[Open Eyes]

I was triggered so badly over the holidays that I have been having one ptsd cycle after another. I feel horrible about how hard it has become for me to get anywhere near my parents. I get anywhere near my older sister and I end up getting severely triggered and the last time I saw her and was near my parents I suffered the most painful attack that I really thought I was having a massive heart attack. It frightens me that I can be affected like that and it's not a conscious decision at all and I was very much in the now and focusing on being able to finally give my father a gift I had gotten for him the Christmas before this past one.

When I went Christmas shopping this year I did buy both my parents gifts. Even if I have no idea how I can actually find a way to be with them to actually give them their gifts, it just seemed to me that I should at least allow myself to go through the motions of getting them something with a just in case some kind of miracle happens where I can get to see them. Last time the miracle was that my mother fell and broke her wrist and spent time in a rehabilitation facility and I found a way to visit her when my sister was not there. Truth is that it was more of a Christmas for me that I actually got to be with her and hug her and spend time with her. It felt like I had been starving for so long and finally got to feast. At the same time I felt a deep grief in that it may be the last time.

This Christmas my sister lied to me when I tried to call and at least wish my parents a Merry Christmas and tell them I love them. When I got to talk to my father and he tried to tell me the truth, he got yelled at and hearing him get quiet was painful and deeply triggering. I did not want to upset my father when I heard this and I kept the conversation as up beat as I could for him and I tried to be reassuring and loving.

This Christmas really was VERY dysfunctional in that my older brother has cancer that is spreading in his body and he told me not to say anything. My father told me my mother is in the hospital and he got yelled at for saying anything about it to me. I find out that my father's sister passed away and no one said anything to me for a little over two weeks. I don't even know if my father knows so I can't call him and tell him I am sorry about how he finally lost his sister. And Christmas day I was left not even knowing WHERE my mother was/is, and that my older sister's choice is to LIE about it. And I know how "if" I make it a point to call her out, she will just blast me with anger and rage because when it comes to her, SHE always decides what others get to know and she doesn't care about lying or making things up so she gets to be the one in control.

The one thing in all this dysfunction that I learned about myself was how much I get triggered when I witness abuse or neglect happening to another person or even animals. Witnessing all the abuse my older brother suffered over so many years, my entire childhood that traumatized me so much left me with some deep issues I did not realize on a conscious level that I had. I have been realizing how much those years not only left me with deep emotional challenges, but also physical so I guess that would be that my body absorbed a lot on a cellular level. Also, literally YEARS of not being able to "tell" or do something about it and feeling like if I tried to do something it could lead to the person being abused even more. The constant "he is a bad child" that I kept seeing decided about him that I knew was not "his fault" and how the only way I could help was to do so secretly. Yet, often that led to me being hurt too.

My sister called on New Year's day and I HATE talking to her yet I find myself having to pick up because the call could be about something very important when it comes to one of my parents, even that one may have died or is dying. Well, this time she announced that SHE has made changes and that if I wanted to know about these changes that I have to go to her and sit down and LISTEN. Also, she refused to tell me where my mother is unless I do what SHE wants and she also said that she doesn't even have to tell me. In that conversation she also told me how she only has two dates that are convenient for HER to do so. I could have taken a leap into anger and "acted" but I chose not to. I thought that was an improvement in my ability to "control" my reaction and not play into her game where all she would do is punish me even more. At this point she is pretty much on the level of yelling F you loudly and hanging up on me.

I have been cycling ever since, many very bad days. I keep thinking about my mother being alone someplace and because I don't know where she is I can't go to her. Yet the thought of sitting across from my sister the way SHE wants in order to get to know where my mother is, is making me very ill. Also, because of what I experienced the last time I saw my sister, I can't see how I could possibly do what SHE is demanding either. The physical pain that came over me was so intense that it really frightened me. I have had panic attacks but this, this was so intense and the pain I suffered was just horrible and my entire body was shaking. I also know how an attack this bad can actually cause a person to suffer a heart attack. And ever since that conversation I have been suffering badly with the chills. To make it even worse at the same time the temps outside were below zero and suffering with these chills AND trying to brave the dangerously low temps to take care of my ponies/horse felt impossible. My saving grace was that my husband stepped up for me and he braved the cold, yet he was angry and while I got a break, I often wondered which was worse, braving that cold myself, or being triggered by his anger that only made these chills get even worse. I do have to include how my sister withholds things from me and tells me lies and she is doing this for CONTROL so she is practicing toxic behavior patterns with me.

The next morning after the conversation I endured with my sister that triggered me and led to a horrible night's sleep my sister called very early and my husband picked up the phone. She decided she could meet with me that day and my husband told her I was in bed and he did mention to my sister that he was concerned about how my sister is mean to me, and my sister's response was DENIAL and that she is not mean to me.

There was no way in hell I could have met with her, NO WAY. Yet, I feel guilt in that I feel like I am letting my mother down.

Somewhere in these past few days I had a flashback where I was in the psych ward and the only one that came to see me was my older sister. She sat across me cold and stern and told me I better "get with the program and SNAP OUT OF IT" or I would lose my farm and my family too. She was cold and matter of fact that day while I sat across from her with the chills and exhaustion from what I would later learn was from having a post traumatic breakdown. She also would NOT let my mother come visit me while I was there and instead I was left to feel like I was being a "bad girl" for breaking down. She was cold that day, not comforting at all, not even a hug or any kind of supportive caring instead I was an imposition and she clearly did not want to spend any time on me and SHE was doing me some kind of big favor for even showing up.

My sister had not long ago deeply struggled with overwhelming grief when her little dog died. I lost so much of what I loved, yet, she did not care to recognize that and she was cold and impositioned.

The message I kept getting was how wrong it was of me to care and value so much what was taken from me so suddenly. How DARE I need to feel that loss and need to grieve. Being in that place was only traumatizing me even more. My sister came in again to "handle" me and I sat there and literally BEGGED her that if she loved me AT ALL that she would help me get out of this place because it was NOT helping me AT ALL. I never was told that there would be a limit of time for me to be kept in that place. My sister made me feel that I was in danger of being kept there indefinitely if I did not "JUST SNAP OUT OF IT".

I have sat across from her other times where HER take on things were "dysfunctional and even cold and matter of fact".

I gradually realized over these years that it was my sister's behaviors that triggered me to begin experiencing all these confusing flashbacks from my past. I had not realized what I really was to her all my life either, an imposition.

To the depths of me I can't say enough how much I do not want to sit across from her while she INSTRUCTS ME about HER DECISIONS in how things are going to proceed with my parents.

I feel like I am literally torn in half. I have been trying very hard to look at "her loss" and find a way to somehow empathize but I am having a very hard time with that and that's not like me. I think it hurts too much because I loved her and all this time I was just this imposition in her life. My mother kept saying to me "she is jealous of you" and I honestly did not see it. And I have come to realize that it's simply because I existed. I can see it loud and clear now, and I can definitely FEEL it and it makes me quite ill.

I didn't know what forum to post this challenge, relationship forum?, grief and loss forum?, abuse forum?, or this forum. Well, at least I posted it because I did not even know how to do that.

The level of grief in all that I am experiencing with my family right now is
crippling me. And I feel so completely ALONE with it all too. And my best friend, my mother? I don't even know where she is or how she is and what is left of her. My heart aches so bad I feel like I am going to die.

[Saunder]

Hope you can find some peace. I'm not able to relax at all. Head constantly filled with unsolvable thoughts. Ashamed that my girlfriend tries to console me when she is the caretaker who needs consoling. Maybe try a group where people can support you in person. Or keep on posting on this site. Take good care.

[Open Eyes]

I'm not able to relax at all. Head constantly filled with unsolvable thoughts.

I am sorry (((Saunders))), I get that way myself and I have learned to vent as much as I can out. I have been gradually learning more and more about how my history affected me more than I realized. For me, the solving is more about understanding all these triggers that I experience that cripple me so much because I don't always know "what" actually causes the trigger and why a trigger can turn into me experiencing a ptsd cycle where I get so incapacitated.

The last time I saw my parents and my sister was present I suffered an extreme attack that came over me out of no where. That frightened me because it was not anything I made a conscious choice to experience.

Whenever I am exposed to my older sister it turns into a toxic experience and I end up getting badly triggered. She can be very angry and she takes that anger out on me and yet she can take that anger out on anyone that doesn't fit into her idea of how others should respond to her need to control. When I sit and think about the family dynamics that revolved around my parent's toxic relationship, I see her as being an angry child that resented having two younger siblings and how these two younger siblings prevented her from getting the love and attention she felt she was not getting.

What I am seeing is a child that made it a point to find ways to take that loss back to where she filled her own need to gain control over my parents. What is sad about what she is doing is that she exhibits some cognitive distortions where she never let go of her perception of her two siblings as being a threat.

I wanted my father to have a meeting with the three of us so we could sit down in front of his lawyer and discuss the choices he made when it came to his and my mother's care before they died. I even tried to sit down with my father and talk to him about what I had been learning about what he set up that may cause problems. One of my concerns was that the way he set things up did not give me any power where if I saw choices being made for him that I felt were not good for him that I could have the power to question whatever choice was made because I feared seeing him in a place where he was unhappy and with what he put in place I would not be able to do anything about it.

He did begin to question what he set up however, my sister made it a point to encourage him to believe that the reason I approached him was about his money and that was not true. As time went on I watched my sister make choices that I felt were wrong. At one point my father collapsed because he had an ulcer that was bleeding and he lost so much blood that he collapsed and almost died. My sister got him to the hospital and they had to give him blood and treat this bleeding ulcer. When I went to visit him, he was stable and OVER the experience that did frighten him. I watched my sister stand at the bottom of his bed during my visit and as she stood there she made it a point to talk about what he experienced, how he almost died, that he was so frightened and what she was doing with him was wrong. When someone is past a trauma and stable, you NEVER encourage that person to feel the fear they felt when experiencing a trauma, especially when the individual is elderly. Instead, you focus on keeping that person in a more stable state of mind and keep them in the now. In that visit I did not follow my sister's effort to bring back that trauma, instead I focused on talking to my father about things I had just experienced in the now that I felt he would find interesting. Because I focused on keeping my father in the now noticing he was stable, my sister got angry. She wanted to revisit the "drama" and that is NOT what you do when someone is past a drama and is comfortable and stable.

I also watched how my sister handled my mother after my mother had her back surgery and was struggling badly with the after affects of the anesthesia. My mother needed TIME and QUIET to slowly regain herself and I have experienced that myself so I knew what I was looking at where my mother was confused and struggling. My sister failed to see the importance of giving her time and put her in a room with a hispanic woman and my sister literally said, "she should be with someone else to stimulate her". That was WRONG, the last thing you do is try to stimulate someone when they are struggling with the affects of anesthesia where the patient is confused and shaking and pulling the covers up over themselves with only their eyes peeking out.

I witnessed my sister disobey the surgeon who wanted my mother to have "time" to work her way past the affects of the anesthesia and he told my sister NOT to have my mother evaluated by a psychiatrist/psychologist because they would prescribe medication and misdiagnose my mother. So, she did not listen and I watched my mother put on an antidepressant that was pushed on me and made me very stomach sick. I watched as my mother complained of feeling sick to her stomach and my sister insisting she eat and being impatient with her. When I questioned this the response was to prevent me from talking to the doctors and knowing what medications my mother was put on. I knew the surgeon was right because I knew first hand how it takes time to get one's bearings back after being in surgery and recovering from the affects of the anesthesia.

The problem I had was how all this began taking place not long after I had suffered so much sudden loss myself and experienced a post traumatic breakdown and how I ended up in a psych ward that only traumatized me even more along with being pushed into taking drugs and that I left that place even more exhausted than when I went in and my sister's way of stepping in and taking over when I experienced that was VERY WRONG. All the things she said to me were WRONG and things you NEVER say to someone who suffered a major trauma and is in the throws of a post traumatic breakdown. Witnessing what my mother went through and how my sister was responding to her in all the wrong ways, traumatized me even more. Then I began to experience flashbacks from my past and I got so confused and frightened.

Truth is I kept being retraumatized over and over again since I suffered that major trauma. I could not get the right help either, and instead the therapists I had reached out to for help misdiagnosed me and invalidated me despite how everything I had told them was the truth and that everything I uttered was clear red flags that meant "trauma patient". I actually have the records to prove this too. I had also been dealing with a lawyer that was handling my lawsuit who was literally declining into dementia. The lawyer I had before him, a woman, was overwhelmed with too many cases and she literally had a melt down right in front of me directing all her anger at me. She ended up having a meltdown and left the firm she was working with after she had that melt down in front of me that actually traumatized me.

When the psychiatrist I had been seeing saw that I could no longer afford to see him, and he referred me to my GP whom he felt could continue prescribing me the Klonopin I was taking, I ended up sitting across from my GP only to once again witness yet another person have a meltdown and direct all their anger at me. He literally threw a fit and threw my records on my lap and he called out all these things that were written in these records stating how "crazy" these records said I was and how angry he was that a psychiatrist would think he could take over prescribing medication to such a crazy individual.

I was so traumatized "yet again" by yet another person that I just wanted to get out of that examining room as fast as possible, away from this very angry doctor that had been my GP for several years.

I got so challenged that I needed to find a trauma therapist to help me. I looked online and made a lot of calls hoping to find a therapist I could afford that could help me. That is when I found a therapist I thought was nice, someone I could "trust" and this therapist traumatized me even more by telling me he was a recovering heroine addict, had been diagnosed as NPD and had been a habitual liar, yet he supposedly got educated and was now able to be a therapist?

By this point my experience with so called "professionals" that were supposed to help me had traumatized me SO MUCH that I was completely and utterly LOST.

When I was in that psch ward I was traumatized by the different challenges I witnessed taking place in the other patients. Yet, in all honesty, it was not all that different in what I faced on the outside "after" I left that environment where I experienced people who are supposed to be "normal" literally have melt downs in front of me and direct all their anger at me. I honestly wish there was a way I could play a video of all the situations I had experienced this behavior where another person's anger was directed at me in such an unhealthy way, especially when I had reached out for "help" and did not deserve to have to face the other person literally blow up at me and direct all their own personal anger towards me.

A lot of the flashbacks I have had are of individuals who have raged at me or dumped their own problems out at me when I really never deserved it. Even when I was literally dying and had to call an ambulance the EMT yelled at me when I moaned because the pain I was suffering from was so "extreme". I was not screaming either, I was moaning because my body cavity was literally full of toxins and I was dying.

The one thing I have learned in my life is how if I need help and something really is happening to me that is BAD, that if I try to get help I end up being treated VERY BADLY and ended up being badly emotionally abused. The one thing I have most definitely learned over and over again is how much my needs, that were genuine was met with others being so mean to me and letting me know how my need was a huge imposition on them. I even suffered for much longer than I should have with endometriosis and when I went to see a Gyno who was a woman she was mean to me and handed me the wrong diagnosis and insisted that I just had to learn how to "deal with it". I suffered every month and the condition continued to get worse and worse and I suffered horrible attacks every month until I suffered an attack that would not subside and "finally" got to have surgery where all the endometriosis could be seen on the camera that was attached to an endoscope. I go in for what is considered a simple procedure to have a colonoscopy and end up suffering with horrible pain because during the procedure they hit my spleen and caused damage and I was bleeding internally. I was treated HORRIBLY for having that happen to me. My husband was so mean to me when I asked him to drive me to the emergency room because of the pain I was suffering and being dizzy. When I got in the emergency room and got through the doors I collapsed and my husband stood over me and yelled at me to "get the hell up". He totally embarrassed me and everyone stared at me, YET I WAS BLEEDING INTERNALLY and in danger of dying.

Experiencing a post traumatic breakdown was no different, I was treated badly for experiencing something that was once again NOT MY FAULT. I honestly could not bring myself to tell anyone to "go see a therapist" either because when I did that I was misdiagnosed and treated badly for genuinely struggling and NEEDING HELP. I most definitely have the records to prove it.

Truth is that I am really good at helping other people but when I need help I end up being TRAUMATIZED and treated badly and I tend to get blamed for things that are NOT MY FAULT and are things that are the mistakes of OTHER PEOPLE.

All the loss I suffered that was literally an accumulation of YEARS of hard work was destroyed because of the negligence of someone else. Even when I made an effort to fight back I faced being blamed for the mistakes two lawyers made because of THEIR issues and not mine and the opposing attorney treated me HORRIBLY and she stomped past me when I was in the lobby of the court house that she was so imposition NOT BY ME, but by the lawyer that was mentally declining and failed to do his job in my case. The neighbor that was negligent blamed me and was HORRIBLE towards me.

I was left with so many damaged ponies and horses that I had to rehabilitate and hand walk that I ended up suffering a horrible case of planter's facietus in booth my feet. I had no health insurance and no money and my mother gave me money so I could get injections in both my feet and have special orthotics made so I could walk. I had NO MONEY or insurance when I suffering so badly with PTSD and needed help and my father gave me some money so I could at least pay out of pocket to get therapy. My older sister CONSTANTLY yells at me for ANY money my parents gave me which was to help me get back on my feet after suffering a MAJOR health set back. Because she has been able to look at their finances she decided SHE could make judgments about whatever my parents did to help me like SHE has the right to stand in judgment when it never was ANY OF HER BUSINESS. One of the things she tends to bring up is when my parents gave me money so I could see a therapist because I was so bad that I was dangerously suicidal. When I suffered with strong suicidal impulses, the one consistent feeling I had was how much my problems were nothing but a burden on everyone around me. The truth is that I had been told that over and over again so many times when I reached out for help because I really did have a big problem.

My sister ragged at me and blamed me in front of all the people in a waiting room when my mother happened to suffer a stroke in front of me and she marched into that waiting room and ragged at me and blamed ME for being the one who caused my mother to suffer a stroke. It was very much like how my husband stood over me and yelled at me to "get the hell up" when I collapsed just after getting through the doors of the ER waiting room because I was bleeding internally and was weak and dizzy.

I now have a horrible time when it comes to going to ANY kind of doctors office or being in ANY Emergency room or hospital. I have not seen a gynecologist in several years now and I struggle if I have to see a doctor, and just being in an examining room causes me to end up suffering flashbacks and having an extreme urge to RUN.

I was very fortunate to find a therapist that understood "trauma" and was amazingly patient with me and that when I was having a day where I was experiencing a bad PTSD cycle and could not drive, I got to still have a session over the phone.

My posts tend to be long, but the truth is I happen to have a long history of being traumatized over and over again. Even when I have reached out for HELP. When I share anything about myself, that I have deep challenges, I have a problem where I anticipate being criticized or being treated badly. I have been strong for others, yet I do have a problem when it comes to advocating for myself or asking for help and support for myself.

I feel very sorry for anyone who struggles this way when it comes to feeling "safe" to talk about "self" and "needing" help. How one can be encouraged to believe that asking for help ends up turning into possibly suffering yet another abuse.

The now dysfunction I am experiencing has been so sad to me. I don't know where my mother is, and I feel terrible that I cannot face the abuse my sister hands out in order to learn where my mother is. I feel so bad that I can't seem to find my way to being with my mother. Hearing my father get yelled at by my sister when I talked to him on the phone to wish him a Merry Christmas where he tried to tell me the truth about my mother was SO TRIGGERING. My sister's tone is ANGRY, and RESENTFUL, to where just trying to at least try to call and talk to my parents ends up triggering me badly.

It's gotten overwhelmingly dysfunctional and very SAD. I don't know where to ask for help either. I get so crippled and I don't know if I am going to actually get to see my parents again "alive" and I just feel SICK about it. I am disappointed in myself for not being able to stand up to how badly my sister is with me and how toxic she can be towards me. I just feel horrible that being near her, leads me to suffer a horrible attack even when I don't want to experience these attacks. People say "don't give her the power", but I can't seem to get others to understand how I am not CONSCIOUSLY choosing to struggle the way I do when exposed to her. The last attack I experienced was absolutely horrible and it literally came out of no where. It really scares me that I can end up experiencing being completely debilitated this way and it's not anything I consciously decide to experience.

[Open Eyes]

I read my horoscope today and one of the statements in it was actually SO TRUE and I have been working very hard on all the "stuff" that comes forward that I had no idea I could re-experience in this very crippling challenge. The quote is: Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.