There are those that argue that abuse and or trauma are primary causes of severe mental illness/psychosis rather than genetics.
I had moderate trauma via teenage bullying and lived in a dysfunctional family but nothing severe.Some might say I was bullied for not being mentally right rather than became mentally ill through bullying.
My own view is that as not all who experience abuse or trauma become mentally ill other factors have to be involved.
My dad started beating me up when I was 2 years old. If I cried I got more beating. Learned to never cry. Once he pressed my skull with his hands as hard as he could. I was all dizzy after that. I got beaten for things I MIGHT do. I was not allowed to see my friends. He teased and mocked me.
He beat me until I was 13 and hit him back in his face. He never touched me after that. But his psychological terror continued. I was going to kill him.
no abuse or real trauma. I had a few accidents growing up but I wouldnāt call them traumaāsā¦like when I was kid I fell off the monkey bars and really hurt my head, then as like a 3rd or 4th grader I was riding my bike with friends and I must of hit a branch or a crack in the concrete or something and went head over handrails and got really banged up bad. But other than that nothing really traumaticā¦my first episode wasnāt until I was about 15 many, many years later.
I was sexually assaulted when I was 9 years old. My counsellor and all the literature say thatās a pretty common harbinger of mental illnesses of all kinds.
I was born ADHD and having lucid problems when I was so very young. But I grew up in a very stable loving home⦠My parentās donāt even argue in front of the kids.
Iāve never been sexually abused, never been hit or even spanked as a kid, never even been cussed at by my parents⦠never felt neglected.
I guess the big trigger was our house fire when I was 14 and the pain I remember when my sis and I were in the burn unit. Every little tiny touch just hurt so much.
I was not abused either. I had for the most part wonderful parentsā¦could have been much worse. I did however experience some severe trauma in my teens that I am still trying to work out in my mindā¦Iāve pretty much got to the point though that it bothers me only rarely.
I have very little memory of my early childhood and I get an uneasy feeling when I try to think of those years. This makes me question if something happened back then but I donāt have any real evidence to suspect abuse.
I do know that one time my mother had this horrible group of people watch me when she went somewhere. All I remember was them locking me in a dark closet and telling me through the door that there were snakes in there with me. I donāt really know if this would be considered abuse or not.
firemonkey i agree with what you had said,not all who experience abuse or trauma become mentally ill,i met one of my roomate whom i meet with 10 years ago,we were sent by our parents to live in a tuition teacher house.The teacher caned us 10 times daily,it was to me one reason why i go mentally unwell,but when i met my roomate yesterday in the teachers wedding dinner,he dont have mental illness and is studying universities and doing fine in life.So the āabuseā by our tuition teacher is probably not a good reason to say why i had schizophrenia,because my roomate is okay,i think i would put mine as genetic
I had carbon monoxide poisoning when I was ten. before that, my siblings, at east most of them, would hit me and beat me. It got worse after that. When I was in sixth grade I was sexually abused by a female friend. Not a friend anymore, but yeah. Then when I was fourteen and released from the state hospital, I was sexually abused by a guy that was 20 at the time. My father also swore at me a lot, and dragged me down. No one in my family is psychotic, but depression runs in my family⦠So I would say abuse/trauma had a large part to play, but otherwise, I had an okay life.
Good that you survived the house fire, Iām glad for you on that one.
Iāve never been in a house fire before but I grew up and currently live in a very unstable environment. Constant cussing, arguing, violence, etc.
My father is an alcoholic who no longer lives with us, my mother doesnāt do much for us anymore except cuss my father and any of us who try to spend time with him, calling us āback stabbersā. Sheās also started drinking heavily.
I could leave and live with my uncle (a lesser alcoholic but very calm) but then Iāll ruin any possible chance of help I can get.
My big trigger is probably the events of my way early years mixed in with getting hurt a lot. Being in a stressful environment doesnāt help at all either.
I was a perfect storm for it. I had childhood trauma, birth complications, family history, basically all of it. I was very traumatized by what happened to me as a child and then as an early teen, and then traumatized again by psychosis in my late teens.
I am pretty healthy today, I regularly see a therapist who says that I will take years to fully recover from what I have been through. I have only been recovered from the illness for a year.
That much constant stress⦠I can imagine how hard it must be to find any internal calm when there is no external calm.
How close are you to 18? After that, youāre an adult and can work on getting more independent help. SSI or other things that could let you live with your Uncle and not be unsupported.
I turn 18 Tuesday. Then Iām getting a job and saving up for treatment.
The constant stress has forced me through more than one severe episode which would usually end with me running off into the woods before I made a bad decision. I was kicked out before because of it, the stress became too much and kicked in a violent side. My father happened to be up here still so he pulled up to me and told me to get in, we quickly left in fear that they called the police.
I came back up here the next day and everyone acted as if it never happened and passed it off as nothing but a little āanger fitā