I was bullied both in school and by my own father (who has Asperger's and a mean streak of narcissism) growing up - definitely suffering the long-term and forever consequences in my life because of it. Low self-esteem, no confidence in myself, can't talk to anybody without second guessing everything.
I'm trying to pull myself out of the slump but after living on my own for 3 years I still have troubles with relationships - not trusting anybody, etc.
The sooner we can identify children who are being abused at school, at home, and adopt corrective measures (ideally keeping the child at home instead of throwing them into the foster system), the better off society will be.
Thanks for acknowledging and supporting - mental illness is such a hidden "we don't talk about this" thing in society and people don't pay a lot of attention to it because they can't easily directly observe it in others.
Only recently I've been able to actually talk or mention my upbringing - I was always shamed and threatened never to tell anybody about what was going on or else "I'd rip the family apart". It's hard to fully realize the scale of the abuse until you metaphorically swim to the surface and stick your head out of the water to see the world around you with a different lens for the first time.
I've been using a combination of strategies to try and find my way out of the mess I was thrown into - I've been seeing a psychiatrist for CBT sessions every 2-3 weeks for almost 10 years and have found it helpful, along with attempting to make daily entries in a journal (the ADHD gets in the way sometimes heh).
I'll definitely look into IFS therapy as well. I did some cursory reading and it seems like that's something that would help me.
I'm trying to pull myself out of the slump but after living on my own for 3 years I still have troubles with relationships - not trusting anybody, etc.
The sooner we can identify children who are being abused at school, at home, and adopt corrective measures (ideally keeping the child at home instead of throwing them into the foster system), the better off society will be.