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I find it really hard to do things in the pursuit of my happiness.  It always seems like it affects others negatively in some way.  If I enforce boundaries, it hurts other people by infringing on their rights to free speech/opinions/whatever.  If I achieve something that I'm proud of, it disgusts people by having them be subjected to my arrogance.  If I want to do something or express a preference for an activity, it inconveniences others by having to do this clearly less important or valuable thing.  My thoughts, feelings, opinions, anxieties were often met with eye rolls and dismissals like "just don't worry about it", "you're being oversensitive/overthinking/overdramatic", making me feel like I was doing a great disservice to my family for speaking my mind.

The list goes on, but you get the rough idea of where this belief crops up in my life.

When my family did things for the sake of my abusive mum's happiness, it was often destructive to the rest of us.  And when she walked out and broke the family when I was 15, she said she was doing it for the sake of her happiness.  Ever since then, and on top of the invalidation I experienced throughout childhood, I have feared I have this dark, selfish side that I must desperately try to contain for the sake of others.  I can only be rendered harmless in complete subservience.  I worry I am secretly a monster, that my happiness is poisonous to others.

I'm feeling a bit stuck here at the moment, and I don't know how to change this way of thinking...or if my greatest fears are true, and I really am a monster.

This was a wonderful letter.  I am so sorry you dealt with such harsh bullying that you didn't deserve.  That nobody deserves.

At the end of the letter, you say that we need to stop brushing bullying off as "typical childhood behaviour", and you're absolutely right.  One of the major problems with bullying (and abuse in general, really) is that many acts that are actually acts of bullying are normalised in our society, so no one recognises it and deals with it appropriately until it's too late and the damage is already done.  Bullying and abuse are both individual and systemic issues, in that way.

http://traumahealed.com/articles/by-topic/

This is the website of a bodywork therapist in Portland, Oregon.  The link above has a wealth of excellent articles about trauma and healing from trauma, including articles about the body (chronic pain/discomfort, trauma expressed in the body, etc.).  She is very anti-victim-blaming, which I like.

http://www.crazyherbalist.com/blog/

Here is a collection of articles about CPTSD written from the perspective of a survivor.  I found them immensely validating and useful for my own restoration journey.  Her way of writing is less clinical and more intuitive and emotional, which can be a more helpful approach sometimes.  I also like how she explains that the way our society is set up can really be counterintuitive for a trauma survivor's recovery.

She takes a very new-age, hippie approach to some of the content, which may be off-putting to some, but she advocates for you to take away from the articles the stuff that applies to you.

I hope you find value in these articles as I did!

I think it's hard to explain hypervigilance because it manifests so differently in everyone according to what they were forced to become hypervigilant about.

You could possibly explain it's like animals in the wild who always have a part of their brains active when they sleep to stay on alert for predators.  Sounds exhausting to us privileged humans, when we can completely shut our brains off when we go to sleep and rest peacefully on our perch at the top of the food chain, doesn't it?  But that's the reality for these animals, and that's the reality for us.  Because there has been a true threat to our physical or emotional safety in the past, and maybe we just need a little more time to get out of that wilderness and become "domesticated", so to speak.

Of course, our "predators" usually don't literally eat us.  They may physically hurt us, in which case the analogy is more straightforward, but some of us have predators that eat our souls instead, make us wish we could become robots.  At least that's the case for me.

It is so frustrating to have people invalidate the effects our past experiences and traumas have on us now.  It makes me feel weak and broken for having CPTSD, like there is something wrong with my brain or my very self, not the way I was raised or treated.  I'm sure other people here feel the same way, so know you are not alone in this.

The reality is, there's still a lot we don't know about mental health, particularly how mental health issues develop in the first place.  I did learn something interesting in class recently -- we have a set of genes for our personality that are inherited, but our environment dictates whether or not these genes are expressed.  So a person could have a "depressive" gene, but if they're raised in a loving, caring environment, that gene doesn't get expressed and thus, won't manifest in the person's behaviour.  Maybe you could text that to your sister...!

Sorry for my absence!  I had exams...and then I caught the flu...eugh.

Candid, I apologise if I came off too testy in my post.  I guess it's all part of the grieving process, being angry and upset that things couldn't have been any different, or can't be any different in the present, and having to get to a point where we can accept that.  I really, truly wish I had a healthier relationship with my brother, and I also deeply sympathise with him, which is why it hurts all the more, and why my feelings around it can be a bit volatile.  You were correct in your observation that I have a relationship with my father that I would not want to give up.  That's awful that you were put into a situation where, in the process of removing an undesirable relationship, other, desired relationships were lost in the fallout.

Dee, maybe that's something I can do -- limit contact with my brother in a one-on-one setting, and try to keep it to family gatherings.  I find it interesting how I feel more anger towards my brother these days than my mother, even though she was the primary abuser in my childhood.  Maybe because I have been NC with her for some time now, my feelings towards her are less raw, whereas now, being in contact with my brother, those wounds are still being salted.  I really admire your bravery!  Breaking off from your family is so hard, no matter how toxic the relationship.

Candid --

You may be correct in your observation that my brother has some fleas.  I have thought the same, though I would hesitate to come right out and say it for two reasons.  One is that I personally don't like to diagnose from a distance.  Two is that both Dad and I can sense (we have discussed this) that he hasn't really addressed his own trauma with our mum.  It's hard, because I really do love and care for my brother and I don't want to trigger him, but I guess I can't set myself on fire to keep him warm.  My counsellor said something similar to me in our last session -- she told me to have empathy for my brother, not sympathy.  The difference, she said, is that empathy involves being compassionate, but still with a healthy detachment, whereas with sympathy, we are also caught up in the other person's struggles.

"Grey rock" might be my only option when things get heated.  I will say, though, that I do have a visceral negative reaction to it, as it's very similar to the advice I've been offered countless times when dealing with bullies -- "just ignore them/don't react".  This piece of advice always seemed like a cop-out to me and like I have to just put up with something that's causing me harm and isn't my fault to begin with, because no one else will stick up for me against something that is obviously wrong.  Sure, I'm responsible for my own feelings, but that doesn't give other people the right to just say whatever.

I guess I'll just have to take a page from Zen Buddhism and do what I can in the face of things I can't change, taking solace in the knowledge that it isn't my fault.

Kat --

Thank you for sharing your story!  It's very validating!

Haha, your story with your mother rings very familiar.  My mum would try to get us all into counselling because she was convinced it was us, not her.  The kicker to this is that she would never go along to any of our sessions because she was afraid we would "blame her for everything and make her out to be the bad guy"!

I do wonder if my brother bullies to feel a sense of superiority over me and try to "put me in my place", as it were.  Interestingly, my mum preferred me over him, though this was probably because a) I'm a girl and b) my more open personality made me easier to manipulate...which makes me shudder.  We were both still abused, though, so it isn't like that counted for much.

(sorry, went off on a tangent)

It is an incredibly alienating experience, I know.  You want the family that everyone else seems to have, the safe-haven family, without having to sacrifice who you are and what makes you great in order to have it.  Guess we have to find that solidarity elsewhere, don't we? 

Myself, my father and my brother have all been NC with my emotionally abusive mother for about five years now.  While this has been great for everyone's wellbeing, there is still a dynamic at play that makes my body tense up and my mood darken whenever I'm around them.

For starters, my brother can definitely be a bully.  He's been like this since we were kids, and it's frustrating to see that we are both adults and he's still doing this.  He will not hesitate to slip in a snide remark or make fun whenever I make a mistake or talk about something he dislikes (like a band).  I have tried to confront him numerous times over the years on this, but this doesn't work.  He will either try to pass it off as a "joke" or accuse me of being too sensitive and emotional and "acting like our mother", and tell me I'm infringing on his right to "free speech" and "honesty".  Plus, he does it specifically to get a rise out of me.  He told me so.  What kind of grown-*** man insults his own sister for kicks?

Dad's not much help in all of this.  I have tried talking to him about it numerous times as well, and he basically throws up his hands and says he can't do anything.  This is unfortunately a repetition of a similar dynamic with Mum, when she was abusing us and Dad would not say or do anything to defend us and tell us to just go and apologise to her and do what she says.  She was abusing him, too, which explains some of it, but he failed in his role as a parent in that area.

I also feel a disinterest in me and my life coming from both of them, which hurts me deeply, as Mum would also not take much of an interest in me unless it was something she could take credit for and use as an example of "what a good mother she is".  I know I am different in many ways to my family.  I am a university graduate (and have gone back for another degree) when my brother dropped out (not because he failed, just didn't want to do it anymore) and my dad only finished high school, I am a musician, I am a passionate person when they're more chilled, etc.  This is completely fine that we're all different people; a good thing, even!  But it seems as though, because we operate in different spheres, they use that as an excuse to not engage in my sphere, or they'll only give a token gesture of such.  They've even told me so explicitly.  I try my best to ask them what's going on in their lives and learn more.  Why can't they do the same for me?

Complicating my feelings on all of this is that they have done a great many things for me over the years that I am very thankful for.  However, these are usually material or financial contributions.  It makes me feel like my love and gratitude are being bought, and so I can't say anything about all the other stuff.

When I visit my family, I become filled with self-doubt.  I feel abnormal and alienated around them, when I shouldn't feel that way around my own family.  I should feel accepted unconditionally.  What should I do?

Hi Suricatta!  Welcome!

Your experiences are very common to people with C-PTSD, and it can be very comforting to know you're not alone in your struggles, you're not a "freak" or "weak", you've just been through some unimaginably difficult stuff and may be experiencing some "culture shock" as it were in transitioning from "inside" to "outside".

Looking forward to seeing you around here!

Hi minnow.

I am sorry that you had such a rotten childhood at the hands of your mother.  I know exactly how you feel.  Well done for gaining such an understanding at such a young age. 

I am waiting for the book "The body keeps the score"  to be delivered.  You said you have done a lot of reading around your situation,  so you may have already read this.  Are there other books you would recommend?

All the best to you.

Libby

I haven't actually read many books, just plenty of internet resources like the Centre for Clinical Interventions, DBT Self Help, countless blog posts, etc.

I found a book at my university's library called "Child Abuse Trauma: Theory and Treatment of the Lasting Effects" by John N. Briere that was immensely illuminating and validating.  It is written for therapists, though, rather than clients, but some might actually find that helpful.  I know I did.  I also found Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That?" useful, though, as even though he talks specifically about abusive men in romantic partnerships, the things he talks about can pretty easily be generalised to any abusive person.  There's a free PDF you can find of it if you search the book title on Google.  I actually have not read "The Body Keeps the Score", though I probably should look into it!

The CCI and the DBT Self Help sites are great if you want to find practical ways to address your symptoms in the present, although bear in mind that these are based around both CBT and DBT.  They can sometimes address from a point of pathology, and as we know, C-PTSD is not a pathology per se, rather a normal response to an abnormal situation.

I feel resources from a feminist perspective to be great as well.  The societal subjugation of women is like the macrocosmic version of the subjugation we experienced in our own families, and outside of C-PTSD, is just useful to read in general to find out how we can better society.

Thank you everyone for your warm welcomes!

Minnow - so interesting that you have the same phobia.   For me, I don't know where it originated,  but literature links emetophobia to feeling a lack of control which was the main feature of my relationship with my mother. I am more worried about other people vomiting than I am of vomiting myself (although that applies as well)  and I do link it with my parents reaction.   They weren't bothered by it so why should I be.  They would mock me and bring up past bad experiences over and again.  They made me eat when I did not feel well or disliked the food. I just knew that they would not hear my fears and protect me. I realised that I had not imagined all of this because they frequently took my children to eating places when they had been or were feeling sick, with no regard for my children or people around them. My daughter, aged around 12 at the time had had a stomach bug for a few days and my mother insisted she join the family (I was not present as LC at the time) for my father's birthday meal in a restaurant and made her eat a meal. DD was ill again but the whole sorry situation was repeated again the next evening and daughter was ill again.  All because nm didn't want her holiday spoilt by my daughter being ill. I felt that she had abused my daughter and further abused me through the abuse of my child.  I feel so bad that allowed my parents to maintain a relationship with my children.  Fortunately I don't think they suffered long term and don't miss their grandparents at all.

Sorry I got a bit carried away.  This whole topic seems to be a big trigger for me, so thank you for listening.

Libby

No worries at all!  It's almost relieving, in a strange way, to come across someone else with the phobia, so it's natural to want to talk a lot about it.  And given your experiences on the subject, it's important to process what happened, and one way to do that is to talk about it.

I can definitely see how the "culture" around vomiting that was present in your family would lead to anxiety surrounding it, and thus, fear of the vomiting itself.  Mocking, joking and teasing are often used as subtle forms of verbal abuse in families like ours, and for them to force you into situations that would trigger your phobia and subsequently make fun of you for it (or doing it by proxy via your daughter) is just cruel.  I am sorry you had to go through that.

My emetophobia developed from a nasty stomach bug I had when I was only about two or three.  I don't remember much of anything of it, as I was so young, but apparently I was in a really bad way; I couldn't even keep water down.  My parents told me they took me to the doctors to see if they could do anything about my dehydration; they did nothing.  In retrospect, they probably should have taken me directly to the hospital for one of those injections I now know they can give for extreme fluid loss.  The resulting phobia then wasn't helped by my family getting angry at me whenever I experienced an anxiety attack.  It made me feel invalidated and unloved for something I couldn't really help and also had no bearing on who I was as a person.

Hey, I have emetophobia (vomiting phobia) too!  I don't think it's part of my C-PTSD for me personally, but it doesn't make it any easier.  It's such a hard phobia to live with, and so few seem to truly understand it.

Your experiences, past and present, definitely resonate with my understanding of the overall experience of C-PTSD.  It all sounds unimaginably awful; you don't deserve any of what has happened to you, and that is honestly the "silver lining" of C-PTSD if you can call it that -- that these experiences are not a sign of "defectiveness", nor was it anything you caused, they are a sign of very real, justified trauma.  I also experience the self-doubt regarding my feelings and judgements on the world around me -- I definitely think that's a symptom.  When you are constantly undermined, told you are not worthy, etc., it's easy to begin to feel like you can't do anything right, and that includes your perception.

Please take care, and I hope joining OOTS helps.

Hello all!

So I recently came to the conclusion that I have C-PTSD after a long, long period of denial and repression.  I experienced emotional abuse and neglect throughout my childhood from my mother, which extended into an overall toxic family dynamic.  Fortunately I have had no contact with her since I was 17, and I am 23 now.

Looking back, I always had trauma symptoms, but it has only been in the last year or so that the symptoms became really noticeable, particularly as I started experiencing what I now know to be emotional flashbacks.  I read everything I could get my hands on that might possibly help me out of the despairing mess I was in.  I came across Pete Walker's work and I was initially very resistant to the idea that I had C-PTSD, but the more I "leaned in" to the resistance, the more I found it rang true for me, and I came to the conclusion that there was no shame in being traumatised, especially not after what I have been through.

After coming to the realisation that C-PTSD may be the main source of these personal troubles, it was like dunking my head in ice water on a 40 degree day.  I felt calmer than I had in a long time.  I brought the idea to my counsellor, who all but confirmed it (her exact words were "I wouldn't challenge that at all" -- which I know is her way of saying "yes").  Now that I know what I'm working with, I feel I can better address these difficulties.  So here I am.

It's lovely to meet you all, and I look forward to supporting each other on our individual journeys to recovery!