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I'm having trouble watching the news this weekend and have resorted to just reading articles instead. My husband was playing a news station and it was an interview between a news anchor and KellyAnne Conway. Her behavior was so much like my parents, especially my mother and she looks a lot like my mother, that it triggered me. Here's why:

The news anchor was asking about the press secretary and she was deflecting. Instead of answering the question she was pointing out the mistakes of a few others and saying they might have to rethink the relationship with the press. She finally gave an answer that seemed like a lie and then acted like a victim, saying she was being laughed at but she was a good person and would put up with it. This behavior is so simular to what my parents, particularly my mother, would do when I tried to talk to them about their behavior. 

I would try to talk to them about leaving us alone all the time or the unreasonable expectations, which I'm learning is called Parentilism. I was expected to be a nanny and a maid starting  at 8 years old and here I was trying to talk to her about it and she would talk around it. Then she would try to blame me and make herself the victim. This never changed. I've always been addressed as a child and even in my thirties told I was a rebellious child and should be seen and not heard. She says she's made a few mistakes but they are totally forgivable and it's obvious that it's my fault because I've had to see a counselor so I must be deranged.

So after years of being treated in that manner I'm concerned that there is a spokesperson for our new president that is using the same abusive manner of address. Since I  was recently hospitalized again and now this I have contacted a local women's resource center to see about therapy again. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

I was thinking today, after hanging out with my daughter's cousin that was about the same age, what was my mother thinking leaving me alone for hours starting at just 8 years old and in charge of my brother? Why would she just run off to a luncheon or coffee with a friend and leave two kids alone in the neighborhood and lock up the house? I just don't understand that level of selfishness and irresponsibility.

Last I talked to my parents they definitely did not act like they cared, still. They know their kids have issues but we are more like props then people to them. And I still feel like there is this big, dark, empty house in there somewhere still. I've tried to fill that gap with so many things and nothing fixes it. I feel it will always be there; and I know will never have a supportive family. At least I do have a lot of other things going for me.

I have panic attacks where I end up sitting on the floor rocking back and forth and crying or screaming uncontrollably. It tends to happen when someone touches my neck, which is a trigger for me. You would think that would happen rarely but working in customer service a lot of customers and coworkers don't respect basic physical boundaries. To get me out of these panic attacks a therapist gave me a mantra. I repeat over and over "I'm doing the best I can and that's all I can do." I've found that works for me. What have you found works for your panic attacks?

So I still hate him. My ex husband and I had been married just over a year in 2004 when he started doing these "sessions." He would pretend to leave the house and then sneak back in and attack me. He would choke me out and I would wake up tied up; he would cut and burn me while raping me for 3-4 hours. Then he would deny it happened or claimed we just had kinky sex. It scared me.

I went through 8 months of him doing this. When I finally got someone to believe me and it helped me leave. We had moved and gotten a roomate who walked in on it. I had called the cops twice already but they wouldn't help or pursue charges. I couldn't get into a shelter without him having charges on him. The roommate moved out and said would testify for me. I then got ready to leave. My husband figured it out and attacked me. He beat me and then cut himself and was trying to put the knife in my hand. I got out of the apartment and down the stairs and pulled the handrail out of the wall. I tried to pull his hands off me, brace myself on the walls, anything. He got me back inside the apartment and threw me across the floor and then choked me out. There was a witness. He realized he couldn't do the original plan so he tried to wake me up and that's when he couldn't. The witness said she heard him saying "oh f**k she's dead." I had an NDE. I woke up after no pulse for a couple minutes.  He then raped me and when the cops showed up tried to claim it was just a fight. He was arrested.

I thought it was finally over. I got a protective order. But I underestimated him. His dad had died a few years before but had been a defense attorney in that county. We were poor. Records disappeared. Suddenly the witnesses were scared and wouldn't testify. And I got to see how broken our judicial system is. There was alot of hate. Anger. Acting out. Because I didn't want to admit the fear. I was 23 and this guy had violated every bit of me and I had the scars to prove it and it would always be there.

The scars have faded but I can still see them. I made the mistake of tanning and then helping out at a church this summer. A parent was looking at me strangely; probably thinking I'm a cutter. I didn't know what to say. Hey, my psycho sexual sadist ex did this to me please trust me with your kids? I passed a background check already to be there. What do you say?

I'm new to this page but not new to feeling like a failure. I spent my childhood being raised by a set of parents that both have personality disorders. There was a lot of physical abuse and neglect and unreasonable expectations. So when it comes to unreasonable expectations, I'm an expert.

I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2006 after surviving abuse from a two year marriage that started out great but evolved into physical and sexual abuse so I left; but not without a lot of physical and mental scars.

The sad thing has been the state of our justice system. I live in a state that seems to feel that they should turn a blind eye to child abuse if the parents have money. If you don't have money and your husband abuses you the line of questioning shows that most feel, at least in the mid 2000s they did, that you must have done something to deserve it. The abuse was reported many times over the years but never pursued. I have seen several therapists that seem to feel my coping skills, especially the detachment, comes from feeling let down by those in a position of authority.

I have done a lot to work on my issues over the last decade but I recently had another hospitalization. The nurses didn't know what to do since I would be acting normal for hours and then suddenly rocking back and forth repeating a mantra and if they touched me would go into a screaming panic attack. The doctors didn't know what to make of it either. I got diagnosed with Adjustment Reaction/PTSD again. It was only after going to a private counseling center it was suggested it might be CPTSD and for the first time what the therapist said actually made sense. I decided to go look for answers.

So hello all. Nice to meet you.