C
Confused one
Hi, I am new here. I don’t know if I have PTSD, another trauma-based disorder, or just poor mental health, but I just need to reach out to someone and get some thoughts out in writing because I am struggling.
I am a 20 year old university student that just moved out of the family home this past September. I have lived with my single mom all of my life, and I am not sure how to feel about her. She would be kind and caring one minute and then she would be cold, harsh, and yelling the next. During an outburst she would yell, swear, say all of what I was doing wrong with my life, and then storm away to her room and slam the door. Then she would come back to me after an hour crying, apologizing, saying that she was a terrible mother and would never do this again, and of course I would forgive her because I was young, scared, confused, and felt guilty that I had done something wrong. After she would apologize and I would forgive her, she would get all giddy and pretend like nothing happened and we were best friends (we are very close, but there is a weird dynamic going on). If I later tried to calmly and gently express to her that next time she is upset with me to calmly tell me what is wrong (I tried it twice in all of those years) she would either yell at me or deny that she had ever done anything else (basically denying that she had yelled and called me names). This pattern started when I was 8 and did not stop until I moved out... There were times where I would be confused by something she had said and politely ask her what she meant and she would yell and call me names, saying that I was stupid, and that I was a “whiny b****” when I would get tears in my eyes because I was hurt. There was one time when I was 9 that I could not figure out a question on my math homework (I have a math related learning disability) and she was helping me, and I still did not understand how to do the question after her third explanation. I went to go to the bathroom to calm down because I was getting frustrated with myself, and before I could get to the bathroom she grabbed me, dragged me to the stairs, and pushed me down them because she was frustrated that I was “too stupid to understand anything”. I was not seriously hurt, thankfully, but I was not emotionally ok after that incident for a few hours. I have talked to one therapist about these things and they said that I was being too emotional and reading too much into these things and that I should just try to look more realistically at these situations. For some background, the therapist does know my mom quite well, and he talks to her quite often. He was even her therapist at one point, which I did not know until this year. My mom had sent me to the therapist when I was struggling with other mental health stuff when I was a teenager and I didn’t think about it at the time.
Any way, I have been trying to look at my past experiences and my current feelings realistically, and from all angles, but now I am just confused and my mind feels like it is constantly fighting with itself. I am not sure if this was abuse or if it was just me reading too much into things as the therapist said. Either way, I am experiencing flashbacks frequently and dissociating a lot, which is greatly impacting my ability to do school work and study. I have gone through an initial consultation session with my university’s counselling center and am waiting for them to reach out to me to let me book my first therapy session. I have decided to stop seeing the other therapist.
I am a 20 year old university student that just moved out of the family home this past September. I have lived with my single mom all of my life, and I am not sure how to feel about her. She would be kind and caring one minute and then she would be cold, harsh, and yelling the next. During an outburst she would yell, swear, say all of what I was doing wrong with my life, and then storm away to her room and slam the door. Then she would come back to me after an hour crying, apologizing, saying that she was a terrible mother and would never do this again, and of course I would forgive her because I was young, scared, confused, and felt guilty that I had done something wrong. After she would apologize and I would forgive her, she would get all giddy and pretend like nothing happened and we were best friends (we are very close, but there is a weird dynamic going on). If I later tried to calmly and gently express to her that next time she is upset with me to calmly tell me what is wrong (I tried it twice in all of those years) she would either yell at me or deny that she had ever done anything else (basically denying that she had yelled and called me names). This pattern started when I was 8 and did not stop until I moved out... There were times where I would be confused by something she had said and politely ask her what she meant and she would yell and call me names, saying that I was stupid, and that I was a “whiny b****” when I would get tears in my eyes because I was hurt. There was one time when I was 9 that I could not figure out a question on my math homework (I have a math related learning disability) and she was helping me, and I still did not understand how to do the question after her third explanation. I went to go to the bathroom to calm down because I was getting frustrated with myself, and before I could get to the bathroom she grabbed me, dragged me to the stairs, and pushed me down them because she was frustrated that I was “too stupid to understand anything”. I was not seriously hurt, thankfully, but I was not emotionally ok after that incident for a few hours. I have talked to one therapist about these things and they said that I was being too emotional and reading too much into these things and that I should just try to look more realistically at these situations. For some background, the therapist does know my mom quite well, and he talks to her quite often. He was even her therapist at one point, which I did not know until this year. My mom had sent me to the therapist when I was struggling with other mental health stuff when I was a teenager and I didn’t think about it at the time.
Any way, I have been trying to look at my past experiences and my current feelings realistically, and from all angles, but now I am just confused and my mind feels like it is constantly fighting with itself. I am not sure if this was abuse or if it was just me reading too much into things as the therapist said. Either way, I am experiencing flashbacks frequently and dissociating a lot, which is greatly impacting my ability to do school work and study. I have gone through an initial consultation session with my university’s counselling center and am waiting for them to reach out to me to let me book my first therapy session. I have decided to stop seeing the other therapist.
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