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Something serendipitous happened.

There was one of those animatronic fortune teller machines that prints a fortune ticket at the mall. My partner and I did it.

I began to cry. It read: A dark haired person who is trying to harm you will soon disappear from your life and you will be extremely happy.

My M has dark hair.

I forgot to mention it in my last post/entry, which makes sense because that was a very stream of consciousness scrawl (+I just wanted to make sure I wrote my main thought), but I had also had another concept come to me.

It was like a flashback, or, well, more so me trying to reflect on my past. I realized a thought I've had before and currently was thinking about after the fine outing with my M. Sometimes, I wish it would just go south. Sometimes, I wish it was worse.

I know it's a common thought, I really do. But, because it's a common thought just goes to show how abusive cycles happen. We aren't really abused—(it's not that bad / people have it worse / at least I'm...)—but we're in pain. We want the pain to stop. So, we wish that the abusive person would finally cross THAT LINE and do something we settled as unforgivable so that we could finally say it: I am abused and I can run and everyone will understand. The water has breached the wall. It can finally flow free.

But it never happens. It never ever happens. We never feel the release we need.

I remember feeling the... lack of that needed release in an innocuous way: I barely passed a driving test. I got what I needed (the license) but I didn't get what I wanted (enthusiastic success). I felt a traumatic pang of disappointment from the instructor. But, she said, I'll give it to you. I'm sure that might be something to be said about them saying "you barely passed" as a positive psychological thing but it wasn't what I needed. I had enough disappointed sighs directly at me! I wanted support. I got, instead, a look of resignation.

(I felt a little better watching someone break a traffic law in front of me on my first licensed drive right out of the driving school parking lot, telling myself that I knew I was a very diligent, careful driver. Wow, I feel terrible remembering this. Moving on...)

It's important to feel success, not just reach it. My M acting tolerable is not a success. I never got the sweet release of airing my grievances on behalf of that poor, innocent child who was tortured. I never got the sweet release of rage. I just got... loneliness.

The child was told they did not deserve the sense of feeling they were valid.

So I sit here as an adult today and write out cathartic things. I am telling that child that they were valid. Their art will be the sweet release and it is so powerful and worth it, because it is for them and nothing more.

Hi lowbudget.  Welcome! 

Thanks for the welcome--Sorry I was writing a whole word salad processing my nightly thoughts while you were doing it!

Here's the truth: I have to get through one last weekend with my M before I work with my T to decide the best way to never engage with my family ever again is. Which I will be doing. I am lucky to have supportive friends and a real family I have crafted.

But, as I had described to my T, I am picturing my final hurrah in my mind as if I was an adventurer--an anthropologist, a psychologist! I think and reflect. I consider it a way to practice my skills and being myself.

The first night has gone fine. I looked to my partner and said: that's the problem!

(I also told my partner that I love them for being able to navigate and deflect and control a conversation. They control my M so well. I am at peace.)

The problem: my M puts on a front when not alone with me. They behave. They don't go too far or make the sounds that trigger me. Which, you'd think, would be good! And it is to a degree; I am thankful for it. But it is also torturous. I feel crazy, like I am the problem. It feels all a lie, the trauma in my brain. It was fine and normal.

My partner confided in me that me feeling the conflict and being triggered by words not being just bad enough for others to note how terrible the reality is is from that trauma. I remember, and I can never be normal around them, therefore I know what I must do. Writing it here too, to some public degree, helps keep that promise accountable.

I thought about it more and I've realized I've begun to relate to that one screenshot people online (like us) tend to tout around. Its from the Good Place (I've never watched!) and its the main character who says: My mother had the capability to change, it's just that I wasn't worth changing for. Not exact wording at all, but that's the gist and what I think about.

With the threat of death and aging, my M has changed. But that small, young child who needed them to change wasn't worth the effort. Now that I'm grown, and now that they have the fears, change is present if even just a little bit. Well it's too late. A little child wasn't worth it? Well, then you're not worth it.

I will continue to be my authentic self, ask questions, set boundaries, and love all children. They deserve respect. I did too. I still do now.

I am a person who thinks too much. Some might say that there's no such thing but any mentally ill person knows there's always such a thing as too much.

So, I've been thinking. I'm finally doing what I need to do, want to do, and what's best for me by disengaging from a horrid family that I do not belong in. I've finally come to admit some truths, and one of those truths is the observation of if this was anything other than a child interacting with their parents, it would be accepted as unacceptable!

Yet, because I am a child, and the abusers of my life are my own parents, it seems like the fault is mine. A child is hard to rear, and for that, if non-physical issues arise, then it must be the child's fault. A child should love their parents. A child should be happy they are not beaten. Pfft. If anything, the physical issues of passive neglect, emotional cruelty, and everything in those categories should be well enough proof of an abusive relationship. I don't work correctly, like a human being should! My body is faulty, beaten by invisible weapons.

I have to remember as I move on: my parents were like an abusive partner to me. Partner, parent—they're one letter off from being a perfect anagram! We could list off so many things our parents have done to us and remove the relationship details and they'd be no different from someone ranting about an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend.

Demeaning somebody and then turning around to gift them elaborate things.
Punishments that did not match the crime, that were exaggerated.
"It's your fault I'm in trouble, in pain, hurting, ill!"
"If you don't do this, you don't really love me."
"Who are you talking to? Give me the details. I'm your —, you have to tell me! You could be doing something bad!"
"Of course I love you, just don't do these things I don't like and change your entire personality for me!"

I'm tired of living a lie. I feel like I'm not choosing to be an orphan, I think it was thrust upon me. I've felt despondent and lonely things since I was a preteen, and even in my guilt and shame of having angry, rebellious thoughts in my teenage years, I did know there was something wrong. Even if I ended up still believing it was all me. That I was ill; that I was having the delusions of grandeur and I was better than them. Well, no, I was really just a fairly normal and mature child. My parents were no different than my fifth grade bullies. Worse, even.

If anyone asks, maybe I'll say: I left an abusive relationship. No more no less. It's not a lie.

I really like what you said about letting silence speak for you. I think that's an important skill to learn and understand. I'm going to really think about that, as well as heed your words as a younger person. 

—,

I will never be able to be myself in front of you. It's nigh impossible, and you don't really care nor want that anyways. That's why I've done, I'm doing, and will do what what I do: I run—albeit only in my mind, sure, but I do run.

I've been diagnosed with PTSD. A part of me thought I didn't qualify, but the majority of me knew it was true. I learned things I didn't know about it! My anxiety I've had since I was a teenager, the panic attacks, the depression... it was all runoff from the real issue: PTSD. From you.

You can never know it, though. You won't process it. Not "you won't be able to", no, you just won't. You're incapable of doing so. You weren't able to when you were "healthy" and you won't be able to especially now that the Grand Excuse permeates your bones: cancer. You have enough burdens to carry, but I cannot carry them with you.

People with PTSD, they tend to avoid situations that trigger the "event" that gave them it: the feelings of fear, panic, aggression, et cetera... I have experienced the stereotypical traumas that the populace believes is truly valid: threats to my life, my loved ones dying, serious disability and injury... but the one thing I truly fear is you. I feel nothing for life. I walk past drug-ridden ill people tweaking out. I sit calmly in a barricaded room. I watch horror movies, games, violent spectacles. I blankly stare at the world around me. I feel nothing, but I fear you, deeply. It is something I can never fully erase.

That is the mere fact of the matter. It matters not what the DSM-V says, or the definition of C-PTSD says, or what books say, or what the police say, or what your friends say, or what my friends say, or what my therapist says, or what my mentor says, or what you say. Or what anyone says. All that remains—will remain... is the fact that your presence in my life is killing me—has killed me. All I remember is pain. Cruel, unnecessary pain. After you are ash, all that will remain of you within the mind of your own child is pain. It'll also probably be relieving to have you gone.

I will likely lose family ties. Dearest — will tell them that the unruly spoiled brat has hurt them, and I will be pushed out. That's fine. You did me a service by disconnecting me from them anyways. Now, I will not be sad to see them off. Those who wish to know me as me will be welcome, but other than that, I will be free of this.

I like to write down what I remember as a sort of therapy, as a sort of processing. It also doesn't help that you gaslit me—you did!—a lot. I must remember the truth, so I write it down. Again. Again. So that I will remember, and you will not make mush out of my mind.

You tortured a child. You confused her. You gave her things she did not ask you for, then called her a spoiled brat for being unhappy. You guilted her with these things in order to make yourself feel better. You told her it was fine, because we were even. We were not even. You were an adult; I was a child. I was born into this world ignorant of anything not learned and not told of me. You watched as I performed poorly the act of being human, and you decided to berate me for it. I was a dancing monkey performing the act of stupidity for you, and you loved it—you must have, because you did not ever falter. You neglected me—you did! I never was taken to the doctor, I took myself or begged. I never was taken to the dentist, I took myself when I was an adult and able. "But I did, that one time!" you yell, "you liar!" But it was not enough. It was never enough. You sat and watched my jaw lock open during dinner, and nothing was done. Why didn't you do anything? Why?

I cried often at night wondering why —, who often joked about locking me up in the hot attic to keep me from doing stereotypical rebellious teenager things, berated me for liking childish things. At least I wasn't doing drugs, or bad things, or watching porn. No—you saw me as weak. Weak. Weak. You called me it so often. Why? Of course I was weak. I was a child. I was alone. I was trying to figure out a million different things including why my parents did not love me for me. I was made even more alone than when I started.

There's a thousand other things I could repeat. I've tried to get you to answer to some of them. Just. Say. Sorry. You couldn't. "But—!"

But I was a child. You were an adult.

I was a child.

One instance of your horrid actions should have been enough to know you were wrong.

I am no longer your child. When I was younger, I wrote a little song about the reversal of the concept of disownment. I'm acting that musical out now. I disown you. They do not appreciate my skills. They do not respect my personhood. They do not respect who I am. They do not respect queer people, non-white people, or really anyone even slightly different than themselves. I will never lie again. I know that you know I lied a lot as a child. I didn't know why I did, but now I do: because I so desperately feared you. The chance of invisibility was worth extra rage. I hate lying though, did you know that? I bet you didn't. So, I will never lie again: I do not love you. I stopped loving you years ago. I think a part of you knew that, considering how often you'd say, "you hate me, don't you?"

I'm making amends with myself by ridding my life of you.

So, I run. I've run for a while. I will keep running. As of today, though, I start down a different road. One you're not on. You're too far gone for me to ever catch you. Goodbye.

Hello! I've decided to join a forum instead of lurk and read (and to stray away from more "fast-food" type support groups like on a social media; I prefer forums) because I'm in the process of... Processing my truth that I have C/PTSD.

I recently got diagnosed with PTSD but I very much relate to C-PTSD materials more. My therapist just uses the DSM-V of course. But, there is some comfort in knowing that I fit the older diagnostic criteria too, especially when you feel like everything's not too bad and you're unsure. Well, now I'm sure. It's not just me.

I've been thankful to have met a lot of IRL older folk with situations that are relatable to me, and decided to help myself while I'm still young at 25. I honestly still feel like I could've done it sooner, but I must give myself some grace.

It's a pleasure to be here and feel "normal", for such an unnormal thing (or at least it should be!). Forgive me for any specific rule breaking, I try to read up before I type out my thoughts but things might slip by!