Leonor's comment in another thread got me wondering how many of us have had to deal with awful moments of What the What when we've disclosed to FOO that we have PTSD as a result of our childhoods.
35 years ago when I was diagnosed, my T encouraged me to make that disclosure to my sisters, as from what I'd told her, she felt certain that they were suffering from many of the same symptoms as me & it was likely we had all walked away from that with PTSD.
That conversation did not go well & when I went back to my T she advised me not to disclose to the rest of mother's FOO and instead to test them on very small things to see what kind of response was forthcoming. And from there we started to break down their responses and I started to learn about how it was that mother's FOO would shut down any conversation that wasn't about them and any input from me where I expressed any kind of need.
Our families can make it so much harder to recover from PTSD and over the last few decades, most of the people I've met with PTSD have told me they've had to tell their families that they have depression, or anxiety, or some other thing, because it's just too hard for a disordered family/parent to deal with that.
Anyway.
How'd that conversation go?
I'm not in this position but hypothetically they couldn't possibly acknowledge your C-PTSD without acknowledging their ghastly fucking behaviour to their own child. Remember they know exactly what they're doing cos they can turn it off and on at will, depending on circumstance and audience. They are also defended, to the death, against any threat to their false self, which such a diagnosis surely is. Cue: ridicule, rage, histrionics, woe is meeeeeee, smear campaign, possibly violence, the whole nine yards depending on the variety of disorder your FOO relative has.
I can totally understand people not disclosing their diagnosis to protect themselves from further abuse. That's how twisted it can get.
I would not disclose this to my FOO because I am in agreement with Boat Babe. My disordered FOO would go into immediate damage control and defend, defend, defend. They only way I imagine I could ever have a real conversation with them about the trauma I experienced was if they came to me and showed me remorse and said they were so very sorry and I believed they meant it and understood because they had been through some experience that woke them up. Like some alcoholics do recover when they go to AA and make amends with the people they harmed and they truly mean it.
My parents have never sought therapy, or joined any healing groups. They have never read books and the only thing they might know about trauma is what I think the vast majority of people know, that PTSD comes from natural disasters or the veterans who've gone to war. Even with some of my peers, I've mentioned the word trauma, not even about me, but in the context of something and they look visible afraid of the word.
For me, finding out I had C-PTSD was the best thing that ever happened though. Finally I understood my anxiety and depression and it made sense that after 18 years of living under severe stress wore me down. But my parents willfully forget what it was like and to be reminded of it would totally put them in defence, offence mode.
I have both GAD and C-PTSD but decided to keep it a secret from my FOO. I know that my Nmother would have been absolutely delighted to learn that I was suffering in that way and I just wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.
I eventually went NC with my Nmother and enDad so neither of them ever knew how crippling my anxiety was. Both are deceased now and I'm glad I never told them.
I haven't been diagnosed but since going VVVVVLC I go between feeling ok and then periods of exhaustion. I think now the stress of seeing them is over I am aware of how much its taken its toll on me. I would never tell my family though. Now that I have moved away I am thinking I will only feel better and better over time.
My mother has been quick to blame me for any problems, she has already painted a picture that I am struggling and depressed and that's why our relationship is the way it is, nothing to do with them. Even when I was a kid and my dad would give me the silent treatment for months on end, it was my fault and up to me to fix. Really telling them would achieve nothing except giving them something to use as a smear campaign and to fully paint themselves as victims.
I don't tell them anything personal about my life now. That has worked well to help me feel safe and secure. I honestly believe this type of information would be used to try to insult me or hurt me down the track, that's what my mother does, she takes information and then one day she will say something hurtful. Its simply not worth it to me to put myself at risk like that.
I'm not formally diagnosed but I certainly fulfil the diagnostic criteria.
I've never brought it up with my parents because I knew better to even mention to them that I was depressed (as a child and a teenager - although I then used the word 'sad'), as it would provoke anger, denial, scoffing and assorted emotional punishment from them and I'd be told that I had nothing to be sad about.
So, when I considered informing them that the puzzle was finally solved for me when I found about about cPTSD and how it fitted all my symptoms over the decades, I just decided not to. I knew it would provoke even stronger denial and invalidation, so I decided to protect myself from that shitstorm.
I did share it with my youngest sibling, who also fulfilled the criteria. And we can support each other in that knowledge.
As for telling other FOO, my three other siblings are still very enmeshed with FOO and can't see the wood for the trees, although one of them (my other sister) has very pronounced cPTSD symptoms. And GC bro would just deny it all because, well, he's the GC and I'm 'just making up crap.' And the other bro would probably just minimise it and be overly forgiving and humorous because that's his MO.
Anyway I'm NC now from all but my youngest sister and that's the best protection of all.
I hear ya!
I havent been formally diagnosed as suffering from C-PTSD , but after reading Peter Walkers book "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A GUIDE AND MAP FOR RECOVERING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA" i realised i was and basically anybody raised by PD parents would be. It manifests itself in many many ways. My therapist at the time described it as very good when i recommended it to him.
My T years ago said i was "having a breakdown" At the time i tentatively raised this with my father and sister and received a wave of indifference, although my father did once comment "I wonder what caused that?" It really wasnt worth the effort to try to explain. Just like everyone else denial and gaslighting ensued.
My father suffers from C-PTSD in his own way as does my sister and so do no doubt family generations before them. " Intergenerational trauma"
I did read something that people suffering from C- PTSD but are unaware they do, are much more likely to suffer from PTSD in later life if triggered by severe negative life events. They are extremely susceptible and retraumatised in effect.
Im NC .
Yes I did in an email to my sister where an episode happened with nm and she witnessed it. I never got a response. Not surprised as she never thought or wanted to know about how our past affected us, her greatly with episodes of depersonalization in her adult years.
She still complained about covert M emotional blackmail in bitching sessions to me. I was just her emotional garbage can.
I was told by her dd that my conversations intimidated her.....wow. It's all behind her and she lives in a fantasy world with toxic positivity. That dd is vlc with her.
My family was pretty accepting of the PTSD diagnosis, mainly because it was fresh off my 3.5 year time with uN/BPD paternal grandmother. But I can tell you that when I flung it into my uNM's face during an argument in my teen years (I was undiagnosed*, but this was after weeks of walking on eggshells & random eruptions by her), she told me SHE had PTSD because of ME & what I put HER through.
I don't recommend it.
*I am now diagnosed with PTSD because of sustained childhood abuse & trauma, in addition to the PTSD I sustained with the aforementioned eF's mother.
Thanks for all your responses.
So many of us have been through similar things. I know someone who was diagnosed with PTSD & she had to dial that back to 'depression' because her family didn't accept that diagnosis. Years later she died by suicide & one of the family made a statement that they had no idea what was wrong with her and offered the view that there was a chemical imbalance in her brain. I quietly seethed about that one at the time & I opted not to go to her funeral because I didn't think I could stay silent through that level of BS and gaslighting, and I did understand that the person making those remarks really was not capable of anything else.
I'm currently listening to the audiobook of 'The body keeps score' and I'm finding it very validating.
Hazy - Pete Walker is great, hey. I kept his flashback management tips on the fridge when I was in an acute phase and it was so reassuring.
* My T said a similar thing about how a lot of people with PTSD don't acknowledge it until later in life when they are not so busy and the coping mechanisms that they had in place start to fail them & cause problems. I.e. workaholic, alcoholic, substance abuse, partying, finding destructive relationships etc. My sisters went down that path but FWIW I've lived long enough to have the view that untreated childhood PTSD simply transforms into substance abuse/personality disorders/chaotic lives.
Blacksheep7 - I hear you with the toxic positivity. It's been really grating on my nerves during the pandemic having people in my social media feed who are doing the New Age version of Sesame Street's 'Word for the Day' and if someone starts saying :bighug: things like 'my word for today is JOY/FREEDOM/GRATITUDE/INSPIRATION/FOCUS/INSERT PLATITUDE, I reach for the metaphorical vomit bag, click 'mute' or 'unfollow' if they are really annoyingly loud about constructing their artificial selves and I move on to people who are OK to be real and genuine and are able to connect.
This thread is really interesting.
I'm really glad Leonor mentioned her experience (it was at the thread about the mother doing the one upmanship when the daughter got ill with covid).
it's nice to pop back in here from time to time & go, yep, I'm not alone, I didn't imagine it, and NC has been keeping me very, very safe..
Thanks for those reminders. It's awful that we've all endured these things, but such a comfort to have these forums to share them.
I've not been diagnosed with PTSD but I went rounds with my mother years ago when I was going through a very hard time with depression and made the mistake of trying to talk with her about it. She "couldn't see where I had anything to be depressed about," disregarding the obvious situational depression following several losses in our family, to say nothing about chronic depression I'd been experienced from childhood. Her complaints that I didn't look happy in pictures should have been a small clue, but no. She went on to make a number of snide comments in my presence and I understand spoke of my depression with others.
After that, I was much more guarded what I shared with her. It wasn't worth the fall out and I realized it was only ammunition for future attacks.
By proxy, I saw response. My Nparents shamelessly bullied and often openly mocked my aunt, NMs SG sibling, and aunt's family, to their face, in my frequent presence, during my frequent childhood and adult interactions with them. I recall my aunt noting that perhaps she was "too sensitive" but that my parents were "being unkind", and my Nparents would take offense and claim she was "thin-skinned" about them noting her family's "deficiencies". As an adult, NC myself, I'm appalled, because I realize they did same to me, their SG DD, too. In the moment, I didn't have the courage to defend myself. Now, I maintain NC distance. And my aunt, to whom I was once very close, is now deceased, eventually banished altogether by my malevolent NM.
I don't think disclosure to disordered parents furthers our healing. Think it's better to accept there's no empathy nor kindness available from them, and to build our lives without further reliance upon them. I managed for many years to maintain frequent contact, by viewing them as "bad clients" I was compelled to tolerate. But my own middle-age, my increasing self-worth, eventually made even that approach insufficient protection. I'm coming up to a decade of NC, and very content to maintain perpetual distance and zero communication. Please realize that in these situations, our well-being is of no true value to our disordered parent(s).
Quote from: daughter on October 24, 2021, 03:33:00 PM
By proxy, I saw response. My Nparents shamelessly bullied and often openly mocked my aunt, NMs SG sibling, and aunt's family, to their face, in my frequent presence, during my frequent childhood and adult interactions with them. I recall my aunt noting that perhaps she was "too sensitive" but that my parents were "being unkind", and my Nparents would take offense and claim she was "thin-skinned" about them noting her family's "deficiencies". As an adult, NC myself, I'm appalled, because I realize they did same to me, their SG DD, too. In the moment, I didn't have the courage to defend myself. Now, I maintain NC distance. And my aunt, to whom I was once very close, is now deceased, eventually banished altogether by my malevolent NM.
I don't think disclosure to disordered parents furthers our healing. Think it's better to accept there's no empathy nor kindness available from them, and to build our lives without further reliance upon them. I managed for many years to maintain frequent contact, by viewing them as "bad clients" I was compelled to tolerate. But my own middle-age, my increasing self-worth, eventually made even that approach insufficient protection. I'm coming up to a decade of NC, and very content to maintain perpetual distance and zero communication. Please realize that in these situations, our well-being is of no true value to our disordered parent(s).
Same here, my aunt was NF
only sister and family that we had on this side of the ocean. My aunt was a very avant-garde woman for her time, ( the 60's) very independent and enjoyed her life immensely. She never married because she was brought up to iron her b's (my nf shirts). She didn't want to be her husband's servant.
There were several periods of nc between the two brought on by NF or my aunt but it was always her fault, of course.
NM always criticized her all her life, because NF did. She couldn't understand why she didn't get married.
Although they had good times together where my aunt would come over and spend the weekends at our house, NM she still badmouthed her til the end, just like her kids (us).
I truly believe that NM was jealous of her life and mine, for that matter.
I am sorry that my aunt passed before I came Out of the FOG.
Blacksheep7 & Daughter - I tried very hard to have a relationship with my sisters' children and I dealt with very similar things to what you've described. In the end I'd backed myself so far into a corner trying to accommodate the behaviour that when I eventually set boundaries, both sisters were appalled and we have been NC ever since. It's been hard to lose the relationship with their children and I'm grateful that I have 'back-up' as I was auntie to the children of my close friends. Those kids are young adults now & it's nice to be the 'avant-garde' auntie in their lives. I didn't marry or have children, I do have my long-term partner and thankfully he has benefitted and grown from following along on my journey. Everything I learned has helped him to deal with his disordered FOO. I do hope that one day my sisters' children will come Out of the FOG & watching how everyone has come along at these boards over the years gives me hope that there's a lifeboat factory churning out lifesaving equipment for generations to come. Your words about your aunts have been balm to that wound. I worried about them, lots. I found it very difficult when they became young adults and started to act like the adults who had shaped them. It's like watching them turn into werewolves.
Moglow - meh. Your mother. How many years have we known each other now? The fact that you are still here and you are still sane is testimony to your strength & resilience.
Like the rest of you, I do find that NC has made my life better over the years. I have so many good people in my life now. It was a matter of starting again after the entire house of cards blew over but so very, very worth it.
My experience was similar to moglow's. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in high school, and all my mother could offer were the standard entirely unhelpful comments like, "Why don't you just snap out of it!?"
During a bout of depression, I was sleeping a lot after school, and my mother would burst into my room when she got home from work and demand to know WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING ALL THE TIME? in an accusatory tone like she thought I was up to something that was making me so tired. (I was about as straight-laced as they come, mostly because PDmom was so strict.)
When I took a psych class in college, I learned about the awful (and irreversible) side effects that can sometimes happen when taking the medication I was on for long periods of time. I was obviously concerned, so I told my mom about it, and she snapped, "Well then you better not BE on it long term." I can't ever remember her expressing empathy or even attempting to offer comfort. (And she wonders why I don't "talk to her.")
If there'd been any suggestion that HER behavior was even partially responsible for any of this, I know she would have put on the denial even harder. My dysfunction is already intolerable enough as it is.
I was NC when I was diagnosed with C-PTSD, but my uPDF completely invented a diagnosis of postpartum depression for me and assigned all of my "malfunctioning" to that. I went NC for a time while I needed to take care of myself. I'm therefore a terrible daughter and human. I'm a bad daughter because I'm mentally ill. I'm mentally ill because of my own choices. Everything wrong with my life is my own fault and I expect him to rescue me from the consequences of my choices. Talk about a mess of projection.
The initial reason for needing to go NC was I was physically ill after childbirth, and asked for some pretty normal help one would ask from grandparents while recovering. Actually what I asked was quite minimal, compared to what I see grandparents doing for their children and grandchildren just in the course of normal life, outside of any extraordinary need. My having needs at all was completely unacceptable, and they treated me worse than ever. Stunningly, jaw-droppingly bad. I just couldn't deal with them while ill so I said I was taking a break and I'd be in touch when I was ready. Obviously, the thought process of a severely unstable woman.
I never accused him directly of abuse, but curiously in his smear campaign (in writing) he put, "We did not abuse Cordelia." Methinks he doth protest too much. No matter what information or misinformation he would have gotten, it would have been used to build up the only narrative that he could live with: Dad good, Cordelia bad. I figured that out and my temporary NC became permanent, because there is simply no point in putting myself through that. I learned self respect.
Hi everyone, this is such a fascinating thread although I'm sorry that so many of us have been so horribly invalidated when speaking our truth to our families.
I actually was the GC, and when I got married I had a nervous -well, now I call it "breakthrough." But at the time, I was terrified. I was a hot, flasbacky, disassociated mess. So I turned to my mom, who at that time I thought was the most everything in my world. I also knew in the back of my mind that she wasn't quite right sometimes, but I was in a really thick fog, and the memories that were coming up mainly had to do with my stepdad, and they had divorced a long time before.
At first my mom was supportive, in a way ... She tried to blame my dad by saying I might have inherited his depression (he had passed from liver failure many years before as well.) And she said that psych meds weren't all that different from physical meds, etc. And my stepfather was a Bad Guy.
UNTILLLLL ... I brought up being sexually abused. Then, not so much supportive. I started getting little breadcrumbs here and there from her side of the family, but all very hush hush and everyone saying it could not have happened to me, thank goodness!, while other people said, oh no way, Leonor is confused.
Now, at the time I was still the GC of my generation, just as my mom was GC of hers. And this was a pretty matriarchal family, so I thought, Oh, this is actually a good thing! I can share my experiences and show how I am in therapy and it's okay, we can move on and not be afraid or angry and heal! After all, they'll listen to me, I'm the GC!
Buzzer! Wrong answer! Instead, the more I pressed the truth, the more I became "troubled." I had a fabulous therapist, like amazing, and one day my mom asks, "Did the therapist (not her name, not "your therapist" who, btw, she CHECKED INTO) say anything about 'false memories'?" I told my therapist this in this little, timid way, and she laughed and finished my mom's sentence: "...because we all have 'em!"
That was the first time I ever saw anyone treat my textbook hpd/queen bpd / overt narcissist mom like anything but the Empress of Everything. I started to realize I wasn't disturbed, or weird, or unlucky. I was just another victim in the cycle.
But when the npd doesn't work, she goes full on hpd, "me too me too." That's when she figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and found herself the bestest therapist in town because, as she explained to me, "See, you have PTSD and I have secondary PTSD." And then she'd call to tell me about HER therapy sessions, how she just went into his office and cried and said, "Oh, I feel so silly to just sit here and cry" and he said "maybe that's what you need to do." :dramaqueen:
But I got zero acknowledgement from anyone. Even the relatives who told me they had been abused sympathized with my mother, even my friends told me I was being isolated by my therapist and husband, and everyone decided to keep quiet for the sake of my grandmother, who had been through "so much" since my grandfather died.
I just got to a point where I was done. I didn't need them to heal, and I didn't need to save my relationship with any of them, and I didn't need to save them from their own deluded selves.
There's a story in The Courage to Heal where a survivor talks about finally emerging from this dark, cold cave, and there's sunlight and warmth and life, and she turns back to try to get her family to join her, but they don't want to leave the cave.
I don't recommend telling family anything about PTSD if they are implicit or complicit in your pain, and even if not, it can be safer and more healing to share in a therapist's office or therapist-led group. But I did learn a LOT through this experience about all of us. I gained major respect for the SGs in my family, and a lot of sympathy for the GCs too. We're all abused in the same ways, whether or not we're S or G just depends on the abuser's state of mind in a given moment. :bighug:
I know I've had PTSD. After a traumatic event caused by my uBPDm I was having horrific nightmares, auditory hallucinations, gut wrenching moments of anxiety... As I've mentioned before elsewhere on here it was only years later when I was describing the experience to our best friend, a former Marine, that he just nods and says "Oh yeah, that is exactly what PTSD is, trust me." I was dumbfounded for a bit. At some later point I mentioned it to my uBPDm saying to the effect "After you did X, I had PTSD." I got denial back and nothing more. She even went so far as to say that since X only affected her, I shouldn't have PTSD. Um, no Mom, doesn't work like that, X affects everybody. What she did actually affected the ENTIRE family negatively. The only good thing that came out of it was an opportunity to mend fences with my enDad, who shortly after that divorced her.
I don't talk about it with the rest of the family because we're just not that close and never have been.
Acknowledging the abuse and trauma that has led to our current circumstances is impossible in the PD brain. It would destroy the construct, the matrix if you will, that is their reality.
I just listened to this today and boy is she right! Do NOT reach out to abusers and think that you can have a meaningful conversation -- or be validated on any level by them. Inner child work is required instead and believe me, it is freeing.
Worst Advice I Ever Got for Healing CPTSD - Crappy Childhood Fairy
https://youtu.be/jQv24gOg8jE
I also HIGHLY recommend Patrick Teahan....OMG where has he been all this time? :'( Absolutely wonderful and helpful. He just gets it.
Wow! This is a very interesting topic! Cptsd is a part of my experience too and I will never tell my ubpd adoptive mother. In her mind she never did anything wrong (total denial) and it would definitely not lead to anything healing or satisfying. I'm being more generally open about my cptsd now since it pretty much taints everything I do. The benefit of this is connecting with others who get this experience and healing alongside them. :)
@ Pepin I use to reach out to parents and think I could have a meaningful conversation. I guess earlier on I didn't understand it or see it. My mother would simply not acknowledge anything I had said. Mostly what I did get back was that I was difficult, why bring up the past (uh it happened recently), that I had issues and problems, I took after my grandparent and suffer from depression and she hopes I will be ok in life, her exact words were 'do the best that you can with that'. But nothing said regarding the actual topic or what I had said, nothing. I once questioned her why my sister had text me accusing me of some really awful stuff which my mother had told her and it wasn't true at all. I got nothing back from my mother. No acknowledgment. Of course I am going to be upset by that, its not depression, its a natural feeling to that situation.
You are so right when you say there will be no validation. I have found inner child work really effective.
A variation of an overused cliche comes to mind:
Gaslighters Gonna Gaslight!
Myself i have not been diagnosed with ptsd & don't think I would be, but, if i were to share any similar-type info, it would only be used against me.
Thus, I personally would recommend Against sharing such info with any pd- or en- FOO-members.
Quote from: sandpiper on October 25, 2021, 02:23:25 PM
Blacksheep7 & Daughter - I tried very hard to have a relationship with my sisters' children and I dealt with very similar things to what you've described. In the end I'd backed myself so far into a corner trying to accommodate the behaviour that when I eventually set boundaries, both sisters were appalled and we have been NC ever since. It's been hard to lose the relationship with their children and I'm grateful that I have 'back-up' as I was auntie to the children of my close friends. Those kids are young adults now & it's nice to be the 'avant-garde' auntie in their lives. I didn't marry or have children, I do have my long-term partner and thankfully he has benefitted and grown from following along on my journey. Everything I learned has helped him to deal with his disordered FOO. I do hope that one day my sisters' children will come OOTF & watching how everyone has come along at these boards over the years gives me hope that there's a lifeboat factory churning out lifesaving equipment for generations to come. Your words about your aunts have been balm to that wound. I worried about them, lots. I found it very difficult when they became young adults and started to act like the adults who had shaped them. It's like watching them turn into werewolves.
Moglow - meh. Your mother. How many years have we known each other now? The fact that you are still here and you are still sane is testimony to your strength & resilience.
Like the rest of you, I do find that NC has made my life better over the years. I have so many good people in my life now. It was a matter of starting again after the entire house of cards blew over but so very, very worth it.
Good for you Sandpiper. It is nice to have an avant-garde aunt or just an attentive one who will listen to their feelings or issues. Those kids do need that.
I was an aunt like that to three nieces, would go downtown shopping with them, take them places. Their M's wouldn't do those outings. Now I lost two of them since my nc. They are in the fog and emeshed, one with M and the other, her F. One of them spilled her guts out on all the dysfunction/abuse at home when she was a teen. Her F is my brother that I now call junior ;D because he is exactly like NF, rages and very moody).
She would often come on a friday night (I was single then) for a sleep over and would mentionthat she liked coming here cause it was quiet. On the other hand, I do have contact with one niece. She has the emotional intelligence to understand the dynamics. Her M is my sister, the lost child and is emotionally unavailable. We had good strong conversations about Pds. So I say that it is possible that some day they could come Out of the FOG or Ptsd might hit them. It might will happen late in life that we may not witness it, who knows.
Thank you for telling me that my/our stories put a balm on your wounds :)
Do NOT reach out to abusers and think that you can have a meaningful conversation -- or be validated on any level by them
My sentiments entirely. "Returning to the well" i heard it described and desperately wanting a differing outcome. Guess what, its still poisoned.
How many people do you know have had a Damascene conversion? Cognitive dissonance, denial, projection and splitting = gaslighting = makes sure that never happens.
But the culture we're brought up in is to forgive and forget. Honor they mother and father etc . Victim blame. Thankfully things are beginning to change albeit snail like. Things like therapy in the UK still regarded with contempt that the weak turn to.
Quote from: Pepin on October 26, 2021, 05:08:22 PM
Worst Advice I Ever Got for Healing CPTSD - Crappy Childhood Fairy
https://youtu.be/jQv24gOg8jE
Oh my gosh, this is SO spot on. Thank you for sharing this, Pepin.
She's so right that you'll never get closure. I think we all have hope, though. I always held on to hope that I'd have the chance to confront my father about his failure to protect me from my mother, even though I knew the odds of him owning up to his actions or apologizing for them were exactly zero. Now that he's gone it's been hard living with the "what ifs," but this video helped me so much. Very validating. I know I did the right thing when I walked out of his life for good.
Nope, you can't confront an abuser, especially one who is personality disordered. By nature of their disorder, you're the bad guy and they're the victim. Full stop. Confronting them won't end well. :sadno:
And I love her YouTube handle, "Crappy Childhood Fairy." ;D