Hello, I'd like to share a bit of my life story with some of you. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't.

A long time ago, I was abused as a child.

The abuse went on for many years. Most of the scars are mostly psychological, at times expressing themselves physically as well.

My father figure at the time made certain experiments on my soul so to speak. He used pain as a measure of how far I could endure. And this experiment aided him and perhaps the alleviation of his own inner pain of which I know nothing about.

In a way, I became like an animal growing up. Not the wild ones, the tame one.

I knew only pain and the training of it. There was no pleasure. There was only pain and non-pain (moments of peace).

Over the years, I have wondered how much I was at fault for what was done to me. At times I'd seek out outside distractions, groups of so called underdogs to lick my wounds within their safe spaces but I never spoke about them to anyone. Later on I sought professional help with the help of my grandmother. For a time, it worked. After a while it didn't because I realized nobody went through exactly what I went through. Nor should have they.

Then I started to project all that inner residual pain onto others being at fault, or responsible. Seeing the father of pain within them all, male and female alike. Sometimes I was right, mostly I was wrong.

The pain was within me. Not outside of me and I made it my own Source, my Id, my Self. I thought it was living. It was not.

Avoiding pain again became the meaning of my life. Avoiding a deeper relationship with anyone became the bone of my existence. This was not my father's doing. This was my own. How much I have robbed myself with this, and how much I have robbed the world I do not know.

I was never courageous to begin with so I can't call it cowardice either.

My father liked to show and or tell me how much I enjoyed my abuse. In a way, there was never an opportunity to be myself without the father and the abuse. A hollowed out, empty husk without inner substance and morals and boundaries. I project what happened to me on a daily basis. It became bad enough that I lost track of what was real and what was an illusion in my life because pain was all I ever knew.

When people are nice, kind to me, I do not understand why so I project the Father onto them, and think they want something in return from me.

I tried being kind and nice to others. I feel no pleasure from it. It's a meaningless way to cope with daily life and avoid my own aimless existence at best.

I am not violent towards others, I have not greatly harmed others, but I have not helped them either. I am mostly violent towards myself by being indifferent to my inner pain by ignoring it just like Father did.

My mother figure was long gone so she could not do anything about it, but I hold deep hatred towards her for leaving me even though she couldn't fight death itself to help me.

For a while, I read a lot. I wanted a quick way to fix myself. I quick way to better myself. a way out of the skin I live in. Some of it helped. Most of it did not. When the help ran its course, I tried sharing it with others thinking they're a different kind of me and that it will work for them as well. Clearly, it didn't. At best, it is a placebo, a temporary one at that. A band aid that eventually comes apart. It's like licking a part of the wound, but tasting it yet again on your tongue and reexperiencing it all over again, and convincing yourself that it is healed.

Sometimes, I like to be very quiet and very calm. Not to bring attention to myself, and unfortunately it only brought attention to me. So I learned that some people like the quiet ones because the quiet ones inadevrtedly make space for the noisy ones.

The thing is, I am not sure if there is anything left beneath the calm and quiet within me. Maybe it's just giving up and giving in. Maybe I missed my shot at having a purpose and a meaning in my life.

Reason nor emotion have helped me overcome what happened. I never truly let anyone know me or my story so to speak. Including my own self.

I hope this reads as a warning. Not as an example.

I gave up on myself. It's nobody's fault nor responsibility. I am in a way worse than my father and mother. I thought I could do it all by myself. I thought and believed that was what independence was, but a wise woman once told-warned me, to be alone and to be independent are not synonyms. I thought they were the same thing. That was my weakness, not my strength. That was my pride, when I should have been humble.

You need help? You need to ask for it. Sometimes, from many different sources. And from your own self most of all. It's not pretty, there is no cure perhaps, but dealing with it might make you see that you do have a purpose, and your pain did not. When you put meaning to your pain, you are only saying I deserved it.