How do you overcome PTSD/fear if you're still exposed to the person

[wmm]

My bpd mother can terrify me. Whenever she calls, which is often, I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the worst. It's usually ok but I never know when she's going to have an outburst and get mad and say hurtful things to me. The other day she said she thought I was a hypochondriac or had Munchausen syndrome because I get sick a lot and she thinks I make it up. I was injured this year and was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome. I also developed allergies to pollen and I'm surrounded by trees. The allergies weren't a big deal but the meds gave me a lot of side effects. I didn't tell her about the injury for 2 months because I didn't want her to say I was making it up but I couldn't keep hiding it once I was unable to work and my sister also told her. We've been getting along well enough for the last few months after a freak out but 2 days ago she said she didn't believe me about my injury and allergies and the berated me for being 31 and unemployed. I lost my job because I couldn't work with my injury. I've only been well enough to work for the last month but it's very hard to find a job right now due to Covid. I'm thinking about getting my doctor to zoom with her and me to explain my condition to her, which I shouldn't have to.

I'm doing a class for PTSD but I find it hard to get over my fear of her because it hasn't all ended. It's better than when I was a child because I don't live with her but she can still be very abusive emotionally and psychologically.

Does anyone else have this problem? My therapist said my fear will go away once I learn to stick up to her but I'm not good at being assertive and I never know what to say in the heat of the moment.

Does anyone have some suggestions as to how I can recover from my PTSD when she can still be abusive?

[zachira]

You are asking about a challenge that nearly all of us struggle with when we still have to deal with an unsafe person. You are not alone in feeling distressed and wondering what to do. My mother with BPD passed away last summer, and I have a sibling with BPD and another sibling with NPD. I find that there is a big difference between actually being in danger and feeling overwhelmed because we are feeling triggered by being abused  by a family member in ways similar to past abuse. What has worked for me is to severely limit my contact with abusive family members which includes the amount of time I spend with them, and discontinuing the contact as fast as possible when I am being abused, whether it is hanging up the phone or walking away. I also find it very helpful to spend as much time as possible being in a calm state, present with my feelings, so no feeling becomes too overwhelming for me. My therapist told me to observe my feelings when in the presence of a person who is mistreating me instead of focusing on what the abuser is doing; this has helped me to stay present in the moment and not take on the ovewhelming feelings of the abuser who is trying to make me feel as badly as he/she does.
I am glad to hear you are in therapy. I found therapy extremely helpful, and went for many years.
Do let us know what works for you. Can you tell us what boundaries you have now with your mother that limit your contact and exposure to how she treats you? What your mother said to you is very hurtful. How are you doing  right now?

[Methuen]

The other day she said she thought I was a hypochondriac or had Munchausen syndrome because I get sick a lot and she thinks I make it up

Is it possible she's projecting?  If she herself is prone to injury or illness, this could be a possible explanation.  Another thing that could be happening, is that all your injuries/illnesses have taken the attention off of her.  My observation with my mom is that her NEED for attention is infinite and insatiable, so when the attention is on someone else, she is uncomfortable, which can lead to saying negative things to them.  Just a couple of thoughts.

What I am going to say may feel impossible right now, but I think it would be helpful for your to be able to separate the things your mom is saying to you, from yourself.  If you weren't available for her to say those things to, she would have to find another surrogate to say them to.  Could she be dumping her own uncomfortable feelings on you?  What I'm trying to say is I think it's been helpful for me to be able to separate myself from what mom is saying to me, and not take it personally.  The first time I heard this, I thought it was nuts.  Of course it felt personal.  But a year has gone by, and I've grown, and I've come to see its the disease saying those things.  Her thinking is distorted, and I don't have to believe what she says as truth, because it's not.  If I wasn't here, she would be saying them to someone else, because those are uncomfortable feelings that she has to dump onto somebody. That's how I think of it as not being personal.  Furthermore, to protect yourself, you can continue to practice some boundaries so that when she starts saying hurtful things, you can say something non-judgemental like: "it seems like we're both not feeling well right now.  I have to go now, and we can talk again when we are both feeling better."  Then give her a few days to sit with it, and look after yourself.  When her emotions are not intense, and she's not dumping, and she's not projecting on you, that's when you could use an "I statement" to tell her it's not ok  to say hurtful things to you (give her a specific example).  Then set your boundary and tell her when that happens, you will have to leave.  But only set such a boundary if you can follow through with it.  When I know my mom is dysregulating, my plan is to have my H with me when I have to interact with her.  Do you have anyone who could be with you when you visit your mom?  My mom only abuses me when I am alone with her.  Maybe none of those things will work for you, but they're a few things that I've tried that have worked for me.  Different things work for different people, so I'm not sure if that's helpful or not in your case.

berated me for being 31 and unemployed.

I wouldn't even respond to this kind of thing, because it just reinforces her for creating negative drama, and makes you feel like you have to defend yourself.  You don't.  Defending yourself makes her feel more powerful.  It kind of sounds like maybe there could be a power dynamic going on here.  Instead of replying to such an uninvited accusation which is destructive to any relationship, tell her you are happy to talk if she has positive things to say, but her negative hurtful and judgemental comments aren't helpful to any relationship.  If she wants to be helpful, she can say something positive, or say nothing at all.  And then say goodbye and hang up or leave.  That's my thought.  You can choose not to listen to her insults, judgements, and accusations.  That's a boundary.  I've actually done this in the last year, and it's been helpful.  

I'm thinking about getting my doctor to zoom with her and me to explain my condition to her, which I shouldn't have to.

I would not do this.  I think what you are thinking about here is JADE (justify, defend, explain) and it won't help because they only hear what they want to hear, and she will find the whole experience invalidating.  This would only help if she was emotionally healthy, but she is NOT.  So treating her like she is healthy, could backfire.  Furthermore, you will have sacrificed your right to privacy, and she may use whatever information she gets from the doctor against you at some future date.  I think you would strongly regret this afterwards.  You also mentioned you should not have to get your doctor to zoom with her, so that suggests you have a value of privacy.  Don't break your own privacy boundary, is my suggestion.  Hold your boundaries, and your private information.  Don't give it away to her.

I'm doing a class for PTSD

good for you!

Stay strong.  You have a T.  You acknowledge you are making progress, but it sounds like you are wanting to make more progress.  Some things can't be hurried, and we have to be patient with ourselves as we keep up our good work towards recovery.  Self-care cannot be overstated.  My mother trained me to always put her needs and everybody else's above my own.  Now at 58, I also have finally learned how to look after myself.  The more I take care of myself, the stronger I am to manage the interactions with my mother.

Self-care, self-care, self-care, and limit interactions with your mom if you need to (as part of your self-care plan).  Just tell her you need some time to look after yourself, and let her deal with her own feelings.  If she "pushes back", tell her you have to go.  The only way she will learn to treat you better, is if there are consequences for her bad behavior (use positive and negative reinforcement with her, just like you would with a child).

I know the fear you are talking about.  I too am terrified of my mother, especially when she's dysregulating.  But it can get better.  You can do this.

[Harri]

Hi.  Great question.  It can be done.  I overcame my fear/terror of my mom when she was still alive.  I saw it as being vital having even a chance of a close to normal life once I learned about her illness and saw what had been going on for decades. 

What helped me first was knowing that I had to take responsibility for my own feelings especially but my life in general too.  Being triggered sucks and makes things more difficult and more painful.  The only way to change that for me was to be willing to take risks and being willing to learn even though it hurt, scared me, or made me feel worse for a little while.

The other thing that helped me overcome my fear was to remind myself that she had no power over me.  I was an adult and I had options that I did not have when I was a kid.  This took a while for me to know this on an emotional level.  Constantly repeating the mantra "she has no power except that which I allow her to have" while taking risks and fighting through the fear mentioned above and choosing different behaviors when I was up to it made a huge difference.  Feelings will follow actions.  A lot of times we do that backwards and think "well I don't feel ____ so I am going to wait to feel it before I do ____".  It does not work that way.

To do the above, I made sure that I was in a good place mentally and emotionally when I was going to interact with my mom or family.  I do not mean I felt happy and centered, just that I was not having a really bad day.  I wanted to walk away from any encounter with something, anything, I could call a success so I could use it to build on.  Sometimes that meant I said a simple "no" when she insisted on something or I ended a phone call when she got out of hand.  sometimes, it even meant hanging up on her though if you can avoid that, I would try.  It was not about showing her anything.  It was about me changing my behaviors.  It was not always pretty but for me, and this is important, my goal was not to improve things with my mom it was to detach emotionally and develop new behaviors.  You and others may have a different goal so that may not work for you.   So even if I got upset or cried or got angry and yelled at her, I was okay with it.   I considered it practice. 

One thing I was determined not to do was to end the relationship as for me, in my situation, it would not have been healthy or good.  I needed to have limited yet regular and controlled interaction given my situation, the duration of the abuse and my own personality characteristics in order to heal. 

A few other things I did was to use my imagination to help me.  When I went to visit my family, I would picture a clear plastic bubble around me that allowed me to see and hear but offered protection so her words bounced off, her tone did not matter or cut quite so deeply, etc.  I highly recommend bubbles!  Unless of course that is not your thing. ;) 

Basically i did what I could to empower myself and ensure some sort of success so I could build on it.

Does any of that resonate?

[JNChell]

Hello, wmm. PTSD is hard. When it’s attached to family members, it’s even harder. Many of the members here are diagnosed with PTSD/C-PTSD. Who would’ve thought that we’d suffer these kinds of things because of our parents?

I remember the messages on my answering machine. The guilt. Why wasn’t I answering? Why wouldn’t I call? I didn’t realize what I was feeling then, but I didn’t feel very good when my parents tried to contact me. I had no idea about personality issues back then. I just wanted to avoid them. My parents both died in 2010.

Personally, I don’t think that it’s a matter of sticking up for yourself to your mom. That approach leaves a lot out. Do you want a relationship with her in a way that YOU can manage? Does standing  up to her heal your wounds? Has your therapist given you any advice beyond standing up to her? I’m sorry for asking so many questions and being blunt.

PTSD calms down when triggers aren’t present.

[Harri]

PTSD calms down when triggers aren’t present.

Hi JNChell.
 I am not sure this really holds up under closer examination.  There are plenty of people with PTSD who have symptoms in the absence of the primary or original trigger or stimulus.  That is my experience and that of other people I have talked with here and in my real life (including veterans and including my therapists and psychologist).  Can you elaborate a bit more JNChell?

[JNChell]

Harri, yes. I should elaborate further. Thank you. There are situations that trigger me outside of the family confines or the original traumas. I’ve been triggered by situations that I couldn’t make sense of until I was able to calm myself down and think about what happened. There have been times when a panic attack came on out of nowhere. I forget sometimes. I apologize. Sometimes, when I’m feeling good, I get this tunnel vision in a sense that allows me to not remember or realize certain things.

Trauma can show up at any time. I apologize for my irresponsible post.

[Harri]

We can be prone to over-generalizing and assuming our experiences are the same for everyone on this board so I prefer to talk about it and clarify.   

[JNChell]

I understand.

[madeline7]

So many great suggestions by this supportive group. The only thing I would like to add is that I feel very much the way you do. I have to remind myself that emotional abuse is still abuse (I found that other people raised in a typical family don't think my Mom is "that bad"), and that not only do I have PTSD, I have Chronic PTSD. P stands for post and there continues to be not only emotional flashbacks from past trauma, but continued trauma in the present. And boy is it chronic. My Mom is 90 and I am not a youngster. So I have taken the steps outlined by the members in this group to take control of MY life, set boundaries, get counseling, etc. Hard work since it is chronic and still going on, but it can be done. We are here for support.