Making myself sick in an emotional flashback, and now I'm convinced

[confident]

I've heard the term C-PTSD tossed around quite a bit in another forum I'm active in.  Trying to come to terms with the fact that my childhood was not all that I once thought it to be, I pushed the term aside while trying to grapple with new understanding of family dynamics.

But it's time... I'm ready to recognize that this is what I have, and it's polluting and sucking the joy out of almost every moment in my life. 

I was raised (or not, depending on your perspective...) by a personality-disordered mother and an enabling, absentee father whose presence in my life was hit-or-miss.  I lived most of my childhood devoid of any real familial relationship. The one saving grace was a gentle, nurturing grandfather who was gone way too early from my life.

I've been wretchedly depressed and angry for the past week and a half after a triggering event, oscillating between uncontrollable sobbing to the point of near vomiting, dizziness, dissociation, inexplicable anger and frustration with a hair trigger, indifference to people and situations around me, loss of interest in hobbies. I feel completely stalled out. Somewhere inside there is a dream of starting my own business, but I honestly don't believe myself capable and I'm not sure how to get motivated.  As a wife and mother I feel like I'm a complete failure, like I'm only setting up my family to go through the same * I went through, and I'm afraid of having more children because I don't feel competent as long as I'm in this state.

Not sure what to do next. Maybe someone can relate.

[schrödinger's cat]

Hi confident, pleased to meet you. I'm sorry to hear you're going through such a hard time. Can't write much because I've got a cold and it's making it hard to think (or write in English, which isn't my native language) - but I just wanted to tell you that I had a similar crisis about ten years ago. It was so unsettling. It was like my life just crumbled to dust in my hands. I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. Your symptoms sound very, very difficult to live with. You're aware that this could be CPTSD though, which is a starting point.

As for setting your family up to go through * - if you take this statement and shift it a little so it catches the light, you'll find that this speaks of a passionate wish to make sure your family are okay. Several people here have grown up with parents who have personality disorders, parents who hugely traumatized their kids while pretending everything was fine. They'd probably have given much to have a mother like you - a mother who's actually aware that something is wrong. A mother who's aware of other people, and aware of how things impact her family. A mother who's very obviously still in there fighting, trying to find out what's wrong, trying to work out how to fix things. That alone is worth a lot. How much it's worth is probably very easy to underestimate while you actually have it. Even just this, your worry about your family, is a sign that you love them, and that you're ready to let the truth be the truth instead of feeling obliged to make everyone pretend everything's fine. So you're already doing two VERY important things that help your family.

I'm sure someone will have advice that's a bit more practical... oh, right, there's something I can think of. This is the website of therapist Pete Walker: http://www.pete-walker.com/. He's written a really good book on CPTSD, but there are several articles for free on his website, and they're a good starting point for research. I'd recommend starting with the articles on Emotional Flashbacks, especially this one: http://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm.

I wish you all the best, and I hope things will get better for you soon.

[Rrecovery]

Hi Confident and welcome.  My heart goes out to you in your suffering.  Glad you found your way to this group.  Both of my parents had PDs 
It is so hard and unfair.  It was painful for me when I got the Cptsd diagnosis.  Since then, the clarity has helped so much. 

Warmly,
Rrecovery 

[confident]

Appreciate the responses and care shown by all of you, thank you so much. I'm sorry for taking several days to return, I was stuck in an emotional flashback on and off for several days, in which I was drowning in dissociation. I can barely put a cohesive thought together on my worst days. I'm doing quite a bit better right now so I wanted to make the most of it.

To answer a few questions, I've been out of therapy for several months and am looking to go back, but will need to find a new T now. I'm hoping to start again after the turn of the year.  My mother has undiagnosed NPD, and while she's shown signs of it for as long as I have memory and can put the puzzle pieces together, she only became overtly malicious toward me, the SG, when I hit adolescence.  I have a GC brother with budding N traits. He's more the ignoring and my mother more the enmeshing narcissists. All in all, most of my FOO is out of the picture or I'm LC with and prefer it to be that way for right now. Too much triggering interacting with most of them these days.

Cat, thank you for the perspective you gave. I think being aware that something is wrong automatically sets me up to feel like a failure. The unspoken message to me from my FOO for years and years is that I was a disappointment and had nothing but their criticisms and disapprovals to take with me day in and day out.  I treat myself much the same way, and I don't celebrate even the littlest successes, such as recognizing something is wrong and that I need help figuring out what comes next.

Rain, your gentle reassurance was so meaningful. Thank you.

bheart, R, everyone else, I'm looking forward to reading more of your experiences and journeys. Perhaps there will be wisdom and lessons learned I can glean in the healing season. Books are going to be my primary support until I can find and get connected with a T. Thanks, all.