Link – How Emotional Abuse as a Child Made It Hard for Me to ‘Take Up Space’
This was a really interesting read to me, because I have always been of the belief that one of the worst things about growing up in an abusive situation is that you don’t ever really see yourself in a realistic way. I’ve always talked specifically about how surviving physical and/or sexual abuse is a full time job, and so you don’t develop a sense of self that you are supposed to as a child, and that makes it difficult to navigate adult life.
In this article though, we see how emotional abuse can lead directly to feeling like you have no value, and bring nothing in to the world, and how that can affect you throughout life. Once you believe those sorts of things about yourself, it can be very difficult to see anything other than that, despite it being so far from the truth.
Yes I agree with that statement..I struggle with that almost everyday. Why am I here? What can I contribute in a positive way to the world around me…I see value in others but not in myself.
My therapist is having me take a test about deregulation,depersonalization….1/2 way threw it …very triggering…
It seems endless…finding issues…first it was PTSD, the C-PTSD, now something else…geez!!
Vanessa, yes, it’s a sad part of not being able to learn about the world and our place in it as a child is trying to figure it out after being told a number of damaging things, whether through words or actions. Keep up the work. It’s hard but learning about how you’ve been affected will help you start to see your value and the role you have to play in the lives of people around you.