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General Discussion / Re: What do you call your abusive "parents"

« on: September 26, 2020, 12:10:05 PM »

Thanks Woodsgnome.

Unfortunately I am still in contact with my FOO and, while my friends know I have CPTSD, they don't connect it to my f or m (I like your abbreviations). So I have the facade of pretending that my young life was normal in a "family" sense and abnormal outwith it. It was, in reality, both. The "DNA donors" made me smile - thanks for that. Perhaps I need to have the courage to tell my friends the truth but this awful disorder leaves me feeling obligated to play along/not say anything - just how it was when I was a child. Like you, I don't recognise my FOO as my family. I have my own and we do love one another. I feel guilty that their love for me cannot eradicate the past - I feel I am letting them down and they genuinely care and love me. And I them.

Cheers

Pilgrim

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General Discussion / What do you call your abusive "parents"

« on: September 24, 2020, 09:48:12 AM »

Hi

This is something I struggle with daily - what name do I give to "my parents" who caused my CPTSD (childhood development)? I mean in the context of talking with people eg what do your parents do/live/are they alive etc. "Parent" infers, to me, caring etc so I feel I am still (many decades later) under control when I use the term. I thought about "biological parents" but then that suggests I was either adopted or brought up in care.  I was "raised" in the same house until adulthood by the 2 people who created me. Even "mother" and "father" is still too suggestive of a degree of caring but it's my default term - when people refer to them as my "mum" or "dad" I just stand there silently thinking just how far from the norm and truth that feels. I can't imagine referring to them by their names - that gives me the total creeps.

What do others use?

Thanks.

Pilgrim

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Re: Feel like a Jonah to my family - Poss Trigger

« on: February 16, 2020, 04:32:37 PM »

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. After finding out about all the abuse we, as parents, feel that we've got our daughter back. This just seemed like a last kick in the stomach. My daughter has told me more and more about what happened to her and i know i have been repressing a lot of anger towards her abuser because i want her to feel safe and able to talk. She is receiving therapy for her PTSD. I don't want to cry in front of her in case she thinks i'm disappointed in her - what career she wants is entirely her decision and we'll always support her choice and we've never demanded uni from our kids. we've spoken on the phone as she is currently at college but I'm worried that when i see her i will just explode into rage about her ex and that will upset her. There is just so much anger in me at the moment and i fear that, as usual, i will turn it on myself. I'm starting to read Pete Walker's book and i think i need to see and open up about all this to my therapist. Any sign of emotional weakness or empathy as a child  got you a battering in my FOO so being openly upset in front of someone i find very difficult with the double whammy that if i do i berate myself for it. But i need to do something before i do something stupid.

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Feel like a Jonah to my family - Poss Trigger

« on: February 16, 2020, 01:37:27 PM »

I feel that i ever only come here when I'm in need rather than supporting others too and for that I am so very sorry.

One of my teenage children had an extremely abusive (psychologically and then physical) relationship while still at school. We only found out once she ended it. By that time she had been made to stop attending school for half the year despite it being her crucial final year. She was a predicted straight 5 As and still she managed, now having been given PTSD, to get 2As, B and C. But that C was in a subject which managed to scupper her dream - she does have other uni alternatives - but I feel that her abuser has still won, accomplished what he so maliciously set out to do and there is nothing I can do . I keep asking myself why couldn't she come to me? I should have done something. It's not about grades and unis but the squashing of dreams of a child. What if she is doomed to become me? What if the real answer is that it is all my fault. I've been detained (sectioned) into hospital a number of times during her childhood - that can't have helped.    Since the news I can't stop my secret tears and my self-loathing has escalated - I am a millstone around the necks of my beautiful family, a Jonah to their dreams. They all need and deserve a better person. I love them with all my heart - I have never loved and been so loved in my life. I want the best for them - they deserve it. I want to set them free - a short pain for a lifetime of peace for them. What can i do for the best? i'm lost and my mind awash with dark thoughts.

thanks for listening. Hope i haven't upset anyone.

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General Discussion / Re: Deadline set on therapy

« on: November 21, 2019, 11:10:58 AM »

Thanks for the life raft - I'll ask at my next session what happens when we reach the magical number 10. There was alluding to re-assessing things but also that a break would be necessary. Break? - does that, in reality, mean the crack I will simply fall through. I've started reading "Complex-PTSD: from surviving to thriving". I think I might get more out of the book.

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General Discussion / Deadline set on therapy

« on: November 21, 2019, 09:54:39 AM »

Hi. I know I'm not in the best of places at the moment so I may be very over-sensitive but when my psychologist told me this week quite strongly that we will be having 10 sessions on a particular therapy (we've seen each other about 5 times so far and my psychologist wants to press on ahead as we are having "mission drift") I just felt "oh no, now I have 10 weeks to get better and shoe-horning a complex condition  into a "1 size fits all" therapy doesn't fill me with confidence". I appreciate that I'm getting help and I always approach things with an open mind because I do want to get better but I've been shoved into other "1 size fits all" therapies and when the promised panacea doesn't work I feel even more like a failure. It's like more trauma. I feel it just never seems to end. I hid my mental health problems for so long and then finally plucked up the courage to confront them - got misdiagnosed first and then therapy for a condition I didn't have (and that therapy didn't work) and I sometimes wish I had just kept it all hidden and stopped existing. I'm trying, desperately, not to close my mind to this but I already feel worse - like I've been a bad child not staying on topic and wasting the psychologist's time. I'm sinking, drowning - and I don't even have it in me anymore to wave.

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General Discussion / Re: am i financially supporting my child enough in Higher Education

« on: November 06, 2019, 05:52:08 PM »

thanks for the replies. Just in such a dark place at the moment.

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General Discussion / am i financially supporting my child enough in Higher Education

« on: November 06, 2019, 11:06:50 AM »

1 of my children said they weren't that well off doing their Further Education. Apart from the basic student loan, I cover all accommodation costs, utility bills, mobile phone, spotify, travel card, leaving £50 per week for food and anything else. I'm medically retired. Please be honest with me, is this too little? Based in Scotland. I'm falling apart and when i heard that have just disappeared down a black hole. I do the same for another child at uni - parity for both. i just feel why don't i just shuffle off this mortal coil and then they can have more money. Thanks.

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Re: Struggling with co-morbid disability - TRIGGER WARNING

« on: June 10, 2019, 08:52:01 PM »

Thanks Notalone. Unfortunately hospital stays have always made me worse - if  I go voluntarily, within a few hours I am detained (sectioned) and left to bounce off the walls. I can't stand it when I see a vulnerable person being made a fool off by staff so tackle them about it. That lands me in a single room, with a mattress on the floor, 2 guards (sometimes both male and I am female) and another 2 female guards to watch me go to the toilet which is ensuite and the door is still left open. Despite that my 2 kids (20 and 18 in 6 days) tell me they love me and that I'm a good mum and wife I feel like I've trapped them all in this *-hole and they really would be better off to lead the good life they so deserve without my toxic presence. Just burn me, scatter my ashes, walk away and forget I ever existed. Why can't we come with an off/on switch.Sorry just feel like I've sailed past despair beyond and losing the strength to turn around. Going to try and sleep - will just blast my headphones in hope of drowning out my thoughts.
Thanks for replying.

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Struggling with co-morbid disability - TRIGGER WARNING

« on: June 10, 2019, 06:06:07 PM »

Hi

I am really struggling at the moment. I have another disability which sits at the interface between neurology and psychiatry and which causes physical disabilities. I help out with a charity associated with the condition. I know my C-PTSD is orbital at the moment (my psychologist reckons I could do with an in-patient stay) and so I am finding it hard to know if I am being "over-sensitive" or not. But my co-volunteers are driving me nuts. I feel not listened to and that I have to keep reminding them that the devolved nations exist, with differing legal systems and regulatory bodies. I want to help those without a voice (I'm a lawyer) so don't want to walk away but those close to me say that it is making me ill. I don't want to be a quitter but I feel like a failure because I feel like I'm not getting through. I suppose you might say "powerless" but I feel worthless, useless - all those things made to feel constantly as a child. 

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Friends / Re: Are we this season's latest fashion accessory?

« on: May 17, 2019, 05:22:25 PM »

well I am back to eat humble pie - I got a very understanding reply. So sorry, it was just me. Trusting is so difficult but that's a bit of a lame excuse.

Cheers.

Pilgrim

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Friends / Are we this season's latest fashion accessory?

« on: May 17, 2019, 03:24:24 PM »

Hi.
I know I am struggling at the moment - physically and mentally. So if it is just me please tell me. But I read a Facebook post from a friend's partner extolling the suicidal to reach out and then going on about how bad she felt over her brother's suicide 3 decades ago and what more could she have done. I felt so sorry that she felt that way that I PM'd her to try and explain that when you are a determined suicide nothing may work. I wasn't looking for her sympathy or anything like that. The response to  my PM - deafening silence. We have corresponded before so I am not a total stranger. I am struggling with feelings of revulsion at this person - pouring their heart out on FB but when met with it up close appears a sham. We aren't this year's must have fashion accessory - oh quick let me get on  the bandwagon of pretending to be an understanding person, yet in reality recoiling like the vast majority of people. These types of people do more harm than good. Was the post really about helping those with a mental health disorder or just a piece of look at how understanding I appear? This person doesn't have mental health issues. We put up with a lot in our daily struggles. I have genuine friends who see past my mental health issues (but without ignoring them), don't leap up and down on FB saying how wonderful they are at understanding but they genuinely are wonderful. We really don't need this type of thing. It sickens me to my soul.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Cheers

Pilgrim

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Christmas & New Years / Look after yourselves everyone

« on: December 24, 2018, 07:30:21 PM »

Hi

Just wanted to say look after yourselves everyone over the Festive Season. It's hard. We've survived so we we can keep the truth alive. So let's be proud of ourselves for that.

Cheers

Lou

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Re: Triggering

« on: December 10, 2018, 07:05:42 PM »

Hi. It's such a hard one - been there myself with others trying to re-write history as time passes. But I think, as others have said, look at it from what you feel you will get out of it. You know the people the best so you may have some feeling about this person's reason for contacting you "in the back of your mind". As it's been a while since the initial contact I might be too late in responding but if not, you've had some time to think about it. Are your feelings changing? Trust your feelings.
Cheers
Lou

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Having an Exceptionally Difficult Day / Just to say thanks

« on: December 10, 2018, 06:57:51 PM »

Hi

I posted last week (and am totally ok that it had to be taken down and appreciated that I was given the opportunity to read the replies beforehand). I just wanted to say, I'm plugging on, and that your replies really helped me. Thanks again.

Cheers

Lou