I don't know know if this is exactly the right place for this post, so if anyone else reads it and thinks another thread is better for it -- please let me know.

I guess what I'm asking first: Has anyone else here been in a similar situation, and what did you do about it?

Backstory: I grew up with an alcoholic (possibly drug abusing too, this was only suspected) father who was abusive and domineering. He inflicted some physical abuse on me as a child, and as I grew up, it became more psychological. I had an enabling mother who, to this day, takes on the martyr role and acts helpless when she's a fully grown woman. I often feel like I have always been "the adult" in the relationship, even though she's supposed to be my mom. She tried to leave my father once for a brief period of time, but went back to him -- which I didn't think was a good idea, but I later understood it was because she lacked confidence to make it on her own.

Many years ago, I went to therapy to deal with my father's abuse and to discuss the effect his alcoholism had on me. It helped, and what helped me most was getting away from the house (it never really felt like "home") and going off to college, getting a job, and moving far, far away with my then-husband to start new life.

Fast forward, years later. I become severely ill out of nowhere, and can no longer work. I lose my job. I end up disabled. I go broke due to medical bills. I can't work, and, as such, end up living with others while going though the disability process.

Something happened here I'm trying to untangle, and it's making me crazy.

1) Being chronically ill, in pain, brings up the years of childhood abuse. I feel like things are out of my control and I can't do anything about it. I don't know where to begin, because the bad thing I want to get away from is my body -- which I can't get away from. I could get away from my dysfunctional parents. So being ill triggered me.

2) Being in a living situation where other people do not understand a number of my needs nor want to hear about them and tell me not to complain so much and count my blessings, is, again, triggering stuff related to my parents. And it is triggery even more so since I'm sick and broke, and can't go anywhere else if it turns out that nothing can be done to improve my current living situation. I feel I have to put up or shut up... which sounds a lot like my father's very words when I was growing up.

3) Living with a teenager is also causing me all kinds of grief which I had no clue would rear its ugly head. Okay, let me rephrase that: Living with a teenager who objects to small things and acts entitled is really what's causing me all kinds of grief. I can't even. It's hard to discuss this in and of itself, but it is triggering on multiple levels -- between reflecting on my incredibly abusive years as a teen and not being able to have my own kids. And it makes it worse that I'm treated like some sort of pariah by the teen.

I've been severely depressed lately, and it's gotten even worse (surprisingly) with the recent death of my alcoholic father. Someone might think I'd be relieved -- and in some ways I am; I know he can never find me and hurt me again. But I carry the wounds, the battle scars, and the reactions and memories he left me with. I also have to mourn that I never had the father I hoped for and instead had the father I got.

And it didn't help that my mother was asking me for support and comfort from over 1,000 miles away when he passed, when no one was offering me support and comfort. Now that my father is gone, she is pulling the "abandoned mother" routine and how much she can't do, especially now that she's getting older and is alone -- when she has not been receptive to talking to me about any of my own concerns, issues, hopes, and fears. I feel like my mother wants me to mother her, and I am angry and not up to the task...I wish she'd understand why.

I guess this is a huge mess to type on the screen. I really needed to get it out of my system.

Has anyone else here ever had to deal with situations which trigger memories of your old wounding -- or worse, you find yourself in a situation which turns out to not be healthy for you on multiple levels, and is more unhealthy for you because of that history of wounding?

I think that if I did not have my history and lived with other people who were supportive of me and engaged in the behavior they did that perhaps I'd be less bothered by it. But that's the problem with being an ACOA and survivor of emotional abusive and narcissistic parents -- I just don't know what is normal -- and what other people would accept or not accept, outside of blatantly obvious physical abuse, lying, and manipulation.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.