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It takes courage to go and it takes courage to stay gone. It probably took me three full years before I was finally free of their emotional manipulation enough to see a big difference in my quality of life. You've basically gotta break habits you formed as an infant, which is really, really hard. I recently moved back to my home town for 14 months and had the worlds biggest backslide in my emotional wellbeing. For me, at least, distance is pretty key in retaining control over my life. I also had to let go of a lot of the responsibility I felt toward my younger brothers. It's hard but it really is worth it. Every therapist I had as a child told me to get away but I just felt so obligated and I knew they'd be so disappointed and angry. Now they're pretty much always mad at me and it's almost made me numb to it. Somewhere deep inside my emotional self realized how ridiculous they really are. I don't know. Everyone has their own journey and their own path to growth & healing, I just want you to know it can be done and I believe you can do it!

Anyone ever feel like lighting one of those lanterns that float up into the sky? I kind of want to light one of those and kind of let little me be free. Or maybe the sadness. I don't know, I just feel like ritualizing the healing might make it more real, I guess. Kind of forcing my emotional self to participate in the physical world.

I think I'm probably going to spare most of the details of my life in favor of using this as a place to communicate with and hopefully support others on the same journey. This is hard. Ive been formally diagnosed with PTSD for about eight years but have only now really accepted that diagnosis as a reality that severely affects my quality of life. Drawing inside myself is not normal. Shaking and throwing up at 2 am is not normal. Being scared of success, comfort, peace, and having nice things is not normal. And I deserve to be "normal". When I was little they'd tell us we could be anything we wanted and all I've ever wanted is to have a beautifully regular life. A little house with a little garden, giggling children, books, flowers, and no yelling. And lots of dogs

I feel so relieved and heartened knowing there are people out there like me. It's such a comfort to know I'm not actually an alien on this earth, this is indeed part of the human experience, and I am not "broken". I'm sad, and I'm hurt, but I'm not defective. I'm in defense mode. And I should be! We can't be expected to let everything in life roll off our backs without taking any emotional hits.
It's 3 am and it's raining and my dog is on my belly and Ive just found this cyber microcosm in which humans help each other to heal from emotional trauma and I am feeling so immensely thankful. It's such a beautiful world we live in and all I want is to be able to truly know and feel that every day.

Alice! Oh my goodness do we have so very many things in common. I have a very similar dynamic in my parents, though they divorced when I was 7 (the legal battle lasted until I was 15). My father is a covert narcissist and my mother is mostly a delicate flower (though she has bipolar disorder) at her core. My dad abandoned me when I was 15 because I stood up to him about the abhorrent living conditions he subjected my younger brothers & I to while treating my older step sisters like princesses. I ended up trapped in an abusive, controlling relationship with my mother. I feel like an older version of you, sweet girl. Move out. Do it. It is daunting and scary and I'm sure they'll discourage you in 100 ways but you are a valid, sweet creature and you deserve to decide your own circumstances. Just know that moving out doesn't solve it. I'm 23, married, and travel the country for work with my husband and still find myself triggered by phone calls from my parents. My dad recently drove 5 hours in a dramatic gesture of wanting to be part of my life again, only to tell me he's too busy every time I've asked to see him since. That was in February.  We've got to create this sense of security in ourselves, I suppose. I always thought I was defective and didn't realize there were other people out there living what I live every day. Honestly I've lived my life in fear I was actually bipolar like my mom. It's almost a comfort to know its "only" c-ptsd. At least this I can confront. I just had to reply to you because your thread speaks straight to my soul. I'm with ya 100% on everything you've described. Somehow there's comfort in that. It's a little bit less lonely in the universe right now.