Slight vent
I think if I told my dad I had any kind of trauma, or especially CPTSD, he'd possibly react in a few ways:
1. Deny deny deny
He'd ask me what I've been through thats considered trauma. I'd like to think I'd say something like "weren't you there?" Or "I can't even remember any of it" but in all actuality I'd probably put my head down and cross my arms and say "idk I guess it's not really trauma" which would be enough to steer the conversation to absolutely anywhere else. I'd seethe in tears and Wattpad entrees until the next occurrence of the same sort. This cycle would go on forever.
2. Glazed Over Sympathy
I'd bring up my therapy or something I'd repressed and off hand mention my CPTSD. He'd say something like "aww mads" and maybe hug me. If it's not the serious he would be more confirmative than comforting. He'd just let me know he'd believe me.
3. "Your damn mother!"
Obvi what ever I'd mention would somehow be connected to my mother, and he'd start talking about that. "Oh your good for nothing mother. Says things but never follows through. You know she told the girls she'd be here 4 hours ago? And where is she now? Not here" the focus would shift from me being a victim to my mother being an offender. I don't mind this switch. It's always nice to hear my mother being slandered in my favor. Whenever you say "I fucking hate your mom" I feel the same way. Although sometimes it's nice to just recognize that I was abused because I often don't believe it myself.
When really thinking about it, sometimes I really do feel like my trauma was nothing. You can boil it down to maybe neglect and emotional incest (1) but is that really so bad? If I start in detail thinking about my trauma to try to see if it was really that bad my brain just shuts off. If my life were a book the middle would be empty pages. I think my biggest problem with the new therapy my therapy wants is that I don't want to remember anything. I want to keep it locked away in a box. Pandora's box is real but I intend for it to be more like Fort Knox. Bars. Anyway I know it'd be good for me to have that stuff not simmer in my saucepan but I'm just not ready to face it. I don't know if I ever will be. I don't want to be the mother with unresolved trauma projecting on my kids all the time. That would be just as bad. Maybe I should just be lobotomized. Maybe I actually do have brain cancer. Let's move on.
Why do I always have to be the mediator. It stresses me out so bad. Anytime someone slightly raises their voice, or moves with anger (2), or the tension of the situation is raised, I enter anxiety. It's "good" anxiety (if anxiety can be good) where I need to remedy the situation. I need to calm everyone down and come up with solutions to any problem. I only feel better much after everyone has calmed down. I'm pretty good at it too. Oldest daughter of 4 with a single parent, you get used to it. My therapist says I shouldn't have to do that. It's like my trauma but smaller. Bite sized triggers uncover the same mechanisms I'd always use. Everytime my dad gets even slightly upset with anything I feel the urge to clean up everything in sight and to wrangle my sisters away. He's never hit us but sometimes I rather he did. At least then I could boil with anger in my room instead of simmering with anxiety. He's doing his best and I shouldn't even show him in a negative light. He absorbed all my anger when I took all his empathy.
I need to get a job but I don't want to. But I also don't want to continue to sit around in my house all day. But I don't want to go out and do things. Ideally I'd NEET around in someone else's house. I don't really have anyone to do that with though. Other people's houses make me uncomfortable so it would need to be someone I'm especially especially comfortable with. So, no one. A wise man once said "there it is again, that funny feeling"
All my feelings feel funny nowadays.
I wish I could sleep forever.
When I was talking to my dad about that Nana Grizol song (which by the way, I'm literally obsessed with. I've listened to it probably a million times today. It's been hitting me completely different. I can't express this enough) we were talking about the lyrics. I mentioned the line "you let your parents refer to your lovers as friends" and my dad said "relatable, huh?" what did he mean by that? I don't know if I wanna know.
I wish P— would stop texting me literally every day asking why I didn't go to camp. My dad guilts me enough about it everyday. Maybe I made a mistake.
It bugs me that we aren't close at all. I know that's silly and whatever but I mean it. It's not even like you're a days road trip away. I wish I could explain the feeling that gives me. Maybe you'd understand. Or I just look dumb. Or both.
Let's call next time you're free
Footnotes (yeah I stole them. Sue me)
(1) title of the chapter is "attic flowers" which is reference to the book "Flowers In The Attic" which is about incest which is fitting for me talking about emotional incest (which is not really the same but you know) alt title would've been "Feeling Funny" but that's too expected
(2) my dad does these "moves of anger" a lot. It's slamming things, placing things down with aggression, opening things aggressively, you can see it very easily and it really shakes me directly down to the bone
