[Trace14]

A very controlling parent? Plus being very immature and the child having to raise the parent. It was just the two of us.
How does that play a part in childhood on to adult life?
I moved out from home at 16 because of this.

[Open Eyes]

Because it teaches you to be a "codependent" instead of having your own identity. It was "never" your responsiblity to parent your parent or anyone in any of your relationships either.

[Trace14]

She really knows how to push my buttons now and work the guilt trips in. I try to explain to her that I have things to do in my life and that I can't just stop to take care of her issues, then she cries. And says how she would do that for me, and she would, but I try not to ask her for things in a "now" time frame. I know when she is no longer here I am going to hate myself for feeling this way, it's already started.

[Open Eyes]

It sounds like your mother never really grew up and is a very dependent person. Yes, these individuals definitely "push buttons" and you have to learn how not to let her do that to you. I am sure she loves you and just wants you to love her back, however, that should not include you mothering her.

[Trace14]

I know, but it's easier said than done.

[Sagen]

It is easier said than done. When I am able to set a boundary with someone, which has gotten easier with practice, it's the "after guilt" that works me over. But letting it wash over an working through it also gets better with practice. Still not my forte though.

[Trace14]

I lost my Dad to suicide 19 mos ago and so it's hard to put boundaries on my only surviving parent. But then......never mind. It's just a hard thing to do and maybe I could try some soft, baby steps with her.

[Open Eyes]

Oh how awful, I am sorry about your father, was your mother close with him?

[Trace14]

Mom and Dad had been divorced for 40 some years. She still loved him though, not as a husband but as a friend and my father. It was his suicide that pushed me into this CPTSD. I found him and it was, and still is, something I just can't get out of my head. But thanks

[Sagen]

Originally Posted by Trace14

I lost my Dad to suicide 19 mos ago and so it's hard to put boundaries on my only surviving parent. But then......never mind. It's just a hard thing to do and maybe I could try some soft, baby steps with her.

I can't imagine what you're going through and am sorry for your loss. Baby steppin' is key for me...I like that term a lot!

[Trace14]

Most of us here are quiet aware of the baby step process, everything seems so overwhelming, just have to break down time and space to fit what you can deal with. Sometimes a day at a time, hour at a time, minute at a time, to baby steps.

[Open Eyes]

What you saw is definitely very "traumatic" and it is very understandable that it resulted in your struggling with PTSD. It definitely takes time for a person to slowly grieve and process something like this. Your mother may be having some PTSD symptoms too which can be a part of her needing to cling to you. She should be seeing a therapist too. Often what a person can struggle with is "complicated Grief disorder", which is something you can look up and read about, perhaps even share with your mother.

You deserve to have a therapist that actually "knows" how to treat this kind of challenge, the therapist you have described clearly is not capable of treating this kind of challenge.

Here is a link that talks about "Complicated Grief".


http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/hom...988bdd053.html
OE

[Trace14]

Challenge is the key word here. I'm not sure most T's would be up for the work I'm going to take. Between finding Dad, my military experiences, 18 yrs. law enforcement, working in a busy emergency room there are so many scattered traumas filing my head it's hard to find a loose end even for me.
Interesting site, I answered yes to all of them *sigh* It's so confusing what the issue(s) are in your life. It could be one or many diagnosis, how would you ever figure out how to help yourself?
Thanks for the site OE that was interesting.

[avlady]

i feel so bad for you too!!!i had a sister that died of suicide and know how much guilt this could also give us too. i will pray!!

[Trace14]

Avlady the thing is I know I'm hurting but most of the time I feel so numb, distant from people, paranoid, just try to keep a low key life so not to trigger a panic attack. A couple of years a I was very outgoing, social, hard worker, all of that has changed now.

[Open Eyes]

Hmm, Trace, you certainly were drawn to some very challenging careers in your life. You wanted to overcome "something" in these places. Often a person can have a hidden drive that he/she may not quite know "why", but seems to need to be involved with a high stress environment. This "could be" attached to growing up in and environment were it was stressful and unpredictible, example, parents always fighting and creating some kind of stress of an "unpredictible" environment that became a child's normal.

Perhaps your "normal" was that of being in a high stressed unpredictable situation and you did ok with that until it hit "home" with you. Seeing one's own family member in a trauma situation is actually very different than seeing someone one doesn't really know.
That is enough to present you with a trauma that was one you could not really handle so you are now "detached" and dazed. Also, what is probably taking place with you is "could you have done something that might have changed what happened?". There is a significant difference between addressing the aftermath of something traumatic that has happened and addressing a situation where you know the individual and now you can think back on what signs this individual was expressing that you missed somehow. There is a huge difference between "trauma outside one's personal life" and "inside one's personal life".

You need to find your way towards healing from whatever you feel you may not have done that could have changed the outcome of the trauma "inside your own family circle".

[Trace14]

You may be right, plus the dangerous motorcycle riding, sky diving, rattlesnake hunting.....the near death experiences 3-4, you are right. This may have been just trying to stay in my "comfort zone" Now I have a dull empty life and my Dad is gone. Not a good combo for me. I would be happier to move out into the country away from people and live out the rest of my life, just me and the animals.

[Open Eyes]

There is a difference between adreneline and cortizol which is what PTSD presents. Adreneline burns off, corizol is much more exhausting and "should I run from" which is fear based.

[Trace14]

How does this apply to my life? Oh left out the years of firefighting, my ex husband and I even taught Fire Fighting for years. I really wanted to be a smoke jumper, that's why the interest in skydiving and fire fighting. Physical injury put the skids on that.

[Open Eyes]

Yes, all of these things involve adreneline, and filling up with it and burning it off. That is not "trauma" at all. Trauma stops a person in their tracks and shocks their system and challenges the emotions and makes the person feel powerless. Adreneline energizes, cortizol stresses the system. Adreneline can also produce dopamine, cortizol doesn't.

Maybe you could try running? Something that requires adreneline? Or rock wall climbing?

[Trace14]

Running only if something is after me Rock wall climbing would be okay, just don't know if I have that type of body strength now. Plus don't want to do anything really I'm 55 and after all the years of abuse on the body I'm in pain most of the time. Playing hard takes it's toll. Just staying inside the house is okay with me. I only go out to the store when it's late and less people.
Those jobs themselves were not trauma in the written form, but adding in the death's, suicides, mutilated bodies, dead children, being shot at, not knowing when you left home to go to work if you would be back or not wears on you. That's just a small part of this issue though.

[Open Eyes]

Oh, I did not realize/know you are 55, that changes what a person can physically do, hate to say it but it just does. The fifties is a challenging time for most people, thats why its called middle aged crisis. It doesn't help when on top of that you had a trauma, me too.

[Trace14]

I wish it was just "a trauma" would make this so much easier.

[Trace14]

The more we get into therapy the more I see how my childhood may have been the beginning of some of my issues. I just keep bouncing back and forth on it though. On one hand it wasn't that good, maybe even bad. One the other hand I don't think the abuse and neglect were intentional, acts they were just doing what they thought was the best they could do. It's a complex situation with many factors contributing to the outcomes. I guess that's why it is so hard to sort out.