My past is full of nights of terror. Being dragged on the floor, being kicked, punched in the face, thrown, having my braces broken, and being hit with a lot of verbal abuse at least once a month. I was constantly living in fear for the seventeen years that I lived with my Dad. My borderline father abducted me when I was three years old and took me to live in countries that would guarantee that my mom would be able to get me back (e.g. countries with misogynistic laws against the mother getting their child back and countries that were not part of the Hague convention) like Brunei and the UAE. He took me out of revenge for my mom cheating on him. I look a lot like my mother so I believe that is why he took his anger out on me. My mother is a narcissist so she didn't really intervene or my dad would just do this on days that she wasn't there. They had an arranged marriage and my step-mom is living in denial that the marriage and family are fine because she cares too much about what the judgemental Indian society will say over the safety of her own children that she never wanted in the first place.

I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of all of the abuse. Keep in mind that these countries have very weak Child Protection Service systems as they are newly founded countries in comparison to the USA. I wasn't aware of the help that I could get. And the little help that I could get e.g. school counselor was hard for me because my father and stepmother would love bombs which would make me not want to tell on them. I also had a "flying monkey sister" who would try to convince me that I ought to just be grateful for my family. There was a lot of gaslighting too that prevented me from getting the help that I needed. 

Even though I grew up in a financially well-off family, I had such a defeatist attitude that people didn't want to be my friend and I didn't achieve much. Now however I have completed a year and a half of "No Contact".  I have apparently made a lot of progress in therapy with a lot of pain mixed in of course. I still have a long way to go, however. I hope I can make it out of the dark storm that is recovery from abuse. Anyway, I have merely glazed over the surface of my childhood. Of course, there is more but I might share that later.

What I am struggling with right now is coming to terms with the fact that all of that happened. It sends shivers down my spine that anyone including myself had to go through that. It makes this world seem like such a scary place full of evil people. It has enhanced my paranoia, it sends me into spells of depression and emptiness. I isolate myself because of the behaviors e.g. having no hobbies and being a workaholic that arise out of my childhood. Are there any techniques that you know of that can help me accept my past? How have any of you done it? How can I handle this? How do I come to terms with it? How do I accept this imperfect world and imperfect people that cause so much pain? Why even live, if life is capable of delivering so much pain? How do I deal with these thoughts and feelings?