How do I deal with the guilt?

[WhatTheHey]

I feel as if I am in the midst of a large knot.  I can really see the threads or where they go or come from and each time I pull on it, it either becomes harder or more tangled.  And I am in the middle completely caught up in it.

I left my 32-year abusive marriage from my OCPDh.  I am regularly on the OOTF boards and just recently joined here as my therapist and I with EMDR are resolving my past trauma.

My problem, today, is my DDs are LC with me.  Granted I have trampled their boundaries in the past - I just truly didn't understand.  I was parenting how I had parented.  How I thought my OCPDxh would approve of.  How my grandparents had.  Yes, it sounds like an excuse but here, on this board, I hope that you all understand.  I was so completely in the fog and I never, ever, considered I was a victim of abuse.  I am 56 and it never crossed my mind.

Until I was diagnosed with PTSD.  It took a neuropsychiatrist to diagnose me before I realized that I was a picture of The Body Keeps Score.

And it is only recently that I realized that I have passed on this trauma.  That I have injured/damaged my own children who are my very heart and I am flattened by the guilt.

Granted my xh is relishing this and using it to his advantage but I am struggling.  My WHOLE life was those kids and keeping them safe from my ex's mercurial moods.  Now I am cut off from that very oxygen that kept me alive.  And yes, I deserve it, to a point.  I am working hard to recognize their boundaries now, but I am scared and anxious that I will never recover those relationships.  With my own children.

How do you handle the guilt?  How do you function?

[Libby183]

This is the biggest question in my life at the moment. All of the issues around parenting, guilt, divorce, abuse and so on.

Firstly, I think we should remind ourselves that guilt is probably a huge part of being a parent, even if you don't have relational trauma.

Secondly, I think that we cptsd sufferers get chosen by certain types of people, so we shouldn't take on all of the guilt for the things that happened in our marriages. In my case, I honestly didn't feel like I had a choice in marrying my H. My NM decreed that we should marry. He agreed and I didn't think anyone else would want me, so the rest is history.

I don't think my H was abusive, but he was quite odd. He hated conflict, so there were no fights but nothing was resolved. He disliked family activities, and had no friends. He never said sorry or admitted any mistake. When he decided to divorce me, he stated that the children were his now, and I was nothing to do with them. They went along with this.

I agree. It's so sad when you know that you have done so much for them, but they reject you. I was the practical parent who had to do everything. His only role was going to work.

I think this is where society and the role of women raises its head. Both H and children don't value anything I did.
I wonder if you feel like that?

As to where we go, to try and repair all of the damage, I just don't know.

With my son, I do not believe there is any hope of reconnecting. I could explain why, if it would help. So I have been able to let go and be at peace with that.

With my daughter, I have a little hope. I have apologised for everything. She does know how much improved I am since being on my own, but this hurts her because her Dad died.  The problem is that I see so much of myself in her, combined with her father's stubbornness, that I don't know what will happen.

I so wish that I had an answer, even a small glimmer of an idea. But I can offer the fact that you are definitely not alone in this situation. Use this forum to vent, so as to give the children space to find their own way, which may or may not be back into our lives. Finding a balance between giving them space, and not disappearing altogether is maybe the step after that.