Gemma Jones | CPTSDfoundation.org https://cptsdfoundation.org The Foundation for Post-Traumatic Healing and Complex Trauma Research Thu, 22 Dec 2022 13:31:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://cptsdfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cropped-Daily-Recovery-Support-Globe-iPad-Fav-32x32.png Gemma Jones | CPTSDfoundation.org https://cptsdfoundation.org 32 32 A New Year: Avoid The Trap of the ‘Holiday Season’ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/12/22/a-new-year-avoid-the-trap-of-the-holiday-season/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/12/22/a-new-year-avoid-the-trap-of-the-holiday-season/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2022 18:23:50 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=245841 As we approach Christmas and another new year, it dawns on me that it will be another year without my family. Even though I do not want them to be around me it still hurts. We are told to love our families no matter what, that ‘blood is thicker than water’ but that is not true for all of us. In fact, a lot more people than we would like to admit or acknowledge do not have loving and caring families. I remind myself at these times of year that I have chosen peace over chaos, I have chosen peace not only for me but for my children.


Generational trauma can be broken but it does not come easy, and it takes a very strong and courageous person to do it. To stand up and say:

‘I will not be silenced’
‘I will not be gaslit’
‘I will not be blamed for what you inflicted upon me’
‘I will not tolerate your bad behaviour’
‘I will not ignore the past, but rather I will learn from it’
‘I will not let you deflect your pain upon me anymore’
‘I will not let you project your guilt and shame upon me anymore’
‘I will tell the truth’
‘I am not mentally unstable
‘I will not condone your manipulation of the truth’
‘I will not allow you to make me feel like the ‘crazy’ one’
‘I will not allow you access to my children
‘I will not accept you into my life as you have not atoned for your actions’

To do that takes a type of strength many are lucky to never have to see if they have, and may you count your blessings if you are one. Some of us get stuck in the drama triangle and family abuse til the end of our days, whilst guilted into allowing access to our own children, by being scapegoated and gaslit and not knowing how to get out. They may only get pulled in on these festive holidays, but that is enough to send them spiraling. Then what usually happens is the abusers use this opportunity to either love bomb their way back in or an opportunity to make them look ‘crazy’ to the ones they need to validate their existence to. All the while the survivor gets stuck back in a web of family toxicity or starts questioning their own sanity again.

So, to those of you that question if you have done the right thing by cutting your abusive family off – I want you to know that you are:

Strong
Courageous
A fantastic parent – for why would you allow them access to your own children when they were capable of what they were when you were a child?
Many adult survivors of abuse notice their own parents mellow with time, well yes they do; that comes with old age, it does not mean that they have atoned, if they have that’s a different story, but if they still make you feel like the ‘crazy’ one, the one that ‘over reacts’ the one that ‘ acts like a child’ the one that ‘ still lives in the past’.
THEN THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE IN YOUR LIFE OR YOUR CHILDREN. This type of behaviour means they are not sorry and that have not atoned let alone changed their behaviours or the way they view you as a person. Some of these abusive parents end up using their own children as weapons against you, do not allow them this power. Take it back, take your personal power back. You are worthy


Remember there is NOTHING wrong with living a peaceful life away from all that drama, all that pain, you do not need to feel this way, you do not need to accept or tolerate this type of insidious gaslighting and continued manipulation. Embrace your freedom, hold your head up high, and know that you are worthy.

Do not let them project guilt upon you for doing the right thing for yourself and for your children. In fact, you are strong and courageous forming and teaching a new way to live a new family lineage. Whereby you set the next generational standard of love and care. You can build the family you never had, for with time your children may have children and you may be a grandparent.


Then every night when you lay your head down to sleep you can sleep peacefully knowing you have shown them a different path, a new path, a new way to care and love for each other and their family.

That is worth it……

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/12/22/a-new-year-avoid-the-trap-of-the-holiday-season/feed/ 1 Inscape https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/06/23/inscape/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/06/23/inscape/#respond Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:00:52 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=237292 Windy days that escape my reality to a world of internal intrigue and outside disassociation that will be forever in my psyche.

Do I want to leave this world behind I do not really know as it has been my world for such an exceptionally long and the little girl in me loves to escape into this world away from all the chaos of the human condition, the adults that harm the adults that hurt the adults that neglect and the adults that stare at you with contempt like they wish you did not exist?

In this world of mine I do not exist in that reality I exist in my world of the wind, the trees, the nature that I see in every aspect of my being that I feel on my skin, that eases my worried mind that turns off my flight response.  Those branches of the Willow trees deeply held me, they were my parents, two big enveloping trees full of love and safety.

They deeply held me … they use to, and now… well in my mind they still do, in my inscape, they did and still do.

They imprinted their knowledge – yes trees have it so very much of it.  The connection to nature was spawned in that traumatized child who had no idea where she belonged.  This little girl had been told her whole life that she was unwanted by her birth mother, un- loveable, stupid, a burden, and very often just standing there listening to the rantings and tirades out of her father’s mouth – I wish you had never been born, the ‘lot of you’.

‘never get married and never have kids they all ruin your life this is what I grew up being told, and yet what I saw around me was so often the opposite.

I could see mothers hugging and supporting their children, fathers laughing and hugging their children…so into my inscape, I went…

There really must be something so very wrong about me if all these other children have parents, who seem to love them.  Mind you who knows what their family dynamics were like, from my eyes as that small child; those parents were fundamentally different from my own.   My parents barely held me, nor hugged me.  I often was doing chores or alone.  It felt like a Cinderella story sometimes, yet no fairy godmother or prince charming came to save me.  Later in life, I realized that no prince charming had come to rescue me.

The envy I would feel when I watched mothers and daughters, the big gaping wound inside the pit of my stomach – aching and still does sometimes.  How I longed every day to feel my mother’s love, to be held to be told everything will be ok that she would never leave me again…… ever, that no one was as important to her as her children.  That she would never give up trying.  All the essence of my being begged for this love, for this void to be filled to go away.

Yet it never did.  So, I had to learn how to push it away, how to cope with a big aching wound inside me.  I started to shrink away from so no one would notice me but hunching my shoulders and bowing my head only got me into more trouble.

‘stand up straight, head up, what the f..k is wrong with you, are you stupid, you can’t even walk properly…………get the broomstick and walk up and down the hallway, until I see your shoulders back…then get a book and walk up and down the hallway until I say.

I would do this for hours sometimes, as he would forget he told me to do it, then be angry that I was in the way with the broom ‘go stand in the f…ing corner’………. hours would go by, sometimes until dinner time and then they would realize I was not there for dinner.

‘why aren’t you at dinner, what’s wrong with you are you stupid, didn’t you hear me calling?

Me so nervous, ‘I didn’t want to move because you told me to stand in the corner and if I move you will hit me’… and just like that a big hand would come smashing down…………. this little girl was so confused.

‘you are on kitchen duty for two weeks.

More punishment, oh well ….on with it I go at least there was a window in the kitchen where I would stare out to the garden, to the trees, to the wind rustling through my big old willows.

These cycles went on for years.  Some days/weeks/months much worse than others.  The weapon of choice to hit me with, the careful consideration on where to hit me so that no one else could see especially teachers at school.  The bruises on my bottom so black and purple it hurt to sit down.

The pain at school trying to concentrate and wanting to stand up because it hurt so much to sit down for long, only to get into trouble for not sitting down and listening properly.

This vicious cycle of abuse, the climbing into bed at night in the screamingly cold and dark winters of Tasmania, freezing cold, crying quietly to myself, wondering why I was so bad and how I could be better.

I got good at being funny and I got real good at cleaning, cleaning so well that nothing could be faulted…. then I will be loveable…nope the cycle continues…

‘what’s so funny, you think it’s funny, what’s wrong with you’ ………….so as you can see, the Inscape was mine, all mine and still is.

Do I want to give this up, I do not know, I don’t really want to leave that world behind, it’s safe, it’s mine, it’s my world.

When I talk of healing and being peaceful in my other articles it doesn’t mean I am healed or found some secret way of erasing the past and the trauma it just means I have a more linear path of healing that I try to maintain and sometimes it takes a wrong turn, completely goes off the path or sometimes it’s just a small wrong turn that’s easily corrected.  At times I still get caught in the same scenarios,  overcompensating, overworking, blurring my boundaries, well in actual fact I needed to learn what boundaries were.  I started from scratch I had none, every one of my boundaries had been violated and continuously so for years on end.

So be gentle with yourself speak kindly to yourself and it is so awfully hard sometimes, I know, I still very much struggle with being kind to myself.

If you are lost and wanting to know where to start, I recommend Boundaries.  Learn about them and how to implement them.  What are boundaries are to you, what do they mean, do you have any? What ones do you want? What ones do you need?…..explore and investigate this.

Work with a life coach, psychologist, counselor, best friend, just someone who understands that your boundaries have been violated and you need to learn from scratch on how to get them in place and how to keep them in place, learn this my friends and your healing may not so arduous.

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

 

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/06/23/inscape/feed/ 0 The Paradox https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/05/11/the-paradox/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/05/11/the-paradox/#comments Tue, 11 May 2021 10:00:50 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=236380 Strange is my life, when I glaze off into the distance looking at my willow trees in my childhood garden, in my mind, I know why I do it now so many years later.  This wonderful brain gave me a way to see something beautiful when something fracturing was done to my body, mind, spirit.
This spirit, soul we refer to is what’s responsible for this inner world we create.

This soul and spirit perhaps its both, their purpose for our life is the energetic protector and guider for our inner beings to survive.

I say strange, as it’s the only word that describes my life, I have the ability to read people to a level of great intrigue even to myself. My trauma has guided me to this. Now so much older and wiser, I see the gift, the opportunity in my pain and suffering.

I can look into a person eyes and see their emotions. My brain trained me to read people, that’s what brains do;  they shut down other learning to focus on learning what is required to survive.  I had to it was my survival mechanism its what I needed to be able to do very quickly to see what type of person was going to be near me.  What type of abuse this person or these people were going to subject me too?  How can I adjust my behaviours immediately to either not be the one they pick or to lessen an evitable event of abuse.  It’s how I survived. Its how I was able to function.

Now that I am safe, now that I am free, I can use these skills to read people to help them, to perhaps guide them.  It is why I work with people; I can see those nuanced repetitive behaviours and in what situations these behaviours are activated.  I can see when someone is stressed, or sad, or feeling despondent.  I can read those tiny little micro behaviours in body language to such a fine-tuned level now that I can pre-empt moments in time and diffuse or lesson the negative effects or consequences.

People always ask questions like —- would you ever change anything about your life if you could? …. Most people say No… it made me who I am.  I am going to answer it honestly, yes absolutely if I could go back in time and change things I would, but why do we even waste our time considering these options and hypothetical questions, its nonsensical, it will not happen.

What is going to happen, is you are going to wake up each day being you.  Until one day when you don’t.  That is the human condition, we have every moment of every day we breath; to be us, this we know.

Would I like to not be able to read people so well, probably, maybe I would like people a little more and the paradox here is that I have an intrinsic need to help people, yet I still don’t really like ‘us’ very much, human behaviour is both beautiful and ugly in every way again it’s the paradox of being.

Of being me and of being you and simply how much beautiful and how much ugly your mind, body and soul has seen, been, received, taken from or given to.

So, what opportunity did your suffering give you? Even if like me when you remember why you are good at what you do you feel that shame again, but in time you can see the opportunity in this, you can perhaps begin to understand that there is beauty in how you can choose to live your life as it moves with time , its still something that you will be extremely good at if you can gently remind yourself that the shame will leave,  that’s success just in a way you haven’t thought of before.

You have not failed you have become really good at something, so if you don’t know………………go find it.

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/05/11/the-paradox/feed/ 4 The Wind – A Survivor Poem https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/04/08/the-wind-a-survivor-poem/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/04/08/the-wind-a-survivor-poem/#respond Thu, 08 Apr 2021 10:00:33 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=236218 The Wind always feels so free to me

I wonder daily about life and its peculiarities, the sense of unfulfillment versus stability.  The deep-seated longing but not knowing what it is or where it comes from.  Is it a culmination of reality versus subconscious or simply selfishness and narcissism?  Perhaps a genetically related prone-ness to sensitivity or it is environmental.  I sit and wait for windy days, they don’t come too often but when they do it’s like they take me away too, to another place. I long to feel the wind on my face, it’s a reminder that I am here, alive and it never hurts me the wind even if it’s strong, it always feels so free to me.

Bombardment of and impossibilities that make you want more yet feel less.  Is it possible to sustain without passion or is it age and the surrender to infinite stability of the known?  I often find myself sitting at an open window or door, allowing the breeze to caress my skin to let go and imagine so many possibilities a sense of freedom.  Yet confined to obligations and the pursuit of others’ contentment and happiness.  I wish the wind would take me too, it goes wherever it likes and always comes back, it knows no schedule

I can be happy sometimes too, fleeting those feelings are, yet I often wonder why I can see the sadness in another’s eyes, or pain or aloofness.  Is this a gift that I have or perhaps my own projection to another and it all may be fantasies and illusions in one’s mind? Then the wind may change its path and come back as I long it too.

It always feels free to me, it always allows me a minute, a second an hour, or sometimes two, to be free with it – oh take me with you too.

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/04/08/the-wind-a-survivor-poem/feed/ 0 The Dreaded DSM and CPTSD https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/17/the-dreaded-dsm-and-cptsd/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/17/the-dreaded-dsm-and-cptsd/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:00:54 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=235842 The Dreaded DSM and CPSTD

According to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) when I describe my symptoms, it advises doctors, psychologists that I would most likely have borderline personality disorder sometimes Bipolar previously known as manic depressive. To me, it seems ridiculous, but it is what it is.

Even when I tell parts of my story, I say parts, because when I told the truth and all my story at 19 to a counselor her words are forever in my mind.

‘are you sure you are not exaggerating’.

Wow, I thought there IS something wrong with me, even the ‘psychologist’ who is trained to know who ‘crazy’ people are (my thoughts of psychology at 19) thinks I am lying about what happened to me. I know it’s intense, I see the reaction on people’s faces when I tell them some of the punishments, I would receive for being ‘naughty’.

I did not however expect this when I sort help from a professional. I remember having to pay $85.00 for that session an awful lot of money for someone earning $220 per week and I walked out of that room so incredibly sad and even more confused. I never went back. I did go back to my GP and he advised that I should go on anti-depressants so I agreed as I believed by then that I was in fact crazy and my family was right about me all along.

Not long after starting the anti-depressants at 19, I felt worse, even after the 6 weeks had passed, I felt horrible, tired, put on weight which triggers me in a way I need to be very aware of. My father’s words and treatment of my older sisters regarding their weight still haunts me to this day. On one occasion my father told my much older sister that she should go and vomit up her food as she was a fat slob who looks disgusting, that no man would ever want a fat slob of a woman like her. I was around 8 years old.

So, one Christmas when my sister did go and vomit up her food, we could hear her in the toilet and the response from my father was ‘good she did not need any of that food anyway, just look at the state of her’. No one else said anything, I felt sick, I wanted to help her, I wanted to say you look beautiful to me, I looked over at my stepmother who I called ‘Mum’ and she did nothing and said nothing.

‘only eat half ‘this stayed with me for many years and in a way still does. I no longer control what I eat to an unhealthy extent, but it took many years of healing to undo and it is still not undone and probably will never be. I am aware of it and remain aware of it.

I learned the hard way that anti-depressants do not mix with alcohol, my doctor was not overly caring and pushed a new anti-depressant for the 2000s Effexor. I was already isolated in my relationship as I would cling to my boyfriends and their families like a loyal little puppy dog. Binge drinking and anti-depressants do not mix. I had no real close friends as I had moved to over 16 different schools. Many friends but not any close friends that I could turn to for help.

I went out one night with my then-boyfriend, we were fighting as the many girls that would throw themselves at him from his school were out and they decided it would be fun to pick on the ‘new girl in town’ even though we weren’t in high school the mentality of mean girls had not changed much at this age either, I was used to those mean girls; I had come across many of them over my extensive school life. What I had trouble with was navigating these types of situations in relationships, he left me stranded in town, no phone to call anyone, and no way to get home.

I luckily found a couple of friends that I use to go to school with a few years earlier and we quickly chatted about how year 11 and 12 had been and how Queensland was and what it was like to be back in NSW, we continued drinking and I was not a big drinker. The night ended back at their house, we continued drinking and talking of our time together in year 10, they were now at university and living on campus, something I thought I was not good enough for nor deserved or could afford. They went to bed, I became very depressed and anxious, and I was so very drunk I found their phone tried calling my boyfriend to pick me up, no answer it was around 4 am by now, for whatever reason that night I decided to call my father and told him how sad I was and that I did not want to live anymore. His words to me………………………………….

‘I don’t have time for this, go to sleep’…. beep beep beep!

I remember walking to the kitchen in this foreign house and getting a knife out of the drawer I then walked to the front door and sat on the steps and looked at my wrists. Whilst I have vehemently denied ever having suicidal thoughts and still do; until this moment of writing, it down. I nearly did cut my wrists that night, you know what stopped me…………. making a mess. I did not want to make a mess in someone else’s house. I was still scared of getting into trouble for making a mess. My 40-year-old self can only remember this now and all I want to do is give that young woman such a big hug. So, I did not cut my wrists that night, what I did was put the knife back where I found it and proceeded to walk home.

So, there I was at 19, I stumbled through many more years before I ever attempted to reach out and get help again. What I did instead was what I did best, work. I worked and studied and worked and studied. The more I learned the more I was able to help myself. I had a keen interest in human behavior so I just kept studying it every second I got I would read self-help books, textbooks, and boom! then came the internet and I could read so much more.

When I finally started some psychology subjects, the dreaded DSM was introduced to me and what a shock it was to see what that psychologist I saw at 19 many years prior had come to make such poor assumptions about me and my history. How easy it is to tick boxes of symptoms and perceived displayed behaviors about people, I was genuinely disturbed by it, let alone when it came to the recommended medications to go with these mental illnesses. Hence why I will not and have not become a psychologist, I do feel it’s important to mention that I have met both professionally and personally many wonderful psychologists. Yet I prefer the broadness of Community Work, the framework and scope of practice is wider and broader.

I have spent most of my life being told I am crazy or have some sort of mental illness, whether it is from a GP who ticks boxes off on their anxiety and depression test to the psychologist who knows that I am averse to a ‘diagnosis’ but recommends an anti-psychotic medication to me anyway. Or, to the psychiatrist after one hour has diagnosed me with an eating disorder and possibly bipolar with a question mark next to it and sent me on my way with a script for a medication somewhere in between an anti-depressant and an anti-psychotic.

I always ask the question; why not prescribe yoga therapy, animal therapy, somatics, floating meditation, acupuncture, trauma-informed massage? The list is endless. For many people living with CPTSD their pain memories are in their body, there is an innate disconnection between the body’s messages to the brain and the brain’s messages to the body. Healing is possible holistically!

If I could re-write parts of the DSM, I certainly would have these in there, not to mention mentoring programs for people who have been raised in extremely traumatic environments. I only look back on my late teens and early 20s with genuine angst, if I had been offered someone to mentor me and help me with big decisions, someone to help me with university applications and subject choices, help me to understand what it is for someone to genuinely care for the outcomes of my life, things may have not needed to be so hard for so long. I may have learned how to relax before I was 40.

So, my words today are for anyone that is reading this and may still be in the midst of confusion and chaos, you have choices, you are worthy and do not give up no matter what your age, there is the possibility to relax and feel peace.

You can feel peaceful and live peacefully.



Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/17/the-dreaded-dsm-and-cptsd/feed/ 5 The Willow Tree https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/03/the-willow-tree/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/03/the-willow-tree/#respond Wed, 03 Mar 2021 11:00:48 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=235888 The Willow Tree

 

The windswept the hair from my eyes

One tear streaming down my cheek

I always seem to have goodbyes

Every year every month every week

They fill my head with their lies

When I cry, they turn the other cheek

When I feel this lonely my Willow tree, I hold dear

Every day I climb her branches, for every day I fear

As I grow, so does she, my willow tree

I hold her branches tight and her whispers near

Its ok she whispers my dear

One lone tear streams down my cheek

One day you will be free

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/03/03/the-willow-tree/feed/ 0 Supporting Extended Family Dynamics when you live with CPSTD https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/10/supporting-extended-family-dynamics-when-you-live-with-cpstd/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/10/supporting-extended-family-dynamics-when-you-live-with-cpstd/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2021 11:00:39 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=235228 Relationships and C-PTSD. Interpersonal skills are hard to navigate at the best of times.  Having C-PTSD puts an interesting and sometimes tragic touch on us.

I woke up today and with an epiphany like a brain bubble, I realised I had not failed my children by choosing the partners I chose after all.  I had successfully given them a support network with the two men I chose to have a child with.

Each of the men I married had family that stuck together that supported each other, sometimes in ways, I did not understand how could I, its foreign for me to watch supportive family behaviour it almost feels like I am watching a movie, even if I am somehow ‘part’ of that family.  I realised the hard way that ‘in-laws’ are exactly that and if things go bad in the relationship regardless of if you are not the one to blame you will still be rejected and basically discarded you then begin to experience all those abandonment issues all over again.

Therefore, further engraining in you…your worthlessness.  You will somewhat always be on the outside looking in no matter what, that is just how it is, well in my experience of observation, firsthand experience and twice at that! Through my vocation, I speak to people weekly about these exact issues and the damage it can do to the worth of a person and therefore their ability to function.

Yet as I sit and analyse all this now in 2021, I realise that my children have these support networks, they will never understand my pain and emptiness.  Now that right there is a success an achievement.  A ceasing to generational trauma for abandonment issues right there.

My son now lives with his father and that is a grief I still live with daily as he lives in another state and the frequency, I see him is less and less especially with COVID-19 restrictions as many families have also been experiencing.  I always promised both my son and his father that if they wanted to change things that I needed to engage them all on what was best for everyone and not just make a unilateral decision to withhold or make my son stay with me just because I want him too.  I often get looks of disbelief and sometimes of judgement that I do not have my son living with me, that somehow society these days still makes me feel wrong for doing this. That other mothers pass judgement on me and look at me with such shock that I could ever do such a horrendous thing.  Therefore, making me feel even more like a failure.

What they all do not realise is that their opinion of me matter somewhat and are still hurtful, but they will never be as important to me than my children’s wellbeing.  That I do not make a decision on how well society will perceive me or receive/treat me.

As promised, I honoured and supported my son’s decision.  Following through on this was extra hard knowing an opportunist was in the background waiting to pounce.  I still stood by my values and integrity.

My daughters’ father did not abandon his children either, I sometimes think of it as a curse as our relationship is so bitter and sour. So rigid and fear-based.  Regardless of how much time goes by, he will always be the man that tried to break me completely.  I said to him many many times, no one will ever break me, I have my children and that is all that matters.

Well, I guess that can change all too quickly when someone’s circumstances change, or a partner they are with decided that my children are better than no children at all.  I quickly tried to end this ‘war’ with the least damage to my children.  I took the brunt of it all again, even though he had never been denied access or really anything at all he still wanted more.  Slander and lies are a hard thing to challenge and to ignore and if you do either and/or both it still impacts you dramatically.   Instead of simply asking me he decided that a campaign of slander would be a better choice of action and to do this he needed to ‘make’ me into a monster, a monster of an ex-wife and an incompetent mother in the eyes of others.

I compromised, he is their father, although he did not ask me or discuss with me that he wanted more time, instead, he thought appropriate a bailiff to knock on my door on our youngest daughters first day of prep, and our eldest daughters first day at her new school, having just moved and relocated so he could have more time anyway as his demands over driving were becoming excessively disruptive.

50/50 shared care of my daughters.

The opportunist did strike not more than 3 to 4 months after I agreed to my son moving to his fathers, barely enough time to adjust and grieve the lost time now with my son.  Nor did this man allow me to grieve for our stillborn daughter or the loss of my brother.  I was never allowed to feel.  To feel was to be wrong.  To cry was to be weak.  Ever since I can remember I have never been allowed to be me.

In all this though, I still always put our children first.  His role as a father is more important than my hurt and pain and treatment from him and his family, I do not want it to cause any pain more than unavoidably possible to my children.

So, I grieved again for time lost, now my daughters were with me half the time they use to be. We have all adjusted since, but I still have incredibly big moments of sadness over it all and feel like I have almost been robbed of a life with my children, however, I just need to remind myself that I am creating change, generational change.  To do this is not an easy path, nor is it the societal norm to be a mother with so little time with her children. I have never by any means the ‘average norm’ though, so I am essentially trying to understand a perspective that I simply know nothing about.  I am only trusting my instinct on what is best for my children and their development, safety, self-worth, and sense of belonging.

My children have their fathers and their mother, they also have their fathers extended family.  They will always have that side of their families support and love.  Even if this is something that I can never fully understand I can certainly understand the importance of cultivating and nurturing this for them.

Then at the very least I know they will not endure this pain that I do, this emptiness that I do.  This constant extra self-care to get this inner child of mind to walk into another day with me with full courage to keep on keeping on.

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/10/supporting-extended-family-dynamics-when-you-live-with-cpstd/feed/ 5 C-PTSD: The demons put there by others and The substances that help them disappear. https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/05/c-ptsd-the-demons-put-there-by-others-and-the-substances-that-help-them-disappear/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/05/c-ptsd-the-demons-put-there-by-others-and-the-substances-that-help-them-disappear/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2021 11:00:26 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=235152 CPTSD – The demons put there by others………. The substances that help them disappear if only for a while…………

I fumbled out of my house at the age of 16, already been through an incredible amount of trauma, but I was told that it was all my fault somehow.  The self-esteem that teachers and people talked about was a fairy-tale story to me………what is self-esteem and how do you get some. Was it even real?

I was told there was something very wrong with me, that I was broken and unfixable so what did my brain do… it decided that it wanted to learn all it could once I was free into the world.  As a child, I would escape into books, my imaginary world, the safe world of books, the hours I would spend reading so that I would go unnoticed.  To be noticed in my family was not a good thing, that’s for another time maybe.

Having been thrown out at 16 for wanting to finish school, yes, the irony I know, how dare I want to finish school, ‘you’re not very smart to remember’ you are quite stupid, these words echoed through my mind, but I defiantly refused to work full time at KFC and my punishment was to find somewhere else to live.  I did.

I had watched addiction in my teens with other people, I would watch people very intently, observe their behaviour so I would know how to either go unnoticed or be noticed and go to the safest people I could find.  I lived with my boyfriend and his parents.  I started to smoke cigarettes my greatest addiction for another 20 years.  I would smoke weed but hated how it made me feel so I observed others.  The thing with drugs and alcohol that saved me was I always like to observe others first.  I was smart like that, oh the irony again.

My first boyfriend was addicted to weed and got drunk every weekend, my second boyfriend was addicted to weed and did nothing but smoke it and cheat on me. My third boyfriend again was also addicted to weed.

All these men had something in common other than their weed addictions through……. they ALL had safe families, their parents treated me well and I felt like I was part of a safe family regardless of the behaviours of these boyfriends I accepted it, I wanted to be part of the safety provided by their families.

The biggest issues came for me once I had children it highlighted my childhood again, as I gazed into my son’s eyes, I couldn’t comprehend how people could hurt children.  Once I had my daughters I was triggered hugely, now it cut deeper, the love I have for my daughters as their mother is indescribable.  Oh, how I suffered on the inside, the headaches started, the chronic pain started

I couldn’t get these headaches to go away, no matter what I did, I finally was told to go to the dentist, that day was a defining moment, Valium was prescribed to me, but also a diagnosis of TMJ – basically when you clench your teeth so hard it causes extreme headaches, in my case so bad it moved my teeth, I had braces for 9months to straighten them back out.

I came home and took a 5mg Valium and my body immediately started to relax the tension in my neck, jaw, head, back was melting away. I couldn’t believe this feeling I had, I was relaxing, I was really relaxing, I went to sleep and woke up like I was a new person……

The problem with Valium is that is short-lived, and you need another and another to maintain relaxation.

I was 32 and had finally found something that would help me, yet they would not keep prescribing it to me, so I was forced to look at alternative therapies for my pain, acupuncture, Bowen therapy, counselling, exercise, yoga, meditation,…………………….some of it worked, but every time I could get a script for Valium  I would and I would revel in the relaxation the feeling of peace and calm it would give me, if only for that short time.

Just as life seemed to be plodding along at a steady, bearable pace, still not fitting in, still feeling wrong and worthless, a tragedy hit my life, my baby was not well 22 weeks into my pregnancy, I was thrown into chaos.  Another time my family had abandoned me, my baby had died, and my sisters and my mother did nothing.

Deep in grief, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t like alcohol, so to the doctors for Valium, this time it brought me no peace and relaxation in only brought me a numbness, but I liked that, to feel numb was better than to feel this pain. I only got one prescription and that was it no more was given, they offered anti-depressants and I said no.  8 months later I lost another baby this time at 14weeks. I was a mess.  I started smoking again – and was in a deep depression the only part of life keeping me there my son and my daughter, I lived every moment for them and no one else.  Mummy was going to be alright I told them, that I was sad, and they knew why, but I was always there for them no matter what.

Counselling starting again and glimpses of my childhood were coming back, and I was not capable in dealing with that, I focused on nature, the butterflies I watched, the dragonflies… especially the pretty red ones.  My days went on like this, work, kids and staring into nothingness. Friends drifting away, family…what even is that I thought.   More alone now… than I was that kid with her books sitting in the Willow Tree. Now I was not only worthless and sad, but no one knew what to say to me, I mean what do you say to someone whose baby has died. So people did the worst thing they could do………nothing.

I do not give up though, just like that little kid, I would stand back up again and stare defiantly into life’s face and keep on keeping on…. So that is what I did.  Until a call one Sunday morning 2 months after losing another baby, … the voice was my Mother, I could not understand her and she never calls anyway what is this, what is happening I said………An ambulance officer was put on the phone to me and I was told my brother was dead, he had died of an accidental drug overdose.

I fell to my knees, the next few weeks and months a blur.  I couldn’t comprehend this life and all the horrors in it.  I really couldn’t.

There’s was no Valium to numb my pain this time, for I was pregnant, and this was not planned, and I did not want to be….now I look back my daughter saved my life.  I believe to this day my brother had sent my daughters soul to me as one of the first things he did when he crossed over.  I truly do.

Life went on, I was accepted back into this dysfunction of a family and I felt finally I would be loved and cared for by them… ahhhh the things you do when you behave like a dog so very loyal and for no reason other than that they are your family, and you love them.

I started to realise I was there to help everyone else. My husband had had an affair by now and was living with this woman and I was a single mother of three children living in Brisbane and trying to do everything.

I lost so much weight, I was so exhausted no one helped me though, they liked to talk about me, put me down, ask me to do things for them, but never helped me.

To the doctors I went, how can I help you………….

I would like some Valium I have chronic pain from clenching my teeth at night and that’s all that works, it was the truth, but still feels like a lie as I want to say ‘I would like some Valium as it’s the only thing that helps me feel at peace with myself it calms me so I don’t feel like I will die or have a panic attack in front of people especially at work’.

I walked out of the doctors with my script and some pain killers, what are these ones I thought, Oh, very strong ones.

For two years I numbed my pain with Valium and pain killers.  I would work, look after my children and when they went to their fathers, I would take Valium and pain killers and spend it by myself. My family only a few streets away oblivious to the pain I was in, too busy putting me down for being too skinny.  I don’t allow myself to get fat, it gets you in trouble, it makes you even worse, my Dads voice ringing loudly through my head.  Don’t be a fat fucking slob then you will be even worse.

Didn’t help that my stress response was not to eat.  So, let them berate me for being too skinny they would be talking behind my back if I was too fat, just like they do to my sister and her children.

I slowly watch my family pick up drink after drink, my father an alcho, my sister one too, my late brother was one too, it’s everywhere.  So, I just watched them all and decided enough was enough

I walked away.

I walked away from it all, from all of them. I still get a script for Valium when I genuinely am suffering from panic attacks, but I have learnt to deal with them

Once I walked away, I found the job of my dreams, the man of my dreams, the friends that are awesome, my children don’t need to know that toxic drama and I wake up each day, this same person with oh so much trauma behind these eyes, so very much, yet these eyes that have seen so much turned and looked in the mirror and saw a woman that needed love not from anyone else but from herself.

To learn to love yourself as you would your children is what saved me from a lifetime of suffering.  A lifetime of being the scapegoat for a family so dysfunctional it still couldn’t come together after my brother died.

I walked away, I know my weakness for Valium, it’s the drug that let me feel some peace in my body, the body that held so much pain and trauma.  The body I disassociated from so many times, the body that was touched unwantedly, the body whose legs for forced open and held down, the body that was beaten so often the body that was cold and hungry so much as a child.  I looked at this person…me and this persons body…mine and I said………

Thank you and I am sorry I treated you with such disdain like all those others, how dare I treat you the same as others have treated you. It will never happen again.

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

 

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