Should I Just Be Getting Over This Like He Wants?

[sarahcait]

My fiance says that i should be over my childhood/teenage abuse. i just turned 22 in sept. i moved out of my parents house a few months before i turned 18. my mother has depression/anxiety and my dad has an anger problem. since i was born they didnt want me and i stayed mostly with my grandma which was great. i started school when i was 3 almost 4 yrs old and they sent me to a baby sitter where i was molested daily by a teenage boy (embarrassed and shamed cause he did it in front of other people some times), the mother made me eat soap daily, made me have a bath with her son that was much older then me, made me sit naked in front of everyone, threaten to beat me. i told my mom and she laughed at me and said it wasnt true :(. then at home i was starved slowly got less food as my life went on, my mother beat me with a belt couple times a week for years, tons of terrible things happened ill list a few of the worst, my mother told me she hated me and wanted to kill herself because of me. she had my brother 6 years after me and wanted him and gave him everything he needed and wanted right in front of me and made me suffer and hate him. Hid my clothes from me and wouldnt wash them or let me wash them, locked doors so i couldnt get to things like the washer or food, made me eat expired food, moldy food. humiliated me when i stole chocolate bars from her and ate them all, any chance she got she would humiliate me or make me feel shame for what i had to do. never bought tampons, razers, anything like that that i needed i had to steal or ask around for them same with food. told me to leave there house when i was 6 handed me my coat in winter and told me to leave there house(which at 6 is scary) they were just taunting me, my dad beat me and yelled at me in front of everyone and i begged my mom to make him stop and she said i deserve it and all i did was ask for one new outfit from walmart for my first day of high school because i always had second hand clothes that were ugly and too small. then after he did that told me to wash the dishes while they went out as a family to do something fun. also when i was in grade 1 my dad dragged my face across the living room carpet which was a gross strachy carpet that made my face have really bad rug burn and kids at school made fun of me for it. everytime i got sick they didnt take care of me or take me to the dr. i had a terrible ear infection and they picked at my ear and didnt take me to the hospital till i was screaming in pain for days. then one time when i was about 8 i had double pneumonia and they finally took me to the hospital. since i was 7 my mother made me work at various of her jobs paper routes, cleaning apartments, washing dishes for a catering company, and would take the money she said i made. left me alone in our house one summer when i was 14 where a man (19 yr old) stalked me and went to my church and started dating me and kept coming to my house forcing himself on me (sexual stuff not sex thankfully) and my parents new about him but didnt care. i finally got him to go away for good years later but it wasnt easy. He did a lot of creepy stuff to me like hid in the bushes at night in front of my house, hid under my windows and listen to my conversations, take my clothes and hold me down, tell me all this stuff i needed to change, said i cant go anywhere without him, etc. he was a child predator, then when i was 16 i had a best friend (boy) that i loved and trusted but he got me really drunk at a party and raped me and never talked to me again afterwards. so thats some of the horrors that were my life. I stopped talking to my parents but my mother still tries to mess with me a couple times a year calling FB messaging me ect. anyways my Fiance says that this happened a long time ago and i should just get over it by now and that its not happening any more so its fine. is he right am i just holding on to the past for some reason. should i be able to forget all this and move forward b

[Old_Geezer]

That's one heck of a lot of un-paragraphed text to expect someone to read through. That said, and having read the title, when you get over something is your decision not someone else's. If you feel it is spoiling your life and want to see if you can put it behind you then maybe it's time. If you don't, no one else should say you that you should be. (Although they may suggest you would be better off if you could in the hope of helping you.)

[ummmm]

If I had to endure half of that I would be well and truly fecked in the head.

Have you read 'A Boy Called It' ?

[pixie373]

Have you had counselling or any other help? Your fiance needs to support you. His insensitivity won't help.

[woofgang]

he isn't you, he is not allowed to have an opinion on this. Yes it will be better for you to put this down and move on but you need help to do it.

[Old_Geezer]

Having had time to read it now, I hope 'getting off your chest' was a help, but I stick by my initial post. You are just (yes just) 22. You have time to come to terms with the past, and build a decent future. Yes you will benefit when you have made progress, but do so according to your own timetable. The only thing I might add is to ask why your fiancé opted to say something. It may just be a clumsy attempt at concern, or he may be hinting at relationship problems. Next time he mentions it, talk it over with him. Find out what the reason was, try to build understanding between you both.

[andres]

I can't imagine your fiancé just bringing your past up without reason. Have you been talking about it a lot.?I think he is right when he says it is time to 'draw a line on the past'.For your own peace of mind you need to move on.However it could be difficult to do this on your own. Why don't you ask your doctor if you could see a therapist and get the help that you need.You have made a start by pouring your heart out on this site.Now it's time to take the next step.You have had a terrible childhood but there is still a lot of time for you and your fiancé to have happy future. Good luck!!

[Hypognosis]

I think, in his own way, your fiancé is basically trying to get the message across that he is not professionally qualified and therefore can't become your therapist for the rest of your life.

I guess that, if he had any childhood problems that he desperately wanted to share with you, he now can't do that because they'd be puny in comparison with the litany of horrible things you went through. So he just has to bottle all his troubles up and his coping mechanism is to try to get you to detach yourself from old traumas or at least stop bringing it up in conversation. (Your close friends might have the same problem getting their problems to measure up!)

If you were in the UK, you'd be able to get talking therapy on the National Health Service (NHS). It appears you have the misfortune to be living in a country that hates publicly-funded healthcare with a passion. Therapy is there but at a price - presumably beyond your means?

Is it one of the treatments specifically excluded from your health insurance plan? If problems stem from childhood but you start a health plan in your late teens/early 20s, do they weasel out of cover by counting it as a pre-existing condition?

However much your parents could have done with treatment for their problems before they raised kids, presumably they had the same problem of not being able to afford proper treatment or health plan restrictions. That's America for you.

So, your fiancé is wrong, in the sense that you really do need to get those traumas treated so that you can cope and move on with your life but he is right in the sense of that particular solution being as out of reach as a luxury car and that the only alternative is that you 'get over it', of your own accord.