Messages

Notalone.

I am so sorry to read how difficult a time you are having with regards to your husband. I really do feel your pain, but am so pleased that you were able to go to church and to a picnic. When you are so  lonely at home, any connection is so comforting, isn't it?

I hope that you can work through this terribly difficult part of your life. I am with you in spirit.

Hi Armadillo.

I really do feel for you, dealing as you are with your mother. It brings back many memories of my H. They both seem to have huge difficulties in accepting care, even when they need it, and especially receiving care from us. Your story about the bird feeders was so interesting. It was when my H was ill that I could really see his personality. Am I right, maybe, in thinking that you have experienced this?

It actually helps to see them how they are, deep down. But it is still so sad.

Keep strong. You seem to be coping with all of this with great fortitude.

Thank you, Rainy Diary.

I had posted in your journal, just before seeing your message here. Really good timing!  We do seem to be dealing with some similar issues. Hopefully we will find our peace.

Hi Rainy Diary.

Your recent posts seem to have really captured the intergenerational aspects of trauma. The breaks between parents and children, and between siblings, in both families of origin, and then in our own families. It seems too huge to stop, and so very sad. Like you, it makes me just want to isolate.

Best wishes to you in thinking and dealing with all of this.

Thank you Notalone and Jazzy, for reading and replying. It means so much to me.

It's been a weird weekend. I just feel so, so tired. Normally, I'm busy, busy but I have no energy. So, very unusually for me, I have sat and relaxed and watched some dramas on television. Something I used to struggle to concentrate on. But I enjoyed them.

I think I am learning to sit with my pain, and feel it, but not react to it. Seems like a good thing, but so tiring!

Hi Jazzy. Thanks. I love the electric blue Very me!

The virtual embrace is very much appreciated and what you said about how sad my story made you actually really helps. It actually helps me see the sadness all around our family.
That my husband was unable to let go and have fun. I don't think that it was my fault but his defenses were so strong that we couldn't grow together.

Thank you for the colour and your kindness.

Thank you Notalone. Our experience of marriage does sound so similar. Your story about your husband sounds so relatable. One of my sons had a card game he really loved. Husband played once, won and stated that he had retired undefeated. He never played again, whereas I played games all the time. The children loved them and we did have a lot of fun. I did accept him as he was, and just got on with things.

The son who has been estranged since the divorce has only ever said one thing to me. That I stopped him having a relationship with his dad. Despite trying to dismantle my defences, I don't think this is the case.

There was always so much pain in our family. Death brought it to the surface.

Thank you for listening and responding. It genuinely makes me feel not alone.

Thanks, Armadillo. It sounds as if the podcast you talked about is very much along the lines of what my counsellor was getting at. I want to make things better for my daughter, and the counselling has helped me get to a place where I want to help her, even if that doesn't involve being involved in her life. As you say, that will possibly involve further damage to me.

I hear what you say about your mother. I would need so much from mine to ever be able to connect with her at all. And like you, that will never, ever happen. She is absolutely unable and unwilling to ever give up any of her defenses.


So, if I could give my daughter something that would maybe help her, even if it were at a cost to me, then that would be making some amends. Something I will never get from my mother. I am starting to let go of the drive to get her back into my life, so that's probably moving in the right direction.

So, thank you for the suggestion. It's something I will look at, maybe with the help of my counsellor. I do think I am moving in the right direction and talking here really helps.

Hi again, Jazzy. Thank you for your best wishes for my counselling session, and I am delighted to be asked for my favourite colour. It's definitely a nice, bright blue colour. I look forward to seeing it!

Thanks so much, Armadillo. I don't know at all whether it was a good idea to give so much detail to my sister. I suspect not. I just reached a point where I felt I needed to be honest, and vulnerable, I suppose. It would be good to get any response.


The counselling session was very helpful but definitely brought up so much. The counsellor definitely did validate me, with regards to my NM, and said that it made her want to weep. In fact, when I got home, I cried, which is unusual. I cried for poor, baby me.

I always knew that my trauma began at or shortly after birth. My mother made no secret of how she felt about me. She didn't see it as abusive or damaging, of course, and still regards herself as a perfect mother, I would imagine.

I have had to accept the fact of my extreme damage, and in some way, I have forgiven her.

But accepting the damage that I have, in turn, done to my children, is on another level altogether. I did try to do better and maybe succeeded to a degree. But I found it so difficult to trust my H. Definitely CPTSD, but he believed that everyone should do as they pleased, and if people didn't like it, that was their problem. So he was never wrong and never apologised, and disliked emotions and conflict.

I am much more stable without him, but my children see this as denigrating him. So we are at a sort of impasse.

My counsellor has suggested I could write to my daughter, telling her all of the things I love about her and all of the things I miss about her. I am definitely going to try this, as we did have lots of good times. Or so I thought.

I cried again today when it struck me that my H and I had never, in thirty years, danced together. He had never danced and that feels so, so sad. I think I am starting to tap into more compassion for him, which was always so hard because he was so guarded and unwilling to be vulnerable. Its so tragic that we couldn't grow together.

Notalone, I am so sorry to read your recent posts about your marriage. It all feels so, so similar to my marriage. My H never considered that he had any role in our problems and would never have even considered therapy because he had no issues that needed addressing. Like you, I carried all of the distress and pain.

I'm so sad for you and wish so much that I had more words.

Snookiebookie.

I was so pleased to read that you had found a trauma informed therapist, and that you were feeling positive about them after your first session.

Being in the UK as well, I know how difficult it is to get any specialist help for the effects of relational trauma.

I too have issues with my D, so I hope that the new therapist helps you move forward in this area. I wish I had got more help when my D was a teenager.

All the very best to you and I hope you can share some of thoughts on your new therapy.

I have been thinking for a number of days about making my first proper entry in my resurrected journal. Think I have been putting it off, like many other things.

I took a leap of faith yesterday, and emailed my sister. We weren't in contact for several years, because I was NC with my parents, so automatically NC with her as  well. I was the scapegoat and she was the golden child.

Since the death of my H, we have been emailing quite regularly, but mostly about very neutral subjects.

However, since my daughter went NC with me, I decided it was time to get everything that has happened, with regards to my Hs death, out in the open.

This led to my telling her about CPTSD, although I refrained from any blaming of my parents. That would have been counter productive. But I truly think it was a calm and reflective email.

I decided to get things out in the open. I weighed it up and decided that if she rejected what I told her, then I hadn't really lost anything. Just the occasional chatty email. It was more important to me to tell my story. After all, if I don't hear from her again, it confirms that family issues cannot be raised. I think that could well be the case.

My son who I share a house with came home from work and was very agitated. He had had an issue driving home. After he had got it out of his system, and I had really listened to him, I asked him about his Dad. I asked if he would have ever told his dad about his anger and anxiety. He said no, because he wouldn't have cared and he wouldn't have listened.

I felt validated because I have becoming more and more aware of how avoidant my H was.

Son got over his outburst and everything was fine. So that was positive for both of us.

My new neighbour had invited me to her house for a drink yesterday. Turned out she had forgotten, or maybe changed her mind. I don't feel like I sought her out in any way, but she made the initial move so I accepted her invite. She did say we could meet on Monday instead but I said I wasn't sure what I was doing next week. I don't think I sense any connection with her so I think I made the right decision to decline.

In the past, I would have felt I had to accept the revised invite, despite being resentful of being let down. This time, not especially resentful but chose to honour my decision.

Just a small thing, but positive for me. And I am not concerned about bumping into her. So win, win.

Have a counselling session later, to try and sort out how I really feel about my daughter. This is my big issue at the moment.

Welcome, Jenna. Great to have you here.

Getting through the work meeting, and making yourself heard, sounds like such an achievement, Rainy Diary. I like that you shared your trauma, they listened and responded with a solution. A good result, by the sounds of it.

Hi Armadillo.

So impressed by the way you handled the manipulative email. Hopefully dealing with this type of incident will give you the strength to deal with the bigger issue of your mother's ill health and behaviour. I truly believe that my H became an even more exaggerated version of himself when he was terminally ill. It's hard to deal with, but gave me some sense of closure in the end.