Posting in aibu because of the breadth of people's experience and opinions here.
I had a very abusive father. My mother was all about appearances and basically denied and pretended things weren't happening interspersed with breaking down and wailing about it all.
After lots of therapy and research I've realised that my dad probably had ptsd.
There are a few bad things in his past that I know about however I think there was probably something else that was worse. I think this because I just had a discussion on a support group where it came up that the person might repeat or refer to something that happened. My dad often talked about one topic in particular that never had any relevance to what was happening or being talked about. I won't say what it was but it was always a case of wondering why on earth he was mentioning it. He also behaved terribly generally.
Just to be clear I'm not saying everyone with ptsd behaves badly. That's not my point at all.
I've had a lot of problems myself. I'm trying to repair and move forward. My mum trying to trick me into thinking everything was fine and normal when my mind was screaming out that it wasn't has taken a heavy toll and I struggle with sense of identity, decision making, anxiety and poor mental health generally.
Essentially I have just realised that my dad kind of spread his trauma across myself and my mum, who also has bad mental health problems which got worse the longer she stayed with my dad.
So my question is, other than therapy, what is a good way forward from this?
As a child and all through my relationship with him I've been taking on the untreated horrors of someone else's trauma, I don't even know what all of these events were, even though I know some and have an idea about the other.
Sorry to trouble people but this is a big revelation to me and makes so much sense. If anyone has any experience or advice I would really appreciate it.