That's seriously awful.

I'm glad you have a sense of humor because that seems like one of the helpful reactions that could arise from such a nightmare.

> They would often bring me in front of the school's psychologist and he would make me cry in front of them, always blaming me, never once asking me what was going on at home.

It's remarkable how institutions (the school psychologist in your case) often re-inflict the trauma that is going on at home. It's their job to protect the child, but often they do the opposite, and it's worth asking why. I experienced this myself, though in a very different context—everyone's story is unique of course.

Good for you for surviving, and best wishes for growth and healing.

> It's remarkable how institutions (the school psychologist in your case) often re-inflict the trauma that is going on at home. It's their job to protect the child, but often they do the opposite, and it's worth asking why. I experienced this myself, though in a very different context—everyone's story is unique of course.

I think the simplest explanation here is Sturgeon's law: 90% of everything is crud. This goes for members of institutions as well, even if they aren't overworked, underpaid, and undertrained as so many are.

On top of that, abusers are often charming and highly skilled liars and manipulators. To get away with it for an extended period of time it is necessary to convince the victims that institutions won't help them, so performing abuse in front of a representative of the institution can be a ploy to reinforce their power. If the school psychologist had been likely to challenge the abusers, they likely would have picked a different authority figure (teacher, principal, &c.).

The abusers really can go from threatening a six year old with what sounds like credible threats to making the adults laugh within seconds without any visible whiplash.

And the will to deny is extremely strong; to believe the child one has to revamp one's beliefs about society in a large and risky direction.

They genuinely believe that everything is justified; even if they hide what they are doing from public view. "I do this because I care about you, other parents would have given up a long time ago". The hiding is also blamed on the child, claiming that he or she is the one that would destroy their reputation if words got out of what he or she did and what the extend of what the parents had to do to "remedy" the situation.

Thank you for the kind words!

In my experience, and not only with that instance, power defers to power. An unruly child's pleadings will never prevail over his parents that are really good at making themselves appear as victims (http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-miss...). Or as famous lawyer Gerry Spence said, "the gentleman of the bar is there for the other gentleman of the bar".

Also, let's not deny it, I was not a nice and adults would not be nice in return and I would respond in kind. I was a reflection of what was going at home. This makes other adults not want to be nice at all. I can't count the times where I was told "oops, we forgot to bring one for you" or something along those lines.

> It's their job to protect the child, but often they do the opposite, and it's worth asking why.

It seems pretty simple to me why. If we were talking about a job in tech, there would be 10,000 snarky responses about how it was obvious that this project manager or that maintenance developer was just protecting their job. Same here. Rocking the boat as a guidance counselor or anything like that just invites complaints (warranted or not), and in those roles they're judged by the school administrators on how many (or few) complaints are received. Same as teachers, I think. And though I've read no stories from school psychologists, teachers who get even a few complaints find themselves unwelcome in that district.

Maybe my speculation is wrong in this regard, but if so, I can't see the flaw in it.

I had a very similar upbringing friend, I am so sorry to hear it. It's left me with life long deficiencies that haunt me to today, even when I don't realise it. It's tough.

It's always the deficiencies that are invisible that are the most vicious. You know that something is wrong with you but you can't tell what, why or what.

Sorry You had to go through that...

But if we're doing an AMA : mind writing a bit more about the recovery? You mentioned humor as a coping strategy, so that makes me think You've probably been through some kind of introspection / therapy. Mind writing a bit more on what worked / didn't in Your case?

I would say that recovery started when I got out of the house for university. I picked a university that was at least 6 hours of driving away.

It was absolutely terrible and laborious; yet necessary. Being not socialized and not able to leave home alone for a very long time made me basically afraid of going outside the campus; I had to learn most life lessons people go through from childhood to early adulthood from scratch. People don't forgive you when you're an adult. Abusers love dependent children, even if they lament all the time that "you cost too much".

One of the things that's hard is separating the actual good parenting lessons from the abuse. From basic hygiene to on how to behave socially. Everything was laced in some kind of humiliation. "I told you this would happen, you think you're smarter than me haha!" kind of routine all the time.

I've never had therapy nor did I seek professional help. The bad experiences I've had with psychologists and other "professionals" that sided believed my parents by default were enough for me. This is not what I recommend, but I just can't let myself be vulnerable by the same kind of people again. It's like asking a severe burns victim to go through a firefighting course with live exercises. I have the chance of being smart and deeply introspective, but this is not perfect and very slow and fraught with painful mistakes. Just like most people should not represent themselves in a court of law, even if they're lawyers, I would not recommend doing that.

I mainly relied on the podcasts, shows and books from mental health professionals and also public forums, although I didn't really participate. Writing this stuff used to hurt a lot with a lot of flashbacks. Basically I did my own research, haha. Putting words to emotions and situations helps a lot, because abusers love twisting words, concepts and using logical fallacies to justify themselves. Also learning that I am not alone and that was happened to me was not right nor justified really helped a lot and was very validating.

I'm not done healing and probably never will be healed, but there is resilience and confidence that comes with successfully surmounting adversity.

The lack of a clear notion of boundaries or self and thus ability to stand for yourself is a very subtle and deep problem. Good luck.

Yeah, I always assume that I'm the one whose presence is at best a privilege. It takes a lot of effort to take my proper place and stand up for myself. I'll never forgive them for putting this curse inside of me. Now words got out of what they did to me and my sisters and they pretty much have to hide. They deserve everything bad happening to them.

I had the displeasure of having to erode myself to survive after realising all this, it was horrendous, because I was now aware of what I needed to do for my own health but couldn't.

Do you have siblings? How have they turned out?

I have two older sisters. They are way older than me, which means they left for college when I was very young (when I was bout 5 or 6). I don't think they went through the same stuff as me, but still lived through a lot of very fucked up shit. We live in the same city and are very close, we see each other for their kids birthday and all of that. I'm very lucky to have them.

I know why my mother had me years later, because when my father was angry he would yell at my mother "it's you who wanted another, so take care of him", but with more vicious insults. It turns out that when my mother had her first pregnancy, she was supposed to have a son but had a miscarriage in the toilet. I think this pretty much explains her using me to satisfy her emotional needs all the time; I literally was her emotional garbage can. Telling me how she feels like an ATM for the family, how she's lonely and not taken seriously by others; things that a husband have to deal with, not a child.

So anyway, my sisters began to extended family members about what happened in our house when they were young and also of what happened to me. Like me, it probably took them years to unshame themselves and flip the culpability unto the abusers. It created a scandal I think in the extended family, although always very hush hush, as is usual in small rural places.

My parents probably got a word of what my sisters told about them and then when my oldest sister got her first child, it was actually my parents who stopped talking to them. They never told me why they stopped talking to my sisters, but we figured it out. For some reason that enraged my father and forced my mother to stop talking to them but not to me. After a few years I got tired of seeing them trying to play nice and burning bridges after bridges with other family members and family friends, and I decided to cut them off. Although my sisters never made any kind of ultimatum, I could see how my parents were throwing a wrench between my and my sisters by only talking to me and not to them.

There are more details to this sordid story. It really could make for a full TV drama episode; these people love drama and being the victim. Don't fall for their game.

>Once I applied for a job that required a high security clearance. I had to write "all the traumas of your childhood and your adolescence".

Huh? I don't recall those questions on my clearance application. Was this a SF-86?

Canadian stuff ;)

To be honest I would have been deeply uncomfortable with that. My SF-86 was invasive enough and I later found out that information had been leaked in a hack of OPM. I would have absolutely imploded if it included background from my childhood.

From my point of view, the government already has most of my most personal stuff due to my time to CPS and what my parents told them (and possibly made up).

Anyway I've handwritten it, I guess the rest is up to their security lol.

But yeah, that's terrifying if people that know me would have it; information is power after all.