatibility at all)

all of that despite working on myself and obviously improving non stop either by myself, with therapists or in groups.

I don't get any of this nonsense. I need out.

 

[whatevs]

I think at the core of my social anxiety and ambivalence towards sexuality is how my cousin (which I loved and admired as a surrogate older brother) forced me to suck his dick when I was a kid. So there you go.

 

[DynamicDepression]

I think at the core of my social anxiety and ambivalence towards sexuality is how my cousin (which I loved and admired as a surrogate older brother) forced me to suck his dick when I was a kid. So there you go.

I'm so terribly sorry you had to go through that. Rape is the most evil thing there is and I can only imagine it feels so much worse when it's done to you by someone you trust.

I can relate to you, sort of. I got my first friends in seventh grade. A group of girls who I now know only used me because they found the idea of a gay guy interesting or arousing. For the better part of a year, they were groping me, ganging up to take off my clothes, and making me masturbate for them to watch. I think they eventually got bored with it and then they stopped talking to me.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your message. I don't know you, but I do hope you never think that what happened was in any part your fault. It's all him.

 

[onlyanimalsaregood]

In the sense that I don't believe in relationships, I don't trust people, I feel that they'll always abandon me at some point, that I'm not enough for someone to want to stay, I have no self-love and no boundaries.

 

[saninh.suk]

I think at the core of my social anxiety and ambivalence towards sexuality is how my cousin (which I loved and admired as a surrogate older brother) forced me to suck his dick when I was a kid. So there you go.

Got chills reading this. It happened just the same with me. I think i know what you feel. I think

Wanna elaborate more on this?

The weird thing is having to see him on holidays, with family and such. Pretending nothin' happened... It kills me. Worst part, my family likes him and compare us frequently.

 

[whatevs]

Got chills reading this. It happened just the same with me. I think i know what you feel. I think

Wanna elaborate more on this?

The weird thing is having to see him on holidays, with family and such. Pretending nothin' happened... It kills me. Worst part, my family likes him and compare us frequently.

I think Osamu Dazai fleshed out better than I could the condition that afflicts me and possibly you as well. Read No Longer Human.

Yeah it was hurtful at the time how at holiday reunions my family still talked, even amiably with him after I insisted that it hadn't been child play but sexual abuse. But that's all history now. Probably damaged me, but it doesn't matter anymore. My abuser has a horrible life and I'm chronically ill and have 1400 posts on a suicide forum. We've all moved to bigger things, like killing ourselves and stuff. Life goes on.

 

[bear_trapped]

unhealthy people pleasing and awful attachment/abandonment issues

 

[WonderingSoul]

I don't know how to handle relationships, where the boundaries should be set. I'm always hyperviligent and worried they aren't going to like me.

 

[Niko66]

I am already crap at relationships, I am too socially awkward due to autism and isolation, I don't know how to approach someone, how to tell when they like me, I am a not conventionally attractive but what really ruins one once someone is interested in me is that I am too insecure, have no self esteem or self love of any kind, I am always afraid I will be discarded the moment I do anything wrong or if I don't keep amazing them, always end up ruining it all that way, but to be honest people don't like me much in the first place, my abusive mother only ruined what little chances I would have had otherwise, I was still bound to be a fuck up.

 

[NobodyKnowsMe]

I have no trust in people; I'm sure that they will leave me eventually. With men, I simply chose the ones that were also emotionally distant. It has mostly worked - my first marriage lasted 9 years and I'm the one that initiated the divorce. My second marriage hit 25 years last year. He might truly love me - I'm not sure. I don't think I know what love really feels like. I mostly married him because we were compatible in various other areas. While there might not be much emotion between us, it is a fairly "comfortable" relationship.

Primarily my childhood crap has affected my ability to make and keep friends. There is nobody in my life that I would call a true friend - nobody that I can talk to in even a semi-honest way. And I honestly do not think that there has ever been anyone that fit that description. In some ways that actually hits harder - makes me feel more lonely.

 

[freedompass]

I'm a total basket case even without much childhood abuse. I mean, my dad was a fucking idiot and lacked a proper sense of boundaries between a father and a daughter. There were a couple instances of actual molestation that I clearly remember. I wasn't mistreated apart from that. I can't have relationships. They're way too triggering. I tend to choose assholes, idiots, losers, my relationship history is a fucking disaster. I either abuse or get abused often both. I have lost interest in sex pretty much. What a shame it's 40 years too late to avoid reckless hookups that resulted in disease and unwanted pregnancy.