Did you have a bad childhood or abusive parents?

[Carnelian]

Hi--
I am wondering if those of you who experience depression and or anxiety a lot have had or still have
abusive (verbally or physically) mother or father? Or just a bad childhood with unpleasant memories.
Besides medicine, how do you cope with it? Is it depressing to think about?
And what if you can't tell your parents (because they are dead or won't listen)--
My parents would deny everything and blame it on me, if I told them. It is easy to say
live for the future and forget about it but that is not always easy.

[Ponder]

It can take decades before family members are prepared to even start dealing with deep seeded suffering as a result of childhood and or parental abuse. I'm not sure one ever gets over a traumatic upbringing as early experiences in life set the foundation for what follows. The PTSD that comes from a broken childhood typically results in multiple chronic psychological disorders that chemical solutions, mental health practices and methodologies can never cure. Whilst at different times I have found medications and mental health supports helpful in easing some of my pain, my experience has shown me that there is no recovery without an ability to allow oneself to shed suffering through deeply and completely accepting oneself. I'd also add to that the acceptance of others to be just as important with regards to the healing process. I have found the latter only takes place when I accept myself. Yet I find it is in the forgiving of others the more I am able to find myself; whatever that self be. It's not uncommon that emotional trauma leave us with an identity crisis where one spends the rest of their life searching for an end without knowing what that end is. My version of a bottomless pit that perhaps does not end until the searching itself stops.

Best I can say is that the term forgiveness I use is not the same as a proclamation made during an audible prayer. I mean it's not something you can put into words and tell another/s. It comes from deep down and requires it's own individual process where no analysis can take place. I'm always having to purge myself or much frustration and confusion that regularly builds up and blocks my otherwise ability to live and let live. Yes ... I think live and let live sounds less pious than the word forgive. I will agree with my wife that the term forgive is as tainted as the word God. I guess it all depends on your perspective ... past experience. Renaming with respect to those who actually find peace with those former terms.

Basically trying to see it from another's perspective really helps to detach from all that clinging ... cling to one's pain. Detachment from long term negative behavioral patterns can be very hard. I'm trying to avoid using clinical terms here because I feel for all the confusion that can be read from my own esoteric like babbling, the same can be said for academic like posts that refer to this or that study. So how to keep grounded with ones self expression in a way that can be universally read? I guess it comes down to sharing what's really going on inside and allowing oneself to be vulnerable during that process. This place is really not so bad for that. Is why I am still babbling on as I do.

In a nutshell:
Let time do it's thing without watching the clock. Learn to observe and accept the thoughts for all frustration, confusion and despair they may bring. It's OK to be messed up ... It's OK to be broken. This is how it works for me. I mean not to say what others should do. My family has a deep seeded neurotic issues that stem way back that are not entirely any one persons fault. This whole thing with blaming and shaming self and others is a cancer spread throughout society which once you come to understand that; makes detaching from one's self proclaimed issues less of a hurdle to do.

[jonathangilbert]

Just a bad childhood with unpleasant memories...