Remembering abuse Trigger Warning Animal Abuse

I could not figure out how to do more than one trigger warning and this has far too much to for just the one

In the past 12 months I have started remembering being sexually abused by my mother. I’m (49F) and the memories started coming back as dreams and I could feel things happening. It took me a few months to feel comfortable enough to talk to anyone about it. My partner and I have been married for over 20 years. They came out as non binary trans fem in late 2022, and watching them on their journey has been wonderful, seeing them become who they were always meant to be has been a beautiful thing.

Then here I am remembering the most horrible things. Getting triggered by some insane comments. Like my partner telling our child our dog can’t tell time. The same exact words my father would say when my sister was refusing to feed her baby because it wasn’t time yet. He wasn’t wrong to tell her to feed her child, he just did it in a condescending way, which was how he was.

A week or so ago the partner got onto the spawn for not doing their chores. The spawn are all older but live at home basically rent free and we provide everything. In this economy moving out will be difficult and they are all in school and contribute in ways that aren’t necessarily monetary but still important. Well my partner said that if our oldest didn’t start walking her dog and actually taking care of it, he’s a rough coated collie who had to be shaved down because she just won’t brush him and he was that matted, she’s almost 21, we would need to re-home him.

As soon as that was said I was thrown into a memory that caused my first panic attack ever. I was a young kid, I think between 10 and 12 and my mother brought me home to get away from my sister. Both my parents are narcs and my sister is one, or maybe she’s just a sociopath. I walked into my parents room, it’s where the only tv was. I went to sit down and then realised the most horrible thing. My dog was hanging from my parents window. The window was high off the ground but she was an excellent jumper. I was home alone and broke down completely. I tried to save her, I tried so hard to bring her back. I looked at this poor dog and how her chain was wrapped around something several times. She could not have done that. There was absolutely no way she would have been able to wrap her chain around this bookshelf once let alone the 4+ times it was wrapped. When I realised she was really gone I went and called my dad. When I was younger I had a speech impediment that my dad hated. He once when I was 5 told me to go away and not come back u til I learned to actually talk, that is just for context, when I called I was hysterical. He thought I had said mom died when I said flower died. He got so enraged with me and demanded I put mom on the phone, I told him she’d already left. He told me to quit crying and go wait outside because he’d send her back.

She got back way too quickly for her to have made it all the way to my father’s shop. I don’t remember anything after that. The moment my partner said that I was thrown into this memory. I asked my oldest to bring me my dog, she’s a ti y little Maltese cross. My daughter realised that I was having a panic attack and asked if it was okay if she sat with me, she brought her collie and he sat with me as well, he placed his paw on me to let me know he was there. The dogs and my daughter got me through that. She was able to see everything I sent my partner about what was happening. So she knows what they did, she knows the hung my dog and set up a scene that I would find. I wish she didn’t. I was trying to hide from everyone so as to not trauma dump but when I asked for my dog she brought her and then wouldn’t leave, I’m grateful but so wish she didn’t have that knowledge.

It’s like the people who brought me into this world broke me before I could ever be who I was meant to be. I don’t like being broken.

My therapist, I found one who specialised in childhood trauma for sexual abuse and rape victims, she said, before the memory I just relayed came that I grew up in what amounted to a war zone and I learned to make myself as small as possible as early as I could to keep from being noticed.

Last night the realisation hit me that when I was young, before 4 someone dislocated my shoulder. I was not treated for that, my mom just figured out how to fox it herself. I still have problems with that shoulder to this day.

Most of my memories have centred around feelings. I can’t necessarily see the memory but I can remember how everything felt. That’s imprinted pretty deeply. I do remember Christmas Day when I was 8 or 9, we had a house fore and lost a lot, but we were safe. Before the fire started my mother dressed me up in one of her negligee and brought me in to have a nap with her and my dad. The next thing I remember we are all trying to get out of the house. I tried to go out the front door and smoke hit me in the face, then my dad put me out the window in the room closest to our front door, I remember thinking how embarrassing it was to be wearing this nighty that you could see right through.

I honestly have no idea why I typed all this up. Maybe I just don’t want to feel so broken Maybe I don’t want to feel so alone. My family is wonderful, but I don’t wanna dump everything on them

Maybe I’m tired of feeling like I’m crazy and these things couldn’t possibly have happened, like who would do those things right?

Meanwhile, I’m going over the death and disappearance of every animal I have ever owned. I asked my partner why it was and if it was weird that I’m more pissed off about the animals than I am about what they did to me.

I’m sorry if this is too much. I am in therapy and my therapist is wonderful. I have support in my partner and spawn and my in-laws, I’m okay, I just have this journey to take and I didn’t really ask to be on it.

Why was there no one to protect little me??? I keep asking myself that.