Comment on How abnormal is it for a mother to be her son a fleshlight for his 18th birthday?
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoHe has been sexually abused by her, perhaps covertly. There is enough in what you described that if I was a mandated reporter, I’d be making a call. From what I know of CSA, he has multiple flags and signs of being sexually abused.
Highly recommend, when you feel okay to do so, to look up emotional incest first, and parentification/adultification. That will explain how your mother has been grooming your brother to be her stand-in husband. The reason she didn’t want him to go to school is because a husband her age wouldn’t go to school.
It sounds like your mom also had an emotionally incestuous relationship with you as well, so reading that material can be extremely “triggering” for you. My sincere condolences, it is very traumatizing. Reading about it can bring up old memories as your brain tries to organize old memories with this new information. Often people get tired, agitated, or even regress in age. Give yourself plenty of time to mentally adjust and read and lots of breaks outside walking around, ideally in nature, w eyeballs moving around. OR you can try to play a game like Tetris afterwards (Tetris is specifically studied as being helpful for PTSD/trauma).
I will also rec the book The Borderline Mother, I’m not sure this applies to her at all, but my guess is that it does
waitaminute@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Oh, almost everything in that reddit post resonates with me over my experience with my mom.
That’s a lot to take in. Thanks for sharing. Oof
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be honest, opening this knowledge up can be overwhelming and can take years. Take your time with it. I still get new memories of abuse that my brain had sort of locked away, it gets easier to assimilate over time though once you have a good foundation/framework for the trauma. The 2 best things for you to remember, is that 1) your mom’s traits are hers, not automatically yours or every mom’s or every woman’s, because she has her own mental illness that is just a “her” thing and 2) good rolemodels you had as a kid besides her, even teachers or therapists.
waitaminute@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Actually your first point is currently what I am worrying over. I went back and read through the whole thing but with me as a parent as the perspective and was trying to see if I am doing any of it as well.
I can’t stop reading and it’s midnight and I should stop reading. Lol. Feels like I opened a can of worms.
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
There’s always tomorrow. It’s a good sign you don’t want to be like the person who hurt you and already differentiates you from them as a parent. You are already doing better than your mom by thinking that.
That “worms” feeling and the staying up late is because your brain is using histamine and adrenaline (plus other stuff) to make a lot of neural connections that were already close by. It will mildly restrict blood flow from smaller capillaries too. You can keep that busy or more switched off mentally by exercising and especially doing something that moves your eyes and the muscles under your eyes, eg face yoga. That gets the circulation going back into the small capillaries and helps you reset biochemically. Even just flexing your undereyes (like John Wayne squints) will encourage blood flow in your face and help.
It is a lot of work and pain now, but it is absolutely worth it to see through the bullshit and heal yourself. I am a happier person for it 1000%. It’s worth it to be brave but go slow and don’t push it. Take breaks.
Therapists can be hit or miss (a bad one is worse than no therapist), but you can find one that specializes in BPD that can help guide you (not that you per se have it, but they work with it a lot and can help you understand it really well). BPD, even residual fleas from parents, is VERY treatable with dialectal behavior therapy and talk therapy as long as the person wants to learn and the therapist is adequate (some aren’t).