((Mowtown))),

You are not lying to your family, but I do know how much it feels like that, me too. Yes, I know my family had those conversations about me that had nothing to do with "the truth" about how I was struggling. I was just like you are, I felt that my family would never get it and I felt they would just be better off if I disappeared.

You were the peacemaker in your family, you are the sensitive in the bunch, me too. But if you asked my sister she would say "she" was the peacemaker, but she was only the one who insisted on controlling all the holidays, Martha Stewart to the T. She needed the "control and praise" and I knew that so I always made sure I praised her accordingly.

I think that you should make it a point to listen to that video and Eskie has another link in her thread that I have not gotten a chance to listen to. I would suggest that you fast forward the man introducing and get right to her if you can in that video.

I fell so hard myself, so hard that I struggled just to think. My life saver was finding PC and reading and typing and reading and typing out my thoughts. By the time I found and joined PC I was bad and I wanted to find "me" again so badly. I had read about PTSD, but I didn't understand it like I do now. But I never had a chance to get "away" from my trauma either so it's hard for me to determine how someone else will gain that may be able to gain faster than I did. My therapist has said that with my situation and because I have had one trauma on top of another, I have not had a chance to heal and move forward as much as someone else that is away from a trauma.

I do feel that it is important that you have access to people who "can" hear you and sympathize. I would like to see you find a good T that understands PTSD, and KNOWS how to treat you properly and be patient and caring with you, I see that you respond well to that and I know first hand that having a good T is such a lifesaver. I like the fact that I can just let go and break down emotionally and my T doesn't get mad at me, he stays calm and he knows right where to stop me and ask me how I feel, and once I get to let it out without a bad reaction (like my husband tends to react), I find I feel so much better. It's amazing how much one can get these messages from family and others that you have to "hold it all in". Well, that's not healthy we are just not designed to hold in all these intense emotions, we have to be allowed to be human. You need to be able to just let it rip Mowtown, and that doesn't mean you are unworthy if you need to do that, it's not a sign of weakness at all.

A lot of people have a hard time talking about family stuff because they were disciplined like you were to "act normal in public". Often children felt that they just could not talk about things that upset them in their families either, and often it can be that one child is singled out and picked on by a parent too especially if there is a mental health issue going on with a parent and that parent may have been abused themselves and somehow takes it out on one of their children. They are actually trying to study "why certain" children are selected for abuse.

I am glad you are sharing and talking here at least, you need to be heard and know you are not alone, and you are "not" a failure, you are just lost right now, but you are not a failure.

((Caring Hugs))
OE