Relationship This Is For You Daddy

[Anjelica]

Hi Anjelica. I think your contribution is valuable. Clearly your unique experience has given you a perspective and also filled you with much remorse and regret with the loss of your father, may his soul be at peace.

Everyone on this site also has their experience living with PTSD. You say you are not here to give advice however you are also deeply hoping to be an inspiration to others to not give up on the sufferers in their life. One thing I know is that the supporters on this site love their sufferers deeply or they wouldn't be here.

I do feel a need to challenge you on your perspective because I think you have taken all your anger from this tragedy, and placed it at your mother's feet. The woman who birthed you, nursed you, and raised you. Besides the issue about her wanting to date and make new friends, she seems to have tried to make a decision to remove violence and instability from her home. True there are some abusive people out there without a mental illness and with no remorse. Many abusive people are also mentally ill and many have PTSD as well. Your father was working on his PTSD which was great, but that doesn't mean he would not abuse your mother again if she took him back. Sometimes people behave in ways that they can't control. Once you strike fear in someone's heart through physical abuse or threats to their life, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to trust and be intimate with that person again, even if you love them deeply. Let me ask you, what if your mother forgave him and returned to him, and he killed her in a moment of rage where he blacked out and couldn't even remember? This story happens every day, and there are many children who have lost their mothers this way.

I understand how sensitive this issue is and I am sorry if my thoughts offend you, but since you have brought your story to this table, I jump in.

 

[Anjelica]

@Lost Again

God bless you and thank you for your warm praises upon my father may his soul rest in peace.

I am particularly touched and sensitive yet feel a sense of relief to your quote of supporters being on this site because of loving their sufferer deeply. It shows you really care. But both or all of you need to show and feel that to yield positive results. I don't know you or your story or if you are a supporter or sufferer, but I do feel you have some hurt too?

I accept your challenge on my perspective and raise you, so to speak:

Yes, perhaps, it is so that we have taken the anger from this tragedy, placed it at our mothers feet. The woman who has birthed us, nursed us, and raised us. That doesn't mean that WE didn't exist. That doesn't mean that OUR opinions didn't matter. That didn't mean SHE had the right to decide whether or not my brother and I can talk with him or see him or support him. SHE had an issue with him, NOT us. We were 12 and 10 respectively at the time. She should have asked or communicated OUR thoughts, wants and needs. We were supposed to be a family and work everything out together.

The part of the birthing, nursing and raising is the part where I raise you Lost Again:

I'm glad you brought this up. Yes, I will give our mother credit where credit is due. Yes, she did an amazing job with us, also I might add with my fathers help too. Not so much him, actually very little from him in terms of hands on raising us. But yes, she did an amazing job.

However the outcome involving the tragedy of my brother and I, is living proof and that our fathers involvement in our life is EQUALLY, if not, MORE important than the role of our mothers was. Even though she did an amazing job birthing, nursing and raising us.

But, not all fathers are good ones like ours was.

In my opinion, if a supporter and a sufferer has a child or children together, that is another crucial piece of the missing pieces of the ever so complicated puzzle. For me personally, if the sufferer physically abuses the child, leaves marks on the child, or the child is squinting at every chance the sufferer raises their hands, regardless of PTSD, then hands down, KICK THE SUFFERER TO THE CURB !!!

If your sufferer really does love the child or children and they feel the same way towards the sufferer, then trust me, a little communication, work and mutual support will go a lifetime, and even build a stronger more powerful and loving relationship. Symptoms might not be completely gone, but communication and reminiscence of hurtful past experiences will be key to success to possibly the best ever relationship.

According to PTSD literature, a supporter is NEVER FORGOTTEN, whether negatively or positively. I believe it to be true too. If you think about someone hitting rock bottom, a supporter there to help them get up and out will be remembered forever, same as a supporter leaving that person at rock bottom will also be remembered forever.

To answer your question about whether my father, if taken back, killed my mother in a blacked out rage and the roles were reversed..... I know my father, he yelled, broke things, and even pushed my mom out of the way at times, but HE is not capable of inflicting physical pain on us. He never once hit us and was progressing too.

ONLY the supporter and the children living with the supporter can definitively answer the question of whether or not the sufferer really does pose a risk and whether that relationship will make or worth trying. Not because one person has PTSD and murdered somebody means that the next person will do the same?
It depends all on the individual. That is where the "STOP" and "REFLECT" becomes a vital and crucial tool for everyone.

 

[Anjelica]

@bell

I am fully capable of forgiving..... Those that deserve forgiving.

My mother? No way! It would hurt me more to forgive her

 

[bell]

Are you in therapy, @Anjelica? Because having that amount of anger is not healthy for anyone, most especially you. And until you do the work to process it, it will always rule your life. You deserve better than that.

 

[Anjelica]

@bell

God bless you "bell" thank you for your concern.

I am in therapy as well as my brother, twice weekly for the last 17 years now. That is why I stress the urgency to "STOP" and "REFLECT". I don't expect anybody to understand or justify my anger or hatred towards my mother unless you have been through the same situation. The same as I refuse to pass judgement on anyone else's situation. Because chances are, based on what I went through, I will most likely say that the majority of people need to grow up, tough it out.

I look at third world countries traditional values and compare to ours ... We are weak and cowardly even me too! We are so quick to run and hide as opposed to face and fight!

 

[Abstract]

I can see you have been hurt deeply and that you loved your father deeply.

I am a sufferer and I am going to try hard to say this in a way that is OK for you to hear. It seems your father was sent to jail to do with the problems he displayed at home. I am afraid no one gets prosecuted for pushing someone once or twice or for breaking things. It's quite hard to get jailed even if there is violence.

Sometimes when we grow up in difficult situations we do something that is called splitting with our parents. One parent becomes good and the other becomes bad. It can be a defence against very painful feelings that we feel will overwhelm us if we feel them.

I have experienced suicide too, although not of a parent, as well as being suicidal myself for a lot of my life. What I will say is that people commit suicide because of internal pain and not because of anyone putting down boundaries. Sometimes life is too painful and there is nothing anyone can do and other times the person is not able to ask for what they need and reach out for appropriate help - professional help. When things are this bad then it is the time for professional help. It is beyond the abilities of family.

I am afraid to say it as I know this is hard to hear but physically attacking someone is abuse regardless of if the person has PTSD or not. With the exclusion of them being in a flashback and not being able to know who the person was. Very few of those with PTSD will physically attack another human being.

I sincerely hope you mother was not neglecting you and your brother when she split from your father. I can see why she would not let her children near someone that was violent enough to be jailed regardless of if that violence had not been aimed at them.

I have endless compassion for your fathers pain and great respect for his efforts to get better. It is very sad that he acted out his hurt and that in the end he was overwhelmed by it.

I hope your therapist encourages you to look at your parents a little differently. It's OK to look at how they really are and love them anyway. Nothing will disintegrate if you do so. It can also release you from pain more than you can imagine.

I wish you much healing. You are in the right place here as many people understand these situations from both perspectives.

 

[bell]

Also, @Anjelica, if you've had therapy 2x a week for 17 years and still harbor this much anger, I'd suggest thinking about how you can change what you're doing in therapy to better target your feelings of anger and (un)forgiveness. Having such anger for so long, will literally destroy your health. (Google it, as it can kill you in indirect ways.) And I'm sure you don't want such anger (anger that is at your mother) to destroy you? That means a number of casualties... you, your dad, and your mom.

 

[Abstract]

This is what I am concerned about for you: Until you can actually look at both of your parents as they really are and process the awful feelings that come up that another 17 years of therapy won't release you. I hope you can do that for your sake. I think you need to place the responsibility on your father that belongs there and that that will change things for you emotionally. I am sure your father would want you to be free of this as much as possible and not to live in such pain.

 

[macca]

I have PTSD, which was undiagnosed most of my life, and grew up with my father having PTSD as well, which was also undiagnosed. I love him very much, but unfortunately have never succeeded in feeling very close to him. He was a large, frightening man. He had also experienced neglect in childhood as well as repeated traumas, and he too would break things and emotionally abused myself and my siblings, as well as my mother. As a result of this, my mother was depressed for my entire childhood, and there was no such thing as antidepressants back then. Since my mother was depressed, and my father was impaired, I was emotionally neglected as well as abused. These have had strong effects throughout my life that I am still trying to sort out. The reason for my own PTSD appears to have been child sexual abuse at a very young age, but not by my father. He tore any hope of self-esteem away from me, but I still loved him and still do. However, he was out of control.

My mother left him when I was 14, just disappeared in the night and went to live with her best friend. I really felt abandoned, and was angry with her for leaving me to try and handle my father on my own, with two siblings at home almost grown up, and me the youngest. However, once I grew up I realised that she had put up with years of dreadful abuse, and just cracked, couldn't handle another minute of it. Our family was lucky - after a few months, she relented to couples counselling, and that's when my father's PTSD was diagnosed. He tried to work on it, but I don't think they could afford therapy much, and they stopped. I'm glad my mother stayed, but really - from an outsider's point of view, few would have been able to withstand the onslaught she took, and her staying with him had repercussions on my own mental health that have been quite serious.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was a lose-lose situation either way it could have gone. She leaves him - and she and her children are spared the significant abuse, but lose a father who definitely had his good qualities, and we still loved him. She stayed - and we were all abused and neglected. There sometimes just isn't a "right" answer, and we just have to take the good out of whatever we can - in your case, you lost being around his good qualities, but maybe, just maybe, you were spared even more abuse and you'll just never know which was best. I think what others might be trying to say is that by holding on to your anger, you are only damaging yourself - think - is there any functionality to it - are there any positives in holding onto it? I honestly wish you all the best, and I hope you can sort it out.

 

[Anjelica]

@Abstract

It saddens me to hear about your suicidal thoughts and experience. It's a very sensitive subject for me, as I'm sure you too so I will not dwell on that part of your conversation. Thank you for sharing that though.

You are absolutely right about the physical abuse, nobody deserves that or should go through that. I don't know anybody else's situation or anybody else's father, but I do know mine. He is NOT capable of physically inflicting pain or abuse on my mother, brother or myself. Yes, he pushed her, he could have done more, but he didn't.

I'm upset with my mother for a lot of reasons not just one. If it was an onset situation that was sparatic, and increasingly repeating with violence and denial without trying to get help then I can justify my mothers actions. Together they decided to work at it together which they did, he started showing a lot of improvements. I believe she really wanted to start dating and resume an extensive social life with the my father being the detonator. I believe she was anticipating his next episode then capitalize on it. My brother and I have witnessed far more severe episodes prior to the last one yet she was ok with forgiving him and not taking it personal.

They were married, have both my brother and myself together! Not even days later, she initiated her dating and social circle? Leaving us in the apartment with instructions to bang on the wall if there was an emergency that our drug and alcohol abuser would come running? I'm sorry, but I hate that fu$@&!g bi?-h! Excuse my language

Ciao

 

[Lucycat]

@Anjelica . I am sorry for your loss. I hope you don't mind but I would like to sumarise your 'story' as I am understanding it and then ask some questions.

Your father was diagnosed with PTSD and subsequently committed suicide.
Via his therapist you know that your father sought support from your mother that was not forthcoming, prior to his death.
Your mother started dating again at a time you felt was inappropriate.
You and your brother were both children at the time of these events.

You have been receiving twice weekly therapy for the 17 years since then.
You are still grieving the loss of your father.
You do not, and do not want to, forgive your mother's actions.

So may I ask
What has 17years of therapy achieved?
Why do you keep going to therapy?
What do you want to gain from therapy - both now and back when you started?
What do you see as your future?

I do get the 'no forgiving' thing. I am not able to forgive either, but I am at peace with my decision, and do not feel angry.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Anjelica,

Thank you for answering me. I am just going to point out a few things here and hope you don't mind.

mother had him incarcerated

How do you explain this if your father was not capable of inflicting physical abuse?

The ground zero effect that he now hit, made him determined to change, he wanted to stop fighting and yelling and being abusive

This happens so often I am afraid. It's why I think putting firm boundaries in place can be the kindest thing for all concerned including the person that is out of control. It sounds like it was being incarcerated that initiated him wanting to change.

he pushed her, he could have done more, but he didn't.

witnessed far more severe episodes prior to the last one

Can you see how these two statements don't match? Most of these incidents tend to happen out of the eyesight of the children too.

NOT capable of physically inflicting pain or abuse

fighting and yelling and being abusive

Can you see again how these things don't match?

Leaving us in the apartment with instructions to bang on the wall if there was an emergency that our drug and alcohol abuser would come running?

This is very important. It sounds like you mother left you and your brother in the apartment alone. With a neighbour that was into drugs and alcohol supposedly on call. Is that right? If that is right then I am really sorry that happened to you. That must have been very frightening and it was very wrong of your mother to do that.

This is very painful stuff to discuss so well done for finding it in you to do so.