Losing family to my own illness

Tw: sc

Hello,

The only reason I have stayed alive for this long is for my family. I am desperately seeking to resume treatment after my doctor let me go. The process has been slow and mostly dealing with unprofessional state doctors (the one I was recently assigned never read my assessment. I have cptsd and other diagnoses and she could not understand why I would have trauma if no one “had beat me up in school”).

I feel like my family hates me. They yell at me all the time to the point where I am afraid of talking over the phone and the one who lives with me uses my diagnoses (not a fan of labels but I use it for simplicity) against me when angry. They also refuse to leave my apartment or do anything required to keep up with it.

It feels like I have failed them and having attachment issues does not help. They say I am ruining the whole family, and compare who I was in treatment with how I am now. Lately I have been crying a lot and not as “strong” or “capable” as they would like. If I could make them love me again maybe it wouldn’t be so painful, but the best thing to do would be to not exist anymore. It is too tiring to be so disappointing no matter how hard I try. They reject compliments because I suppose I am of no use. It hurts every day on top of flashbacks, there is no such thing as sleep or respite. Everything is awful.

Has anyone been through this? How do you deal with the yelling and comparison to a former, supposedly better (I was actually doing much worse at the time but they won’t accept) self? How do you answer to those who say they are well meaning and just worried as if their words have no consequences?

I am so sorry you are in the situation you have described. It is a heartbreaking situation and my heart goes out to you.

Something similar to what you described happened to me so I can definitely identify with you.

Often when people who are disappointed in us are disappointed not because of US, but because THEY have unrealistic expectations for us. Family often falls into group of people.

Standards of behavior generally apply to people who are not ill but those standard often need modification when applied to those who are ill.
For example, it might be a very good ideal to go running every day for exercise, but no one would "expect" a person who lost both of his or her legs to go running? The standard applies "in general" but there are exceptions.

CPSTD is an illness every bit as debilitating as losing both one's legs. Sadly people who are understanding and compassionate to those who have suffered a situation like a double amputation can be less than understanding, less than compassionate, less than encouraging and consoling for those who have suffered or who suffer a mental illness.

What would you think of a person telling a person with no legs: "I am so disappointed in you. You used to go running every day and now you don't." Clearly those people are suffering disappointment because of THEIR unrealistic expectations and not because of the person who lost their legs!

It helped me to write down on a piece of paper the following words: "THEY ARE DISAPPOINTED IN ME BECAUSE THEY HAVE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS. IT IS THEIR UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS THAT CAUSE THEIR DISAPPOINTMENT AND IT IS NOT FAIR TO BLAME ME FOR THAT.

I kept that piece of paper in my pocket at all times. I looked at it when things were hard in my relationships with my family or anyone else.

Something like this helped me when I was in a similar situation. I don't know if it would help you. Since I am not a doctor or medical professional I am totally unqualified to give advice. I can only share what helped me personally. Only a professional psychotherapist can offer you advice you can rely upon.

Hopefully others here with more knowledge, experience, insight and wisdom will see your post and respond to it with better words than my poor words.

You deserve to be respected and treasured as a person especially since you are struggling with the heavy and often crushing burden of CPTSD. Deepest apologies if I have been unable to be of any help to you. I am sorry that you find yourself in an unhappy, unhappy situation.

Thank you so much for your reply and kind thoughts, I genuinely appreciate it. The piece of paper is a great idea! Will definitely try that as it sounds like a huge help! Your perspective is very reassuring and I will be sure to remind myself that we are separate people despite being family, so there are things they may never understand. It is a sad thing, but it helps to see it from a different point of view as I know they want the best for me in the end of the day, no matter how hurtful their behaviour can be. Your reply was much needed, thank you!

You can't make people love you. The only way to go is to love *yourself* enough to know when and/or how much abuse-pain-burden (whatever is appropriate) you can take from others. Build yourself up (e.g. esteem, self-care, boundaries... self-respect) and remove yourself from such situations or people who hurt you.

Family or friends shouldn't get a free pass for hurting you..

True, something that takes a while to learn is how to love yourself and unlearn all the negatives that were told to be inherent to you. It’s certainly been a battle for me as I lost almost all love for myself and need to rebuild but unsure how. Will have to continue to try, the first step being having a reason to live outside of my creative work and other people. That’s the hardest already but will continue to give it a go for a while longer. Thank you for the response!

So I no longer know where I go wrong because I get yelled at at random and now am confused. Of course I am in the wrong at times, but a member in my immediate family “black listed” (their words) me while also continuing to live in my place. So if I am so bad, why eat my food and not pay rent? It’s not adding up. Also, they are untreated but because I am more outspoken they seem to think they are in a higher position. I am so confused with reality as it is, this makes me not want to be here. I am afraid of everyone hating me or something happening to them. The fear is so constant I can barely sleep and wake up every day panicking. It’s awful and not a life to live. The waitlist for my program has taken so long and I still haven’t heard from them. I need help but I’ve had doctors bail on me and had only mildly successful therapy. I can’t talk about my issues with anyone. People have even sided with those who have a$$ault3d me and I don’t know who to believe anymore.