Hey jrn,
I'm finally coming back to this post after a long time.
I'd like to thank everyone here for their replies, but I'm responding directly to you.
As you could see in my post, I was feeling incredibly angry and resentful and I was venting a lot of suppressed emotion.
I don't regret any of what I wrote though.
I do realise that their are complexities to my mother, and she is not all this or all that, she has made me feel loved in her own way at times, but I have spent long enough, as have the rest of my family, justifying her bad behaviour. My emotion, my intuition doesn't lie about the severity of her impact.
But, I don't want to dwell in feelings of bitterness and frustration and helplessness and yuck stuff any longer than I have to.
I just want to express a desire for change and I want that desire to be reciprocated.
I find now, my true expression frequently gets caught in my throat, it often feels hard to even know what or how I feel, but my baseline has been one of emptiness and pain. I won't betray myself any longer.
There are realities that are undeniable. Police have been called on our family a number of times, solely because of our mother. We had neighbours that MOVED house during one of her most severe periods because of her. The mother of the neighbours household came straight up to me when they were planning to leave and said in my face, "I feel so sorry for you kids." I'll never forget that. ALL of my siblings have gone to therapy and a large bulk of all of the therapeutic work we have done has implicated our mother.
I said she had a diagnosis of Bipolar II. And I guarantee you, if she went to a truly competent, switched on and experienced psychologist, she would also be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Having this mix in a mother feels like I've been cursed in someway. It feels incredibly unfair. Particularly when I'm honest now with my current state of mind and body.
It's probably a main reason why I am currently so anti-religion. Because why would God give me this to deal with.
My 'victimhood' is mainly rooted in how helpless I feel with the indifference I've experienced in my life. It makes me feel apathetic. I know there are people who would have stepped in if they were there as witnesses (my mother often hid her behaviour from the external world).
It has tainted my worldview. I now have a generally nihilistic and very cynical view toward life that I am trying very hard to break, to find true joy again. But it often feels like change might be a kind of pipe dream now.
It's probably important not to lump ALL of my struggles toward my mother, I don't want to do that, but perhaps my own struggles with mood and generalised anxiety are also a part of the genetics she passed onto me.
Really, I think this all boils down to the state of my nervous system. It's frozen. I'm in a freeze state still. That's why life feels so colourless and like I'm drifting along feeling disconnected, spaced out and confused.
I lump my feelings into CPTSD, but the good thing is I have felt times of true difference, mainly in healthy relationships with people outside my family. Go figure.
Right now, I have no choice but to take action in pain, as I keep finding myself circling back to the bad but familiar.
After I've said all this, and vented again, I do have a question on the topic of CPTSD.
Have you heard of the Blue Knot Foundation? They are a CPTSD helpline.
Would you have had any experience with them by chance? If so, what was it like?
I hope you can understand my desire to express all this, this forum is the only real avenue I have for processing emotions right now.
