Child Abuse Story From
Lyn

Lyn is from Banning, California, USA

The following child abuse story from Lyn depicts violent physical abuse and emotional abuse.

The child abuse effects on Lyn: suicidal tendencies, fear of criticism, experimentation with drugs, post traumatic stress disorder, general anxiety disorder, and recurrent major depression. Lyn also experiences dissociative episodes, has difficulty controlling her emotions, and questions her religious beliefs, all due to her abusive childhood.

I received the following submission from Lyn through the Comments form on my Physical Child Abuse Effects page on this site. I wrote to Lyn for permission to post her comments on this child abuse stories page. She agreed, then subsequently sent me additional installments to include, all of which follow.

A couple other effects are:

If the abuser (in my case, my Mother) pretends to be "godly" and shoves the doctrines down your throat, all the while beating you to an inch of your life, you can really struggle with trusting God. I have a fear of His loving hand. I fear and mistrust anyone who claims to want to get close to me or who claims to love me. I don't understand how or why they could love me. This is very painful, lonely, and finally, guilt causing (in the case of God).

Secondly, I have difficulty with shutting down my emotions when they get too intense--I'm sure this comes from not being allowed to cry, and if I did, I was hit again and/or ridiculed for doing so (told I was feeling sorry for myself). Now, if the past emotions overwhelm me, I feel very guilty and "self-centered".

Note from Darlene: I updated my physical child abuse effects page, as well as my emotional abuse effects page to reflect the suggestions Lyn had to offer.

Yes, Darlene, I will share my story. In answer to your question, I am 51.

Note from Darlene: I'm not in the habit of asking people who communicate with me what their age is. In my email to Lyn, I mentioned that she hadn't told me her age, only because when I offered her resources and advice on who she could contact for help for herself, I didn't know if it should include a trusted teacher, school counsellor, or a licensed therapist.

I am proof that if abused children DO NOT deal with their abuse (getting professional help at a younger age), it will rise up and overwhelm them when there are current life crisis'--I wish I had known this. It has been hell. I have tried to kill myself 5 times in the last 10 years--2 times I almost succeeded (I just couldn't care enough to continue enduring the pain). I have gone to counseling and skirted around what the real problem has been--too ashamed and afraid maybe my Mother was right that I am a bad person.

I am a mother of 2 grown children, and I NEVER abused them. It was easy for me to see them as innocent children undeserving of abuse (unlike myself). Their love for me is an amazement to me and difficult to understand.

I was a 5th grade teacher for 11 years with a great reputation of being kind and fair, until I contracted Multiple Sclerosis. I am not telling these things to get a "pat-on-the-back". I state these things to show that there are times that you can appear to be "normal". But, I was dying inside, afraid of criticism and so I worked myself to the point of serious illness. I had a very violently abusive mother and a passive or absent (due to extended business trips around the world) father. She my mother used knives, hammers, whatever was around. I have brain damage to my medulla oblongata caused by the severe pounding.

I do not remember much of my childhood, but neither do my siblings. I was the 3rd of 5 children, but the oldest daughter, and my mother had it out for me from apparently the beginning, the beatings and screaming was pretty much daily. I even have had dissociative episodes (but, thank God, I do not have multiple personalities). My teenage brothers could not pull her off of me, so the best they could do was hide my younger siblings in a closet (my sister is claustrophobic). I remember suddenly standing between my brothers, watching, as my mother sat on me and beat me--I saw her from her back!, but I could not see my face. She has told me she hated me, and I torture myself with the idea that maybe there is a reason for her hate--I just don't know what it is ...

I am still on this journey, but I have a kind and very good (I've seen so many, I'm an authority!!) licensed therapist who is one of 20 pastors in my church (large churches here in Southern California). The church hired him for just this reason--to counsel the hurting ... I have God/Spirituality issues because of my family dynamics and he is gently showing me the real God of the Bible ....

I know this is a long story, but I don't know how to shorten it--what to leave out? My prayers are for my "fellow sufferers".

Darlene, just a "footnote". I left home at 18 years and joined the US Air Force. I was scared to death, but the beatings stopped and I could support myself and later use the G.I. Bill to go to college ...

I experimented with various drugs while in the Air Force and the first time I smoked pot was the FIRST time I EVER remember being able to relax ...

I am diagnosed with PTSD post traumatic stress disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, and Major Depression, Recurrent (at least that is what is in the charts).

Darlene, I'm sorry about this email, but I am having difficulty with my memory due to having medication resistant depression and I have now had 12 sessions of ECT (known as shock therapy). I am not sure I will allow anymore done due to my difficulty with memory and cognitive problems (usually they continue for life, I'm told, but not with MY brain!)

What made my "normal" life that I had carefully constructed come crashing down, was my last year of teaching in 1996. I became privy to information that our vice-principal was being sexually inappropriate with a Junior High young lady (I had taught her in 5th grade), and that it had been covered up for 9 months by his "best buddy", the principal and the superintendent. I had to become the whistle-blower, because no one else would.

It was at the end of April (near the end of school) when I confronted the principal (and called the abuse into the state department). From that time forward, I received MAJOR harassment; the teachers would not stand with me out of concern for their jobs, and the Pastor/elders immediately put me under suspicion. When I called the state (twice) they told me THEY HAD NO JURISDICTION OVER A PRIVATE SCHOOL! I didn't think this was true, but I couldn't get anyone from that state department to listen to me.

The principal manipulated my contract and had a new teacher sign it for the next year (I had been there for 7 years with excellent evaluations). During this time, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, because I was going blind in my right eye AND my daughter had to be admitted to a hospital for 2 1/2months for bulimia, not a good month and a half ... I finally had to ask for mediation and had to hire a lawyer to get the church and school board to fire him! After 10 months, out of work with MS, depositions, hostile meetings and 10 hours of mediation, the principal admitted, inadvertently, to the cover-up and they found through reluctantly held depositions that the perpetrator had a long list of questionable behavior. I was absolved, the students were safe from the v.p. vice-principal, but my physical and mental health were a mess.

My daughter is doing great today, but all of this brought on Major Depression, financial ruin (they were told to pay me my salary for the lost year--but they didn't and it was a PRIVATE mediation company). THIS is what triggered my past overtaking my present.