Triggers? & My story
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Ohio
Posts: 62
Triggers? & My story
I was wondering if there are any ACoA's on this board who have triggers? Certian things that bring back traumatic memories? And how do you deal with them? I think I may have a mild form of PTSD & hope I can share my story here. Music always seems to bring back tramatic memories for me....especially the song "daughters" by John Mayor. It makes me break down every single time.
I despise my father. I wish I could love him. Well maybe I don't wish I could love "him" but I wish I could love a father...any father....and have him love me & erase all the trauma of my childhood. I am so angry at him for all the pain that he has caused to my family. Sometimes we will get to a point where we will get along - and for however brief it might be - I trick myself into believing that maybe this time will be diffrent but it never lasts. When we do get along(those moments are rare) it is never "love" it is never a father daughter relationship. It is superficial. There is no connection...no bond. The handful of times that he has hugged me in 21 years and the maybe 1 time he has said I love you(I don't remember him ever saying this actually) It made me so horribly distressed and disgusted that I had panic attacks and felt physically ill for days/weeks afterwords. What the hell is that? I don't even want him to touch me or look at me in any "fatherly" way. It makes me sick./...he makes me sick....you can't have 1 moment of "clarity" and say 1 kind word and expect it to make up for everything horrific that has happened.
My mother is a classic co-dependant "victom". She takes no responsibility for our suffering and always says she did the best she could. She was selfish. She let my father attack, degrage, and abuse us....she did nothing. She was too ashamed to let anyone know her marriage had gone sour. She always says that she had to deal with my father too & she suffered more because she had to take the brunt of it. Um.....hello. She was just married to the man for a few years. I will be forever damaged...emotionally & psycologically...for the rest of my life. She can move on. She had loving parents. She can marry some other guy....but I will always have to live with his blood coursing through my veins.....I will never be able to replace him with someone else. I will never get cared for or my feelings validated. There can't be any replacement for what I lost.
I had a difficult childhood growing up to say the least. Alcohol is only the tip of the iceburgh in my "family". My father was also abusive & has issues with rage. He is 2 distinct people - and he morphs between his 2 personalities when either one will suite him. When we are with his family pretending that we are the pefect little family - he takes on the role of loving caring "father"....at home it is a diffrent story. All of my cousins are starting to have babies & it pisses me off to now end when we visit family and he will pick up and snuggle my infant cousins/neice's/nephews - like he is some loving man. Why couldn't he pick me up & snuggle me when I was scared, and alone, and afraid? Why can he love someone else's kid but abuse his own?
Does this pain and confusion ever go away??? I have just started working through these problems. I just started connecting my feelings to my childhood. I truely didn't know or understand why I was so depressed & isiolated & withdrawn and why I needed to hurt myself to relieve some of the pain. I didn't understand until just recently and I now have all these feelings to work through and memories to sort out. Everyone always tells me what a good person I am, how smart, and funny, and attractive, and endeering I am....Its just hard to believe them sometimes when you are working through 21 years of repressed negatiove emotions. Does this ever get easier?
I despise my father. I wish I could love him. Well maybe I don't wish I could love "him" but I wish I could love a father...any father....and have him love me & erase all the trauma of my childhood. I am so angry at him for all the pain that he has caused to my family. Sometimes we will get to a point where we will get along - and for however brief it might be - I trick myself into believing that maybe this time will be diffrent but it never lasts. When we do get along(those moments are rare) it is never "love" it is never a father daughter relationship. It is superficial. There is no connection...no bond. The handful of times that he has hugged me in 21 years and the maybe 1 time he has said I love you(I don't remember him ever saying this actually) It made me so horribly distressed and disgusted that I had panic attacks and felt physically ill for days/weeks afterwords. What the hell is that? I don't even want him to touch me or look at me in any "fatherly" way. It makes me sick./...he makes me sick....you can't have 1 moment of "clarity" and say 1 kind word and expect it to make up for everything horrific that has happened.
My mother is a classic co-dependant "victom". She takes no responsibility for our suffering and always says she did the best she could. She was selfish. She let my father attack, degrage, and abuse us....she did nothing. She was too ashamed to let anyone know her marriage had gone sour. She always says that she had to deal with my father too & she suffered more because she had to take the brunt of it. Um.....hello. She was just married to the man for a few years. I will be forever damaged...emotionally & psycologically...for the rest of my life. She can move on. She had loving parents. She can marry some other guy....but I will always have to live with his blood coursing through my veins.....I will never be able to replace him with someone else. I will never get cared for or my feelings validated. There can't be any replacement for what I lost.
I had a difficult childhood growing up to say the least. Alcohol is only the tip of the iceburgh in my "family". My father was also abusive & has issues with rage. He is 2 distinct people - and he morphs between his 2 personalities when either one will suite him. When we are with his family pretending that we are the pefect little family - he takes on the role of loving caring "father"....at home it is a diffrent story. All of my cousins are starting to have babies & it pisses me off to now end when we visit family and he will pick up and snuggle my infant cousins/neice's/nephews - like he is some loving man. Why couldn't he pick me up & snuggle me when I was scared, and alone, and afraid? Why can he love someone else's kid but abuse his own?
Does this pain and confusion ever go away??? I have just started working through these problems. I just started connecting my feelings to my childhood. I truely didn't know or understand why I was so depressed & isiolated & withdrawn and why I needed to hurt myself to relieve some of the pain. I didn't understand until just recently and I now have all these feelings to work through and memories to sort out. Everyone always tells me what a good person I am, how smart, and funny, and attractive, and endeering I am....Its just hard to believe them sometimes when you are working through 21 years of repressed negatiove emotions. Does this ever get easier?
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 3,812
Welcome ... Im glad you here...
To answer your big question:
If you really want it too and are ready to go to any lengths to have peace and senerity .... then I can tell you a definate YES it gets easier.
The bad news is it hurts like hell before you get there.
I do completely understand what you feel.... when I was 21 I felt the same way about my Mother. I also would get physically sick and I struggled with all the internal chaos ... while on the outside no one could hear me screaming.... most because I would not let them in. I struggled trying to understand how my Dad could let this happen.... Your not alone in any of this.
I was 27 when I started to seriously work though all my issues and I was willing to do anything not to feel like I did and to change the person I was becoming. Very Intense theraphy is how I started the process.
Today I use Theraphy (yep still go back off and on for different reasons) Al-anon, Open AA meetings, SR and I read everything I can get my hands on.
I look forward to getting to know you, please keep posting and sorting through it all, life is soooo worth it.
To answer your big question:
Does this ever get easier?
The bad news is it hurts like hell before you get there.
I do completely understand what you feel.... when I was 21 I felt the same way about my Mother. I also would get physically sick and I struggled with all the internal chaos ... while on the outside no one could hear me screaming.... most because I would not let them in. I struggled trying to understand how my Dad could let this happen.... Your not alone in any of this.
I was 27 when I started to seriously work though all my issues and I was willing to do anything not to feel like I did and to change the person I was becoming. Very Intense theraphy is how I started the process.
Today I use Theraphy (yep still go back off and on for different reasons) Al-anon, Open AA meetings, SR and I read everything I can get my hands on.
I look forward to getting to know you, please keep posting and sorting through it all, life is soooo worth it.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Starting over all over again
Posts: 4,426
Hello Mlynn, and welcome to our little corner of recovery.
I'm so sorry you have so much pain and emotions towards your biological family. I too went thru many of the feelings you describe. My family was different than yours as both my parents were alkies, so the details of my story are different, but otherwise I think we have many of the same feelings.
As Cynay said, yes all those hurtful feelings can be "healed" if you really want to. I also went to therapy and shared in meetings of ACoA. If you take a little time and browse thru the posts here, as well as the "sticky" posts at the top of the forum you'll see that a lot of us have come a long way from where we started. Many of us have very healthy, normal lives today. My parents have passed, but I was able to find "closure" with my painful childhood even though they never changed their behavior. I have since "adopted" my mother-in-law as my new "Mom". She is a charming 93yr. old lady who didn't have any kids of her own and is tickled to have me call her Mom.
Welcome again, know that we all share many of the same feelings you write about, even though the details of our history is different. I'm glad you decided to join us.
Mike
I'm so sorry you have so much pain and emotions towards your biological family. I too went thru many of the feelings you describe. My family was different than yours as both my parents were alkies, so the details of my story are different, but otherwise I think we have many of the same feelings.
As Cynay said, yes all those hurtful feelings can be "healed" if you really want to. I also went to therapy and shared in meetings of ACoA. If you take a little time and browse thru the posts here, as well as the "sticky" posts at the top of the forum you'll see that a lot of us have come a long way from where we started. Many of us have very healthy, normal lives today. My parents have passed, but I was able to find "closure" with my painful childhood even though they never changed their behavior. I have since "adopted" my mother-in-law as my new "Mom". She is a charming 93yr. old lady who didn't have any kids of her own and is tickled to have me call her Mom.
Welcome again, know that we all share many of the same feelings you write about, even though the details of our history is different. I'm glad you decided to join us.
Mike
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