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Dutch Uncle,

I just somehow lost the message I was draft, so this is a second try.

Your sister is indeed "hoovering."  And you are asking questions I know well.  You will want, I think, to ask yourself two overarching questions.  The first is whether you see any prospects for change on her part.  You don't report any.  But you know the dynamics here.

The second question is whether making contact to inform her of no contact is worthwhile.  It's a contradiction, of course, and in my experience is a message rarely heard.

I went NC with an abusive mother almost twenty-five years ago.  I don't think I ever said so directly, but I'd have had to shout over the barrage of ridicule and contempt that was her constant message.  Gradually, she realized that I meant business.  But the hoovering has never stopped.  I still receive letters describing my many faults and the ways in which I've let her down.  Like your sister, she apparently has no awareness of her own behavior.  The final cutoff came after a particularly violent episode, but it's the emotional abuse, which was constant, that still makes me shudder.

My thinking goes something like this:  if she could ever take at least some responsibility for her own behavior, I might consider contact, at least in a limited way.  But messages are anything but acknowledgment of her behavior.  Instead, they're all about my deficiencies.  I don't believe I've ever heard her apologize for anything.  Faced with someone so intractable, I've seen few options but not to respond to the messages.  Still, they haven't stopped.  I've not been hoovered, but neither am I recovered. 

Your sister's message is different, but what you've quoted suggests little acknowledgment that she needs to examine her behavior.  Rather, she's adept at shifting blame for problematic family dynamics.  From what you describe, she seems always to take the initiative to name a problem and so puts you on the defensive.  Taking the initiative allows her to set the terms of the conflict (whatever it is at the moment).  I note that someone concerned for you might more openly ask what was wrong/what she might have done/how she might help make it right. 

You are right, I think, in judging that your response now will have consequences for some time to come.  You are establishing a new pattern.  You will probably want to consider what you would truly want (is NC preferable?) and what may truly be possible.

Woodsgnome, you seem to have learned "angering" (as Walker explains).  You marshal internal resources to respond when anger is appropriate.  It's that skill that I think I need to learn.  I need to "talk back" or at least respond to my inner critic with anger enough to counter that voice.  I've become so accustomed to the voice that I mostly accept its messages.  I think learning to respond to it is the task ahead.

For the past few years (four or five years?), I've been thinking that my poor boundary-setting skills were a leftover problem from my FOO, most especially my NPD mother.  I didn't think much of the problem.  Lately, however, it's caused me some serious problems, and I'm thinking more and more that it's bigger than I had expected.

I tend to try please and so allow people to walk all over any boundaries I might want to have.   I can get angry if the violations are severe and ongoing.  I've even learned that, when I get angry, it's usually retroactive, as I recognize violations I should have seen and acted on long before.

But I'm don't get angry quickly.  And I don't feel anger at my FOO, which would be appropriate.  "Angering" in that direction doesn't, so far, get me any relief or sense of progress.

You're right  these are related concerns. 

Arpy1, I don't know whether inner child work is a route to anger, somehow expressed.  Surely, a great many people with CPTSD have causes of anger that stem from their childhoods. 

My T doesn't go there, and so far (in the past six months or so since I returned to therapy), I haven't either.  I've rather been addressing the present, trying to find a way forward.

But anger seems elusive.  I started thinking about it when I read Pete Walker about two months ago.  I had read a bit about CPTSD, long ago, but his book seemed to speak directly to me.  Thing is:  I'm all inner critic and no outer critic.  I don't do road rage (instead, I pull over the side and let the raging roadie pass).  I duck and cover, bob and weave, always trying to position myself to please.  I have ongoing issues with boundaries -- that is, even when I think I've set them, often, someone ignores my limits.  Clearly, I'm not convincing enough.

I tell myself, occasionally, that I "should" be angry.  And yet I also think I should have handled whatever situation it was better.

Nice to meet you, Gidget.  And, yes, Dutch Uncle is correct:  you can do all you mention on this site.  I've been here less than two weeks and have been impressed with the engagement, compassion, and overall sensibility.

For me, at least, the impact of CPTSD waxes and wanes.  I've been fine -- or at least functional and reasonably happy -- for periods of life.  And then something happens and I'm thrust backwards, dealing again with effects from long ago.  At least on this site, no one seems to judge or apply any expectations.

Arpy1, yes, me too -- that is, I just want to get better, to have my head filled with something other than EFs and fear. 

My fight response, though, seems to be used up or at least depleted.  When I fought harder, as a child in particular, the response put me in danger.  I'm not in danger now, at least physically, so far.  That's what I meant by anger being "safe."  It's safe to, in my own space without no one else around.  I've been NC with abusers for a very long time.

I've been trying to access that anger for a while, but it doesn't percolate much.  Instead, I'm worn out.

Arpy1, that's exactly it.  I can grasp it, explain it, intellectualize it but not actually feel it.  I've been angry, so I know the feeling of anger.  But I somehow get sidetracked with explanations in my head (they were abused too; they had fewer resources than I did; . . . ).  The same kind of thinking leads me to know I "should" be angry.  But I can't access the emotion.

Maybe I, too, am engaging in outdated self-protection, directing anger inward because there was no other choice.   But I think as a child I was angrier.  I knew something was wrong.  I even fought back every now and then (and "earned" the cuts and bruises in return).  But now, decades later, I'm more resigned.  Perhaps I think I "should' have dealt with all this long ago and so have no "right" to be angry now.

Nothing I express now will be heard by anyone but my T and a few close friends.  Anger should be safe.

So, Woodsgnome, maybe I need a secluded place to practice, as you can in the woods.  I do live alone and would have to make a lot of noise to be heard "angering" out loud.  But I have no impulse to express what I don't really feel. 

Walker talks about regaining the "fight response," at least for people like me who are all inner critic and no outer critic.  That formulation makes sense.  Regaining some fight may well mean accessing anger. 

Woodsgnome, I want to echo condolences for your loss.  Four people -- the only people who could recognize who you are -- in a short time! 

I think for those of us with CPTSD, understanding is such a precious thing.  To find someone who "gets it" and (presumably) doesn't judge or challenge or deny can be a kind of lifeline.  For me, the people who qualify have either met my NPD parent or have been interested enough to hear and accept my story.  I shudder to imagine losing them (they are few) in a matter of months.

I wish you peace.

Thank you for the responses.  Butterfly, the diagram is intriguing.  It implies that annoyance (which I have in excess sometimes) might qualify as anger.  And, IFeelSoAlone, you may be right about anger self-directed.

I have much to be angry about.  Lately, my FOO has seriously undermined my stability, both emotional and financial.  I should be furious.  The few close friends who know about these developments are.  But I seem unable to access the rage.  I've been experiencing lots of EFs, but I find myself explaining the abuse (NPD parent was abused too, maybe even worse . . . ). 

I think I "should" be rip-roaring mad.  This phase (if that's what it is) seems like a place to get stuck.

Useful for me has been thinking of CPTSD as an injury, as some experts say it is.  Injuries often leave scar tissue, even if they heal.

For me, this condition has come crashing in again, after many years in remission.  I think it is indeed a lifelong effort but not one that is front and center all the time.

I'm wondering whether anyone else has a problem that seems like the "opposite" of what's usually discussed:  an inability to feel angry.

I know I have reason to be angry:  a uNPD parent, a similarly abuse sibling, renewed harassment that threatens my financial security (which is tenuous in any case).  I know I spent decades trying to dodge the abuse, both physical and emotional, while never naming it until about 25 years ago, when I finally went NC.

But I don't have the usual "problems" with anger, the response I hear and read about.

Rather, I feel distressed but not enraged, though I don't think I deserved any of this treatment and I don't feel guilty about going NC.  Intellectually, I'm sorry for my abusers.  I'm pretty sure my parent suffered something horrible, and I know my sibling did. 

I have dissociation and emotional flashbacks (frequently of late).  I've read Pete Walker on "angering" as a way to respond to memories.  I've been trying to learn grounding techniques.  I've also been learning some somatic responses to CPTSD.  Still, no overt anger. 

Does anyone else have this experience?

Vrizzy,

I've been reading a bit about memory.  One way to think about memory and CPTSD is that you necessarily need to remember or least not remember every detail.  Instead, you need a way forward, along with the skills to avoid being bullied in the future.

I wish that for you.

Thank you!  A great start to the week.

Arpy1, I think you just identified a big part of the problem:  simultaneously thinking they really did that to me and then again thinking something like, "it might have been normal" or "maybe it wasn't so bad."  Perhaps until those two versions merge, integration can't happen?

Whenever I see or read accounts of child abuse, I simultaneously think, "So that's child abuse?" and "How dreadful for that child."  One part of my brain is still identifying the "reality" of it.  The other can empathize.  So maybe merging those two reactions would be integration?

Arpy1,

Dissociation was first described to me as detachment from oneself.  So to dissociate is to separate one part of the self from another and to distance oneself from at least one of the parts. 

But how do you know you're dissociating?  One way (I was told) is by identifying behaviors, everything from daydreaming to use of substances that accomplish some sort of detachment.  If you're doing it, you have it.

I think one problem, for people with CPTSD, is that dissociation is almost a way of life.  It's the only way to continue on.  To recognize the totality of abuse is otherwise overwhelming. 

Another problem is that "official" definitions of dissociation are rather abstract and encompass responses like dissociative identity disorder (DID), which can involve multiple personalities and long periods of amnesia.  In other words, the spectrum is so wide, that it's hard to know what qualifies.

I sometimes think of dissociation as a kind of fragmentation.  When in fragments, I can attend to only some of the pieces at any given time, so I don't "associate" with all of them.  I suppose then the goal is integration, putting the pieces back together.