#my spellcheck is set on french and i have dyslexia so i really cant spell for shit

[traumabrained]

Tw for abuse So my parents abuse me, mostly physical from my mother, mostly verbal from my father. I've always coped with the abuse by acting calm and taking it, hiding, or attempting to descalate it and hoping I don't piss them off further. But recently I've started to act out with anger. Not just with them, with my little sister who yells as much as my father, and with animals. Not the ones I own, though. I'm afraid. What's happening to me? I shouldn't be angry. Being angry gets you killed.

while its certainly frightening, its also (as far as i can tell, with my own experiences and the experiences of others i’ve talked to) a normal response. essentially, either your brain thinks it’s safer and is deciding to start processing trauma (which doesn’t seem likely), or else you and your brain are both fed up. there’s really always a limit to how much someone can take, and it looks like you’ve reached that limit. since that can get you in trouble and also cause collateral damage (to the animals, or to your little sister, though “collateral damage” doesnt include self defense), i’m going to give you a few tips that might help you deal with the anger in a way that won’t make your parents abuse even worse.

 (please note that since i dont know your exact situation, some or all of these might not be feasible; if that’s the case, you can message me again with more details if you want? and i’ll look for some different things)

exercise: i know this sounds like everyone’s irritating neurotypical relative but i promise you that if you can do it, it will help. exercise:

  decreases stress and anger

 helps you feel in control (even if you’re not. but it gives you hope, which is very valuable in abusive situations, right?) and 

prepares you for physical attacks, if they get so bad that your options are fight back, run, or die.

im going to assume that you don’t have equipment that you can use, but if you do, use it. if not:

running--can be done anywhere, and it costs no money. if you think you will need to hide it from your parents, then go out very early in the morning, if possible (or late at night, but the morning is usually a lot safer, and no-one will be paying attention to you. literally anyone you pass will be pre-ocupied with going to work or school, and they will usually be too tired to even look up from their coffee). also try to use a specific pair of clothes--t-shirt, shorts if you have them, one sports bra if you use those, to minimize the amount of sweaty clothes you’ll be putting in the wash. during exercise is a good time to maybe think about your abusers--let yourself get mad. let yourself get pissed, if you can, and use the anger to run even harder. i did this a lot when i still lived with my parents, and it probably saved my life.

weights--you can often buy them pretty cheap on amazon or in a store, but if your parents are monitoring your purchases then you can use gallon jugs of water/milk (if they dont buy galons of water/milk then u can buy 1 gallon of water for around 1USD in most stores, which would be easier to hide and explain than any purchase of exercise equipment). fill the gallons with water, and lift them--you can google “dumbbell exercises” for some exercise routines. do this in the early morning if possible.

push-ups/sit-ups--these are probably the least satisfying to do, at least for me? but also the easiest if you aren’t able to get outside early morning, or if you’re absolutely not going to be able to buy any kind of weights. if you can’t do a full push-up, try working up to it by putting your weight on your knees, instead of your toes.

i recommend that you look into proper technique before you do any of these--im just trying to give you ideas.

if exercise isn’t feasible for any reason, then art is the next way to go. a lot of trauma survivors (especially child abuse survivors) write poetry. visual art is also a good outlet but i’ve found that it’s usually a bit less cathartic. if your parents go through your things regularly, then either make a new tumblr account and tell nobody about it, and write your stuff there, or (if tumblr isnt safe) write only on single sheets of printer/notebook paper and burn or shred them immediately after you’re done. 

if you think you’re not a good enough writer to do this, then listen: you’re not writing this for it to be good. you’re not. it doesn’t matter at all. no-one else will ever read it. you don’t even have to read it again. it doesnt have to look or sound good. the only objective is to process your trauma and anger. the plus side is that no matter what, you will improve your writing by doing this, so if you are interested in being a poet, or already are, then writing trauma poetry will only help you. i recommend poetry instead of prose (prose is anything that isn’t poetry) because you don’t have to worry about structure, or about it making sense/having a plot. it can be really hard at first, especially if you don’t usually write a lot. if you need to, you can try using these prompts (they probably arent all applicable but if you can finish any of these sentences in your head, then you can write a poem about it) (possible trigger warning, skip the bullet points if you need to)(i’m just going to use “they” because any gender of person could do this and i don’t want to make assumptions but you can swap out the pronouns if necessary)

they wouldn’t stop ...

i don’t feel safe ...

they hit me when ...

i feel like i stopped existing at [age]...

i don’t want to be here ...

when you are writing, let yourself get mad, if possible. nothing you write will have any consequences if you burn the page, right? nothing is out of bounds. write anything and everything. write about how they’ll burn in hell. about how you hope they get murdered gruesomely. about how you’ll rip them into pieces the next time they touch you. anything. if you can’t summon anger, that’s okay. you can also write about how you feel like you’re rotting. you can write about how you miss when they were good to you. or how they were never good to you, but you miss it anyway. about how when you get out, you’ll have a nice apartment with someone you love (platonically or romantically, it doesnt matter), and maybe a pet, and how you’ll go to the bakery down the street sometimes and get croissants and sit in the sun and how it will be okay. how you’ll never have to see them again. how safe you’ll be. how happy you’ll be.

any of that will be cathartic, i promise you. i started writing poetry at the age of 12, and all of it was about my abuse. it was bad--i went back and read it a few months ago, and i’ve improved a hell of a lot since then. i’ve worked through a lot of my trauma, partially with a therapist, but mostly with my writing. it’s easier than therapy for me, because no-one else can see me while i do it. it’s easier to break down every part of the abuse, to analyze it. and after writing a poem, i always feel drained, like i just lanced an infection or something. i dont know. but writing works. i promise.

therapy is the last thing thing on my list here because its very inaccessable to a lot of people. minors, anyone without insurance, or anyone in a rural area is going to have a hell of a time getting therapy, you know? so that’s why its last. if you have a good therapist, it’ll probably be the most helpful of all of these, but even that is a hit and miss (i’ve seen at least a dozen therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and mixtures of both, and i always seem to get the people who don’t believe me, who think that yelling at me will fix problems, who report everything to my parents. but not everyone’s like that--i just have some incredibly shit luck).

if you can get a therapist, do. they can help immensely. if you can’t, then try the other things until you can get to a position where therapy is accessable for you.

i hope this helped, im sorry its so long? and im sorry it took like a week gah

#also i hope theres not too many spelling mistakes #my spellcheck is set on french and i have dyslexia so i really cant spell for shit #though i read over this a few times and caught a lot so hopefully its good #anonyme #child abuse #actuallyptsd