Whooooa boy. There's a whole lot to unpack here. Much of my life has been a sequence of progressively more traumatic experiences, and to list them all would probably throw me into a homicidal rage. I'd rather not make too much mention of those experiences, so I'll try to answer your questions as best I can:
1. As an adult, how do you cope with that?
2. Do you still get intense flashbacks of those times?
3. Have you found peace with that, or do you occasionally get bitter?
4. Any PTSD or depression that you think can be directly traced to those events?
5. Do you ever feel that things would have taken a completely different turn if you had had a diagnosis in your childhood or teenage years, and had gotten the adequate assistance and trainings/therapies?
6. Do you ever feel guilt over times when you didn't stand up for yourself enough, even though you couldn't have in reality, or guilt for times you went too far in defending yourself?
7. What has helped you make up for what you couldn't receive before adulthood?
8. Are you satisfied with the social skills you've developed by your own means?
1) To be quite honest, I don't have many truly effective ways of "coping" with memories of my past. They tend to come back sooner or later, although I have noticed that the past year-and-a-half my life has finally been on a general upswing. To answer your question, I like to listen to angry, nihilistic music with depressing and / or hateful lyrics to try and make sense of my feelings, or I write stories about characters who've been in situations similar to my own. I find those coping strategies, while they don't
eliminate the pain, they dull it just enough that I can function somewhat normally. Alternatively, I sometimes like to fantasize about a perfect utopian world similar to my very early childhood, although this usually makes me even more despondent, as the nostalgia is in such stark contrast to the world as it is now.
2) I get PTSD flashbacks almost every day. I don't have to look far to stumble across some kind of stimuli in my environment that "triggers" vivid, torturous visions of something that has happened to me over the years. For me, it's usually a certain phrase that's said by some passer-by or person in my life (or even the tone of voice they use) that reminds me of a particularly unforgettable incident, or it can be an encounter with a person whose personality matches up with one of my abusers. It's kind of ridiculous when I think about how often I see things on the news or internet that my brain associates with painful events.
3) The only peace I find with my past is fleeting; in the times when things are going well for me I could care less about my traumatic experiences, and even sometimes fantasize about making amends with the past. But most of the time, as horrible as it sounds, the only "peace" I feel like I could ever know would be derived from inflicting some sadistic act of vengeance on one of the plethora of "people" who have wronged me. They have proven time and time again that they are incorrigible, incapable of compassion or reason, and any time they've tried to apologize for what they've done they go back to their old abusive ways sooner or later. (Most of the time, if anything, they believe that what they did was justified and that I brought it all upon myself). For example, it brings me great solace to daydream about curb-stomping one former friend who turned out to be a neo-Nazi. I would be one of the billions of innocent people exterminated if he had his way, so I consider his beliefs an act of personal betrayal. To transfer my suffering onto the subhuman sack of excrement that caused it would be an unspeakably beautiful catharsis, and in doing so I could finally rest with the assurance that they could never betray me or mock my suffering ever again. Until then, I suppose moving up in the world and making them look pathetic will have to suffice.
4) On top of my Asperger's syndrome, I suffer from PTSD and major clinical depression, both conditions I suspected I had for a long time, and now have official diagnoses for from my psychologist. I believe that these mental illnesses were directly formed by the horrible circumstances of my environment growing up, and aggravated by being constantly branded a "p**sy" or "f**got" for having emotions. My aunt and right-wing Christian grandmother making excuses for my mom's abusive behavior and telling me that I'm "just as bad as her" for wanting her brought to justice didn't exactly help things either.
5) I'll admit that this question is a little unclear for me. If you're talking about my Asperger's syndrome, I was diagnosed at around age 11, so I don't think that would have much bearing. I was diagnosed with depression when I was 18 and PTSD just last year (I'm 21 now). In my opinion, the best treatment for any mental health issue is environmental, and not medical: being surrounded by people who love you, take you seriously, value you as one of their equals, and want to facilitate and see your success in life is something that everyone should have a right to. Only just recently have I known this feeling after moving in with my dad, and it's quite humbling. I think that if I'd had this validation growing up, a lot of issues over the course of my youth would've been mitigated or outright avoided.
6) I do feel a lot of guilt about times when I should've stood up, but didn't. On the other hand, I imagine that if I did every time I had the option to, I probably would be in prison by now. Any times I have tried to call out my abusers it's either fallen on deaf ears or been met with retaliation, usually in the form of them accusing me of the same exact crime they're guilty of.
7) Honestly, a lot of the things that my peers took for granted growing up I'm only just beginning to enjoy now. I feel like a r*t*rd in the most literal sense of the word, someone whose developmental milestones take place on a delayed timescale from the rest of the population. It's frustrating and paralyzing. It's as if my b*lls were cut off before they could even drop. I'm 21 years old and still don't have my driver's license, am a virgin, and have been in only two romantic relationships my whole life. However, like I said earlier, I would like to think that my life is improving. I'll be starting my senior year of college in a few weeks, just finished up a summer job, traveled to some cool places this summer, and have made more meaningful social connections in the past year than I have in all my life prior to that point. Ironically, I think the biggest compensation for me missing out on my childhood is making the most of my adulthood, by constantly improving myself and my situation. Who knows, maybe I'll have my own place by age 60.
8) I wouldn't say I'm satisfied with my social skills
yet, but I do think that they can be (and have been) worked with. The man I am now is hopefully not who I'll be in ten years, and definitely not the person I was ten years ago. I'm a big believer in Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of
Übermensch as an archetype of the ideal self, something to aspire toward. Every day I try to narrow the gap between my current self and the
Übermensch. Looking back, I'd like to think I've come a long way. I don't drool, I don't flap my hands, I don't bash my head against the wall, I can tie my shoes, I'm toilet trained, I don't go up to random people and ask them what their favorite locomotive is, and I'm
trying to work on eye contact. While these seem like things that should be a given for most people, for me they're Herculean accomplishments. I think the aforementioned social connections are a testament to my improved social skills. And I still have a long way to go. Now more than ever, I'm motivated to get the most out of life. I owe it to myself to take back the reins, and that I'm just beginning to do.
I hope these answers proved helpful and enlightening for you. I humbly apologize if their tone came off as bitter or off-putting. This is a topic that fills me with indignation, but thankfully I now recognize it as fuel for me to conquer anything that's before me.
