from book Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman

I've bought this book a while back, but yesterday I actually read some of it for the first time. 

The chapter 5, "Child abuse", hit home. It describes rather accurately how my life has been, what kind of a struggle and anxiety I've experienced. Most of the writer's examples are very extreme and deal with sexual abuse, but the structure of the experience is similar. 

Some quotes that I feel describe my life well: 

"The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a sense of trust in people that are untrustworthy - - Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses." 

It's just this week that I realised that I was trapped in a traumatic environment as a child. I understood that trauma comes from a situation you can't flee from or fight in, that's where I was at. I had to freeze, and my mind did whatever it could to keep me from cracking. Too bad that I now see that fulfilling all expectations and being so nice meant that the other adults around me had an excuse to think that I was okay. If school goes okay (even though you're bored out of your mind and anxious..) your environment must be okay, you don't need protection! A variation of the theme is my intellect, and how I've been met by others; there seems to be an assumption that if you're intelligent you can't be traumatized or seriously hampered in other respects. My life would be a lot better now had someone seen in what a horrible situation I was in and put a stop to it... 

"In addition to the fear of violence, survivors constantly report an overwhelming sense of helplessness. In the abusive family environment, the exercise of parental power is arbitrary, capricious, and absolute." 

I feel an overwhelming sense of helplessness close to all the time. And it is not only "a sense of" helplessness but a physical and mental freezing, of being immobile and incapable of action. 

"Adaptation to this climate of constant danger requires a state of constant alertness. Children in abusive environments - - become minutely attuned to their abusers' inner states."

I've learned to always have my brains 'on', and to scan my environment, and to be conscious of what others are experiencing. I guess that I'm also empathic by nature (as described by the writer of The Highly Intuitive Child), but that has been made into a frozen defensive structure by the traumatic environment I was in. The reason the attunement happens is to try to gain control by doing exactly what is expected. 

"- - while in a constant state of autonomic hyperarousal, they must also be quiet and immobile, avoiding any physical display of their inner agitation. The result in the peculiar, seething state of "frozen watchfulness" noted in abused children." 

"These children double and redouble their efforts to gain control of the situation in the only way that seems possible, by "trying to be good"." 

Trying to be good does not mean trying something considered good, but doing whatever it is that the abuser (parent, sic) expects or would not get angry about. Which is of course impossible to predict, and a responsibility no child or person should ever have to take. 

"The social lives of abused children are also profoundly limited by the need to keep up appearances and preserve secrecy. Thus, even those children who manage to develop the semblance of a social life experience it as inauthentic." 

I wasn't conscious of this, but I remember suffering with the inauthenticity of my "family". My parents pretended to be normal around others, but were violent and grossly ignorant/negligent whenever others weren't around. I learned to hate the dichotomy. 

"When it is impossible to avoid the reality of the abuse, the child must construct some system of meaning that justifies it. Inevitably the child concludes that her innate badness is the cause." 

I'm sure that I have this. Nowadays I notice that my body (where the trauma lies, I think) is wired for being punished and just surviving through horrible situations, not changing them or getting out of them.  I don't think that I invite retraumatization, I just don't really have the skills to lead an independent authentic life, at least not yet. 

"- - adult survivors - - continue to view themselves with contempt and to take upon themselves the shame and guilt of their abusers." 

I guess that this is where my unconscious attitudes are. I'm still thinking, on, all the time, using thinking as a defense. I think that I am valuble, and unique, and capable to live, but my body disagrees. I don't trust myself to take good care of myself, and when I look at my past there is no reason I would. 

" - - the child victim often becomes a superb performer. - - she usually perceives her performing self as inauthentic and false. Rather, the appreciation of others simply confirms her conviction that no one can truly know her and that, if her secret and true self were recognized, she would be shunned and reviled." 

I certainly see my past as fully inauthentic, and the child trapped in it really unloved and unlucky. 

"Abused children sometimes interpret their victimization within a religious framework of divine purpose." 

I used to have a fantasy that my life was a big scientific experiment. My parents, who both have PhDs in medicine, were forced to treat me with no love to see what would happen. Only when I was dying, in my death bed, would they pour out their love and explain the experiment to me. They were forced to treat me badly, it was not their choice. The truth is, obviously, that they just didn't care. I don't think that I ever took this fantasy for truth, it was just something that came to mind when I was approximately 10 years old. 

"Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative." 

I remember dreaming about being grown-up, respected and capable of taking care of myself. Too bad for me now that my body is ruined in ways that can probably not be fixed. I'm not sure if I have the willingness to live in this broken body now that I finally have the chance. 

"Almost inevitably, the survivor has great difficulty protecting herself in the context of intimate relationships. - - Her empathic attunement to the wishes of others and her automatic, often unconscious habits of obedience also make her vulnerable to anyone in a position of power or authority. " 

My physical disability would not exist had it not been impossible for me to defend myself in the context of a relationship. And I'm terribly terribly bitter. 

"Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice." 

"Eventually, the defensive structure may begin to break down." 

This is where I have been for a few years, maybe.