7 years ago i suffered a nervous breakdown when i returned home to find my ex had a restraining order keeping me from him and my kids and he had stolen all furniture,jewlery, and belongings i had worked my entire life for. Two days ago i found out my mother had taken him to the courts and helped him do all of these things out of years of pure jealousy. She had been calling dcfs on me for years and telling people lies about me and even having cops harass and me and planting drugs into my car and calling police. I knew she had suffered from mental illness years ago when she asked me to sleep eith my step dad to save her marriage but i didnt want to dwell on it and swept it under the rug because facing the realities of what she did was too painful. Today i have nothing. She set out so many attacks on me that my life i once knew having a nice home with my children and being able to provide for them solely had all been taken away. She didnt stop until she accomplished ruining my name , credit, clean record and turned all my children and family members against me. Shes very good at convincing people she is a great person that just happen to end up with a pathetic loser ungrateful daughter. I cannot convince my children other wise. Shes put in hours of persuading them and exploited the arrests from the papers to everyone. I now live a very lonely life that is the lowest poverty level i have ever seen and people whisper behind my back everywhere i go as if i am a horrible criminal. Ive tried to come back up but shes made th a t impossible by always being one step ahead of me and making sure i have no help from others and no resources. Im where she wants me finally and shes finally broke my spirit enough thst thats wh where i will always remain. I didnt realize how nice looking and intellegent i was that was such a threat to her is what i know now. I never meant to be any competition to her or makr her feel less than me. All i ever wanted was to love her and make her proud and for her to love me back.

Dear Michele,

Another one-L Michele here… my mother is also 83. I’m 59. One failed marriage, one broken engagement. A life entirely wasted. Just going through the motions.

I didn’t have children, as I didn’t want to bring them into my “family.” And so I am very much alone now. No one understands except those who’ve been through it. My friends… they try. But what I went through is so sick and twisted. It’s hard for me to even explain. Sunny explained it so well, wow. I’d never seen it put into words like that.

As much as it is painful to know there are other grown women who, like me, feel their mothers ruined their lives, it is also validating and comforting to know there are people out there who get it. The profound loneliness of people not understanding is devastating. Even we don’t understand until we’re much older what really happened, because of the gaslighting.

I don’t know what Sunny’s situation was when it comes to her father. My parents are still together, and my father has supported my mother’s behavior throughout my life by punishing me severely for ever having a reaction to her behavior other than a smile on my face. He literally worships her, and she treats him like dirt. He was a successful attorney. And my brother? He has let me twist in the wind, enjoying his role as the golden child.

I have recently gone no contact a final time, after once again finally not being able to pretend all is okay when I’m participating in the family. People around me don’t understand why I keep going back. Trauma bonding… the thought that it can be different this time. And giving up your entire family is painful. Everyone wants a family. Also… society and other family members and my parents’ friends have judged my estrangements harshly. Insult to injury. Everything looks good on the outside, and my brother is fine, so it reinforces the family narrative that I am the problem.

My father has told me throughout my life that I ruined our family. Any time I would get upset at the dynamic, I was told it never happened.

It’s inconceivable that a mother would enjoy having her daughter psychologically tortured. I have tried every healing modality imaginable, and I just don’t think I will ever be close to okay. When I allow myself to remember things that happened, I can’t even believe I’m still here. I pretended for so long. That’s what I had to do to survive. But I’m exhausted now. On every level. It finally caught up.

I admire Sunny’s strength. But I don’t think I have it. In fact. I used to have somewhat of a normal-seeming life. I ran a successful PR practice. I was active, attractive and did fun things, like travel and plan elaborate theme parties, dinner parties.

But I was wearing a mask I didn’t even know I was wearing. I have slowly become more and more isolated, as it’s been too exhausting to try to pretend to be normal, even around good friends who mean well, but they say things like, “You don’t need them anyway. Your friends are your family.”

No one gets the lifelong effects. How could they? Had I been physically abused, at least people would understand that. Not to diminish the effects of that. But when it’s psychological tortured it’s invisible. The loneliness of it is too much to bear.

C-PTSD has created a host of medical issues as well. I figure I may have 20 more miserable years left. I’m not suicidal, though I have been in the past. I wouldn’t give my family the satisfaction now. And maybe I have a small glimmer of hope things can change. I don’t know. It seems to late, as I turn 60. To start my life completely over.

I do often think it would be a relief if I were to die sooner than later. The only living creature whose day-to-day life would be affected is my cat. That does make me sad. But she would adapt. I recently had a mammogram that required a second scan, and I thought it would be a relief to have breast cancer. That may sound crazy. I thought that I wouldn’t treat it, and it would release me from the pain of this lifetime. Death of either myself or my parents would end the torture loop.

At 83 and 90, my parents could live for another decade or more. I often think I will be free to some degree when they pass. And I think that’s true. But probably only a little bit. It won’t change the loss. The grief, shame and humiliation are so overwhelming. Maybe I just haven’t found the right help. But I’ve tried for decades, so I do believe I’m just broken. I wish I could be like Sunny. She does have the right name! She is a light. I wonder if she at least had one family member who did love her. I had my mother’s mother. But when we became too close, my mother stopped letting us spend time together. And then she died of a stroke when I was only 16 (she was only 67), and we were never to speak of her again. I guess I’d have been punished for grieving her loss.

I am new to the C-PTSD Foundation. It’s crazy that with all the supposed world-class support I’ve received in the SF Bay Area (therapists, psychiatrists and such), it was only recently that I realized I have C-PTSD. I’ve been erroneously pathologized with every other mental health condition. Um, no. It’s trauma. Trauma living in my cells. Dismissing what now seems obvious. Don’t get me started on psychiatry and 15-minute med checks. Medicating what is a dark night of the soul.

Anyway… I’m grateful to have found this organization and to know that I’m not alone, at least online.

You need to get out safely – for your sanity. Are you able to live with someone else you trust? She is only your mother by blood – other than that she is your worst enemy who knows how to hurt you, control you and ruin your life – and she will never change. I have suffered a lifetime of hell – even when I tried to break contact – it got worse – and she successfully isolated me from family members, still to this day. She is a very powerful narcissist. I found it easier to live a life she knows nothing about. She hates that I meet step-family for coffee which she recently found out about. Please try and get away, you deserve a wonderful life to live in peace – you will need therapy to get through this. Best wishes.