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Hi boatsetsailrose,

I really like that you see the boundary setting as practice. I've also struggled with this and It feels so good doesn't it when looking after yourself and setting boundaries comes naturally.

I also think it's the most helpful thing you can do for your flatmate, even if it doesn't feel it at the time.

Hi Ari,

I notice you wrote this in April- has your friend now returned?

When I first met my SO he was due to go out to the middle East on military service- in some ways I think I was attracted (partly) to the familiarity that this absence and anxiety  triggered in me. He has been several times since and our life is always a little unsettled. My therapist thinks I have been repeating previous trauma - when i became more aware of it, I went through a phase of feeling really upset and felt that I'm destined to a life of misery and triggering but my therapist re-framed it that maybe I'm destined to work through what happened to me. It does get easier every time and has made us stronger I think.

Was your friend going away similar for you? How did you manage?

Doe anyone else feel triggered when they watch horror films?

I can manage gore but if there's any suspense I just can't handle it. I watched the new Jurassic park movie the other day and I felt frozen in the cinema- I couldn't handle how scared I was. I could just accept it but on top of feeling scared i feel embarrassed and ashamed and invalidate myself that I can't even watch a kids film!

Thank you for your reply Woodsgnome, it feels really good to talk to people other than my T who really understand.

I think 'reluctantly accept' is right. It doesn't feel fair but it clicked for me yesterday that this is it! This is how my life will be. We are also moving away to a different country this summer and perhaps, like you, it'll provide a natural break.

Take care

Hi all, I am looking for advice or other people's experiences about contact with family.

I am a married 33 year old woman with a loving and supportive husband. I like my life and I'm starting to develop better relationships with others. But, whenever I think about my parents/caregivers I feel a stone in my stomach and a sense of dread. It feels like a dark shadow in my life.

My mother experienced extreme domestic violence at the hands of my step father- to the point where there were broken bones and loss of life to an unborn child. I think my mother has a PD (a result of serious issues in her own childhood) - everything was about her. As well as witnessing the violence first hand, I also experienced it all over again every time she constantly talked about it and how it made her feel how awful my step dad is to her. They divorced when I was 11 –much to my relief. When I was 17 my mum re-married him. I cried and cried and my mum acted so surprised she kept asking me what he had done to me (she often projected her own sexual abuse on to me and I think the only thing she thought could evoke such a reaction in me was the same thing). They are still married now. No physical violence that I know about but horrible emotional abuse from both sides.

Since then I have maintained contact with my mum but put in boundaries (that I don't want to talk about my step-father and I don't want to talk about the abuse that happened as it upsets me). She generally has taken this on board but I have had to remind her quite a few times. she continues to make everything about her a lot of the time and  I have low expectations of our relationship but after 3 years of therapy and seeing my mum in a different light I have found some compassion for her.

Although I have avoided contact with my step father, I haven't made a stance of 'no contact' as I haven't wanted to rock the boat. I've rationalised it by saying 'he's my siblings' father' and 'my mum choose to forgive him so can I'. I now realise after 3 years of therapy that this is absolute rubbish. I feel sick when I see him and I hate being around him or even talking about him. I'm wondering whether or not to talk to my mum about it and stop any chance of contact all together.

That's my mum's side of the family. My Dad and step mother have been incredibly neglectful. I went to live with him when I was aged 7 (and saw my mum at the weekends). Things were ok for a few years but when they had 2 other children when I was 11 and 15, they seemed to forget about me as soon as I hit 16 I was free to do what I wanted and seemed to view me as having 'flown the nest' - they didn't try to include in their family in anyway. This happened to the point where I was upstairs in my bedroom for a week so sick that I couldn't get out of bed and no one checked on me once, that I remember. I had to crawl to the bathroom to get a glass of water. Anyway, they haven't bothered to make contact at all since I went to uni- I have stayed in contact with them because I have been the one to always call them and I'd time going over my nan's when they were there to see them- they went every Saturday at 12 o clock, regardless of whether that was the best time for me. My lovely Nan died a year ago and during this time I realise how one-sided my relationship with DF and step mother way. The handful of times I have been over to theirs this year I have felt triggered and let down and abandoned. I have tried talking to my dad and step mum- my dad's response was defensive and my mother's response was that it's all about me and mocked me 'poor me'.  I feel bad letting go because sometimes I tell myself that they haven't really done anything wrong and I cling on to the fact that at least my dad was better than my step-dad.

I am healthy enough to realise that contact (or trying to make contact) is not good for me but I feel so scared and bad about it all still- like I'm causing trouble which I'm sure is another EF.

Has anyone had a similar experience of either of these situations?

Hi all,

This is the first time I have joined an internet forum, after reading so many supportive and caring posts this morning I felt compelled to join and to belong to a like-minded community.
Like most people here I have had a complex family history, marred by emotional and physical abuse and neglect. Although I've thought for a while that I have CPTSD, it is only this week, after experiencing a particularly horrible emotional flashback, that it just makes perfect sense to me- on both an emotional and logical level. It gives me something way to explain how I feel, without having to explain how I feel every time. I even think I can use this as a way to explain how I am feeling to others, if and when I feel brave enough!
I'm at a stage in recovery where I am questioning whether it is helpful for me to stay in touch with family members, as contact with them often triggers and EF. I'm also at a stage where I am finding myself and who I really am, including parts of my-self I misidentified with myself from as they were influences of abusive caregivers who I wanted to completed dis-identify from.  I'm in a place now where I let myself expect things from life-  I'm studying for a doctorate which I find so much joy in finally feeling as though I have done my best and I am able to celebrate it (no matter how uncomfortable that makes others feel). I want to be more creative and learn to express myself more, both verbally and through art. I want to have deeper and more meaningful relationships and to feel accepted and that I belong somewhere. I feel that in many ways I am moving onto more exciting and fun phase of an incredibly tough journey, although I know that I will always remember the harsh truths of my childhood. I think for me now the important thing is that I don't want to forget.
writing this I realise how worried I am about celebrating my happiness and coming across as gloating! I guess it's a good example of the layers of emotion involved in triggering and EF's!

It's been a hard journey and there's always more to come but I always feel glad that I took the 'red pill'

'This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.'
Morpheous, The Matri

x (film)

Hi tiggerpsych

Firstly how awful that your wife had to go through all that and how brave to take them on.

Personally I think what is most important is what makes sense to your wife, whatever anyone else wants to call it.  From my own experience I have known for a while logically that I had CPTSD but it wasn't until experiencing a particularly bad EF recently that I really believed it and felt it and it made total sense to me. before that I've called my experience many things - attachment, stress even autistic tendencies - for me PTSD not sits more comfortably than anything else ever has.

I wish you both strength on your journey in holding these people accountable for their actions.