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Original poster

How do you deal with traumatic memories?

3 replies

Kjones27 · 07/03/2024 12:12

I put this in relationships as this was my family relationships.

I've had a lot of family issues.

My mum and dad divorced. My dad met a new woman. My mum moved with me and brother to another eu country.

My visits to my dad were sporadic. There were once a year for a while. Then when I was 15, my dad sent me a letter saying "I've decided I will be more peaceful if I never see you or your brother again". I didn't want this and at that age I naively thought that he couldn't possibly mean it. I spent years writing to him asking him to please see me. He wouldn't reply.

When I was 27, my cousin on that side asked me to go see her. I went to see her, then as I was so close to where my dad and granny were living, I decided to go up and see my dad and granny. My granny was really happy to see me. She kissed me and said I love you. My dad was polite but slightly cold.

My dad drove me back to my cousins house. And this is where the real trauma happened.

My cousin and my aunt (uncles wife) screamed and shouted at me for going to see my dad. They said I could upset relationships in the family. That I could ruin the relationship between my uncle and my dad. I was screamed at. My cousin said 'I shouldn't have even let you stay with me' she was so so awful. I ran out of her house crying.
My dad drove me away and I stayed in my grans house that night. My dad said he would keep in contact.

I went back to my country. And my cousin sent me a really nasty Facebook message.
She said "your family here wanted nothing to with you. I upset people by even speaking to you. Your father wouldn't talk to you for the last 13 years". "I was worried I caused a rift by even letting you stay with me".

I was 26 when I went over. My cousin acknowledges that my dad stopped talking to me 13 years ago, so I was 13 when he stopped talking to me. I was a child when he stopped talking to me

Yet she blamed me.

Added to this, after she sent me the message, my dad sent me a letter saying "I know I said I would stay in contact with you, I changed my mind, I don't want to see you again".

I didn't try again with him. They were so cruel that I had a complete mental breakdown after my visit to them.

Ten years later I still am in therapy over it, still cry about it all the time.

What absolutely breaks me is the injustice of it all. I was a CHILD when my dad stopped talking to me, yet his family blamed me , the child, for it.

I know if I mentioned it to them now, that my dad walked away from his two kids, i would still get blamed. If I pointed out that I was a child at the time they wouldn't care.

It's ten years later now, and what they did is just eating me up and is destroying my life. I can't seem to get over it. I cry about it all the time . I've had nightmares about it a lot. I went to therapy about it. It's ruining my life as I can't stop thinking about it.

Does anyone have any aadvice on how to get over a trauma

OP posts:
mindutopia · 07/03/2024 12:27

I think you need different/better therapy. Possibly even consider CBT/EMDR.

What I suspect though is that this has nothing to do with you. There is a family dynamic going on that you probably don't know about. There is information that you aren't privy to that explains their reactions, which at face value seem quite bonkers. But if you were to understand what's happened behind the scenes, over those many years when your dad cut you out of his life and likely before that, even through past generations, it might start to make sense, even though it's painful. I have a similar dynamic in my family and am NC with them.

What has helped me is coming to accept that I can't fix other people who won't fix themselves. Your dad is obviously a pretty messed up person to walk away from his children for so long. And your extended family is probably pretty dysfunctional for having been swept up into all of this as well. When I look at my family, I can see that so many of them have pushed everything down and refused to deal with any of it for decades and decades. I can have compassion for them still holding on to denial and their crazy stories that make sense of why they behave the way they do. It must be a horrible way to live. I've chosen not to make those lies and that denial part of my story. So it's been about coming around to a place of being grateful I'm not like them but having compassion for them still choosing to be stuck in that place and never questioning anything that's helped me to let that go.

How did I get there? I think it was a combination of therapy, stubbornness and determination not to just end up like them and repeating the same cycle with my children, and also wanting to be free of it. It's easy to continue to poke at the wound when you have family trauma. You keep opening up and re-feeling it because it's all you know. After a point though, I got tired of living like that. I wanted my life back. So a bit of it was just being ready to let it go, close the book, move on with life. I don't think there is a magic solution though.

Original poster
Kjones27 · 07/03/2024 13:04

mindutopia · 07/03/2024 12:27

I think you need different/better therapy. Possibly even consider CBT/EMDR.

What I suspect though is that this has nothing to do with you. There is a family dynamic going on that you probably don't know about. There is information that you aren't privy to that explains their reactions, which at face value seem quite bonkers. But if you were to understand what's happened behind the scenes, over those many years when your dad cut you out of his life and likely before that, even through past generations, it might start to make sense, even though it's painful. I have a similar dynamic in my family and am NC with them.

What has helped me is coming to accept that I can't fix other people who won't fix themselves. Your dad is obviously a pretty messed up person to walk away from his children for so long. And your extended family is probably pretty dysfunctional for having been swept up into all of this as well. When I look at my family, I can see that so many of them have pushed everything down and refused to deal with any of it for decades and decades. I can have compassion for them still holding on to denial and their crazy stories that make sense of why they behave the way they do. It must be a horrible way to live. I've chosen not to make those lies and that denial part of my story. So it's been about coming around to a place of being grateful I'm not like them but having compassion for them still choosing to be stuck in that place and never questioning anything that's helped me to let that go.

How did I get there? I think it was a combination of therapy, stubbornness and determination not to just end up like them and repeating the same cycle with my children, and also wanting to be free of it. It's easy to continue to poke at the wound when you have family trauma. You keep opening up and re-feeling it because it's all you know. After a point though, I got tired of living like that. I wanted my life back. So a bit of it was just being ready to let it go, close the book, move on with life. I don't think there is a magic solution though.

Edited

Thanks for your reply.

I think the reason why they did it was this:

I think it was more convenient for them to blame me because I didn't live near them.

My father snd his girlfriend lived near my uncle and his wife.

So even though my father was clearly in the wrong for walking away from his two children.

And my uncle and his family could see that.

They didn't want to call my father out on his behaviour and potentially upset the relationship between my uncle and my father.

It was more convenient for them to blame me : the child who was abandoned.

They had no regard or concern whatsoever for my feelings. They just thought about themselves.

They were heartless and cruel.

To tell a child that it is her fault that she was abandoned by her dad is disgusting. They were disgusting.

OP posts:
Original poster
Kjones27 · 07/03/2024 13:06

My uncle and his wife lived near my dad and my dad's girlfriend.

So they were angry at me for going to see my dad, in case it "upset the relationship" between my uncle and my dad.

They treated me like shit.

It was all "how dare you go and visit your own father, you might upset the relationship between your uncle and your father".

They were so cold.

OP posts:
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