CPTSD and How it Has Affected My Parenting

I have been affected by abuse almost my entire life.

My biological family abused me emotionally and physically. My older brother also molested me a few times, that I can remember, and treated me inappropriately until I left the family home.

I married young for the first time at the age of 20 to a man 10 years older than me. That marriage didn’t work out due to the fact that we led very different lives. He was emotionally immature. He wanted to be an actor and he kept getting fired or laid off or he would quit without telling me from his jobs as a waiter. I also suspect that he was cheating on me during our 7 year relationship. I left him when I was 25.

But, it was my highly abusive 18 year relationship to a narcissist/sociopath that left me with cptsd. I was first diagnosed with it from a psychologist that I began seeing to deal with my emotional eating. I only was able to speak about my emotional eating for less than a month before my marriage blew up.

My ex was becoming more and more abusive and saying I was walking on eggshells was putting it lightly. He is a commercial fisherman. I used to say to people that if he was home all the time we wouldn’t be together, that I needed the breaks because he was too intense. Other than that, I kept everything else secret.

I was a people pleasing person that had joined the PAC at my children’s elementary school, started a book club, was on the gardening committee on my building’s strata, went to concerts, comedy shows, live theatre, the gym four times a week, baked, cooked homemade meals, had long lunches with friends and kept our three story town house clean and organised. I was busy all the time, anything to get out of the house and out of his way when he was around. By all outward appearances, I was happy with jokes and funny stories, dressed up when going out and was in shape. No problem, right?

But inward and at home, I was on edge. My ex was loud, I was being yelled at daily, sworn at and put down. Cupboards and doors were being slammed, he made his physical presence known by standing over me. I was never enough. He made fun of me to the kids, friends, family, neighbours and even strangers. I was being subjected to the silent treatment and confrontations fairly regularly.

When I was being love bombed, nothing I could do was wrong and everything about me was great. Now, everything about me was awful and I was put down constantly. If I bought someone a gift, why would I do that? Whereas before I was generous. If I had an opinion it was always wrong. I was called every swear word in the book and interrupted constantly.

We tried 3 marriage counsellors. The first one told me to sleep on the couch in order to not give him any false ideas. But, this led my ex to thinking I was cheating on him and he went hrough my phone and grilled me about what he found on it, when I accidentally left the password off. He also installed a spy program on our shared laptop. It sent him a daily update on everything I did, including showing him all the emails I sent.

The second one fired us after three sessions, one joint and two private, one for each of us. In our private session, he told me that I needed to divorce him because our life would only get worse that my ex would never change. But, when we had our joint session he said to me that I needed to be kinder because my ex had feelings and that I wasn’t considering them. This told me that he bought my ex’s superficial charm and his mask which he knew how to put on when needed. He recommended we try a different kind of therapist that would get to the bottom of why we were behaving the way we were. A deeper type of therapy. I was willing to try, because at the time I believed in trying to keep the family together for the children’s sake.

The third therapist gave up after a few month’s worth of sessions. We were exploring an issue that had arisen when we were on a holiday. My son, who was eight at the time, had failed off my ex’s bike when he tried to ride with him. My ex blamed our son saying he did it on purpose, that he just wanted attention. He rode off yelling at me, leaving me with two children and our bikes. Our son was crying and injured.

The therapist and I were trying to explain to him that an eight year old would not fall on purpose, their brains don’t think like that. I ended up watching silently for 45 minutes while the therapist tried, like I did, to get through to my ex. She finally gave up and asked me how it felt to watch her go through what I probably do on a regular basis. I replied that it gave me no hope for the future. That was the last time we saw her because she said we shouldn’t return if he was unwilling to see anyone else’s perspective. He yelled at me in the car that we were ganging up on him and that she was a bitch.

My kids were listening, silently to how I was being treated throughout all of this abuse, including his escalations. When I decided to no longer fake apologies for a mistreatment of him that he made up in his head, he decided to take it up a notch.

I know I have written about this a few times, so I am sorry if this part bores you, I will keep it short. He took out all of the money in our joint accounts, took my main car key and cancelled the data on my cell phone. He did all of this in the space of one afternoon. Everything was in his name as the main account holder. The children and I fled to Bowen Island out of fear with nothing packed. We didn’t say goodbye, we left in secret. My daughter was told to go to a neighbour’s house and we left after I came home from my son’s baseball practice.

I had no where to go and no plan with no access to money other than a few credit cards and credit lines in my name. We ended up having to return home and I hoped that he would move out but he didn’t until his next escalation seven month’s later. My life was a living hell during that time. Despite having a lawyer because he didn’t physically touch me, I had no legal recourse to get him out. Verbal abuse, coercive control, financial abuse and emotional abuse does not give you legal protection to get an abuser out of the house.

I lived mostly outside, bundled up when it was cold and came in when the children went to bed, bringing everything I needed with me upstairs. He wouldn’t take the clothes he needed for the night beforehand, so I had to brace myself for his visit. I barely slept. He would sometimes come outside to yell and swear at me in front of the neighbours, but they never intervened. I think now that I have moved, I have become an afterthought. “Whatever happened to L? I hope her and the kids are alright, that poor woman, he was awful.” I am sure they are happy we have moved away. Out of sight, out of mind. I used to socialize with a few of them. No one has contacted me in eight months.

One time, after I unlocked the car for the children to drop them off at the pool before heading to the lawyer’s office, he let himself into the passenger side and demanded a ride. I told him that I didn’t have time to give him one and that I don’t want to give him a ride. He started screaming and making threats that I was lucky I had a car and that at any time he could call it in as stolen. He got out a few blocks later when I told him that was as far as I could drive him. This was the kind of terror I was living with on a daily basis. He didn’t care that the children were now upset and I had to spend a few extra minutes acting like I was ok before having friends watch them so I could see my lawyer.

It wasn’t until he came after me with four tools, pacing the first floor of the townhouse screaming at me in a loop the same things over and over while our daughter was watching tv that I was finally able to get him out of the family home. I sent our daughter upstairs and told her to get dressed. Our son was playing outside with a friend. When he returned, I sent the friend home. I told the children that we were going out to do an errand. My ex yelled at me if we were going to take off like last time and wanted our son to stay behind. I told him that he was coming with us. We fled again, first to a friend’s house and then to a hotel for the second night. That is how I received my first protection order and got him out of the house.

Since our separation in 2018 my ex has done and continues to do the following things, here is a short list.

A big one is, financial abuse, he has not once voluntarily paid child or spousal support. I only receive it through filing with the Family Maintenance Enforcement Plan. He makes at least ten times more than I do but can’t be bothered to pay it. I know it’s a form of control, one that he gets the most pleasure out of. At one point, he owed me over $50,000. At one point, he lost his driver’s license, his passport and his marine license and he still wouldn’t pay.

He won’t pay special expenses for the children, he is still behind three year’s worth. He does get single cheques made out for up to $67,000 but can’t give me a single payment for $100.00. Again, a form of control, paying for a dental visit isn’t fun but buying your daughter a Dior vintage purse that she didn’t want is.

Refusing to sign our daughter’s passport. Before Covid when we could have driven to Seattle, he refused to sign it. We had more than 20 emails in regards to it, a very upset child and in the end it had to go to court and now we can’t go anywhere anyways.

He refused to give his address for over a year and then claimed parental alienation when I said no to overnight visits when our son was nine years old. Our son has memory executive function issues and my ex has no landline. Enough said. Now our son, who is almost thirteen, refuses overnight visits and my ex has no one to blame but himself.

He sends our children texts, emails and videos of his world trips and wonders why they get upset when we can’t go anywhere due to financial and previous passport issues. Look, I am in London at Harry Potter! Look, I am in Kenya on a Safari! I am in Vegas! Can we say jerk?

There is more, but this is some of the big stuff.

All of the mistreatment and abuse that he gave me and the children with 18 years with him and 4 years of separation has left me with cptsd and this has affected my parenting, my relationship with my children and my day to day living. I want to get off this train and lessen my symptoms to the point where I can live a more productive and calmer life.

The symptoms that I suffer with daily are: rumination, disassociation, hyper-vigilance, lack of worthiness, an allover feeling of sadness, isolation, lack of care of my physical health, no self care routine, a want to self harm and nightmares. All of this greatly affects my parenting even though I do my best to hide it and I never discuss any of it with my children.

I know that my children have been greatly affected as well but I don’t want to discuss their issues as things live on the internet forever and they can tell their story if they want to when they are adults.

Rumination: Every single day I have a running narrative in my head about things that have happened to me or conversations I want to have with people. I wish I could just enjoy a show or what I was doing in the moment, but I don’t think I have every had that luxury in my life. I can’t imagine what that must feel like for people who can live in the moment. It must feel amazing. My kids will be speaking to me and I have to ask them to repeat themselves and then I get an eye roll, a sigh or I am told that I need to get my hearing checked because of it.

Disassociation: This is similar to rumination except that it’s more like I am lost in time. I will be sitting somewhere or laying on the couch watching tv or looking on the internet and hours may have gone by and I will think it has been five minutes. My gaze will have been off and someone could have been speaking to me and I have not heard a single word. I have driven in this state. I have been disassociating since I was very little and being abused. As a child, I floated away from my body so I didn’t feel what was happening to me.

It’s not helpful as an adult and you are no longer in imminent danger. I do believe that my safety instincts still kick in and I still drive safely but I have gone an extra block or two before I snap out of it. I usually disassociate when I am thinking about past abuse. This is one symptom that I would like to get rid of. I think trauma therapy is needed for this one.

Hyper-Vigilance: I have had hyper-vigilance since I was a kid. Growing up in an abusive household and not knowing if your parents or brother is in a good mood or bad is going to give you this symptom. I don’t know if I will ever be able to get rid of this one. I am always on edge, expecting the worst out of anyone. My ex made this one a lot worse. I can never relax or be calm. When I took my college program for my job, we did deep breathing exercises. I couldn’t do them and I couldn’t close my eyes. I sat there and cried.

I am trying to force myself to do calming exercises, mediate and walk in an attempt to slow my brain and body down. When people are genuinely nice to me, I tear up. Once a boat evaluator pumped my gas after I paid for it and I sat in the car and cried. That is how strong this symptom is for me. I always expect people to be mad and I am always waiting for the jumping spider so to speak.

Lack of Worthiness: This is another symptom I initially received from my biological family. My parents never said they were proud of me and I was put down a lot. Then when my ex did it after the love bombing phase ended, it just re-enforced what was already done to me. I know that I am good at my job, but because I haven’t broken the cycle that I was trying to break when I left my ex, I still feel inferior.

Depression: I don’t know if I have ever not been depressed and just had times in my life that I hid it better. I take medication for migraine prevention so I don’t want to add medication for depression on top of that. Hopefully, I can find a type of therapy that adding medication won’t be necessary. It’s hard to try to be a cheerleader at home with children that have closed doors and are being manipulated by their father. I think I need to add some outside activities that are just for me. I should probably one day as an experiment actually try what they say to do to cope with depression.

Isolation: I used to be the organiser for my friends and no one would organise anything because of my role in my friend group. Then the pandemic hit and everyone retreated into their bubble, forgetting or not caring that I was the only single mom in the group. I reached out for awhile and got the standard that when things went back to normal they would get back to me.

I came down with one frozen shoulder and then the other became frozen. The great V who helped me throughout that time said that it was from stress and everything I was going though. I decided that I wasn’t going to be the organiser anymore as I was quite upset that not many people were there for me during this tough time. I isolated for a long time while I was very depressed with suicidal isolation for two years that still comes and goes.

Now, it’s very hard for me to come out isolation. I have to force myself and I am usually happy to get out when I do but it showed me that most people are not there for you in hard times.

Physical Health: I don’t take care of my general health as a rule. This stems from my parents not really caring about it and my ex also solidified this as well. I used to get really bad periods and my mother wouldn’t give me any Advil or Tylenol or take me to the doctor. Instead I would sweat and the pain would be so bad, I would throw up. It’s possible I had endometriosis that cleared up after I had my first child because the periods were that bad two to three days every month until she was born. I also had tonsillitis a few times a year, the doctor suggested that I get my tonsils taken out to my mother, but she wouldn’t do it. I was recently told they should be taken out by my dentist, but I have no one to watch my children to get this done.

I once was sick for six weeks when our children were two and five. It went from strep throat to scarlet fever. I couldn’t speak or eat anything as it was so hard to swallow. My ex took his time getting me medicine and painkillers. He was overwhelmed with the care of two children as he rarely looked after them. Once, he left our two year old son on the bed with me, which was on the third floor, and my cellphone was dead. My son peed all over the sheets and he didn’t return for a few hours leaving the two of us on a wet bed.

I have never started looking after myself despite my friends and my therapist telling me to do so. I am fairly certain that I have had a staph infection for the last while and I have never had a mammogram done, even though I should have started a few years ago. I think it’s partly not taking care of oneself and also also not wanting to know what could happen in the future. I also think I am not worthy of looking after myself.

There is no one to take care of my kids. My ex sees them on average of once a week for around 90 minutes to take them out for dinner. He can’t take care of them, he never has except for a week when he thought I needed a vacation because it would “fix what was wrong with me” and I knew our marriage was ending soon. I took the opportunatity to go to London because I knew this was my last chance. When I met them at the airport afterwards, they hadn’t showered the whole time I was gone nor did he cut their nails or do any laundry. It also took me about three days to clean up the townhouse.

I don’t have any family members to look after my children if something happens to me, so if I ignore my health nothing is wrong, ingornance is bliss. I just need to get through the next few years.

Self Care: My self care routine is garbage. It consists of emotional eating which in turn leads to self-hatred. I used to be anorexic as a teen, but that changed with my first marriage to emotional eating and I haven’t been able to shake it. I am jealous of my friends that don’t eat when they are upset. It is more socially acceptable to be too skinny than chubby. I also zone out on my phone and in front of the tv. I have about one drink a day.

Healthy self care routines take energy and time. I have hundreds of dollars worth of books, audiobooks, puzzles, colouring books, journals, gratitude books, paints, etc. They sit there just waiting for me to pick them up and do them. I keep thinking one day I will start but it never happens. I am not a good role model for my children.

Self Harm: This one I can keep in check, but I have the thought every single day. I hope I can keep reduce or eliminate them when my children are no longer living under the same roof as me. My life has been difficult ever since I was a young child and I don’t know if I will have a reason to not go forward with it when my children no longer with me every day. I have only mentioned this on Twitter, as I think my real life friends wouldn’t know what to do but fellow survivours understand where I am coming from.

Nightmares: I have suffered from nightmares ever since I can remember. When I was around four, I remember waking up on the kitchen counter and my parents were asking what I was saying. I was having a night terror.

I then used to sleep between my parents after a nightmare until my father felt I was too old. After that, I moved to the couch to sleep after a nightmare until his alarm went off for work and then I would move to my bed.

Now, I take a migraine prevention medication that helps with ptsd nightmares. I have to time it just right, if I go to bed too early, I will still have a nightmare about my ex or my biological family. Sometimes I will have them in the morning as well. It’s not necessarily about something they did, but the emotions I feel about them. The only thing that saves me about the dreams is an article I read several years ago that said you can wake yourself up by telling yourself to wake up. It does work, I have done it a few times. The only problem is that you have still had the scary part of the dream first.

My neurologist has wanted me to wean off the medication, but I told him I wasn’t ready to. Hopefully, if I ever start trauma therapy I won’t be so dependant on the medication.

Honesty and Hope I am sharing all of this deeply personal information about my symptoms in an attempt to reduce my shame as I have been keeping this inside of me out of embarrassment.

When people put on social media that people like me shouldn’t have had children, they don’t realise that the love bombing feels real to us and the abuse is slow and insidious. The victim blaming keeps us stuck and we need to tell our story and be heard. I picked the wrong partner but I didn’t know any better due to the childhood I had.

I told my therapist at my last session that I thought that by allowing my marriage to end, I broke the cycle of generational abuse, but I didn’t.

Although, our life is calmer and quieter there is still a lot of work to be done and relationships to be repaired. I don’t know if I have enough time and if my children are willing to do the work with me. Maybe once there is distance and they are adults, they will see what I tried to do. Time will tell.

I am going to try to work with the time I have left to try to repair what I can and work on my symptoms to live as full of a life as I can.

Thank you for reading.