Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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6 years ago I quit going to holidays with my family. I was 52 years old and at Christmas my father had punched me in the face--again. My therapist asked me why I was still going "home" on holidays. I had to admit it was time to stop.
My dad was always a hitter. From the time I was a toddler he hit my mom regularly. Then when I was in first grade he started in on me.
I got into therapy after college. I thought I could pass on what I learned in therapy to my family. That way I might be able to have a grown up Thanksgiving or Christmas with family like the kind I saw on TV. Just in case, I had surgery to fix it so I would never have kids so if therapy failed, I'd still never become an abusive father like him.
So I'd work hard with my therapist and read up on my self help books and get all prepared to make that one good holiday with my family happen. Still, something would always go wrong. Afterwards, I'd spend months in flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, and depression kicking myself for walking into the same trap over and over. Yet next time, I'd be like Lucy from Peanuts when Linus offers to hold the football for her to place kick it.
Just like Linus always pulls that football away just in time for Lucy to fall on her butt, I'd please everybody as hard as I could. Then at the last minute, before I could get in the car and call it a good visit, I'd still get punched in the face. Again. More months in flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, and depression. Again.
Then not only did I think it was a good idea I had surgery so I'd be fixed so no son of mine would ever run the risk of the son's life I had led. I would also wish I myself hadn't been born. I'd wish I were dead.
No more. Tomorrow I won't be back at my family's house to deliver a Father's Day present. I've broken the pattern for 6 years now. My life's been so much more peaceful. On the other hand, my sister has kept going, and even though the hitting goes on, she has gloated to my face.
My sister says that since I stopped going to family holidays, my parents have told her that she's going to get all of the family inheritance now. As for me, I'm all alone, no family, but I've started to learn to be happy alone. I'm off almost all PTSD meds now but for the nightmares one.
That man was nothing but awful to me and my family. I mean, when I was 10, I had to go to the ER with my mother after he beat her. Again and again and again. Until I just wanted to die.
Still, I have a confession.
I went out for dinner with friends tonight, and around the table they shared their father's day plans. I couldn't help myself. I got jealous. Not only do I not have a father to send a card to or buy a gift for. I'm 58 and not a father myself with no son or daughter to send a Father's Day card to me.
I sat there wishing I had Father's Day plans tomorrow, too. I know better, but I wished trying to be the perfect son had worked, that I had loved him into being the idea of the father I always wished for.
I know it's the dumbest thing in the world. I'm having a hard time tonight, on Father's Day eve.
On Father's Day, I can't help it. I'm needing some support.
Is there anybody out there who feels that way, too? Or is there anybody out there who at least understands?
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
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Maybe you could resolve some of your pain by doing something for a dad out there, there has to be a homeless shelter or even homeless men around where you live, go do something nice for them?
I have three and my wife and I were both from violent families, our first child got a swat on the butt once or twice but the rest we decided not to spank because for one I get angry and that is no way to discipline.
Anyway, I know none of that directly spoke to your situation but I feel your pain in the violent family troubles so I wanted to say something.
it is always a difficult day for me as well because my father passed away several years ago.i hadn't seen him since i was 3 years old....my mother took us away from him then.he had paranoid schizophrenia and when he was off his meds became very abusive.
he was hospitalized in the city i was living in when i was 17,and my mother,without talking to me about it told me,"He'd kind of like to see you.But he's really really sick."
i didn't understand schizophrenia at that time and i was scared.
i didn't go and see him,and i carry that deep regret to this day.
anyway,i'm sorry to veer into my own experience on your post,so different from your experience..(except that i never go "home" anymore either)....
muji,even though you never felt the safety and love you needed and deserved,and even though you haven't any of your own children,in the lease of things,please know that i sincerely feel you have offered me so much fatherly wisdom and understanding and caring.....something that genuinely fills a space for me.
i mean that.
much support to you today,muji.
i know it hurts.
I totally understand a lot of what you're saying & No it's not the dumbest thing in the world at all. Here for you reaching my hand out to you in solidarity.
Keeping you in my prayers
Healing hugs
I spend mine not caring that my dad is gone so I don't have to wonder what to get a man who was so demanding that failure equaled fear equaled serious chance of being torn to pieces verbally, oodles of emotional rejection, and a helping of contempt on the side.
I'm probably sorta sick, but it took me years (and therapy and this PTSD support group) to help me see it's okay to be okay that he's gone and even be relieved. *whew* He's dead, I'm outta that shitstorm.
BUT... I give you puma support. For reasons of my own, Mother's Day tears me apart, and I cringe when I hear people talking about their plans. I envy them the chance to have the plans with their own kids. So... puma power to you for the day, Muji.
First a bio donor does not equal a dad. You share with so much care here and with your students,.... better than some father's know how. The choice you maade to not become any possible resemblance of your Bio donor are as extreme as he was and the help given him to maintain it(mother dearest), so it's understandable that you made those choices at the time. Honestly I don't think you would have done as he did, because you are different than he is. DNA might be with in you, but you are your own person and personality, which from my point of view is not too shabby.
I like the idea of visiting an "forgotten father" this day. We all who have had the not so good kind, are aware that not all father units did this to their children. Then also are home with forgotten children, who have no representation of what a father is. What ever you do, you are someone we all enjoy knowing.
J.
PS tell gloating sister, what you received as an inheritance has forever changed you as a person for the better, and it will last way longer in your life than money. Striving for self improvement and self belief has long lasting value over hanging on waiting for a death to pay off the pain. No one has enough money for that.
So I logged on, and my heart was warmed by your responses. I felt validated, instead of continuing to feel dumb for my grief around Father's Day. Your replies made me able to get up and go again. I especially am grateful for the replies of those of you who addressed my extreme measure in having surgery to prevent my being a father at all in response to my own bad father. You pointed out that while I might not be a biological father, I've been fatherly in supporting others here at times, and in support my students.
Thank you for that!
Sorry for what uve been through and still dealing with. Im glad u made the decision to leave ur family, i hope i can learn to get away from my father in the soon future. X
I am in a similar boat on Mothers day, although I do have kids and that really helps. I think there are many of us on here that have conflicts with our parents, your not alone. Hugs
Next year I'll anticipate the date and make plans to take care of myself like I do with Thanksgiving and Christmas when others are with their families. The way depression affects me is it knocks me down and I can't get up. Literally. What you said here got me up out of my depression and moving. I went out and got groceries and got myself moving again, and I was able to cope once more. Thank you all.
I have a good relationship with my kids, but I've tried to tone the days down big time. It's not that I don't think that kids should appreciate their parents, it's just that even at it's best, that I think the holiday is over-commercialized, guilt laden, and a prideful way to show off socially, materially, etc. (Sort of like holiday newsletters filled with all of the awesome cars, vacations, accomplishments...ya know?)
And for me, growing up with my mother...it was downright misery.
As for my mom, my mother was a Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy mom who caused a lot of pain in our family to get attention. I was ready for memories of her on Mothers' Day this year because I'd paid attention to my healing from that recently. I wasn't ready for this Fathers' Day. My going out to dinner with folks who talked about their Fathers' Day plans was a spur of the moment thing that caught me off guard.
I agree with how over-commercialized both Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day are, adding to the social pressure to call your mom or your dad, buy them a card, or send them a gift, all as an obligation not all of us are at liberty to fulfill.
I have to get ready for that, too, when Thanksgiving or Christmas roll around. A lot of sales pitches for family values bring on social pressure once again for what is not possible for all of us to do. As you say about Mothers' Day/Fathers' Day, it makes an otherwise happy holiday become supercharged with guilt.
Sorry for the downright misery of growing up with your mother. I can only imagine.