Your mom sounds like mine, a real piece of work. You deserve to feel proud of yourself. As for the flashbacks, I wish I could say it all goes away. It hasn't for me or anyone I know. On the other hand, the earlier in life this lesson's learned the more quickly we get on with better things. You're in the right place. Keep coming back.

I've learned in therapy that co-dependency is no longer about immediate family members of alcoholics. I came to see that trauma and abuse can leave you in the same place without the booze. Codependents are usually trying to control everyone and everything around them, even with the best intentions. It's a way of feeling like you have control (even control by compliance) of your envirionment, safety, but all the while inside you are out of control. Sound familiar? Sadly, it is an illusion. I've also heard it called "deselfment". The more you focus on all the external stuff, the more you loose yourself. Those around us are used to this old dance and when you change your step there is inevitably backlash. Spouses of alcoholics newly in recovery often want them to go back to drinking because the change is so hard. So keep setting the boundaries despite the backlash. I'm not saying she will ever change, but making yourself the priority is what it's really about, that's why it felt so good.

My best advice about the flashbacks is this- The prevailing theory is that the return of repressed memories and flashbacks are a sign you are doing better, not worse. I know it doesn't 'feel' that way but it really does make sense. The mind is an amazing thing. It knows when you are ready to deal with all this stuff but it is kind enough to give you small bites. Ask yourself why you are setting boundaries now and not 2 years ago? What's different? Why? Most likely she is the same but you are different. You are ready to make yourself the priority and begin healing. You have changed. You are no longer willing to be held prisoner by her actions and demands. You no longer need to manage her. It may take you a while to decide how you want to interact with her (or not) and when. We tend to fumble a bit when we learn a new dance but the reward is recovery.
When you can begin to get her out of your head then you can start working on the trauma itself.

The reason your eating disorder is screaming at you is most likely because you are looking for a way to get relief from the pain. As a child you did whatever you could to survive but then some of the the poor coping methods became their own problem. It can be an extra layer of pain to cast them away. As you said, it makes the PTSD symptoms go away. If you can learn new ways of coping with the pain and symptoms, you can eventually get relief with things that are good for you rather than doing more harm. It's not uncommon for people beginning recovery to start something new like cutting, eating disorders, wreckless spending, gambling, depression and so on. It's hard but now you get to choose. Before you were just reacting to survive but now you are gaining real control, inner control (not supression), the kind that doesn't hurt so bad and lets you actually live life rather than struggling through it.

The first is the hardest, Jas. With practice, drawing healthy boundaries will be as easy as it is rewarding.

For now, please let me reach around the whiplash and congratulate you.

YAY!! Jasgall stood up for herself!!!
Y-A-A-A-A-Y-Y-Y-You.
Do that do!!!

wow dolly. thats an awesome way of looking at it that i hadnt thought of. thank you.

Im with you on the abusive mother thing. I have a daughter now, and had allowed her visits, but now that i am acknowledging that i actually have PTSD, i never wanted to be labeled, i started setting boundries as well, actually standing up to her. about a year ago i had a violent flashback with a wall, because of her. she is always degrading, putting me down.. and i stood up to her recently. i finally told her she knew NOTHING about me or who i am. it was hard. and has been hard. All the horrible negative thoughts in my head are HER. flashbacks of HER. her telling me she wished i was dead. her hitting me, her never being a mother to me.... never allowing me to be myself, making it wrong to be myself. making it so that if someone gave me a compliment, even something simple as "nice hair" it was a trigger, because after a compliment or gift, the storm was sure to follow and i woudl have to pay for her kindness.
but i cut her off. she came over randomly, i havent talked to her in a month, trying to drop stuff off for my daughter. i told her it wasnt necessary for her to come by. she of course got mad and stormed out instead of talking like an adult. im sure she will text or stop by in another week, acting like the world is made of candy and nothing wrong ever happened. and again, i will have to show her out. its hard, and it sets me off to the point where i have to turn off all the lights and sit in the dark huggin myself, trying to deal with all the thoughts and emotions that come from interacting with her. but its a step in the right direction. ive waited 30 years for her to love me the way i needed a mother to love me. she isnt going to change. it will always be the same cycle unless i stop it. same with the rest of my family as well.

as far as the eating disorder, i developed a gambling problem. the perfect disassociative tool for me that lessens the symptoms. I need to stop, but its hard working in a casino. and its even harder when all i want to do is not feel. i understand you there. but we have to try. we cant give up. forgive yourself, and take one day at a time.

Unfortunately, anytime to see traits and behaviors in another person that so closely mimic those of your abuser, your survival sense will try to take you right back to your abuse. That, is something you cannot help, especially if it was a long ongoing abuse. To try to ignore those thoughts and chastise yourself for thinking them, is the same as any adult in your life as a child who denied that your abuse was real. It is ok to have those memories and the more we try to deny them access into our life, the more importance we give them. That said, it takes practice to allow them ( the memories ) and follow up those memories with an equal thought that takes us back to the moment we are in now, reminding us that we are no longer in that danger or suffering those same bonds that would hold us hostage there. The flash backs are only your mom's dialog she implanted into your mind and we all need to listen to our own dialog.......the dialog of our now and present reality. I know in my case, the thought process was that destroying my self esteem and creditbility (by my abusers) would somehow erase all the sins of my abusers, but in fact anything but that, happens. This is why abused, so often go on to be abusers, listening to that same dialog that was planted in their brain as they release their hurt onto another victim with some warped sense of justiying their own suffering. So, don't by any means deny your memories, but meet them with an equal resolve to change their power on you and perhaps turn them into a positive force that works against abuse in and to others.Fighting to make changes and take the abuse out of the protective darkness it hides in, does bring real healing. Seeing it's potential to exist and flourish diminish, lessens those fears we have that we ourselves will ever suffer abuse again. I, am now in my 4th year of treatment for CPTSD and never at the beginning did I ever thing I could see sunshine and blue skies, ever again. I think that in the worst of my CPTSD, I reasoned that if I dwelled on the internal dialog long enough, that I would remember some detail that would justify all that happened.........shift the blame totally onto me...........which would then turn the problem into something I could fix. Once the problem was 100% vested in me, it was fixable, because me, I could change and I was not the immovabe object holding onto lies that my abusers were/are. In the end, the abused always pay the bill for abuse. We lose as we triumph over the disease, often removing people and opportunities from our lives, once we see them for the demon they are and not as the hope and expectations we saw them with through a childs eye's. We can make new circumstances and people important to us and yes they can be fufilling. I don't need the family I had as a child, it was toxic and no matter how I repaint, polish and otherwise try to detoxify them, they will always be a waste cesspool, unworthy of any importance in my life.

For all of you w/ super icky mommies, here is a confession:

My 'mommy dearest' died of natural causes in 2005. Some days I still almost feel as if she is haunting me, and every time that feeling comes I just internally tell her to get the hell a way from me, that I will not forgive or forget, just go away. If there is reincarnation I pray I've led a good enough life the fates will keep her far away.

thanks for all the replies. you guys are awesome! the problem is not that i am denying memories, but that she is. she told my dad and sister "i only hit her once!{" i have learned that she has repeated what she learned as a child, and that she can't love me the way i need her to. i can't make her love me, but i can be the adult in this senerio (because someone has to be) and begin to protect myself. i am praying that i will not have to cut her off totally because i do love her. but if it comes to that, so be it. god can fulfill my every need-including my need for a loving parent. i have excellent and loving relationships with absolutely everyone else in my life. god gave me an excellent earthly father as well. i have faith that my heavenly father will restore my broken heart and wounded mind. i know he'll give me beauty for ashes. (isaiah 61:7-8

You're right. My abusive parents denied years of physical abuse weekly, even with other witnesses. Reality didn't matter. Folks like these convince themselves it never happened and would rather die than admit the truth to you. So you're smart to take the approach you're taking. Good for you! Protect yourself and then hang on to all those other wonderful relationships you have and to your faith. It's worth it!