Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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There are so many things that I know in my head.
I can speak with confidence about knowing that family doesn't have to be blood and that sometimes we need to find a new" family" that loves and supports us.
My heart struggles with this.
I went to visit my Dad after not seeing him for several months of winter weather. My mom passed away 2 years ago. He tears up talking about her and how he still misses her. I tell him I understand and that there may always be some days that he will miss her more than other days. One year after my husband died I had the same conversation with my father. He told me I just needed to get over it.
We talked about other stuff. He asked me if I used that "Facebook thing". I said I did. He asked if he had seen any posts by his brother and his wife. He said he was worried about them. He wrote them two letters but had not heard back from them. He said he wouldn't call and wanted to see how long it would take them to respond to him. I said that might be a little childish and maybe, if he was worried, he could just call.
We chatted about other extended family. That is when he told me that I had inherited the family fat gene. It was closely related to the family "bad luck" gene. It's really not my fault I'm fat. I was born to be fat, have bad luck and be depressed.
Now mind you...I NOT ONCE brought up the subject of weight, misfortune or depression. I suddenly realized that this is how I was raised. I was raised to believe that no matter what I would be fat, depressed and unlucky.
I told tdoc about this and he commented that I seem to expect my family to be or act different than what they always do. I keep hoping for or expecting something different and keep getting the same ole, same ole. He is right.
I can speak with confidence about knowing that family doesn't have to be blood and that sometimes we need to find a new" family" that loves and supports us.
My heart struggles with this.
I went to visit my Dad after not seeing him for several months of winter weather. My mom passed away 2 years ago. He tears up talking about her and how he still misses her. I tell him I understand and that there may always be some days that he will miss her more than other days. One year after my husband died I had the same conversation with my father. He told me I just needed to get over it.
We talked about other stuff. He asked me if I used that "Facebook thing". I said I did. He asked if he had seen any posts by his brother and his wife. He said he was worried about them. He wrote them two letters but had not heard back from them. He said he wouldn't call and wanted to see how long it would take them to respond to him. I said that might be a little childish and maybe, if he was worried, he could just call.
We chatted about other extended family. That is when he told me that I had inherited the family fat gene. It was closely related to the family "bad luck" gene. It's really not my fault I'm fat. I was born to be fat, have bad luck and be depressed.
Now mind you...I NOT ONCE brought up the subject of weight, misfortune or depression. I suddenly realized that this is how I was raised. I was raised to believe that no matter what I would be fat, depressed and unlucky.
I told tdoc about this and he commented that I seem to expect my family to be or act different than what they always do. I keep hoping for or expecting something different and keep getting the same ole, same ole. He is right.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
She had my father beat me bloody with his fists and break my nose in 11th grade. She imagined I was having sex with a girlfriend in high school. In fact, I was a virgin for 5 years more because I felt so ugly and unlovable.
So as you say, "expecting something different" was out. There was an episode of the West Wing I saw in reruns last week in which a shrink counsels the president about insomnia. He gets to the root of it: the president's dad didn't like him, so the president kept running for higher and higher office hoping to change that.
The shrink says, "you know it will never, ever happen." I stopped the show and rewound it to play that back over and over again, because it goes for me and my mom, too. And apparently from what you say here, it goes for you with your family as well.
Yes, like the shrink on the West Wing, I'd say your tdoc is right.
muji what you've gone through is heartbreaking
I always came up with excuses for my father as well.... That he had ptsd ... That I was always bad
I think wanting parental love is a natural thing.... What is un-natural is what we got
When feelings do come up I often think they are wrong and I shouldn't have those feelings.
I don't know how to handle emotions now so I get overwhelmed or shut down.
I guess our caregivers teach us how to care for ourselves and mine didn't do such a good job.
The many people to whom I've been close in my (before) life ... it was obvious which ones had fairly functional parents and families, and which ones came from toxic, dysfunctional families of origin.
Analogy: Years ago, I stayed with friends in Lake Tahoe. He was a long-time ski instructor.
He told me that ... just by looking ... he could tell if a skier had grown up skiing or if they had learned to ski later in life.
People who grew up on skis ... just _did_. They didn't have to think.
Ditto the difference between bilingual and fluent, in language skills. Bilingual beats fluent every time ;-)
Meaning .... those who grew up in whole, intact, and functional families ... probably have no idea what a gift it really was/is.
I'm sorry your interactions with your father are, and have been, so painful and unfulfilling. Would that it were different.
Big hugs ... and hopes for a better tomorrow for you.
Gentle hugs, CB. I have yet to get this untangled in my own life.
Heart wants. Head knows. Not on same channel at all. *sigh*
Soft support.
I hope your doc was more of a partisan for you than he sounds. Yes, it's a mistake to expect family to change or behave differently, but we all do it, over and over again. Hope springs eternal. In the case of family, it's good to squash that hope once and for all and to enter the fray fully armored against their inevitable insults. My old therapist always referred to family as "the scene of the crime".
The natural feelings and actions vs learned feelings or actions. My family was extremely destructive, the entire neighborhood knew. Deep down I knew and the older I got I could see we just weren't like other families. I could stand outside of my family and see it. I was embarrassed to go to soccer or any kind of function for fear they think I was bad or not good enough. I was embarrassed my entire childhood. To this day I do not have any childhood contacts on FB because of it. Not good enough, did not make anything of myself
Its taken my entire adult life to 'unlearn' what an awful person I was told I am, why I was never good enough, not skinny enough. I rebelled and I was a problem child because I did not fit into the family mold of always having to be a disaster.
I still have issues with self esteem.. too fat if I am 5lbs overweight and if I have perfected everything I do, but now I have gotten 'better' at separating head and heart.
I always wanted my family to change. Mom has a lot, dad is gone and would never and my sister, well she is a walking disaster.
You are beautiful, funny, hard working and talented. I hope you can see that in your heart and mind. xoxoxo
I am struggling with figuring out what to do with family. Their abuse of me was much more subtle...it was more dysfunction that abuse. My Dad has absolutely no idea that his comments to me could be hurtful. He didn't say it out of meanness. He said it out of ignorance. ( I can hear tdoc asking me why I am making excuses for Dad's behavior).
So, do I change my expectations of my family or do I embrace sudden onset orphanhood?
It terrifies me. I think of all the times I have said to someone "Oh,,,sometimes you need to make a new family" just like it was nothing. My family, such as they are, are the only family I have. They are the group I belong to. Oddly enough I feel lost without them. At the same time whenever I see them I can see the ugliness now.
I was not as badly abused as some here and as such it is not as clear to me when or if I should break ties.
"as such" since when have I typed in such a lofty manner???? Must be the artificial raspberry flavor fumes from the jello...
Even then, when in my case I did decide to say goodbye (which you may very well not do), my therapist was surprised when I gave him my goodbye letter to look over. It said I loved them, even as it said goodbye, too. I could not say the one thing from my head without also speaking my heart.
Whatever you decide, you'll have our support here. Be gentle to yourself. It's a mixed bag to know your both head and your heart, after all, isn't it?