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I am much impressed with Matsakis' work.  "Trust After Trauma" is my current read and she certainly covers some ground.  I have just finished "I Can't Get Over it" also by her.  Knowledge is power for me and I am getting a lot from these readings.

I have found that my "secondary wounding" or discounting of my experience by so-called "friends" has been a very painful period.  It drove me to become an "exile" (a topic she covers well) because I lost faith in my ability to choose good people - I thought I had a repeating compulsion on that one.  Not so, it seems that my declaration about NPD mother and my family dramas was pressing buttons for people they didn't want to hear lest it bring up their own stuff.

And she mentions other things like people's need to be in control of their lives so they will often blame the victim (a real biggie!) so that they can take the randomness of human experience out of their minds.  There is much more to cover but I can thoroughly recommend this book if you have ever had that "secondary wounding"  - a resurfacing of the rejection, abandonment and vulnerability of the unkindness of others.   Those "triggers" I have had.

I have to say reading such material has been helpful beyond my expectations.

Finding out about this phenomena from a read of Aphrodite Matsakis I am much enlightened about an experience I had back a few years now.  When I declared to "friends" that I had found the cause of my family troubles - ie Narcissistic Personality Disorder of my mother, in particular, but rather immature parents - the feedback was so discouraging !  They said it must have been my fault if I was rejected by my parents or in terms of a mother's bad behaviour they said "she wouldn't do that"

Yes, it was the mother taboo we have mentioned here before.  But what a find to hear that "Secondary Wounding" raises the pain all over again and makes you understand how ignorant some people are and how insensitive they are to your experience. 

Matsakis gives many reasons for people's cruel responses.  However, for me it cleared my head somewhat because I felt I was experiencing a "repetition compulsion" by choosing bad women as "friends".  I totally blamed myself for bad choices thinking I as going around finding "mothers" and would I ever stop this ?  Well, this find has been most helpful in showing me that I was simply re-experiencing the cruelty of another.  Perhaps it could also be, as the author suggests, that I was pressing on their sore points in their own family story.

The upshot of this was that I isolated myself from others feeling it was my stuff that brought bad people to me.  I can accept now that people are just dumb   

After finding this very helpful info I am rather forgiving myself, and silencing the noisy critic, on my choice of company when I am stronger and diving back into the world.   That is my next challenge though.......

"White Oleander" by Janet Fitch was a great read if anyone is interested.  Fitch has supposedly written fiction but she certainly knows her topic.  The movie starred Michelle Pfeiffer.

Jon G Allen.  Just started this one written by a psychiatrist who explains the processes by which we experience fear and anxiety.  It's an easy read for a complex subject.
Anyone else read it ?

Have posted this book by Debbie Shapiro under books.  Not sure where it belongs actually - here or there ??

This title by Debbie Shapiro is my go-to for all the information that is happening to me.  Recommended.

Was it Jasmin Lee Corri who said "the issues are in the tissues"?
I wonder how many of you here have similar health issues as a matter of interest.   When my past "surfaced" after years suppressed I had an ovarian problem causing bleeding and had an hysterectomy.  Gynae didn't ask me first, just told me when I woke up that he "fixed" the problem, and I didn't need my womb any more anyway !  Whoa!  Couldn't get away with that now.
I put weight on most of all and I suspect that I was giving myself a protective layer as things were tough emotionally, yet I didn't know about PTSD and how  I was having this flashback time.  I knew it was dysfunctional family related but I never knew about trauma then.
Asthma was my next problem and I take medication for that at night which is the only need.
Then TMJ - ie jaw tension - so I have a mouth brace at night. 
I now see all of these things add up to the tension and anger of my trauma.
What about you ?  Do we have this body language, this speaking by our bodies in common ?

This book gave me so much !  Thoroughly recommend.  It doesn't identify which "problem" so much as our responses, feelings and experiences. 
Totally recommend it.

My role in my FOO was mother of my mother,  the one who took care of domestic violence, general peace keeper and savior of my brothers.  When I had two beautiful sons I knew exactly what I didn't want them to experience in a family atmosphere so I set out to learn all I could about parenting.  I worried and cared them through to adulthood and they seem pretty good now.

But what to do when my whole life had been about caretaking, and thus nobody caretaking me ?  I gave the impression to my husband and all others that I was functioning very well, but I did have my anxieties underneath.  I got N mother out of my hair as soon as I could and moved interstate to free that up.

We had earlier moved near FOO for our kids education in their teens,  it was very similar to one that happened when I was similar age.  I had not been able to grieve my grandmother, the one loving source, as it was all pushed aside when I was at that similar age.  One day it all came rushing back when my eldest left home to go to university.  I grieved my grandmother then but could not understand the other feelings although I knew they were related to my dysfunctional family.  It was of course the awakening of my trauma.  Since what was happening then has only recently dawned on me I am still trying to compute this one.

Since my sons have grown and have their own lives and I do not want to be over-involved as my mother was trying with me, I have tried to get on with a life of my own.  However, it seems that caretaking was my go-to response to feel safe - that is to stop violence, make my mother "happy" etc.   So not having anyone to "caretake" I have once again experienced the CPTSD sensations.

Working with my inner child is doing me good.  I can "mother" her and soothe her fears and cry that she missed so much.  Therapy can only do so much, and I did do EMDR and Family Constellation (noted elsewhere) , but ultimately to reparent that little girl is an ongoing role.  It is a benefit.  However, tears are often close for me.

I am also learning as much as I can about what happened to me and believe I will always have to do this to soothe the pain.  I do most of it alone as people do not understand CPTSD and I had tried to explain how my mother was the instigator and the mother "taboo" cuts in..."oh she wouldn't do that!"   Such was the con job my mother did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Constellations
I have found this was a very helpful sort of work. It showed me how the NPD of my mother came from her father.  What it does is work back through generations to find the source of the problem - and of course you find that it is not you !  Very helpful in clearing any feelings you might have about guilt and responsibility - not sensations N people have.

I saw a thread of a year ago and was advised by the board to start a new topic.

Annegirl's experience (post Aug 2015)was so like my own!  My husband has worked on a fly in fly out basis over the last ten years, and over the last five or so it has become harder and harder to cope alone. I tend to isolate due to bad experiences with poor empathiser friends of the past (repetition compulsion?) and so his absences are getting more difficult.  Now that I have more information on why I have felt like this we are working on changing the system.

I was also quite taken with Annegirl's experience waiting at the school gate.  This was also my experience !!!!

Hello, new person on the forum.  So glad to find a place to put down the load for a while.  I see Pete Walker's book is popular here and it has led me to define the left-over feelings that were created in my FOO.  The main cause a mother with NPD, a father highly emotional and explosive.  But it doesn't end when you walk out the door and have your own life I now know.   
Thanks for being here and to the volunteers who make it happen.  I look forward to reading the stories.