Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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I haven't seen my parents for 7 years now. If I had I probably wouldn't be alive any more. I had kidney disease when I last saw them and my 80 year old dad still punched me in the face just like when I was a boy.
Still, as I watch TV coverage of where they live in the path of Tropical Storm Florence on the North Carolina coast, I'm having trouble being at peace with the decision I made with my therapist to let them go. After being attacked once before on a Christmas visit I followed my therapist's advice for 8 years, but then went back to them thinking my therapy made me strong enough. That's when I got punched in the face again, so now this second time away from them it's been 7 years of peace now.
Still, I can't help it. It's crazy, I know. But I wish I had a normal family relationship where I could pick up the phone and call them to see if they're OK.
I don't know why I care if they're OK or not after all the hurt they inflicted on me my whole life from childhood through adulthood. But I do care, and as an ER hospital chaplain caring was my job for 10 years, so it's an impulse that keeps surging through me ever time I turn on the TV and see the news show their town in North Carolina all flooded out. I'm having trouble sleeping.
Does anybody else have to fight this urge to break your own boundary and reach out to family even when you know you shouldn't?
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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.
yes,muji,yes....
my mother can be so toxic (she lives a province away)
i have not gone back in years-
she has visited here a few times though and been very abusive-
still,still,i call her because i feel so guilty when i don't...
she is 75 now and has a lot of health problems...
i feel this....this sense of responibilty for her,but i learned in inpatient treatment that that stems from the sense of responsibilty i had as a child-and the old looping tape that everything was my fault...
It was also instilled in me in treatment that it isn't healthy for me to worry about everyone else all the time.....
"What should you do??",my nurse asked...
"Take care of me?",i said.
"Yes."
Take Care Of You,muji,Take Care Of You.
it seems, we are made as we are and they are made as they are - we are and have done work on us, to help ourselves -- they may or may not. in our cases, not.
it doesn't stop my caring and loving them. nor does it stop the injuries when i actively do that :(
it is not going to be pretty when i do - not for anyone :(
my best option is from a distance. as little communication as possible.
more hugs
BTW my family actually supported me when I went through the biggest cyclone Australia has ever had because of the excitement and because maybe because I might die but in the aftermath I wasn't allowed to talk about it because it was boring now. My daughter actually was very abusive, I guess I ruined the drama by surviving. We can have very mixed feelings and I don't know how to fix it. You have a big heart and that's why you kept trying.
For me making that conscious decision to leave my family of origin was and is still a very hard choice. To have no one that has your back and to not to be loved by them ever... I was not ready to be out in the world alone. I had no reference or guide to how to be on my own. So I stayed away.
Seeing how these storms affect people is just heartbreaking. I think it shows your ability to have compassion for strangers and for your foo. It is a testament to your resiliency and empathy...
But the bottom line for me, is I have to do what is best for myself. To stay away from that foo and I did.
Is there a way you can find out if they are okay without having to contact or see them? To be punched in the face, to have gone through all you did as a child and a man, if it were me, I would not go see them personally.
Take good care
I come from insanity
& the different all over the place of emotions as a result
I hope that made sense, I’m not good with my words today
Sending lots of support & gentlest of hugs <3
I wish you could have had a good relationship with them as well sweetie.... It sux…… Another hug and a blessing.....xo
My life was peaceful after I realized it wasn’t mine to fix in the first place. It was just mine to accept the abuse or not and exercising good self care that it took me decades to learn I finally decided once and for all to not accept the abuse. The rest, their well beings etc. I left in God’s hands and their own. Triple hugs of support~
Sometimes I feel that way about my dad, whom I've cut out of my life. It's hard with the amount of emotional pain and empathy I feel.
I think what you are feeling would be normal for a genuinely good person to feel, but I get that you recognize that they are unhealthy for you.
This is just my opinion, so you can take it with a grain of salt.. but I think your parents do not deserve you and your help.. I feel like they will find a way to abuse you again.. and that you would end up hurt all over again.. that's just my instincts though...
I'm never telling you that you should or shouldn't do anything! So, I don't mean to come across that way if it sounds like that. Those are just my initial thoughts.
But your instincts make sense, giving decades of past experience: I would end up hurt all over again if I reached out to them to find out how they're doing. The last time I did so was after my dad was kicked out of pastoring his church for fraud. Disgraced, he went from commanding a pulpit every week in front of 3,000 people to mowing lawns for a living because he'd had a nervous breakdown.
I felt sorry for him, so I went and checked in on him. Then my mother got breast cancer, and my sister wouldn't come help so I stayed and drove her to her chemo appointments instead.
Once those were all over, though, the abuse happened all over again--and not just from him, but from her, too, of all people.
I'd like to care for my own parents at least as much as I cared for my hospital patients when I was a hospital chaplain. But they won't let that be.
I've made no effort to reach out, but 've come so so so so close... Then I remember what happened last time, and what they've done, and I wonder what's wrong with me... Oh, right. I want things to be "right" and they're not. But I can't fix it, and since people tell me what's going on with the Genetic Fmaily anyway... Yeah. Never mind. On with my life.
And I have one, b/c I got away from those people.
Or at least a "better" one than if I didn't stay away.
Puma power and support.