Christina:
My very last issue has to do with the PTSD I suffered from the mistreatment from my mother. I'm not going to describe it because I don't want to have to *trigger* this post and also everyone knows my parents were both alcoholic, too.
I truly believe that too often, the psychiatrc community downplays the effect that being raised by abusive parents (including emotional neglect and verbal abuse).
The last demon, and by far the worst, that I am fighting is the one that haunts me as a result of these factors. My current husband has told me for years that I won't let him get close to me. I denied it over and over. Finally, one day, I realized he was absolutely right. There were things, important things, that a woman should be able to share with her husband and I didn't have the courage or trust to do that. So I gathered up as much courage as I could and started talking to him. Some of it stunned him. He kept saying, I can't believe you never told me that. I said, it never occurred to me to tell you. The truth is, it never occurred to me to tell ANYONE. I have been that way all my life because from the age of three, my mother taught me I couldn't trust her, the woman who I was supposed to be able to trust, because she hated me enough to do what she did.
I am still fighting and learning to beat this problem. I don't want it anymore. I'm almost 60. I'm really tired. But if this is what God put me here to learn, then I'm not going to fail.
I refuse to get stuck in this problem.