Child Abuse Story From Kellen

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Child Abuse Story From Kellen

by Kellen
(Location Undisclosed)

I've recently realized I've been affected by child abuse:
I am 23 years old. I've been pretty depressed and reclusive the last few months and am just starting to get back into the swing of things. Reading on the internet recently, I am just now starting to understand the impact that childhood abuse from my family has had on me.

In the past, I have always played it down and was in a state of denial of the severity of its effects. I even joked about it. I guess the people around me didn't see any humor in it, but nobody had ever really spoken up to me about it until now. Reading around on the internet, I've been beginning to realize I fit the bill for just about everything listed. Even with the information right in front of me I was pretty reluctant and it took me quite a while to accept it. I am really sorry to the people who I've unfairly placed my burdens on and hurt in the past.

I have been living with my sibling, and my other sibling just recently moved back home after being away for 5 years. I am very young in my family and never really understood the things that were going on, and have had my share of distractions having been away at school and working for most of the last 5 years. It's being around my other siblings that has really pointed out my own issues I need to deal with. I am so grateful that I have realized this early on and to have the opportunity to get help. I have decided I will do my part to educate myself on the subject. I want to get involved in the community as well, but do not know where to start.

I want to thank you for doing your part to raise awareness in the community about child abuse over the internet, and giving people the opportunity to pursue help. It has really helped me just to know that I am not alone in this and that there are people who can give support.

Note from Darlene: The volume of contributor submissions has now made it impossible for me to comment personally (especially in great detail) on each and every contribution. If I haven't left you a comment or one that is in-depth, please do not take my lack of a personal response as a slight, or as a statement that your story is somehow unworthy of my time. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, could be further from the truth. If there was a way for me to respond to all of you at length, I would.

Email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses AND website/blog URLs in visitor comments are STRICTLY prohibited, and could result in being banned from making further comments on this site.

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Child Abuse Story From Kellen

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May 03, 2009

Part 1: The danger of using knowledge to circumvent pain...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

Knowledge is power, Kellen. When we understand what happened to us, and then realize how what happened affected us, then we can take steps to move forward. When we don't acknowledge these things, we can't make the changes required to move forward.

Kellen, many child abuse victims don't come to realize what you have until they are in their 40s, 50s, 60s. Some never do. Some live a lifetime of anger and hostility that festers to the point that it infects everyone around them. You are not going to be that person. You've reached a point in your life where you know you must do something; I commend you for your wisdom, Kellen.

Education is key, but so is getting help. I spent the better part of my late teens and early 20s reading every self-help book I could get my hands on. I was obsessed with learning about myself, my parents, and the mental outcome of what both they and I endured as children. And while I believe this was a very necessary step for me and my own personal healing, there came a point when I had to come to terms with the fact that reading about abuse and its effects, reading about the human brain and how to heal was no longer doing what I had intended. I was 24 years old and borderline anorexic, but not before I had reached over 300 pounds. I had no friends. Work was hell as I struggled with relationships with my peers. I was depressed and crying all the time. What I was doing wasn't working. The pain I thought was buried wasn't just threatening to surface, I had become incapable of keeping it buried.

See Part 2: Unearthing buried pain in therapy/counselling... below.

Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

May 03, 2009

Part 2: Unearthing buried pain in therapy/counselling...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

In therapy I learned that all that reading I was doing was a way for me to make excuses for what happened to me instead of facing the deeply buried emotions. I learned that I was trying to find logical reasons for my mother's malicious abuse against me in order to avoid feeling the pain of her maliciousness. That pain had manifested itself in every aspect of my life.

What's interesting Kellen is that when I was done with therapy, having gone through the process of unearthing my emotions in a safe place and then dealing with them, I ended in the mental place I was looking to get to by circumventing it in the first place: understanding and acceptance, but this time without the emotional residue. It was life-altering. I want the same for you, for all who suffer with the effects of child abuse.

I do hope you'll consider some form of counselling to help you with the emotional residue of growing up with childhood abuse. Once you get yourself on a healthy path you will be in a better position to help others in your community. But leaving supportive and validating comments to others on this site is a great way to get involved with this community, Kellen. You might find it cathartic as well.

Thank you for sharing your story with my visitors and me.

Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

May 04, 2009

great you've found darlene's site and acknowledge how good it is.
by: Maurice

Kellen, reading your story and Darlene's comments to you. great you found each other at this time of your lifes journey. She's ever so positive in her caring/loving words of help/advice and suggesting wha steps each of her visitors need to take from the NOW TIME in their life. Yes, it is important we begin to learn what abuse is all about and what happened to us in it. We must move on, kick bottom and get out and about doing something to learn more about ourselves and how to hadle the abuse that happened to us in our lives. Each one to himself/herself in how we do it. But all the knowledge about abuse won't make me a more beautiful person If I don't get the help I need to be pro-active in doing something about it for myself. Kellen, Darlene emphatises with you, her words of love and help take note of them and act on them. We can spend alot of time brooding over the effects of abuse on us, but we need to let go and get off our bottoms and begin the healing process that will really help us live our lives to the full each day we wake up.

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Child Abuse Story From Kellen

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Child Abuse Story From Kellen