Cultural Differences - Military Family & Japanese Culture

Childhood emotional neglect is a tough area for me. I was physically taken care of, and I did experience a lot of trauma growing up. I was bullied in school. I wore hand-me-down clothing from thrift stores because my parents were poor and largely uneducated (lacked a college degree). I was sexually abused by my uncle. I was sort of sexually abused by my alcoholic father when he had mistaken me as my mother and touched my breasts when I was around 11 years old, give or take a few years due to dissociation. I was yelled at by my father. My father tortured us with his suicidal ideation and the knife he swore he would use on his drunken self. I felt tortured by my father beating my mother and cornering me in my bedroom while yelling at me. I felt embarrassed on my First Communion, where my mother had to walk me down the isle with sunglasses to cover up the shiner my father had given her the night before. I felt torn when my parents would constantly threaten divorce and then ask me and my sister who we would rather live with when they separated (my parents never divorced or separated, and my mom was loyal to him, which was representative of her Japanese culture). I felt confused when my father would be happy one moment (while sober) and then angry and accusatory the next (while drunk). I felt adultified when I had to stop my younger sister from starting a house fire when she tried to pretend to cook a napkin on the stove; I was about 7 years old at the time my father was passed out drunk and my sister was unsupervised. I was about that same age when we had to help our dad up from the ground because he picked us up from school drunk. I was terrified when my father drove drunk during his job errands. I was saddened when we had to move a lot because our dad's alcoholism and anger caused us to get eviction notices. The many different moves meant many different elementary, junior high, and high schools - so many that I've lost count and wondered how my dissociation (unrecognized at the time) meant resilience and graduation, despite consistency and myriad ecological losses. Every time I'd get close to a friend, I'd lose that friend due to a required move.

There was no room for emotional expression. In fact, my mother's Japanese motto is to suck it up and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." I was fed, clothed, and physically sheltered, but the emotional abuse, domestic violence exposure, schoolyard bullying (my peers took my lunch money, one beat me up, and many called me names because I wore outdated clothing and had premature acne before the age of 8), sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional neglect took a toll. Terrified, confused, and disorganized with my attachments to everyone, I survived through dissociation - an automatic, unconscious process that hid my emotions and traumatic memories long enough for me to finish school (or risk getting beaten and/or emotionally abused), do my chores, and sleep at least a few hours a night, if I was lucky. I had insomnia as a child (undiagnosed, because I was too afraid of not only showing my emotions, but also expressing my needs), and I was frequently woken by my parents' midnight arguments. My father was a WWII merchant marine who had possibly undergone governmental experimentation after the war, so his elusive command to us children was to not share any emotion with us, or allow us to express any emotion. We had to be strong. In fact, my father directly told me that I "was the strong one" in the family (largely because I learned to hide my emotions well and do enough to win his approval for it). Our family was not recognized as a military family, largely because merchant marines were not considered veterans. Nevertheless, our household was run as if we were in the military. My father would confuse me when he'd demand that I called him "sir" instead of "dad." At other times, he welcomed me calling him dad. He need not be drunk when he changed his personality at times. It was confusing. Because my dad wasn't recognized as a veteran, and because whatever possible governmental experimentation was done to him, he didn't qualify for treatments.

Both of my parents held different cultural beliefs. My father's was the military culture, and my mother's was her Japanese culture. Both were collectivist cultures. Both cultures required loyalty, obedience, stoicism, and honor for the family. If you break any of those cultural demands by showing any "weakness" through emotion, it meant shame for you and shame for your family, which wasn't tolerated. We rarely received hugs or safe kisses. When we did, it was strange to feel. It wasn't consistent, and it seemed like it was more for show or for good performance. Whenever I was hurt physically or ill, I was never coddled or comforted; instead, I was given medication and told to rest - often alone. My younger sister didn't know how to empathize with me, and I didn't know either. We barely learned how to empathize with others from school - our home away from home. I was to afraid to shame our family, so I rarely cried at school. The only safe place for me to cry was in a bathroom stall at school or somewhere I could feel private, such as in the shower at home.

Fake smiles, hidden tears - those were my emotions. If I were angry, I'd hide that as well. Between the ages of 7 and 9, I would yell at my poor pet bird, hit the bird, and then cry for a split second before apologizing to the bird. No one knew I did this, but I later learned that this wasn't kind. I didn't learn that from anyone at home, but I did learn it from some shows I saw on television. When we had to move, we had to give the bird away to a neighborhood friend who had a parrot. My bird turned out really mean - and rightfully so - because of my harming it when I was younger. I visited the bird a few times before we had to move again, and I was surprised that it got along with a much bigger bird that the neighborhood friend already had. Both of the birds were protective of one another, and my bird who used to love me no matter what rightfully hated me. I knew that I deserved that, and inside, I cried.

Around that time, between the ages of 7 and 9, I learned about magnifying glasses and the ways in which the sun could burn things through the magnifying glass. I burned bugs and leaves outside our apartment, until one day a mean neighbor threatened me and made me eat dirt. It was one of the neighborhood kids who threatened to beat me up. Initially, the boy thought it was cool to see me use a magnifying glass, but then the boy turned on me and kept threatening me. I couldn't cry, and I couldn't shame my family by fighting back. I couldn't tell anyone what I was feeling, and I couldn't pinpoint my anger. I just knew I was doing bad things, but it was my secret for getting my anger out without expressing emotion. Thankfully, I grew out of that and could feel some emotion, but maybe that was due to my period starting at age 9.

I couldn't help but feel irritable and sad, so I cried. I also got beaten up by my dad sometimes, but not always. My mom wasn't the one who showed me how to use maxi pads; my friends in school were, and the nurse at the school was the first one to notice the blood on my pants and my classroom seat. The kids made fun of me, save a few who actually cared.

Flash forward a few years later, I was beat up by a "chola," a female gang member during my years in junior high. Another girl was also beaten up. I didn't fight back, but rather I blocked her from hitting my face, and I never once cried. I went to detention, where the chola and the other victim was, but the other victim was crying and eventually left. I remained while the chola was still making verbal threats at me. I told the chola that whatever she did to me pales in comparison with what my dad is going to do to me. I sat there and stood at the ground. The chola never bothered me again; it was as if the chola identified with my fears and earned my respect or something. I was sad, terrified, and angry, but I couldn't show those emotions to anyone. I got in trouble, I got scolded at home, and we eventually relocated to a much nicer junior high. My best friend in the junior high I had attended where the chola was at was murdered by some man. I not only lost her, but I lost any friends I had at that school when we moved. I made a few other friends at my new junior high school, but it never felt the same.

I decided to get a job at the young age of 13, which helped me pay for better clothing and fit in with my peers. I wasn't made fun of as much anymore, and I could escape my home life for a few hours while I worked, and I could make my family proud for getting a job at such a young age, so my adultification continued.

Meanwhile, all those years, I never paid attention to my younger sister's needs. She did receive some comfort from my parents because she was born with a hole in her heart, so I grew up feeling jealous, even though I loved my sister. One day, after getting beaten up by my dad, my sister tried to console me. I yelled back at her instead. To this day, my sister and I do not get along, even though I tried profusely to apologize for my not being the bigger sister she should have had, even though I knew that being parentified would have been taxing, especially since emotion wasn't seen as strength in our family.

I was the abusive older sister. I don't know if I could ever forgive myself.

There is much that I'm not saying, but the good news is that I've never killed anything other than bugs. Still, I could have wound up being a narcissist or a psychopath very easily. I knew that I had the early signs of all that, but somehow my teachers could see the pain I was in and showed me some affection at school. Throughout my younger school years, there were people there who helped me with empathy, even though it wasn't made known to me until years into my adulthood. I had caring teachers, caring friends, and caring school staff. They knew something was going on at home, but they also couldn't do anything without my saying anything. They did the best they could to get me away from home for as much as I could by offering me tutoring. I earned A's after failing some of my courses, which made everyone proud, including myself. I remained strong, despite my constant absences on the days that I was ill or was deeply wounded.

There was no justice for my childhood victimizations, however. When kids beat me up or bullied me, I often got in trouble right along with them. I always thought that was punishment for me punishing the bird or not being nice to my sister, or for even abusing my sister a few times before I learned to not do that anymore. Thankfully, my deviant behaviors stopped at the age of 10 or so.

My internalized alters all these years held the pain and the emotion for me. Many held the actual experience of being victimized by my father or by peers or by my uncle or by my bystander mom who just wanted us to be strong.

My adulthood life was about being strong and not showing any emotion. I was able to pass all psychological tests and physical exams to make it into the police reserve academy around the age of 18, and to enlist in the military around the age of 21. Between 19 and 21, I worked security for various firms, and I passed all those polygraphs - largely because I was actually being honest and probably didn't realize dissociation was a condition. I may have lost some time, but I thought that was normal. I did the best I could, until I was brutally traumatized in the military (military sexual trauma) and honorably discharged with only physiological disabilities on my record. Even upon discharge, I showed no emotion.

Ashamed of my failures from being honorably discharged prematurely, and of spending many nights alone crying for what seemed to be the first time (my actual first time crying was when I moved out of my home at about 17, which is the age I had graduated from high school), I refused to return home and instead moved elsewhere, far away from my family. I cried a lot, and I felt suicidal a lot. I was in my early 20s and had no idea what was going on with me. I wound up in emergency rooms a lot for my stomach problems, which wound up being bleeding ulcers. I was too afraid to seek help at the VA, so I sought help at other places.

To summarize my adulthood life, I've always felt ashamed and disloyal. I had no idea why I was afraid of authority figures, or why I would feel inferior to many of my peers. I lost my command presence and what I thought was my confidence. Low self-esteem, low confidence, and a confused identity were all that was left of me. I couldn't even recognize my own triggers, and I could't remember a lot of my past. I had no idea why I was blacking out, since I never took drugs or drank. I thought I had a brain tumor or something, but my brain scan showed no tumors. I got hefty bills for all the psychosomatic symptoms I was feeling, and I eventually had to file for bankruptcy in my late 20s. I held down some jobs, but I often changed jobs because I was only a temporary employee. I received really high evaluations at first, but my mental illness and blackouts made it impossible for me to keep a perfect attendance record.

There's much more that had went on in my life, but the main changing point for me was when I received a DID diagnosis and treatment for it. It was a lifesaver! Despite the many misdiagnoses before, except for PTSD, which has been a constant, my DID diagnosis and treatment explained why I would lose time, and why I couldn't pinpoint the triggers that frightened me right before I lost time. It also explained why I felt scared of feeling or expressing emotion.

I wanted to be a bad-*** veteran, but I felt ashamed by not being as tough as my fellow veteran brothers and sisters. I still feel inferior to them. I feel connected, but inferior, as if disloyal and an embarrassment to them.

And then today, I come across an article that was among a list of articles on PsychCentral: The 3 Areas of Your Adult Life Most Affected by Childhood Emotional Neglect

The article link I shared above contains information about CEN. I took the quiz and scored really high on CEN. I also read what CEN really entails. I realized then that my feeling afraid of authority figures, my feeling inferior, and my subdued emotions were largely from CEN. Inner emotional storms without external expression left only room to feel numb anger, or what I recently named as "Parseltongue," just to feel safer and more connected with my teen and little parts who love Harry Potter, LOL. All of the rest of these feelings that I so desperately want to express in the safety of a therapy room remain muffled because the treatments involving coping skills or valuing stoicism negate addressing my fears of actually expressing my emotion entirely, and then having a witness hear why those emotions are there. The main emotion I want to express is sadness with tears. The other emotion I want to express is righteous, justice-seeking anger in the form of words and some heightened voice (not really screaming, but a tolerance for me to get the anger out). I want to grieve my losses, and I want to express my pain to someone who is willing to listen, validate, and truly understand my need for integrating the remaining alters with me. I may not ever be a singleton, and I may always have some parts that are co-conscious, but I can at least heal the rest of us who remain.

I have DID because of my CEN and other childhood traumas, and I have PTSD from a multitude of traumas, beginning first with military trauma and then regressing backwards and forwards to lifetime traumas. I lost a lot, but the worst part about my traumas was losing myself. I want to rebuild myself, and now I know how - at least in part. Now I know what I need to target. And now I know the painful effects of certain types of cultures that, when mixed with trauma, can be highly detrimental.

I love my mom's Japanese culture, even though I don't know much of it. I also love military culture, and I so wished I could have been strong enough for battle or any job, really. I was overpowered by some deviant military brothers in arms, but I still respect the military. I value many things that those two cultures taught me, but the emotional neglect that I had experienced throughout my life kept me psychologically disabled as well as fragmented.

This is another summation of my story, which leaves out a lot of moral injuries and traumas throughout my life, but it includes the basics for what I feel safe sharing in this arena, even though I've shared other traumas in other arenas on PC. It's the only way I can express these things for now, but hopefully I'll have a coherent "book" of my life. I will never publish it, but I will want it as a keepsake for myself, as my new "Humpty Dumpty" story, where we actually did put ourselves back together again.