3 ms·

I had a similar thing happen to me. My parents split when I was at two. At five, my brother was sent to live with my father. A year later, I was sent to live th

I had a similar thing happen to me. My parents split when I was at two. At five, my brother was sent to live with my father. A year later, I was sent to live there, too. I can still remember lying awake at my father's house, crying out "I want my mummy", and my father coming in to tell me to be quiet. Growing up, I didn't understand why everyone else found it so easy to get a girlfriend. Any time I got close, I'd suddenly get the urge to run away -- and I would. Now, in my thirties, I have a better understanding of where that fear comes from, but the wires in my head are still tangled, and I don't know if I'll be able to get them untangled in time.

bowsamic 3y ago
Yes, sounds very similar. For me, my earliest two memories are the following: a dream-like memory of my mum leaving and me being distraught and confused, and then the oft-told "funny" story of my dad hiding away in my bathroom while I was screaming sticking my fingers under the door. For a long time I thought I had no trauma, because I was not abused and suffered no violence, but now I realise that's a very naive view. After a few years I visited my mum every other weekend, which was confusing and stressful for me, since I loved being there so much, but it created a kind of tension between my "real life" with my dad, and this dream place I would go to every other weekend. When I was a teenager the symptoms of the trauma started appearing. I was very jealous and depressed. Even today, even though I am happily married, I feel somehow hurt and confused if I think about other people having sex. I'm quite lucky I managed to get with my now-wife at 18, because she "straightened me out" in many ways. And regarding my wife (then girlfriend), I would so often get really worried she was going to leave or that I'd upset her. I would ask constantly "are you okay?" or "have I upset you?", she was very frustrated by it. But of course, it makes perfect sense, my fundamental worldview is that the people you deeply love go away, and of course I blamed myself. So I now find it difficult to get close to people, because I'm scared of getting hurt like that original pain. And I'm convinced everything is my fault, and every failure reminds me of that initial "failure" where, in my own subjective thinking, I was bad enough that I pushed her love away. Therefore, if I feel a sense of struggle, it literally feels like the world is ending, since that is the original fear. This all came to a head in 2022 and 2023 when I moved to Germany and started having issues with my Physics postdoc work, and was not receiving any help from my boss. I really spiralled down into a deep sense of hopelessness, and just kind of accepted that my world had ended. I stopped going into work because as an academic no one cares if you're there anyway, and eventually I had to take extended sick leave. I'm now finally climbing out again, and I have hope again, but it has taken hundreds of hours of work with my therapist, and we've now upgraded to three sessions a week, which are definitely worth it. I'm very glad to have moved from the UK to Germany, there is absolutely zero chance I would have gotten this support in the UK, and I get my therapy totally for free too. I think she thinks I'm a reasonably worthy case for it though... The fact I can type any of the stuff I just did is entirely a result of the therapy. At the beginning I was just purely confused. I had no idea what was wrong.
- em-bee 3y ago
  i went through similar experiences with parents seperating, getting divorced, moving around, causing us to switch schools, (grade 4 was the first time i spent a whole school year in the same school), even living with foster parents for some time. the big difference, my parents were never close, my mother has asbergers (a fact i only learned very recently), and my dad was born late in the war, fleeing bombs, both which strongly affected their ability to show love to us children. however my reaction to all this was very different. i didn't develop separation anxiety, i rather expunged all this dramatic experience from memory. and apparently what i learned is that it is useless to fight for someone. that made finding a partner difficult as it required them to make the first move, but then as long as we are together, and we are able to show affection for each other, things are fine, and i remain loyal and dedicated to her, but if she started to show signs of rejecting me for whatever reason i'd simply give up without shedding a tear as if it just wasn't meant to be, like all the times before. i also seemed to have developed a fear of loneliness. not in the short term. being alone for some time, even weeks or months is fine at least as long as there is regular interaction with others. but it's very hard for me to work by myself and if someone were to tell me i'd remain alone for the rest of my life, i think i'd panic. interestingly my brothers didn't have the same reaction. i was the only one who got married and has kids. one of my brothers got treated for depression. i suppose the stoic nature that i developed saved me from that, but in light of the article, it is probably also because i am the oldest, so the traumatic experiences hit me at an older age than my brothers. and all of this didn't become clear to me until recently. it took that long to reflect and go through various experiences good and bad for me to figure this all out.

bowsamic 3y ago

Yes, sounds very similar. For me, my earliest two memories are the following: a dream-like memory of my mum leaving and me being distraught and confused, and then the oft-told "funny" story of my dad hiding away in my bathroom while I was screaming sticking my fingers under the door. For a long time I thought I had no trauma, because I was not abused and suffered no violence, but now I realise that's a very naive view. After a few years I visited my mum every other weekend, which was confusing and stressful for me, since I loved being there so much, but it created a kind of tension between my "real life" with my dad, and this dream place I would go to every other weekend. When I was a teenager the symptoms of the trauma started appearing. I was very jealous and depressed. Even today, even though I am happily married, I feel somehow hurt and confused if I think about other people having sex. I'm quite lucky I managed to get with my now-wife at 18, because she "straightened me out" in many ways. And regarding my wife (then girlfriend), I would so often get really worried she was going to leave or that I'd upset her. I would ask constantly "are you okay?" or "have I upset you?", she was very frustrated by it. But of course, it makes perfect sense, my fundamental worldview is that the people you deeply love go away, and of course I blamed myself. So I now find it difficult to get close to people, because I'm scared of getting hurt like that original pain. And I'm convinced everything is my fault, and every failure reminds me of that initial "failure" where, in my own subjective thinking, I was bad enough that I pushed her love away. Therefore, if I feel a sense of struggle, it literally feels like the world is ending, since that is the original fear. This all came to a head in 2022 and 2023 when I moved to Germany and started having issues with my Physics postdoc work, and was not receiving any help from my boss. I really spiralled down into a deep sense of hopelessness, and just kind of accepted that my world had ended. I stopped going into work because as an academic no one cares if you're there anyway, and eventually I had to take extended sick leave. I'm now finally climbing out again, and I have hope again, but it has taken hundreds of hours of work with my therapist, and we've now upgraded to three sessions a week, which are definitely worth it. I'm very glad to have moved from the UK to Germany, there is absolutely zero chance I would have gotten this support in the UK, and I get my therapy totally for free too. I think she thinks I'm a reasonably worthy case for it though... The fact I can type any of the stuff I just did is entirely a result of the therapy. At the beginning I was just purely confused. I had no idea what was wrong.

em-bee 3y ago
i went through similar experiences with parents seperating, getting divorced, moving around, causing us to switch schools, (grade 4 was the first time i spent a whole school year in the same school), even living with foster parents for some time. the big difference, my parents were never close, my mother has asbergers (a fact i only learned very recently), and my dad was born late in the war, fleeing bombs, both which strongly affected their ability to show love to us children. however my reaction to all this was very different. i didn't develop separation anxiety, i rather expunged all this dramatic experience from memory. and apparently what i learned is that it is useless to fight for someone. that made finding a partner difficult as it required them to make the first move, but then as long as we are together, and we are able to show affection for each other, things are fine, and i remain loyal and dedicated to her, but if she started to show signs of rejecting me for whatever reason i'd simply give up without shedding a tear as if it just wasn't meant to be, like all the times before. i also seemed to have developed a fear of loneliness. not in the short term. being alone for some time, even weeks or months is fine at least as long as there is regular interaction with others. but it's very hard for me to work by myself and if someone were to tell me i'd remain alone for the rest of my life, i think i'd panic. interestingly my brothers didn't have the same reaction. i was the only one who got married and has kids. one of my brothers got treated for depression. i suppose the stoic nature that i developed saved me from that, but in light of the article, it is probably also because i am the oldest, so the traumatic experiences hit me at an older age than my brothers. and all of this didn't become clear to me until recently. it took that long to reflect and go through various experiences good and bad for me to figure this all out.