Dear Annie:

I re-read your post above. I feel sadness for you, how sad it is that you lived – and are living- this kind of life.

As I see it (and I can’t see how anyone can possibly see it otherwise unless deluded), you are living in a war zone. Your PTSD is the result of having lived your life in a war zone. Only you still visit that zone for another dose of same. You asked: “What can I do?”

Get out of the war zone and stay out. Stay away from the war zone for good, as in forever, as in for the rest of your life. What other advice can you give a person who no longer has to be in the war zone?

You didn’t have a choice as a child. Now you do. Annie, please, do anything and everything in your power to never again go back there. Take whatever belongings you need or want from that house, say goodbye- or not- and leave, never to go back.

Whatever it takes, whatever the cost- stopping college, anything but your very life. Get out, leave, never go back. Never again.

Whatever attachement you feel to your father, mother, siblings- that will pull you back to that house. How do you put your self interest first? How do you believe in your heart and mind, that the attachment you feel should not translate to going back to that place, that house (going back to be in the physical presence of your mother and/ or your father wherever they are)?

How do you observe your attachment to that abusive father, to that abusive mother, and figure: this attachment does not mean I should ever be in their presence again?

I can’t think of anything but the attachment that will make it hard for you to stay away. If they are financing you now, this may be a practical attachment of sorts, but their money, if a factor, is so not worth it. If I could go back in time, I would leave my mother’s little apartment when I was twenty or younger, whatever it took, whatever it took.

anita

Dear Annie:

My empathy, Annie. I suggested you leave that house but I cannot insist on you doing so. One good reason why that would be unreasonable for me to do so is because .. I will not be there to hold your hand as you leave that house, or to provide you with a place to live in or a job or money or emotional support, etc. I do hope that one day, soon enough, you will be out of there. You wrote here: “Being here has destroyed me.” how can anyone wish anything other than you not living there anymore? You also wrote: “They have done so much for me.” Huh? You mean the feeding in between the abuse? Yes, my mother was the greatest cook. She fed me very well. She fed me and clothed me with her very hard earned money and she robbed me from LIFE. She crushed me and fed and clothed the stump of a person left there on the floor. Not a good deal for me.

“I wouldn’t… have… any of the nice things I have,” you wrote. Nice things are kindness and respect. You don’t have those nice things, do you?

The fact that your mother was abused as a child too is not surprising. When is it not the case, that an abusive mother was also abused as a child? She having been abused doesn’t make your abuse hurt any less.

Do what you can do to help yourself.
anita