I've never written this out before except a few things I've written down for my T. I think it might help. Other users kindly encouraged me to post on the PTSD board but I think this belongs here. It's going to be long. Not expecting replies. Just need to get it out. I keep thinking I shouldn't as it's not a big deal, it's not that bad. But I think maybe it is a big deal. Maybe I owe it to myself to see that it is.

My dad is from a tough, chaotic background and spent some time in the care system. My mum's mother is, in my opinion, a narcissist. My dad always had a short temper and didn't understand the difference between childish silliness and actual bad behaviour. My older brother says a stranger once intervened just because of the way my dad was shouting at him.

I told my therapist my dad wasn't violent. He says I need to widen my definition of violence, because I also told him about breaking household objects in temper and screaming at me over trivial things eg because I left a tap dripping. You don't criticise my dad. You just don't. You do what you're told. He used to whistle for me to come like a dog and I only just realised that was screwed up. I never liked being around him, never wanted him to hug me.

Things got much worse when my dad lost his job. I don't really remember. I just remember he was angry a lot. My mum took him to the doctor and the doctor didn't get it, he said everyone gets angry sometimes. It took two years to get him to go back to the doctor. He didn't sleep properly and took sleeping pills. I didn't invite friends over as my dad would probably be in his pajamas and would shout at me in front of them. I haven't told my T this but he often walked around with his flies undone.

I thought it was okay because he didn't really hit me, except very occasionally. But, as I said, my T says I need to widen my definition of violence. One day I told him something I thought was trivial and he said "most kids would rather be beaten than [that]". I was astonished.

My brother told me recently that my aunt once told my mum that it was affecting her kids and she had to do something. And my mum got very upset, and did nothing. Sounds about right. Then my brother said: "The person I really felt sorry for was dad." And I thought, what about me, who feels sorry for me? Everyone in my family is conditioned to treat me like I have no feelings. I said: "I had to live with them alone after you went to uni. I'm not trying to make you feel bad." And he just said: "I don't," and I realised it just didn't ever occur to him to worry about me. In my family, I don't exist. I witnessed that conversation with my aunt but I forgot about it. It was easier to think nobody bothered than to think someone said something but then just gave up and didn't bother again.

If I tried to talk to my mum she said "well don't feel like that" or "just let it wash over you". As if a child can just choose not to feel sad and scared. In therapy I have learned that I can be shaking and not even feel it. That it's absurd to think I wasn't scared and I must have dissociated from my feelings.

The first time I dissociated in therapy, my T asked why I was shaking and I came up with reasons. Next session I said: "I didn't know I was shaking, did you realise?" He pointed out how I didn't argue, I just came up with reasons. Even though I didn't know I was shaking.

As a kid I used to bite the skin off my fingertips. I started to cut myself in my teens. I used to punch myself as well. And I very much had a 'freeze' response to what I now see as trauma. I slept a lot and eventually developed hypersomnia which I now believe is somatic. I spent a lot of time imagining another life. I used to research it really thoroughly to keep myself busy, so I would look through the phone book to pick another address and phone number (my dad saw me doing that once, apparently reading the phone book, and said I was a freak) and I used to read school inspection reports so I could imagine going to another school. My T is the only person I have told about this.

I had a penpal who turned out to be an adult posing as a child, judging by the pictures he started sending me and the things he wrote. He sent drawings of what he thought I looked like naked. I told the police. They took a statement but nothing more came of it. Nobody ever asked how I felt. My parents never talked to me about it.

I walked in front of a car once. People thought it was an accident. It wasn't. Aged 15 I took an overdose and my parents went home and left me alone. I overheard my mum on the phone a few days later saying "we didn't even know she was unhappy". Which was total BS. She actually believed it, it's her way of coping. Works for her but not me. I was gagging on the tube when they pumped my stomach and they wouldn't let me put my hand against my throat as they thought I was trying to pull the tube out. I don't know if they damaged my throat physically or if it's psychological but I've had an over-developed gag reflex ever since and can't even keep mouthwash in for more than a few seconds. A nurse refused to bring me a bedpan in time as "we do have other patients you know, ones who didn't put themselves in here". A psychiatrist spent 15 minutes asking me pointless questions and wrote in my medical records that I had no reason to be depressed.

Nobody noticed that I wasn't brushing my teeth properly (have a lot of problems now as a result). Nobody noticed that I hardly went to school. Nobody noticed when I stayed out all night.

I moved into a squat with my drug dealer boyfriend and failed one of my 'A' levels. Then I went back 'home' for a bit. Then I started seeing my ex who I was with for seven years. I pretty much moved in with his family. They were dysfunctional too, I think I couldn't have handled it if they weren't, it would have been too confusing.

I did more exams and got into uni. My ex made me promise that, if he wasn't happy, I would leave. I spent my first night at uni in my room with him while everyone else was making friends, I still don't know how I made any friends. He used to call and ask why he could hear male voices. He was nicely set up as rescuer though, when my mum was meant to pick me up at the end of term, forgot and went to France instead. I was sat there with all my boxes (you had to move out of halls, aka dorms, in the holidays). I had to call my ex to come get me.

I was on Prozac as they thought I was depressed. I always thought there was something wrong with my head but it was my life that needed fixing, my life made me unhappy. I told my doctor I had been r____ in the past and asked for therapy. He said I didn't fit the criteria and should try the student counselling service. I already had. The woman said if I didn't talk she couldn't help me. I said I wasn't coming back. She wrote to my doctor to say I just didn't turn up to my next appointment. I felt so betrayed. I thought the thing I said was a lie. But recently I realised it was much closer to the truth than I had let myself see. I called my T in crisis because I was shaking and crying. He managed to arrange an extra session (he came through for me like nobody ever has, ever) and ended up reading to me. I can't think about this properly yet as it's too much. I stopped taking Prozac. It dulled my senses but it didn't make my life better.

My ex eventually ran up a lot of debt in my name, spent money that was meant for bills and hid the court summons so I only found out when the bailiffs turned up. He eventually cheated on me and left me because I didn't want to sleep with him. But I hadn't wanted to sleep with him for a long time, but I just had to let him. And he wouldn't use condoms, even though I wanted to, and I had no say in that, or in anything. If I was upset, I ended up apologising to him. And only recently have I seen how that's exactly like my dad. If I'm upset and angry, I'm wrong and I have to be sorry. My ex didn't hit me. But, like I said, I need to widen my definition of violence.

After we split I decided love wasn't for me, I was fundamentally worthless and unloveable. I spent some time having quite destructive experiences I don't really want to go into. I think I hit absolute rock bottom when I was sexually assaulted and I just didn't care, I thought: it's only me, who cares. And I sort of relished the way it made me feel. It was the same feeling I used to get from SI.

I took control of my life. I studied friends' relationships (kind of like a child does) and learned to have healthy relationships and friendships and kind of broke out of the repetition compulsion. I started to get on better with my parents after my dad was ill and somehow forgot what it used to be like. I got a good career, but kept having problems with male bosses bullying me, as the pattern repeated there instead, so now I have a freelance business and do pretty well. I met my husband, got married, forgot about how my parents used to treat me. My brother had kids and my dad seemed to mellow, though he still decides I should just stop talking (even if I'm answering a question he asked) and shouts at me until I do.

But I was anxious and stressed all the time, in disproportionate ways. Something was leaking out of me. So I started therapy, and then I started to remember. I tried to talk to my mum. She said: "That was a difficult time for me. At least you spent a lot of time out of the house. I gave you a lot of lifts." Doesn't seem to have occurred to her that the wrong person was out of the house.

And now I'm married and I want to start a family but I feel I need to spend time in therapy first. And I'm just really frightened and sad. I think I have complex PTSD. I'm finding therapy very hard.

I told my T: "I'm not going to kill myself. I didn't get this far just to give up now." And he said: "But it wouldn't be unreasonable if you did." Which might sound irresponsible, but it wasn't, it was important, because it was the first time anyone had said I had the right to feel the way I do. Therapy has been eye-opening. When I started telling him about my childhood, he didn't say it wasn't that bad. He asked why I didn't run away.

For a while there I believed my past wasn't so bad, but now I'm starting to see how bad it was. But others have been through so much worse and I feel so bad about complaining. I think my T would have something to say about that, too.