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Thank you to everyone who has posted here, and a particular thank you to Chart for writing on this today, which led me to see and read the thread. I too have been grappling with mixed emotions about my mother. On one hand, she had a tough childhood and then a long and extremely abusive relationship with my father, which damaged her mental health. I understand that he destroyed her to such an extent that she wasn't able to protect either of us from his abuse, and I have huge sympathy for all that she suffered, to the point where she used to try to kill herself when I was little.

I also understand from my T that her narcissism in the decades since then is likely to have been a response to the trauma she experienced.

But on the other hand, I hold enormous anger that she didn't keep me safe, and that if she had been successful in any of her suicide attempts, she would have left me and my brothers and sister in the sole care of a monster.

I also don't like the way that she'll talk at me for hours about how much she cares about all the people around her - her neighbours, her neighbours' relations, strangers in shops, etc, but despite the frequent phone calls, she'll often go for half a year or more without asking me how I am.

As the years go by, I've been finding it increasingly hard to be around her, and hating myself for it because I feel like none of it is her fault. Our relationship became more and more strained as we both felt more and more tense spending time together. After a lot of soul-searching, I decided when I last visited her to try to open up a little bit about my childhood experiences and the ongoing effects of them, in the hope that she might understand why I'm often so stressed when we're together. I expected her to deny my suffering (she had previously told me and my brother that situations we both remember clearly didn't happen) but it still felt important to say something.

She stopped me soon after I started, said "Well at least you weren't married to him for 35 years", and walked away. It felt as if she had suffered so much by being married to a man who was violent, sadistic, a paedophile and matched the characteristics of a psychopath, that there was no space for anyone else to have also gone through *. I believe that for her own mental health she may have to block that out. I imagine otherwise the guilt of acknowledging what she let happen would be overwhelming.

I've reduced contact with her over the last few years but can't bring myself to end it completely, as much as I'd love that. She's coming to visit me and my son tomorrow for a few days, and I think that keeping in mind that others on this forum have similar conflicted feelings about their mothers and look forward in a way to possible relief/release when their mother no longer exists, might help me get through it.

I'd not heard of PSIP and have just read a little from your link.

Having read some of your posts since you joined OOTS and having had from them some sense of how difficult things have been for you for so long, it makes me feel incredibly happy to hear that after two years of waiting and hoping, you've not only found a cPTSD specialist PSIP therapist but also things have moved forward so quickly and smoothly that you've been able to see them already!

I'm really glad it went well and that you've got more lined up. Each time it's popped into my mind over the last couple of days, it's made me smile.

Hi Papa Coco,

I'm so glad to hear your beach stayed safe in the storm the other day.

In case this helps you feel less alone, I wanted to share that I have also felt like a zombie for quite a lot of the past couple of weeks, with feelings of exhaustion and hopelessness, and finding it hard to keep making and eating meals. As some of my most deeply buried trauma seems to be rising up, my usual protector parts (hypervigilant, perfectionist, constantly questioning, etc) seem to have stopped and a more extreme protector has made herself known.

My understanding is limited but I think that as traumatic fragmented memories of sexual abuse at a very young age come up, there are young parts of my psyche that experience the situations as happening right now and so this extra-strength protector has recently been doing the same thing she did back then to help me survive - by reducing my conscious awareness as much as possible. It's been keeping me awake at night so that I'm incredibly tired through the day. At its worst, it was keeping me curled up in bed with my eyes closed in almost a trance for most of the day. It was reducing my ability to eat properly, sometimes by making me feel too exhausted and at other times, too nauseous. When I made it outside, I was walking slowly, shoulders hunched over, needing to stop and sit down every 15 minutes or so. 

My T has increased my sessions to three times a week for a while and I've been on citalopram for a couple of weeks, which as a combination seems to be helping me start to pull myself a bit back towards normal. I'm hoping that as part of that I can connect with this shutting down protector, and help her understand I appreciate what she did for me when I was young, but that she needs to stop now. What I needed back when I was young was a caring adult to look after me, and that's the experience I could give the young parts now but the effects this protector has been causing these days have been completely stopping the adult part of me from having any space in my mind.

In my last T session, I told him that it feels like the shutting down protector believes I'm a baby or a few years or so old and that, as well as trying to save me from being aware of abuse back then, it feels like she might also believe that if she breaks me enough (by reducing sleep, eating, sanity, etc) then a grown up will have to come and rescue and look after me. My T then admitted that there had been a couple of times over the last two weeks when he'd thought things had reached a level where I might need some time as an in-patient. I've never had that so far, but imagine it'd be a long way from my protector's fantasy of being looked after somewhere cosy and safe by a mother-type person.

Over the last two days, now that I've been able to start looking after myself a bit more, I'm making an effort to imagine telling and showing this protector part how much better things are when she makes space in my mind for my adult part, so that I can become more functional again. I can make a comfy bed with freshly cleaned bedding, have a tidy room, order in a grocery shop rather than having an empty fridge, get the washing up done, have enough focus to read a book or watch a comedy, etc. It's early days and I've no idea from one week to the next these days how much I'll be able to handle life, but it has given me a bit of hope back.

I liked what you said at the end of your 23rd November post: "I hope that those of us who feel this way are able to cling together a bit until we start to feel better." I've got no idea if what you've been experiencing has anything to do with a protector part responding to your fears by trying to shut your body and mind down in an attempt to give you some level of safety, but I thought I'd reply just in case, as some of what you describe going through sounded similar to what I've been feeling. I'm glad you and your doctor are monitoring your health and I hope so much that things improve for you soon.

Words feel so inadequate in response to what you've been going through. I struggle so much when there are weeks/months with disturbed sleep, so can hardly imagine the toll that decades of your sleep disorder would take.

I know that connecting with people online is very different to being around people but for what it's worth, you are not alone on here. There are others who can relate to your struggle and admire your strength in continuing to eat healthily, exercise, meditate, and keep trying approaches to bring positive experiences back into your life.

We joined OOTS at around the same time and your messages have meant a lot (although there's no pressure to continue messaging - my own returns to the forum are unpredictable and there may be long gaps). You are in my thoughts.

Thanks for the replies. I feel the same, that I need to be clear with my frightened young parts that they are protected by adult me, who is always here for them.

I recently found something that has helped a bit when I have an EF, and I wanted to share it here in case it might help anyone else.

I think I've often found when I have an EF and parts of my mind that feel I'm in danger take over, that when I try reassuring them that I'm safe, they seem to feel that's not enough. From childhood experience, safety has been a temporary thing that could change at any moment to extreme danger, so for traumatised parts of me, being safe now is no guarantee that they'll be safe in a moment's time.

A few weeks ago, I bought anti-virus software and set it up on my phone. By chance, it flashes up a message: "You are protected" whenever I activate my phone. The frightened young parts of my mind seem to find this a stronger, more proactive message to hear than when I tell them "You're safe". I think it can help remind them that I am an adult now and I have boundaries and am able to look after them in a way they weren't looked after when I was little.

I happen to look at my phone a lot of times through the day, so repeatedly seeing the message flash up seems to reinforce  it.

Thank you Kizzie, NarcKiddo and Chart for the welcomes and for pointing me in the right direction for finding out about EFs. It's good to understand the acronyms and it has been really helpful to see the list of EF symptoms that Schrodingers Cat compiled from forum members. This explains a lot about what I've been experiencing on and off over the years, including what's been going on the last couple of weeks, which has been what gave me the nudge to try joining the forum. 

Thank you so much for the replies, so full of compassion, understanding and encouragement. It means a lot, and there are already feelings of having found comfort and connection here.

I feel very unused to opening up to people online - on the odd occasions (outside of therapy sessions) that I've opened up before, it's been in person where there can be a lot of talking and a lot of communication without words, but with smiles, tears, silences and hugs. Hopefully I'll get used to condensing things into a few short paragraphs soon!

It feels like it might take a bit of time to get used to the forum set-up too. Is there somewhere where the main abbreviations are spelled out? I've worked out some but not others, like EF.

Pangur, Papa Coco and SenseOrgan, I'd like to reply properly to each of you individually and I've found a dm option. I hope that's ok - please let me know if that goes against the etiquette for forums.

Hi,

It's hard to think where to start. There's been quite a jumble of thoughts and feelings leading up to this, as I imagine everyone who's introduced themselves here can relate to.

Childhood is probably a sensible place to start. So, I grew up in a household with a violent father. As far as I'm aware, he was never violent with me in that way but he was with my mother, brothers and sister, and there was a constant sense of terror that at any moment his anger might erupt and someone I cared about deeply might get beaten up, and I was powerless to stop him. My mother in particular suffered hugely and part of her response was something that I've seen in the OOTS guidelines we're only supposed to refer to in a particular forum, so perhaps I can just say for now that it left me with an extreme fear of being abandoned forever and left with a monster.

For most of my life, I've been left with what felt like a background sense of dread, and a very anxious, perfectionist, people-pleasing, conflict-avoiding type of personality. I sort of accepted it as something I was just randomly stuck with until one time at work when I'd been very upset for a long time about being in a situation where I felt more was being asked of me than I could do. As a result, I imagined I was worthless and something terrible would happen to me and/or people around me. A colleague recommended her therapist and, 7 years on, I'm still in therapy sessions and it's been such a roller coaster.

So much fear has come up and massive emotional dysregulation in response to things that I know my adult self would be able to handle, but which trigger young parts of me. Flashbacks and getting triggered by things around me, with impacts that can stop me from feeling based in the present and being able to function for everyday tasks, lasting hours, days or weeks. Yearning to be hugged, held and to feel safe felt like an addiction always pulling on my mind but most days, with no one around who I could ask for this.

The therapy has helped a lot so that (most days) I'm at last able to feel that I have self-worth and that I'm safe now, and I'm able to have some boundaries, all of which has been life-changing. Over the last few years of therapy though, other, more deeply buried stuff has been starting to come up, and a whole new struggle.

Part of me had wondered, since my father went to prison for a while about 12 years ago for possession of huge amounts of child pornography covering all levels of severity, whether he'd done anything to me and, although I have no specific, full memories of this, I've been having really horrible flashbacks, sometimes in nightmares, sometimes in therapy sessions and sometimes in everyday life situations, where my whole body suddenly reacts as if I'm a child being sexually abused right now. There are overwhelming feelings of panic, of things being done to me and not being able to get away, and sometimes this is followed by dissociation and shutting down, feeling like I'm leaving my body and the room.

This kind of thing has happened a couple of times over the last week, leaving me feeling so exhausted and scared of what's in my head, and with my brain not able to function for even simple work tasks or decisions. I've ended up taking sick leave and spending time in bed with a hot water bottle to try to feel safe.

With dad's violence, part of what made it so frightening was that it seemed out of the blue and uncontrolled, but with the other abuse it was pre-meditated and there are fragmented memories of his sense of enjoyment, so it all feels so much darker and more messed up.

I keep reminding myself that my father's abuse and my mother's lack of protection do not mean I'm a bad person, and that the fact that I'm still so damaged by it all four decades later does not mean I'm weak. I keep telling myself that it's the stuff that happened to me and around me that was bad, and that all of the impacts on me back then and since then are entirely natural, and even though I have phases of being stuck in bed hiding from the world, I'm actually strong to be facing all of this and sticking with the therapy. I know it's a positive sign of how far I've come, that more and more disturbing, deeply buried stuff is coming up now - a sign that my psyche (apparently, although it doesn't feel that way) is ready to deal with it.

It's so hard though. I've read a few other posts on here and totally agree that feeling a lack of connection is such a huge part of it. As a child, I learned early on that I couldn't talk about what was going on. Now, a lot of of me does want to talk about it, bring it into the open, and not feel ashamed. But my therapist has advised it might not be appropriate to be honest with my boss when I'm off sick and that it's likely to be better for me if I don't say I have cPTSD. With other people around me, other than a few very close friends, it feels like too big a gulf, when people ask 'How are you doing?', between answering the expected 'Good thanks' and the truth, when at times the truth is more like 'I've just gone through an experience of feeling like I'm a very young child being sexually abused by my dad right now, I'm terrified, and need to cry a lot and be held'.

I've not yet been able to face or accept a lot of the buried stuff inside me, and I know I have a long, bumpy road ahead of me, but I'm really glad to have found this group about half a year ago and to have taken the plunge today by accepting that this is a group where I belong.

To anyone who's read this - thank you, and I wish you well in your journey.