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Colorful and hopefully optimistic but maybe hateful occasionally

Only bizarre things coming to mind are the times she encouraged me to sing to her in the kitchen when I was afraid to (I was below five years old), was told by a doctor that I was having sex problems when I wasn’t even fifteen so she tried to help which wasn’t traumatic exactly but ruined it for me to the present, and the time I lied about my dad attacking me in the shower for “lying” to prevent her from fighting with him.

What you describe might be it actually. I never got the impression that she cared about me after I wasn’t a baby or toddler anymore. I let strangers take care of me more
 
Nah, remembered a fourth and a fifth. That time my mom accused me of faking schizophrenia for attention, and that time she got angry that I hadn’t told her about pedo and that “everyone knew but her” — bitch, you would have told me to keep it quiet.

Several things come to mind with that but I’ll just leave it there
 
bitch, you would have told me to keep it quiet.
Ironically it might have been the one thing she could have helped with? Her mom silenced her and forced her to get an abortion. But I had a hospital and child services supporting me so I don’t really know what would have happened if I told her

In fact, the fact that I was forced to tell her against my will and my dad immediately told the entire town like it would get him love and fame and attention — that bothers me more than a few times a month
 
Intergenerational trauma is so f*cked and enmeshed.
For real. I don’t have a single relative who wasn’t abused by parents, forced to be a refugee, forced to give up religion, drafted into a war, whatever. I try not to worry about it too much — I’m living my life now :) — but it definitely comes up in nearly every conversation with family. No matter who the abusers are, they have neat cool stories I have to respect

I think you’re more than strong enough to break the cycle, though, @Sietz — no one is perfect but you’d be a great parent

Have a good night :) :)
 
My mom is judgmental and I’m having trouble finding positives, which is weird.
uhmmm... no. Not weird. Remember how I'm struggling with always finding the silver lining to any situation? this is pretty much what you are doing with your mom. Trying to always find positives - even when there aren't any. No idea how to fix it because I'm stuck there too - but....
I haven’t talked about this much but between my therapist randomly telling my mom how I’m doing,
This is an ethics violation. Period. You are over 18. She is NOT allowed to tell your mom anything. Tell her you want it to stop (because she may not realize you are against it.) If it pisses mom off? Not your problem
I force things to be happy now days. Mostly because I don’t want to make my mom feel sad or guilty
Your mom allowed you to be kept in a cage. I'm sorry she was also abused but. she allowed you to be kept in a cage.

You can't make your mom feel anything. If she feels guilty or sad that is on her. Only her. She may be reacting to your behaviors but that is NOT on you. It is on how she chooses to react - and that she refuses to get help for how she feels.
My psychiatrist is going to be really disappointed in me this week
No he's not. He's hopefully going to be able to help you see the difference between what you are responsible for and what you are not so you can get some of this weight off your shoulders.
 
It might look like I’m being stubborn, and I’m sorry!

I took me a long time to realize that my mom had done me harm, and I can’t get around the fact that she did. I am angry about it but attempting to be forgiving anyway.

Some of it I’m especially upset about. If I were a parent I am not sure how much better I’d do in some scenarios. But in other scenarios I’m sure I would do better. She’s mentally ill without help and for some reason really thinks she’s autistic, not really my business though.

even when there aren't any
It would be impossible go have no positives with a mom, though. I know I’m kind of Pollyanna-ing here in this diary a lot. But my mom really did try. She tried so hard that it was ridiculous. Then totally failed in other categories. Far from perfect, but not intentionally malicious.

Not to say I’m not angry about it, though. I consider myself to be stronger and braver in several ways, and my mom verbally agrees with this and has mentioned she thinks I’m her smartest and bravest kid. She is nice to me, I just don’t post it all the time. It’s not helping me heal to do that and I can y’all about positive things in the real world pretty easily. As long as it’s not too emotional.

I’m very angry when looking back on my teenage years. Don’t get me wrong. I feel wronged. But my siblings don’t. Which clues me in on the fact that this is part of what my doctor has warned me about with the overactive memories. As in, when I’m in a mood, I will immediately have encyclopedic knowledge of every single wrong done to me by one person. It’s very frustrating and my doctor insisted on therapy to help me remember that most these things would have been forgotten by a normal person, and most of the things feel important to me but aren’t.

That seems sort of negative, but considering I have this problem with other people (except friends I made in college, really) I don’t think it’s TOO exaggerated. I personally feel my memories are important and should be worked through, but not at the expense of everyone else. I should disrupt everyone else’s lives like that for things they might not remember.

Now, my anger surrounding that hospital and how my mom got sued after laughing at my advice, and how she claimed that I should have told her earlier about the abuse before she had to pay money, that’s f*cked up and I’m okay with being mad about it, as long as it doesn’t affect my mom.

Which is probably weird sounding, and I think I blame my dad for this. He used my mom as leverage constantly.

My mom was a good mom for the circumstances. She tried her best during the abuse and was abused herself and in a weird circumstance. Honestly, I don’t know that anything could have been done differently. I really doubt it. I am angry she shot gun wedding-ed that insane actual psycho, and I’m even angrier that her entire family abandoned her to her fate and straight up wouldn’t help even when my mom asked. It’s really complicated and no one person can be blamed, or else I’d be blaming her.

I blame my dad well enough though. He still tries to call me and be friends, but he’s straight up deplorable.

Tell her you want it to stop (because she may not realize you are against it.) If it pisses mom off? Not your problem
My mom wouldn’t mind this. I think it’s making my mom uncomfortable because she doesn’t like to make me feel uncomfortable.

But it will take me some effort to tell my therapist this. I am worried about making my therapist feel embarrassed. I feel that telling people to change too outrightly can be offensive. It has felt that way to me occasionally

Your mom allowed you to be kept in a cage. I'm sorry she was also abused but. she allowed you to be kept in a cage.
I’m not entirely convinced she knew the full extent. If she does, then that would make me ten times angrier, because I’ve seen for the first time with my nephew how kids are supposed to behave. Very humanlike. And I think my sister got fo be raised sort of normally with her sexist dad because my dad basically locked her away.


No he's not. He's hopefully going to be able to help you see the difference between what you are responsible for and what you are not so you can get some of this weight off your shoulders.
That sounds way more comforting

My mom in the past would yell at me and not ask me why I was scared. Too worried about money.

My dad would force feed them to me. They were addictive. Then he’d scream at me and push me (I have scars to prove it) if he forgot to give me one, claiming I was making him look bad in public by not being calm, and by showing signs of acting abused. Claimed I was supposed to remind him or that was proof I was trying to get out of it.

My siblings and I forced ourselves to not cough if we had a cough because he would forcefeed us way too much cough syrup to the point that it gave a little high if we coughed more than twice. He’d stare at us and wait. My mom would start yelling at him and he’d say she clearly didn’t want him to care for his kids.

My mom grew up with a Dad who acted like this. Her first husband killed kittens for fun, her second husband was sexist and was probably still her best husband despite cheating on her after his band got good enough to go on tours, and my dad was less terrifying that her first husband because he acted charming occasionally and sometimes acted romantic, which none of my mom’s previous husbands did, and my dad liked cats and didn’t kill animals which seemed like a good sign to someone who was trying to avoid a psycho.

I don’t think it’s weird that this backfired. What baffles me is that people wanted her to immediately become healthy and somehow transcend the norm she knew when she was getting threats from all sides about all the horrible things that would happen. My family will say in one sentence that it’s sad that my mom will always be mentally a teenager of young in her twenties, and then next sentence act like she did it to herself. I’d like to see them try and figure it out.

My dad is mentally trapped in the body of an adult while being a third grader mentally, but unlike my mom he is malicious and thinks it’s funny to hurt people. He’s a kid with no parental guidance even though, unlike my mom, his parents were around.
 
My mom tried her best in an impossible situation and I agree that at times it wasn’t enough — was far from it, and should have warrented outside help YEARS ago, and yes I’m angry about it and didn’t think I could be before. But I’m not going to agree that she abused me. She enabled it, I give you that. I argued about it in a grocery store when I was a little nine year old girl once, I was aware of the situation and I was angry that she was allowing him to get away with shit like everyone else was. But she did what she thought was right in the moment, and while idiotic, I’m not going to hold it against her to hurt myself for no reason. She feels bad, and if she came to this site, people would praise her for at least trying and try to help her realize she was doing the best in her situation.

People said that to me about dead f*cking people and about Thunder who I killed after being taught how to “punish” and about bullying my little brother after being told to do so, so I think my mom deserves the same treatment for at least having not been taught by a psychopath to abuse people. I’m smarter than her and knew it was wrong. She was hopeless and had given up. We’ve all been there. I wouldn’t have let a pedophile f*ck me if I had different thoughts about life by then.
 

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