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Oh my words. And you were there with him when it happened! To hear it from further off would have been traumatizing enough - but to be right there! What a total nightmare. I'm so sorry you had to go through this.

Trace, depending on where your father's at, the mere fact that you're conscious of this anger problem and that you want to fix it - that might already give you a kind of head start over him.

Thanks for the kind words, both of you. 

Hi no_more_guilt, how are you doing now? I hope you're safe. What you're going through sounds very overwhelming. Hang in there, it does get better. Just take one day at a time. That's hard enough to do, and much easier said than done. But if you take one step after the other, you can make it through this. Don't lose heart. So many of us have been in very dark places, and we're all still here. All the best. 

Isn't there this study that babies born after 9/11 had some hormone or stuff in their blood that's always elevated if you've got PTSD? So they kind of "inherited" their mother's PTSD? I read something about that somewhere. Sorry, this is a bit vague. There's also this theory that trauma itself can be passed on to the next generation. In my country (I'm in Central Europe), there's now more discussion about what the second world war did to our parents (who were just children at the time). And many people say that they have reactions or nightmares that are absolutely coming out of the blue, and that you can't really explain at all - not until you hear of their parents' stories, and then the parallels are uncanny.

It's understandable that you're afraid of adopting your father's behaviour. It sounds like he's usually feeling really really uncomfortable. And of course it can't be much fun for people around him either. PTSD has been discovered so very recently though. At the time your father was your age, it probably wasn't even known that there is such a thing. So there was no good way for him to fix things. Or so I'm assuming. Maybe I'm wrong and he was in therapy or did other work. If your father belongs to the generation that's now in their 70s, more or less - well, in my country, people of that generation mostly follow a "grin and bear it" philosophy that teaches them to ignore their psychological discomfort and just smother their pain with busy-ness. So they're pretty much all "problem? what problem?" about their trauma. So simply just being aware of the problem at all already puts you at an advantage. And also, there are so many more resources today. Don't lose hope. 

My mother has road rage too, but she tries to be ladylike about it, which is hilarious. She'll take a deep breath and get an angry face, and you can see she wants to swear and call the other drivers names, but instead she'll blurt out something like: "This - this - this green car! Sugar!!"

I overthink things too. But then again, if you're the one person with CPTSD in a world geared towards non-CPTSD people, overthinking things is pretty much a survival skill. So kudos to us. 

Glad you found my reply intelligible. I was a bit undercaffeinated, which explains the wonky explanation. There are way better explanations featuring impressive words like "amygdala", but whenever I read those, I keep on having to consult wikipedia to find out what on earth an amygdala is and what it does. I can't for the life of me memorize it.

My sister-in-law has a cat, and she told us some stories of what cats do to their prey. Yikes. I hope the poor wee thing pulls through. But it's like you said, you're doing all you can.

Hi Sandman, and welcome. I'm glad to hear that you're so much better now that you're out of your abusive marriage. It happened to me too, when I moved away from my family of origin. It was awesome, like waking up after a bad dream and finding that there's fresh air and sunshine outside. If you're free from jerks and abusers, you have a much greater chance to heal. So I wish all the best to you, and I hope you'll find something helpful here.

Veritas, welcome to Out Of The Storm. - Huh... I wrote that sentence and then stopped and thought: 'Now there's a member where that name can be taken very literally.' Your family sounds like the perfect storm to me. What an environment to grow up in. I can't even imagine the pain they must have caused you. They sound like a sausage machine - if you put your hand in, you'll get chewed up. Chilling to read. Your anger is VERY understandable. VERY.

I read something once that helped me reframe my own anger. It's so unsettling, feeling just utterly pissed off at someone, especially if you want to see the good in everyone. The explanation featured a graphic. I'm crap with MSPaint, or I'd try to reproduce it here.

First, imagine a circle. That's our psyche. Nice and whole, and with a good clear boundary around it.

Next, imagine something poking into that circle: an arrow or something, and it breaks off and the jagged tip remains behind. That's a traumatizing attack which leaves behind some pain, or even introjects.

And anger is a force from inside of us that works to push that s*** right back out. It's self-protective. It's telling us that we didn't deserve all this. It's telling us that what happened was wrong. It's standing up for ourselves, and it's pushing all the damaging stuff right back out, working to restore our boundaries.

Most of my old overt PTSD symptoms have been dealt with... I want to be steady and emotionally stable. Is that even possible?]Most of my old overt PTSD symptoms have been dealt with... I want to be steady and emotionally stable. Is that even possible?

I can only speak for myself. Things started to shift once I worked on the assumption that my PTSD was really CPTSD. Not sure if it's like that for anyone but me though.

Did you come across a description of CPTSD yet? Did it resonate for you? A good place to start looking is the website of therapist Pete Walker. He's got CPTSD himself and he also specializes in CPTSD. http://www.pete-walker.com (His texts are spot-on, so some of us have found it best to read them in small and easily digestable doses, because finding your own story reflected in a text can be a wee bit triggering.)

Hm... partly. First, it depends on whether that article was talking about PTSD or CPTSD. Next, it depends on what part of PTSD we're talking about. The core of PTSD (and CPTSD) is that trauma kind of overloads our trauma-digesting-brainskills, and so ever after, certain triggers set off our "AAAAGH IT'S HAPPENING AGAINNNN" response. That response is automatic. It isn't learned. It can become mild and (I hope) very manageable. And maybe some scientist or therapist will discover how to make it go away. But for now, it's likely that we'll always have this response in some form.

Something that can be unlearned is the toxic shame we attach to our (C)PTSD symptoms. Most of us have a very toxic Inner Critic, and from what I hear, it looks like that can be fixed. And the whole plethora of secondary symptoms - I'd say we've got a fair chance to fix those (like social anxiety, depression, addictive behaviour,...).

But CPTSD itself? I can just as well unlearn a torn ligament.

Oh my words. I don't even know what to say. Your mother sounds crazy-making. It sounds like she's trying to brainwash you. Your relationship with your little brother sounds so touching and good and real, and she even tried to spoil that for you. I hope you can heal from all this madness. 

Your brother is lucky that he has you. Maybe you were the one thing standing between him and CPTSD.

Oh my, Rrecovery. I'm so sorry to hear that. Such a setback.    I hope you're not in any pain, and I also hope that you'll find something to do with your friend that works for both of you.

I remember when I was in therapy for PTSD. My T dutifully went through the motions. Item one on her list: resource work. She said I was to do things that give me energy and that are fun. I was then expected to go and do those things. It left me looking more or less like this:  . Fun. Huh. Yes, I knew how to spell it. In several languages, even! But... doing it? Hm. But okay. Fun, here I come. Hi-ho, watch Cat have fun. With... fun things. Uh. I sat down and tried to think. What DO I have fun doing? Reading foreign-language newspapers. But only when I'm feeling okay. When I'm down, they're no good. Same goes for anything else. Painting. Music. Writing. Long walks. Travelling. Movies. I'm having fun IF and AS LONG AS my CPTSD is manageable. If it isn't, it's bye-bye, fun.

Bottom line:

Therapist's theory: Feel down ==> have fun ==> feel alright.

Cat's practical experience: Feel down in a CPTSD kind of way ==> manage flashbacks while trying to also do things that keep me from feeling worse (drink enough water, exercize, eat proper food, have a conversation with a person who is older than twelve) ==> fail ==> try again ==> repeat as necessary until I get a little better and simply just feel the normal kind of down ==> have fun ==> feel alright.

So it's absolutely counter-intuitive, but sometimes when I'm feeling down, the best thing to do is move towards the down-feeling and not away from it. I'm now well enough that I can confront my past without nosediving too hard. Grieving, or journaling, or just remembering where I felt that particular feeling before... sometimes it works wonders. It's like waking up and feeling alive again. -- But like I said, that works sometimes and not always, and it's my own experience at this moment in time, not something general that works for everybody at all times.

Also, I hope you're not living in a house with too many staircases.

I put this in a paragraph called "stay safe". Do you think this works?

That's a very good way of seeing things. Thanks for sharing this, bee. I can relate to what's said here. Accepting kindness feels too much like I'm inconveniencing people.

Glad to hear that.    All the best to you.

Warringmind, how are you now? Are you a little better? I'm sorry to hear that you had such a hard time. I can relate to how difficult it is to tell one's story. Hereabouts, if you look for a therapist, you do one appointment that's for free where you just talk and see if you fit - and those always, always triggered me. It made things easier, because the T looked at me and went "yep, you've got PTSD alright". But I never went back to any of those. It was too hard to find the trust to even do that much. It felt like a leap into an abyss. I was panicked and afraid. So if you've been sticking to your therapy, returning again and again, you're already a lot braver than I am. 

CPTSD is an injury. What you're going through, your difficulty in even findings words, it's all part of what was done to you. You're not to blame. You're not "doing this" to anybody. You're hurt so badly. It's okay to walk with a limp for a while. 

You don't have to answer this - but when your T keeps on talking about a fork in the road and how you have to make choices... I read this and thougth: "oh sheesh, I'd feel really stressed out at that." I'd understand this to mean 'you CAN fix this yourself if only you try hard enough'. Which probably isn't what your T is saying. But it's what I'd hear. The reason is, my family and people around me so often gave me the message that I can simply "snap out of" my depression. That happened so often, and always at the wrong time. By now, even harmless encouragement can trigger me. ("You can do it!" - "AUGH! What if I can't?! Oh my words. I can't. That's it. I'm not going to be able to do it. It's this little thing that everyone else can do but of course it'll turn out that I can't. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no." - etc etc).

Maybe that's just me? Do your T's words feel like pressure? Like she was pushing you to do too much too early? Like... if you said "no, I'm not yet able to make a choice, I need more time" or if you said "I don't see that fork in the road you're talking about, I tried to see it but it's not there"... if you said something like that, does it feel like she'd then reject you or think badly of you? If so - I'm often hearing how important it is to honour our own sense of pace. If we feel that things are moving too quickly, then we usually have a point. She's the therapist, granted. But you're the one and only expert on being yourself. You're in charge. If she's triggering you, then maybe she's the one with the problem. - Sorry, I hope I haven't overstepped any bounds in saying that.

What C. said. No two kids are ever treated the same. The youngest of the family often gets more caring and nurturing than the older children. On top of that, the youngest can often rely on older siblings to play with him, comfort him, read him stories, explain things, or even protect him. It doesn't work the other way around. If ever anything happened to my husband and me, my oldest child would be a lot more abandoned and stressed than my youngest, who knows she can always depend on her big sister.

I'm sorry to hear that your brother's visit brought up such grief. The contrast between his life and yours - I can see how that would be rather jarring. You never deserved any of this. I hope you're safe today and able to cope with all those emotions in whatever way is best.