I have had social anxiety and generalized anxiety and panic attacks for a good part of my life and I just realized where this social anxiety started, how it happened to me. If I can remember that, can I fix it?
I got married at barely sixteen years of age, to an abusive twenty-two year old who was insanely jealous and literally brainwashed me, now that I think of it. He would beat me if I watched someone walk out of a gas station and past our car. Or look at anyone who was male for any reason. He would beat me if I talked to anybody but him when we went anywhere (like to his friends' houses), unless I had special permission and he picked the person I could talk to. I had to sit there and hold his hand and not look at anybody or say anything.
He wouldn't let me learn to drive or use a car and if there was one speck of dust in the house when he came home at night he beat me. I had totally blocked all of this out for years and this morning it suddenly came back to me.
He always went out on me with other women and he would make obscene phone calls to neighbor women and his friends' wives who would tell me about it when he was gone to work.
I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone or out of the house to go for a walk. He would come home from work in the middle of his shift just to make sure I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't be.
I wasn't allowed to write to my family or talk to them on the phone. I would cry terribly whenever they wrote to me. I lived 1700 miles from my home. It's a long story how we met that far away from my home, and i won't go into it all now, but being so young I never realized what was happening or why. All I knew was that he was my husband and I had vowed to obey him. I'm a Christian and he used that, too. After he'd beat me, he would tell me I had to forgive him and have sex with him and act like nothing happened.
I ran away from him once and my mother sent me back to him. I was afraid to tell anyone he beat me for years.
I have suffered from MPD/DID, and I'm starting to believe even conversion disorder because of the abuse. He tried to rape me several times before we were married. I tried to break up with him before we got married but he told me that I was the only Christian he knew and that if I didn't marry him, he would go to hell and it would be my fault. I was so young I didn't know that that was a bunch of bull, and I believed it. I remember thinking how Jesus laid down his life and that I would be doing the same if I married this horrible man. I saw it as some sort of holy sacrifice.
Before I met him, I had many friends; was the life of the party, very friendly and popular at school and church and was never afraid of people. I was a very happy person.
He would tell me that all men were sexual perverts and that if I so much as talked to one I would get beaten, even if they were a nice married Christian man and a husband to one of my church friends. I remember having a couple over (the first couple we had over to our house after we were married) and we had such a good time; but afterward I was beaten for talking to the husband as well as the wife. *I just remembered (this is 30 minutes later), it was the Pastor's son and his wife.*
In fact the moment we were married, when people were coming to congratulate us, you know, the welcome line, he looked at me and said, "You are my wife now, you don't talk to anyone but me." And it started that very moment (I just remembered that as I was writing this). At that moment when he was saying that, the photographer snapped a picture of it! My mother has that picture... wow. This is quite overwhelming-- all of these memories hitting me just now after so many years!
After eight years of this abuse I finally left him but it looks like the damage has been permanent. I got so desperate and hated him so much that I finally confided in one of his friends' wives while I was helping her do her housework (she was pregnant and couldn't get out of bed) and she helped me leave him. She was the first person who told me I didn't deserve to be beaten and that I should get away from him.
All that is in the past on the outside, but has remained inside of me for many years. But the question is how to live now? What can I do about changing it now? Is it possible to brainwash myself back to how I used to be? Or is it possible to reverse brainwashing? Does anyone know how it can be done?
I got married at barely sixteen years of age, to an abusive twenty-two year old who was insanely jealous and literally brainwashed me, now that I think of it. He would beat me if I watched someone walk out of a gas station and past our car. Or look at anyone who was male for any reason. He would beat me if I talked to anybody but him when we went anywhere (like to his friends' houses), unless I had special permission and he picked the person I could talk to. I had to sit there and hold his hand and not look at anybody or say anything.
He wouldn't let me learn to drive or use a car and if there was one speck of dust in the house when he came home at night he beat me. I had totally blocked all of this out for years and this morning it suddenly came back to me.
He always went out on me with other women and he would make obscene phone calls to neighbor women and his friends' wives who would tell me about it when he was gone to work.
I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone or out of the house to go for a walk. He would come home from work in the middle of his shift just to make sure I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't be.
I wasn't allowed to write to my family or talk to them on the phone. I would cry terribly whenever they wrote to me. I lived 1700 miles from my home. It's a long story how we met that far away from my home, and i won't go into it all now, but being so young I never realized what was happening or why. All I knew was that he was my husband and I had vowed to obey him. I'm a Christian and he used that, too. After he'd beat me, he would tell me I had to forgive him and have sex with him and act like nothing happened.
I ran away from him once and my mother sent me back to him. I was afraid to tell anyone he beat me for years.
I have suffered from MPD/DID, and I'm starting to believe even conversion disorder because of the abuse. He tried to rape me several times before we were married. I tried to break up with him before we got married but he told me that I was the only Christian he knew and that if I didn't marry him, he would go to hell and it would be my fault. I was so young I didn't know that that was a bunch of bull, and I believed it. I remember thinking how Jesus laid down his life and that I would be doing the same if I married this horrible man. I saw it as some sort of holy sacrifice.
Before I met him, I had many friends; was the life of the party, very friendly and popular at school and church and was never afraid of people. I was a very happy person.
He would tell me that all men were sexual perverts and that if I so much as talked to one I would get beaten, even if they were a nice married Christian man and a husband to one of my church friends. I remember having a couple over (the first couple we had over to our house after we were married) and we had such a good time; but afterward I was beaten for talking to the husband as well as the wife. *I just remembered (this is 30 minutes later), it was the Pastor's son and his wife.*
In fact the moment we were married, when people were coming to congratulate us, you know, the welcome line, he looked at me and said, "You are my wife now, you don't talk to anyone but me." And it started that very moment (I just remembered that as I was writing this). At that moment when he was saying that, the photographer snapped a picture of it! My mother has that picture... wow. This is quite overwhelming-- all of these memories hitting me just now after so many years!
After eight years of this abuse I finally left him but it looks like the damage has been permanent. I got so desperate and hated him so much that I finally confided in one of his friends' wives while I was helping her do her housework (she was pregnant and couldn't get out of bed) and she helped me leave him. She was the first person who told me I didn't deserve to be beaten and that I should get away from him.
All that is in the past on the outside, but has remained inside of me for many years. But the question is how to live now? What can I do about changing it now? Is it possible to brainwash myself back to how I used to be? Or is it possible to reverse brainwashing? Does anyone know how it can be done?
