Help With Family Bonding

[smile652]

Hi everyone,

I have undergone serious abuse for 16 years of my life. I am now suffering from PTSD.

I have come to this site to find people who can relate. I find it very hard to connect with my family because they are directly connected to traumatic events I have experienced as a child. Its almost like a wall. Whenever they try to talk to me I just close up and give off this a sort of coldness. I love my mom and my brother very much, but I don't know what the first step is to overcoming these feelings. I have been in counseling for 2.5 years, still don't have the answer.

 

[safenow]

Hi smile,

Welcome to the forum. I wish I could give you a perfect answer, but I don't think there is one. I had to get away from my family, as they were toxic for me. I know a lot of people here come from families, and they can probably give you wonderful advice.

You are in a great site. Lots of good information here, and some wonderful, caring people.

 

[littlelostchild]

Hi Smile and welcome. My mental health improved when we moved some distance away from my family. In my case, the abuse is the dirty family secret that nobody speaks about. When dad died, my sister and I had to clean out a residence. Without saying why, we said that one of us needed to check the hard drive really well. When I gave up on that fairly quickly (frankly I was afraid of what I would find), we both agreed that double garbage bagging the hard drive, then dropping it over the second storey loft twice would work just as well. Nobody would be interested in trying to easily use the computer, therefore, nothing could be found by someone.

Mom is still alive and she speaks in cryptic terms about how dad went kind of funny near the end. Total BS - he was a sociopath! When I found some of his home made porn photos in a box in the basement, I stopped looking as quickly as I could. The girls were young and my head exploded. I needed to protect my kids who were helping to clean out the basement. They are young adults, but still.

I had to be away from my mom and dad to ensure that he never had unsupervised access to my children! My number one job as their mom was to protect them and that meant - no overnight visits and no visits without me being right there.

Families are complicated - I think each situation/family will have its own best way to go. Remember to protect yourself! And if you have children, protect them! We can break the cycle if we do for our children what wasn't done for us.

 

[Ricanoland]

Whenever they try to talk to me i just close up and give off this a sort of coldness. I love my mom and my brother very much, but I dont know what the first step is to overcoming these feelings.

I couldn't agree with you more, this is how I feel with my family 100% I know I don't have the answer, but I do hope having people on this forum having the same issues as your own my help ease the distress a bit.