What a wonderful compliment Tracy, thank you. I have gained a lot but, I still struggle and have had to deal with some significant triggers where I experience a cycle where I react to something "first" not recognizing on a conscious level what comes out "in" the episode may offend others in a way I had not intended. What has helped me significantly has been when I have done it in writing where I can actually revisit it and have a chance to think about what triggered it. I have been doing that for a while now and when I see how it happens with me, it helps me see when it is happening in others too. That way if I see someone else do it I can PM that person and help that person in a caring way so they can see it themselves and develop a patience to allow themselves to work through it and gain rather then running away and deciding they are simply not "good enough" to try to hang in there in spite of being challenged. I had always done that IRL, but not with this kind of challenge when it involves working through PTSD or possibly another MI that someone is trying to manage better. Also, all my life pretty much has revolved around understanding learning disabilities and helping those who struggle with a learning disability to figure out how to work around it and achieve in spite of it as well as facing how others tend to put them down for it and deem them not good enough.

So, getting back to you Tracy, I did not have time to add that to my post before because I had to stop and go to see my therapist. What I wanted to say to you is that you did develop abilities to function in spite of a tramatic situation. However, you always had that significant puzzle that had to deal with what not only what happened to your grandfather, but also how your father was profoundly affected by it and your father became someone to "fear". That is too much for any child to figure out and deal with on an emotional level, it's not surprising that you embraced the escape you happened to be exposed to where you snuck into the woods and drank alcohol. Your father used alcohol too, in fact a lot of people have used alcohol as a coping mechanism and that goes all the way back for centuries.

Unfortunately, when a parent uses alcohol to escape, they fail to help their children learn how to deal with significant life challenges. I think for your father, he just could not figure out how to process and grieve what happened to his father. It is highly likely if not certain that your father developed PTSD and self medicated with alcohol. Your father never got the help he needed to find a way to process what he witnessed that happened to his father. He was under the impression as most men are unfortunately that men are not supposed to have emotional struggles but are supposed to "just" man up and "deal". Your father just got to a point where trying to do that just got too hard for him Tracy, and most likely the disease of alcoholism along with never getting over that major trauma turned into your father making a choice that has traumatized "you" significantly. You cannot change what happened in either trauma, but you CAN learn to grieve it and process it to where you can move on in "your" life and even at some point help others to learn how to do the same.

I have noticed over the years observing my husband constantly seeking support by going to AA meetings is that while initially the first goal is about how to live one day at a time without using the crutch of alcohol, the discussions are evolving into individuals helping other individuals also deal with the life challenges where they began using alcohol to "escape" in the first place. Under my avatar next to my name it says "one day at a time", well Tracy, that is how I am learning to live my life and some days have most definitely been very challenging, but, I have learned to be patient and keep trying and learning "one day at a time".

You cannot "change" what happened with either your father or your grandfather both are very traumatic. But you "can" learn how to process these events, how they impacted you in ways you did not realize and slowly find a place to store it in your mind where you can make "peace" with it. It's important that you don't encourage yourself to convince yourself that because of your history you are forever ruined.