Breaking the Silence of Parental Emotional Abuse
In my late twenties, I found myself wondering if I had been raised in an abusive home. And I was horrified with myself for even considering it.
When a book-on-CD at the library caught my eye, “Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers,” I hid the case in my car so no one would see.
No one could see me doubt my upbringing. No one could know.
Unpacking a traumatic childhood is a lot of work. It’s hard to piece together enough evidence to convince myself and others that I was abused, because emotional abuse is like death by a thousand cuts.
Any one example on its own can be brushed off as a rough patch or a bad day. There aren’t bruises or scars I can point to in order to show you where and how I was hurt. The behavioral responses from emotional trauma develop over time amidst issues like depression, anxiety, and complex PTSD.
Identifying the trauma
I started seeing a therapist when I was 14 after writing in my diary about wanting to die. My mom thought the therapist was indulging me and that there was nothing actually wrong besides routine teenage angst.
The messages I had ingrained into my head from puberty onward were things like:
