For the first time in several years I spent Christmas day with my mum, who has a diagnosed complex personality disorder. DM does not accept her diagnosis and is very emotionally unstable, and was very abusive to me in childhood.
I was scapegoated as a child so I had very little relationship with my mother as an adult (no interest in me or my life) until I had children. Now I have children she has really high expectations about how much she should be able to see/care for my children and because I don't do what she wants (because I don't want my children subjected to her emotional instability and explosiveness) she treats me like utter shit.
For a variety of reasons I agreed to see family this Christmas. It wasn't even that bad, on the scale of things. But just so many micro aggressions and even small things like her hyper fixating on my children and completely ignoring me when I tried to speak to her, or laughing at me when I got hurt... And just the general tone of instability just set me on edge.
Now I'm experiencing this weird kind of unstable feeling, it's like it has triggered this trauma or not way I felt about myself from childhood. I do my best as an adult with little support and a lot of trauma, and generally feel confident in my decisions and ability to do what is right for my family. But this has really pulled the carpet from under me. I think it's just these minor interactions reminded me of how completely worthless I felt as a child. This has really knocked me.
Does anyone else have a similar experience? How do you cope when you are 'triggered' like this, and what helps you?