Therapy

My issues are mostly with control. My mom was tough growing up, highly anxious, perfectionism as a trauma response, emotionally abusive (narcissistic abuse/gaslighting), occasionally physical punishment.

We could really get into it hat for hours but that’s the gist there. My Father was one of eight children and his father was an extremely abusive drunk. He was a gold gloves boxer in the marine corps and he practiced on his family. My father never hit us. Never ever. Not even once. How’s that for breaking generational trauma? So far as I know my aunts and uncles did as well excepting the two that fell into substance abuse and overdosed.

I started to hear the things my mother said to us coming out of my mouth when my children were being difficult and I triggered myself. I was like, “I’ve become the very thing that damaged me.” It’s normal to me. I was always called stupid for putting a spoon in the wrong place or tracking dirt in the house. By 7 years old I believed everything she said was true. Now still to this day, a cluttered house triggers me.

At 14 I was assaulted by a group of older guys and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. Temporal lobe depression fracture resulting in a laceration on my cortex which needed 16 stitches. They put the skull back together with three plates and closed up my scalp with 23 staples. I was home safe in 4 days. That was 30 years ago. I can only imagine how far the medical technology has come.

All that being said, my complex trauma comes from my childhood less than getting beat within an inch of my life. Being hurt once by people you dislike is very different from being berated constantly by the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally.

She’s in therapy now herself. Her childhood was the same. Perfectionist father, emotional abuse, leather strap. Our relationship is not strained exactly but I know she wants more contact and I like my bounds for now. We still talk regularly and that’s working for me. She’s actually a very compassionate person who often goes way out of her way to help others. She just has a tough time processing emotions so she projects. I am the same through and through.

Her behaviors permeated every aspect of my life. But…

I have the power of Both/And.

I both know my parents effected me, those feelings are valid; And I also know they did the best they could with the tools they had.

Tim

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