Why do I still feel like a little girl?

Question

When I was 15 years old, I had something very traumatic happen to me. For quite a few years afterward, I was so mentally messed up that I didn't even know who I was anymore.

When I look back at that stage in my life, I'm honestly surprised that I didn't take my own life. I came dangerously close to it and that scares me when I think about it.

Now that I am an adult (28 years old), I'm finally starting to come to terms with everything. Although, I still feel like a little girl.

It is like all time stopped for me since I was 15 years old. I may have aged physically, and outward appearances show that I am an adult (I'm married and a mother now). But, mentally I feel like a scared, lost, little girl.

I depend on my husband and my own two little girls to keep me safe. I'm supposed to be the mother, yet I am more afraid of the dark than my daughters are (I sleep with a night light still). My husband has a chronic illness and if he has to stay in the hospital for a few days then I freak out. I wonder how am I going to cope without him?

And the scariest part is that when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself as being a 28 year old mother and wife. I see me, the same as I was when I was 15.

Sometimes I am afraid that I am going to wake up one day and realize that I am old and I won't know what to do.

Does anyone else know what I am talking about? Sometimes I wonder if I am suffering from a sort of PTSD? I don't know, what does it sound like to you?

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

Answer 1

confide in your husband. i am very sorry you were traumatized. no one deserves that and it might be hard to regain composure. remember you have a loving marriage and two children, something no 15 year old girl is mature enough to have. you don't have to forget, just realize time has passed, things are better now and you have surrounded yourself with people that will always help you.

Answer 2

i think all those years u missed out  being young and and having fun are now coming back to you and since u really didn't have a good life at 15 and up now ur trying to fill in those years with your life that your living right now

but hey I'm 14 i still use a night light not that I'm scared just that i would rather have some light

Answer 3

I am sorry you are struggling so. I don't know the answer but I have some ideas about it. I think when you were 15 you were completely engaged in survival and everything else was put on hold (out of necessity). That may be why you feel like you have not aged internally. Also, keep in mind that all of us women have the girl child still in us because every age we have ever been, that girl was part of who we are. All of us feel like little girls at times. You will find your strength. You must have a lot of it or you would not have come this far. The more power you can take over your own destiny, the better you will feel. Sometimes you just have to step up and claim authority over your self and there is nothing wrong with doing this.

A grown woman is a complex being with all the ages she has ever been mixed in with the age she is now and the woman she sees for herself in the future. I think if you could find a good therapist, you could make huge strides in understanding yourself and finding some peace of mind.

I wish you success and hope you soon are feeling better.  

Answer 4

This is absolutely a form of PTSD.  

The most hopeful part of your question is that you recognize the effects this WILL have on your children.  Use that idea as a driving force behind healing.  If you are not in therapy, you need to be, preferably with a specialist in childhood trauma.

My mother suffered extreme sexual abuse for 8 years as a child, and growing up I definitely felt that trauma through her, even though she never talked about it, because she had never allowed herself to seek help and heal.  

Good luck.