I (23M) started therapy today, hooray!
Only problem is, my family is too goddamn spicy. Once I got into my brother’s (25M) increasingly homicidal fantasies and animal killings, she stopped me before I mentioned the threats he made to kill people and told me that she is a mandated reporter and has an obligation to report certain situations to the authorities.
I think adding police to the equation will make everything worse and immediately paint a target on my back because I am the only one who would ever disclose the violence that happens under this roof. It might result in me being homeless if I have to flee for my life. I live in Ohio and it’s the middle of winter, so not a great start.
I wanted to work with a therapist because I grew up in this place and it traumatized me so badly that I’m scared of leaving this dump (not to mention, I have disabilities now that make that difficult). How much will I have to tiptoe around here? Is merely being afraid that someone will use violence against me reportable? What about if they fantasize about murder and domestic terrorism? What about violent crimes that they committed in the past? Or specific threats in the present?
Is therapy just not the right fit for this kind of thing? Did I end up with a heavy duty “fuck you” problem and therapy is just for “I feel sad sometimes” problems? It feels like bullshit to have to self-censor so much just because things were harder for me. How is throwing cops at the problem supposed to help when there is no universal basic sustenance or housing for the victims to escape to?
What are your experiences with mandated reporting, and how do you avoid triggering it?
Yeah seems like maybe they should have followed at least one of those things in that post. I had commented there too, but OP only responded to the people telling them to do something obviously stupid. Any helpful response got no response in turn.
I’ve read a few of OPs posts and I don’t want to sound harsh but can’t tell if they’re genuinely looking for help or if they’re just stuck in a self-pity-I-need-a-savior loop. OP, are you a bird who is flying repeatedly into a window while there’s an open door right there because you’re too terrified and traumatized to realize you could just fly away, or are you truly locked in a cage? You’ll never know unless you ask for help opening the door. Maybe it’s locked and the key is unreachable, but maybe someone will hand you the keys. Yes, in today’s world funding is being cut, but it still exists, and there are still organizations that help victims.
Now this part is harsh and maybe it’s unfair to you and if so I apologize, but you can either start to be an adult, start to help yourself and ask for help and see if you find any, or you can realize that you don’t actually want help, that you’d rather stay in your miserable situation and aren’t actually looking for change. Because I see people who hate the awful situation they’re in but are so trapped in a victim mentality to actually want to stand on their own 2 feet and escape. I grew up in an abusive home and it was nowhere near as bad as what you are living in but it’s hard getting out and re-acclimating to the world, but you can either be miserable and trapped for your entire life or you can start to do scary things and take the chance that you find a way out of this.
It’s both. I’m genuinely looking for help on a tough situation, and I possess a weak learned helplessness mindset that causes me to give up too easily. The replies I get here are helpful, but at the end of the day, the biggest difference will be my own ability to change the way I think through a combination of self-reflection and therapy. Nobody can help me with that except for me.
It’s true that I live with violent and controlling people, but that doesn’t mean they can control me 24/7. It’s true that public services are being eroded, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any left. It’s true that modern society alienates us from one another, but that doesn’t mean people can’t care about me.
My abusers are incredibly stupid, weak, and short-sighted in a lot of ways, and it may well be that the reason I’ve been stuck is because I have also been stupid, weak, and short-sighted. My stated goal of therapy is to get rid of my fear-based mindset and start using my brain more, because fear is stopping me from being rational. That’s why my words and actions appear to be so contradictory: I’m in the process of recognizing my own agency and their weaknesses, but I keep snapping back to old patterns where they seem all-powerful and I feel helpless. It’s probably frustrating for the people reading.
How do any of the readers here know that my situation is as dire as I make it out to be? Could it be that my fear is painting a far worse picture than reality? If so, how can I possibly be a reliable narrator for what’s actually happening in my life? If things were truly hopeless, my abusers wouldn’t have to constantly tell me that all of my ideas are stupid and everything I try will fail.
I think if I ask any more questions on Lemmy, it should be while I’m in the process of getting out, not asking people to plan my entire escape. Like, asking for advice on step 23B after I’ve figured out and completed steps 1-22, instead of asking for steps 1-100 before I’ve done anything.