They’re so far away, but I’m still traumatized

[AlaskanYankee]

Hello everyone. I stumbled upon this page out of desperation. I'm really glad to have found and read about people who have gone through a similar situation like I have.

Brief background about me—I have been married for about five years now and have a wonderful husband, daughter and supportive family. However, there is one aspect of my "family" that absolutely can't stand me and that's my husband's nuclear family.

The reason I'm on this forum is because for 8 years, I have suffered tremendous emotional abuse from the hands of my husband's mother. My MIL(mother in law) has never been formally diagnosed, but she definitely has Narcissistic Personality Disorder among other things. My father in law and brother in law are her minions. They truly believe that all the family drama is my fault. For years, my MIL has been trying to tear my marriage apart. She's lied about things I have never done to my husband and constantly puts me down and degraded me. Worse, she has drawn a wedge between me and my brother in law, who now things I'm manipulating my husband. After 30 years of her lies and manipulation, my husband(who is seeking therapy) and I decided that enough was enough. After a situation where his family totally violated our boundaries and disrespected all of us, we decided to go No Contact with them. However, they have been relentless in sending my husband messages which basically leave me out of the picture because they only want to have my husband and daughter as part of their family. They have made that crystal clear.

Anyway, because of this, I'm really struggling right now. I've just recently realized that I may have CPTSD and have exhibited all, if not most of the symptoms. Even though my life is going great(especially since my husband's family is out of the picture), I still struggle with my depression and am constantly angry. I am on medication but despite this, nothing seems to be working anymore. Does anyone have any advice on how I can better cope with this? Thanks for reading and your advice in advance!

[Blueberry]

Welcome to the forum!

Do you have a therapist? That can certainly help. Recovering from cptsd is rather a long slog so there's no one, single, piece of advice I can give you. Going NC is a good start. (Many of us are in recovery long before we go NC, if we ever do.)

Maybe you'd like to write letters containing your anger to your ILs and post them here http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=43.0 That can be very cathartic and healing.

I hope some more members with adult-onset cptsd get back to you, though some coping methods are the same whether childhood-onset or adult-onset. e.g. self-care. Do check the Adult board http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=5415.0

[AlaskanYankee]

Thanks for the reply!! I will check out those two sub threads. It's a process, but I'm glad to begin some healing.

I have been seeing a therapist for the last four years, but she really didn't take me seriously and sorta downplayed the abuse I went through. I decided to make the decision to switch to another therapist and it's so far been working well.

Thank you!!