Being the youngest child of the family I tended to be on the receiving end of a lot of negative messages and criticisms. I have shared before here how my father would never let me finish a sentence without stopping me and correcting me. And even when I tried very hard to say something in a way that I thought he would at least let me finish a sentence and in that a thought and in that a message, he would STILL interrupt me and try to repeat what I was saying and add bigger words.

This resulted in my struggling to take my thoughts and articulate them because as I was trying to say the words I was thinking I was interrupted so much that I began to anticipate being cut off, talked over and interrupted and that produced a challenge in me when it came to talking, especially to adults.

The other thing I had to deal with was how my older sister who was four years older than me tended to criticize me in other ways where she would tell me that how I liked so many colors to be in things I wore that I had terrible taste in things and she hated to shop with me. And whenever I played with her (we used to play dolls a lot), I learned that in order to play with her I had to give HER the control.

One of the things that I did treasure was when I played by myself. I used to close my door and spend hours playing with my dolls and my animal collections and creating themes and that was when I could have my dolls talk to each other and when I did that I got to practice using my own thoughts and making conversations. I would also get books and practice reading aloud to myself. And, even though it was still hard to talk to others, especially adults who would pick apart whatever I uttered, I had a way to practice by myself. And that was important because when I talked to adults I had a really hard time getting words in my mind to come out of my mouth without a kind of studder but that studder was NOT just in that but also originating the initial thoughts.

The one thing I like about coming here and writing things out is so very similar where I am by myself and making an effort to put my thoughts into words and sentences in an effort to share my thoughts. When I first started using this site and engaging I was having a hard time writing out my thoughts. When I wrote out a post what would happen is I kept having to edit whatever I wrote because often when I reread there would be words missing. The other thing I used to do is "repeat". And I can still do that but it is not as bad as it was when I first joined this site when the PTSD was really bad that I was struggling so badly IRL. By the time I joined this site, the one thing I had been constantly facing was having so many intrude on me and not listen and criticize me that I had descended further into PTSD and was beginning to have flashbacks from my childhood.

hermit, the other day when I was trying so hard to talk about something and you made it a point to pay attention and listen it meant a lot to me that you were trying to do that. You are right, I AM really tied up in a strange ball and often in that ball is a LITTLE ME. And when you responded to me the way you did, even though you did not quite understand, the fact that you were willing to LISTEN was helping me in my effort to try to find my way to better explaining what I was trying to talk about. What I did not get a chance to finish which is a huge trigger for me, is how what I was trying to talk about was not about X but instead what was happening to X that I not only witnessed happen to my older brother but also MYSELF. I was trying so hard to distance from one big area that constantly gets focused on and instead focus on the part of the picture that was triggering me personally. Unfortunately, I end up with the same thing I faced as a child where YES, I end up in that ball you are trying to describe in your above post to me. I get wrapped up and tossed out and I am thrown away stuck in that little ball.

When I started this thread trying to explain how to JUST try to make an effort to do the Christmas shopping was so hard, I was trying to do that with an individual who has a huge habit of wrapping me up in that ball and gets angry with me and tends to wrap me up and not JUST talk over me and interrupt me and cut me off, but also takes the ball he wraps me up in with that and throws me against the wall HARD.

The dynamics in my own family or origin has gotten so toxic and dysfunctional and has changed so much towards the negative that I am lost when it comes to doing this thing called Christmas and I struggle when it comes to any holiday for that matter.

My shopping effort ended up being yet another huge trigger and I literally felt like I was dragged and beaten and my entire body and mind was hurting. My husband vented so much anger at me that ended up wrapping me up tightly in that ball and throwing me against the wall harder and harder with every effort I made to say PLEASE STOP. And the one thing that has left me with is how my brain hurts and I am struggling to TALK and that scares me, and yet I also remember experiencing that as a child too.

Friday was BAD too, and I ended up facing yet another big argument that made it even worse. I happened to notice the mail on the table and how my husband put a letter right on top that I did not want to even see let alone engage with it. It was a letter with my sister's handwriting on it and big and bold and I did NOT want to touch it or think about it and I am way to MENTALLY EXHAUSTED to add any more to the challenge. Yet my husband insisted on talking about it and talking about how I NEED TO SHOULD engage with it and open it. I say NO, and all that did was wind him up with how I need to ignore this or that and OPEN IT. He kept pushing it and I reacted with "ok YOU go and open it", and I know I should not have said that, but I was already too tired from the day before still. So, he goes over to it and grabs it and opens it and HE decides it's not so bad (after all it's NOT his own family and personal to him) and then brings it up to me and shoves it in my face. In that he is pushing it at me and devaluing what I was telling him and insisting on telling me HOW TO THINK AND FEEL. Ironically, he was doing with me the SAME THING THE INDIVIDUAL WHO'S WRITING IS ALL OVER THAT ENVELOPE does with me too. And in keeping with what you have described in your post to me, what he was pushing at me pulled the strings tight and that little child in the ball started yelling and HE WOULD NOT LISTEN. And then when that little child gets angry and trys SO HARD to talk about WHY IT HURTS, he stands there and does EXACTLY what my father did and my sister does too, he talked over me, cut me off, interrupted me and criticized me. And then I began slurring my words again.

That night I had horrible nightmares and they were nightmares that were so vivid and real. The nightmares were about my older sister who's writting was all over that letter and how she was taking over everything and I could not seem to stop it. I woke up even more exhausted then I was when I went to bed.

It's Christmas eve and I am still SO TIRED, physically, mentally, emotionally. I just want to sleep tbh. I am also hurting physically and I have that headache that happens when that little me was wrapped up in a ball not able to talk for fear of being criticized and not being able to get heard. And when I am tired out this way I also very sensitive and much more susceptible to being triggered. I don't know what this state is called either, only that NO ONE around me likes it or understands it and IS SICK OF IT. I have already heard that today and once again "OE is a bad girl and it's all my fault that I don't or cant seem to JUST snap out of it for everyone else around me". So, once again "I" am ruining someone else's Christmas. I probably could have explained all this better, I seem to consistently fail when it comes to doing just that". Trying.....

One thing I do know is I try NOT to do this to others in that I know how it can hurt, and that is one of the things that I see with the X among many X's that can be triggering to me especially in my effort to try to help individuals who struggle with language which is something I also tried very hard to protect and offer support having my own child face this challenge.

It's SO HARD to live with an individual who most definitely has a habit of "talking over and interrupting and cutting off and who can't understand why I repeat and where the comes from and how he habitually wraps that thick thread around that ball I am trapped in trying so hard to explain where I might FINALLY find my way OUT OF IT.