TW Mom doesnt think DID is caused by abuse or trauma

Thank you for all of the amazing replies.

I hope to get more,this has turned into a fascinating discussion.

My mom told me that when I was crying as an infant and she tried to pick me up, that I just cried louder. So she told me that she decided to not approach me when I was upset, but to wait for me to come to her.

I don't remember this, of course, but I do remember childhood nightmares about someone about to touch me.

Then - guess what - when I had my daughter, I found a child that did not like to be touched. She would get distressed. So I ironically found myself in the same position as my mother. And I learned as an adult that one of my brothers also has difficulties with touch.

I am suspicious that all three of us have traits of aspergers. My daughter certainly does.

So maybe all three of us did have something "wrong" when we were infants. What is important is how a parent copes.

Good Morning WeAreOne420

I really feel for your frustration and deep pain on this particular issue you are experiencing!

My Brothers as well as myself all struggled to no end on the same exact matter with our own Mother. She passed a year ago now, and right up until her passing she was unable to understand or accept our experiences. She flat out denied it always. The only solace we all have now, is that she can no longer do that to us anymore.

This is a very difficult subject for me for the very same reasons as well as is very triggery as to some of the "Genetic" or "Biological" perspectives that have been shared.

In spite of me constantly having it "Implied" in my medical records as having "Borderline Personality Disorder" in addition to DID, I don't see things in "Black or White" when it comes to people or deeply profound questions such as "Nature vs Nurture".

As to the whole "Nature vs Nurture" aspect, Dr Pierre Janet who invented the term "Dissociation" found that much of it had to do with what would now be called "Genetics". However that is far from saying that Trauma Related Disorders like PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder (and I feel ALL Personality Disorders) or DID, is Passed along Genetically purely. There is much research that does show it can be passed along such as children born after WW II who never experienced the Holocaust, having Complex PTSD symptoms due to their parents being Holocaust Survivors. But "Attachment" also plays a strong role in that as well as many other complex factors.

We also well understand that it's a natural defense for children to blame themselves for the horrible things that happen to them, as a way for them to feel safer rather than be "Mindful" of them actually being in a very dangerous or harmful situation by the very caregivers whose responsibility it is to protect them from such things. If "I am the Bad one, then it's not my Home that's bad, but Me, and so I am in control again", sort of unconscious reasoning it's said. Again another form of denial for if the truth were accepted or understood, would be far too overwhelming for a vulnerable child to cope with on so many levels.

In my own life, I certainly even now, still am trying to make sense or process the vast opposites of loving my "Mommy" with all my heart, and how cruel she was to all of us as a result of her own childhood traumas and dynamics of her family of origin.

It's so very easy for my Brothers and myself to "Blame" my Mother for all of our life's suffering, but she is sitting in a cheesy (her liking not mine) porcelain urn on the shelf and does me no good now. It's My baggage now as it has been since I turned 18. Please understand that when I say that, I am reminding "Myself" this, not telling anyone else that.

Severe and chronic abuse and/or traumas is what helped create DID. We All well understand that here. Why one child get's it and another does not, I feel is the roll of the dice with many other very complex variables involved. But for "Us", it's the "Cards" we were dealt and how we played our "Hand", as best as any small child could with often very hostile or chaotic homes with little to no support.

If "Surviving" is "Winning", then I am right up there with Charlie Sheen and have "Tiger's Blood" running through my veins!

WeAreOne420 wrote:She thinks ive "done this to myself" and because I said I didnt care about god/christianity im being punished.


Its annoying because it invalidates me. Makes me feel like the childhood i know I had never happened.


Ive frequently had that thought or fear. That I "came out wrong". She said she knew something was wrong with me when i was an infant and i cried when she touched me. Shes told me this story for years.I woke up one day and realized...I was a freaking infant,of course I cried when I was touched! She says ive been strange since I started going to school. I was maybe 3 or 4? I was bullied really badly. I remember terror going to school and my mom being emotionally neglectful at home despite being the PTA parent. She was neglected as a child so how she interacts with me wasnt to my liking. shes a great mom but..she always lacked something I needed.. I remember me loving my mother but not caring too much for her.

I say all of this because I keep hawbing someone i love and trust tell me I'm the way I am due to my own actions or mistakes . and thats scared me for years.

I believed it. I believed it for many years. Part of me believes it now .. parts of me who takes moms side and sees her as a sensible victim and me the is villain.
I see myself that way..always have until now.I'm willing to see myself differently.

Since a child theres been that angry part of me who lashes out and tries to punish me,right after an argument with mom.


Did is caused by either extreme abuse and or trauma.

Idk why its so hard for her to understand that and not blame me for my own trauma.

This is very close to home for me.

My Mother just passed a little over a year ago. She also denied my PTSD from childhood as well as the rest. Even if it was unrelated to her. She was unable right up to the end to acknowledge anything. I too was bullied and beaten badly not only by my older brother, but also by all the kids at school. The way she saw it was that couldn't have happened because if it did, it meant that she was a "Bad Mother"!

While she was passing, my cousin came out to spend some time with her even though we had her in a coma as part of end of life care. My cousin (like all my cousins) was in her 70's and her Mother (my Aunt) had just passed the year the year before at age 104. My ex partner and my older brother and I both asked about how her Mother was since we never got to spend time with any of my Mother's family due to them all being in Wisconsin or Illinois. It turns out her mother (Our Mother's oldest sister) was very much the same way as far as very critical and "High Strung/nervous". My cousin is also pretty controlling and co dependent as well. We asked about our Grand Mother and Grand Father since he died of old age before I was born and they all said he was a Tyrant and very scary because of how strict he was.

I mention this because it gives us a better picture of what helped create not only why our own Mother was the way she was but also why we too were as well.

Now here is the part where I feel most people miss important key factors about the "Genetic" factors. I see this constantly. Let's say that for the last 4 generations Alcoholism is something that is pervasive in the families (likely for many many more before that but have no family knowledge before that due to lack of information), most people will say that it's Genetic trait. Let's even go farther to say that "Scientists who research this stuff will just call it "Genetics". It likely is a strong genetic factor that will be passed along generations. But with the exception of the Trauma community, everyone seems to think it's "Biological" or "Genetic" and write it off as just that and never ask why?

Do I come from a family of alcoholics with "Mental Illness"? Yes I do. At least to my knowledge on my Mother's side. Is it caused by "Genetics"? Well from a shallow point of view that could be said.

My Mother's family was "Bohemian". My Grandpa came to the US in 1904 from a small town an "Hour East of Prague by train" according to him. As a people they drink more beer than any other country on earth statistically. He also made his own wine which was very common as well. Alcohol is very deeply rooted in Czech culture and history. We had 5 crusades sent to destroy us in large part because we insisted on having wine with our communion and the Catholic Church back then forbid it. The symbol of the "Hussite Wars" as it was often called was a Wine Chalice for communion. It's still everywhere in Bohemia in the sides of barns, churches, sidewalks, etc. I can say that when the rest home tried to take my mother's wine away from her last year it just about started a war there too! lol About 7 or 8 of her siblings died as a direct result of alcohol.

She started to drink alcoholically at the age of 8. I started at age 10. Is it because of Genetics? How we drink I would say has some to do with that in part. But let's dig a little deeper?

Now bear with me this is where my post comes right back to this very topic at hand of "denial".

***Trigger Warning"""

The past 5 years I have really been struggling from PTSD symptoms related to my childhood. Mainly the child abuse in every aspect of the term. Especially the sexual abuse at the hands of the horrible baby sitters that my Mother would send us to (My brother included). When I would say anything about the abuse at the hands of baby sitters, my Mother would get very defensive and deny any of it because she was the one responsible for sending us to them. She didn't molest us, but she knew that the baby sitters did and was known at the time it was happening but sent us anyway and then later would deny it. It implied that she was a "Bad Mother" and she would scream at me that I had a "Wonderful Childhood" and that she was a "Good Mother". She would scream at me that I just needed to "Forget" about any of that and it will go away. I asked her last year before she went into the "Home", "Do you have any Idea what it's like to have something like that happen to you as a small child?". She flatly responded "Yes I do. it happened to me when I was 5 years old by a dirty gross man in his shed down the street ". I was shocked. She all these years never was able to relate to my abuse and always denied it while at the same time having been there too.

She flatly told me that is why she started to get drunk on her parents homemade wine at age 8. It helped her forget about what happened in 1935. She also insisted that "if you just don't think about it, it will go away". *blinks*

She, like anyone else who had been there as a child used "Dissociation" unknowingly her whole life. 80 years of it. I suddenly saw things from a different light.

Her Mother whom I only got to meet once for a few weeks back in 1976 in Wisconsin when I was in 1st grade, had dementia and only spoke Czech and was already 89 at that time. She was very "Old Worldly" in the traditional Czech sense. I saw her everywhere I went last summer in the Czech Republic when I went to visit her homeland. She was raised by her Grandmother in their small village in the mountains, because her Mother got pregnant out of wedlock and had at age 15. She was always very resentful of her real Mother for this, we are told. My cousin who came out to visit us also spoke of this as well. She was a very timid and nervous person and always had a look of being very frightened whenever anyone would raise their voices or fight. I'm guessing she was taught to keep her mouth shut and not speak out. My Father was also the same way too. "Just bury it! If you talk about it, it will only make things worse". My Father used to tell me that about my Mother all the time as well. He was a very shy and gentle man. My Mother "broke" him before I was even born.

For years I tried to discuss these issues I struggle with her and my Mother's immediate reaction was to get very angry with me and always acted like I was accusing her of being a "Bad Mother". She would try to contradict them by listing all the "Nice" things she did for me as a Mother, like going to summer camp (where my brother would get molested by camp counselors), by insisting that we live in a nice beach community so that we could go to the beach easily, drawing smiley faces on my packed lunch bags etc. Those example's "Proved" that the other things did not happen!

My Older brothers all moved as far away as possible from her and my Oldest refused to have any contact with her for over a decade which was very hard on the rest of us. They are too huge wrecks as a direct result of my Mother's upbringing. She was brutal and everyone knew it. My whole town knew about her and we would be teased in school about it even. "Crazy Witch" was her common name to the other kids. It sucked.

A few years ago when I tried to talk to her about what happened to me as a boy (the sexual abuse), she got angry at me and started screaming at me "What do you want me to do about it? Stand on my head and spit wooden Nickels?". I was so very hurt by that because that was the way she always had been growing up. My response was, "No Mom. I just wanted you to be my Mommy and comfort me. It wasn't you who did that. I just wanted you to care and tell me that you understand and hold me'.

This was before I knew about her own abuse as a little girl and her still carrying that childhood idea of "just Bury it deep, and it will disappear".

That natural idea ruined all our lives. Any time something "bad" would happen to us by others, her natural response was to make it go away by ignoring it or blaming us.

We all tried to "Reason" with her and each of us tried our best to have her "Hear" us, as what we all needed from our "Mommy". But that day never came and certainly won't for I still live with her remains today. My Brother's all refused to even pick up her ashes from the funeral home and I had to do it and she sits quietly on my shelf a few feet from me now.

We are all relieved she is gone. She was very cruel and brutal and some would say was "Borderline" or "Narcissistic" or "Psychotic". She had "Shock Treatment" when I was 9 months old and I still clearly remember her being "Dazed" and very spaced out and staring into nothing as a child as well as having severe anxiety and depression. She drank to self soothe and was a nervous wreck always. Her own Mental Illness destroyed all of our lives.

It's always very triggery for me whenever I have to answer those assessments asking if "Mental Illness ever ran in our family?"

When I first heard that Rolling Stones song "19th Nervous Breakdown", I could personally relate for that was what I grew up with as she was always in and out of the Mental Hospitals for "Nervous Breakdowns". it sucked!

I would like to say that for us "Boy's, we can all clearly state that each one of us tried our whole lives to try and get some "Motherly Validation" from her. But it never came. She was Toxic on a Chernobyl level to be around. My Brother's had to distance themselves from her, both physically and emotionally as a way to try and still be "Good Sons". I am much worse off than they are, because when I tried to move far away, up a dirt road intentionally because I thought she would be too "Spooked Out" by being so far out in the woods, 1,000 miles away from her, they instead bought a piece of property almost next door and Up the the road from me and retired there!!!

The two years or so before they moved here, my good friends and neighbors said I was much happier and healthier, but as soon as they moved up here, they say openly that they saw me spiral down the drain quickly and never recovered. I was 24 then, and Thursday I turn 50!

As Far as the belief that "Mental Illness" is "Genetic" and caused by Nature, and not by Nurture, I would like say that is a very unrealistic way of viewing this matter. It's way too easy to blame either the "Parents" or "Genetics" for these things and move on. But does society no good in the process.

If four Generations all suffer from the same "Mental Illness" (like PTSD and related Trauma disorders), is PTSD caused by "Genetics"? There is not a single Human Being Alive today that doesn't have a horrific family history in childhood. The question is How many generations has there been since it ended? I would like to say that personally, both in our own Family (on both sides) as well as what I have witnessed in other families that it seems to take 3 generations for there to be almost no signs of it, after it has stopped. The Great Grand Children seem to be all very "Healthy" and Successful". I have noticed this everywhere.

In regards to what I am going to call a "Biological" need to seek validation form our families of Origin about our childhoods, sadly, this most often than not, is a very futile attempt.

I suspect there are many factors involved with having successful results. It is possible, but most of the time it seems is not likely to happen.

To be "fair", who am "I" to throw stones about "Other's" deep denial?

In Alcoholic's Anonymous, The First Step is said to be the most important one.

Step One. "We admitted that we are powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable."

Without acknowledging that we have a problem (in any shape or form), how can we even begin to work on it?

As my dear friend's, best friend "Tim" told me (who was THE best Therapist in the State of Hawaii for treating sex offenders and the families and the victims) told me when all of this first cropped up for me during what he called a "Free Session"...

"Denial is the Strongest and first line of defense! It's THE Hardest Barrier to work through and get past!. It's just a natural defense system that all humans have. Without breaking through that strong barrier, nothing else can be done but protect those who are victims of it."

He spoke of the "Denial" of spouses who knew of the ongoing abuses in the home and looked the other way to allow it to continue. He talked about how pervasive denial is within all societies on the subject of childhood abuse.

His "Clients" were mandated by the Courts to see him as Sex Offenders. So in light of this, he really had lots of experience dealing with unbelievable amounts of denial. He said most were still in denial of their crimes even after being incarcerated for them.

He could spot the ones lying to try and tell him what he wanted to hear, versus the ones who really were coming out of denial and acknowledging what they had done.

Sorry if the last part was from a subject that may be a bit triggery here.

Again, I Deeply Feel for you and everyone else here as well on this particular issue! I cried a lot writing this.

Had we had enough of the support, validation, Love, and understanding we desperately needed in our darkest hours, I seriously don't think many of us would be in this forum right now!

This was a very very painful post for me to respond to for all the reasons already listed and many more that were not. It's a very triggery topic I suspect for many of us as well. I hope that my side tangents did not detract from the main topic. I strongly feel that having a larger picture is very important for being able to try and understand why people behave in these manners and I find helpful for being able to process and forgive them for their own failures as a result.

Perhaps this was not a healthy way for me to spend my day from the moment I woke up until 3:30 in the afternoon?

I sincerely hope I didn't offend anyone or hijack this very good thread in anyway.

Humbly
Lumps

lumpy68 wrote:Good Morning WeAreOne420

I really feel for your frustration and deep pain on this particular issue you are experiencing!

My Brothers as well as myself all struggled to no end on the same exact matter with our own Mother. She passed a year ago now, and right up until her passing she was unable to understand or accept our experiences. She flat out denied it always. The only solace we all have now, is that she can no longer do that to us anymore.

This is a very difficult subject for me for the very same reasons as well as is very triggery as to some of the "Genetic" or "Biological" perspectives that have been shared.

In spite of me constantly having it "Implied" in my medical records as having "Borderline Personality Disorder" in addition to DID, I don't see things in "Black or White" when it comes to people or deeply profound questions such as "Nature vs Nurture".

As to the whole "Nature vs Nurture" aspect, Dr Pierre Janet who invented the term "Dissociation" found that much of it had to do with what would now be called "Genetics". However that is far from saying that Trauma Related Disorders like PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder (and I feel ALL Personality Disorders) or DID, is Passed along Genetically purely. There is much research that does show it can be passed along such as children born after WW II who never experienced the Holocaust, having Complex PTSD symptoms due to their parents being Holocaust Survivors. But "Attachment" also plays a strong role in that as well as many other complex factors.

We also well understand that it's a natural defense for children to blame themselves for the horrible things that happen to them, as a way for them to feel safer rather than be "Mindful" of them actually being in a very dangerous or harmful situation by the very caregivers whose responsibility it is to protect them from such things. If "I am the Bad one, then it's not my Home that's bad, but Me, and so I am in control again", sort of unconscious reasoning it's said. Again another form of denial for if the truth were accepted or understood, would be far too overwhelming for a vulnerable child to cope with on so many levels.

In my own life, I certainly even now, still am trying to make sense or process the vast opposites of loving my "Mommy" with all my heart, and how cruel she was to all of us as a result of her own childhood traumas and dynamics of her family of origin.

It's so very easy for my Brothers and myself to "Blame" my Mother for all of our life's suffering, but she is sitting in a cheesy (her liking not mine) porcelain urn on the shelf and does me no good now. It's My baggage now as it has been since I turned 18. Please understand that when I say that, I am reminding "Myself" this, not telling anyone else that.

Severe and chronic abuse and/or traumas is what helped create DID. We All well understand that here. Why one child get's it and another does not, I feel is the roll of the dice with many other very complex variables involved. But for "Us", it's the "Cards" we were dealt and how we played our "Hand", as best as any small child could with often very hostile or chaotic homes with little to no support.

If "Surviving" is "Winning", then I am right up there with Charlie Sheen and have "Tiger's Blood" running through my veins!

WeAreOne420 wrote:She thinks ive "done this to myself" and because I said I didnt care about god/christianity im being punished.


Its annoying because it invalidates me. Makes me feel like the childhood i know I had never happened.


Ive frequently had that thought or fear. That I "came out wrong". She said she knew something was wrong with me when i was an infant and i cried when she touched me. Shes told me this story for years.I woke up one day and realized...I was a freaking infant,of course I cried when I was touched! She says ive been strange since I started going to school. I was maybe 3 or 4? I was bullied really badly. I remember terror going to school and my mom being emotionally neglectful at home despite being the PTA parent. She was neglected as a child so how she interacts with me wasnt to my liking. shes a great mom but..she always lacked something I needed.. I remember me loving my mother but not caring too much for her.

I say all of this because I keep hawbing someone i love and trust tell me I'm the way I am due to my own actions or mistakes . and thats scared me for years.

I believed it. I believed it for many years. Part of me believes it now .. parts of me who takes moms side and sees her as a sensible victim and me the is villain.
I see myself that way..always have until now.I'm willing to see myself differently.

Since a child theres been that angry part of me who lashes out and tries to punish me,right after an argument with mom.


Did is caused by either extreme abuse and or trauma.

Idk why its so hard for her to understand that and not blame me for my own trauma.

This is very close to home for me.

My Mother just passed a little over a year ago. She also denied my PTSD from childhood as well as the rest. Even if it was unrelated to her. She was unable right up to the end to acknowledge anything. I too was bullied and beaten badly not only by my older brother, but also by all the kids at school. The way she saw it was that couldn't have happened because if it did, it meant that she was a "Bad Mother"!

While she was passing, my cousin came out to spend some time with her even though we had her in a coma as part of end of life care. My cousin (like all my cousins) was in her 70's and her Mother (my Aunt) had just passed the year the year before at age 104. My ex partner and my older brother and I both asked about how her Mother was since we never got to spend time with any of my Mother's family due to them all being in Wisconsin or Illinois. It turns out her mother (Our Mother's oldest sister) was very much the same way as far as very critical and "High Strung/nervous". My cousin is also pretty controlling and co dependent as well. We asked about our Grand Mother and Grand Father since he died of old age before I was born and they all said he was a Tyrant and very scary because of how strict he was.

I mention this because it gives us a better picture of what helped create not only why our own Mother was the way she was but also why we too were as well.

Now here is the part where I feel most people miss important key factors about the "Genetic" factors. I see this constantly. Let's say that for the last 4 generations Alcoholism is something that is pervasive in the families (likely for many many more before that but have no family knowledge before that due to lack of information), most people will say that it's Genetic trait. Let's even go farther to say that "Scientists who research this stuff will just call it "Genetics". It likely is a strong genetic factor that will be passed along generations. But with the exception of the Trauma community, everyone seems to think it's "Biological" or "Genetic" and write it off as just that and never ask why?

Do I come from a family of alcoholics with "Mental Illness"? Yes I do. At least to my knowledge on my Mother's side. Is it caused by "Genetics"? Well from a shallow point of view that could be said.

My Mother's family was "Bohemian". My Grandpa came to the US in 1904 from a small town an "Hour East of Prague by train" according to him. As a people they drink more beer than any other country on earth statistically. He also made his own wine which was very common as well. Alcohol is very deeply rooted in Czech culture and history. We had 5 crusades sent to destroy us in large part because we insisted on having wine with our communion and the Catholic Church back then forbid it. The symbol of the "Hussite Wars" as it was often called was a Wine Chalice for communion. It's still everywhere in Bohemia in the sides of barns, churches, sidewalks, etc. I can say that when the rest home tried to take my mother's wine away from her last year it just about started a war there too! lol About 7 or 8 of her siblings died as a direct result of alcohol.

She started to drink alcoholically at the age of 8. I started at age 10. Is it because of Genetics? How we drink I would say has some to do with that in part. But let's dig a little deeper?

Now bear with me this is where my post comes right back to this very topic at hand of "denial".

***Trigger Warning"""

The past 5 years I have really been struggling from PTSD symptoms related to my childhood. Mainly the child abuse in every aspect of the term. Especially the sexual abuse at the hands of the horrible baby sitters that my Mother would send us to (My brother included). When I would say anything about the abuse at the hands of baby sitters, my Mother would get very defensive and deny any of it because she was the one responsible for sending us to them. She didn't molest us, but she knew that the baby sitters did and was known at the time it was happening but sent us anyway and then later would deny it. It implied that she was a "Bad Mother" and she would scream at me that I had a "Wonderful Childhood" and that she was a "Good Mother". She would scream at me that I just needed to "Forget" about any of that and it will go away. I asked her last year before she went into the "Home", "Do you have any Idea what it's like to have something like that happen to you as a small child?". She flatly responded "Yes I do. it happened to me when I was 5 years old by a dirty gross man in his shed down the street ". I was shocked. She all these years never was able to relate to my abuse and always denied it while at the same time having been there too.

She flatly told me that is why she started to get drunk on her parents homemade wine at age 8. It helped her forget about what happened in 1935. She also insisted that "if you just don't think about it, it will go away". *blinks*

She, like anyone else who had been there as a child used "Dissociation" unknowingly her whole life. 80 years of it. I suddenly saw things from a different light.

Her Mother whom I only got to meet once for a few weeks back in 1976 in Wisconsin when I was in 1st grade, had dementia and only spoke Czech and was already 89 at that time. She was very "Old Worldly" in the traditional Czech sense. I saw her everywhere I went last summer in the Czech Republic when I went to visit her homeland. She was raised by her Grandmother in their small village in the mountains, because her Mother got pregnant out of wedlock and had at age 15. She was always very resentful of her real Mother for this, we are told. My cousin who came out to visit us also spoke of this as well. She was a very timid and nervous person and always had a look of being very frightened whenever anyone would raise their voices or fight. I'm guessing she was taught to keep her mouth shut and not speak out. My Father was also the same way too. "Just bury it! If you talk about it, it will only make things worse". My Father used to tell me that about my Mother all the time as well. He was a very shy and gentle man. My Mother "broke" him before I was even born.

For years I tried to discuss these issues I struggle with her and my Mother's immediate reaction was to get very angry with me and always acted like I was accusing her of being a "Bad Mother". She would try to contradict them by listing all the "Nice" things she did for me as a Mother, like going to summer camp (where my brother would get molested by camp counselors), by insisting that we live in a nice beach community so that we could go to the beach easily, drawing smiley faces on my packed lunch bags etc. Those example's "Proved" that the other things did not happen!

My Older brothers all moved as far away as possible from her and my Oldest refused to have any contact with her for over a decade which was very hard on the rest of us. They are too huge wrecks as a direct result of my Mother's upbringing. She was brutal and everyone knew it. My whole town knew about her and we would be teased in school about it even. "Crazy Witch" was her common name to the other kids. It sucked.

A few years ago when I tried to talk to her about what happened to me as a boy (the sexual abuse), she got angry at me and started screaming at me "What do you want me to do about it? Stand on my head and spit wooden Nickels?". I was so very hurt by that because that was the way she always had been growing up. My response was, "No Mom. I just wanted you to be my Mommy and comfort me. It wasn't you who did that. I just wanted you to care and tell me that you understand and hold me'.

This was before I knew about her own abuse as a little girl and her still carrying that childhood idea of "just Bury it deep, and it will disappear".

That natural idea ruined all our lives. Any time something "bad" would happen to us by others, her natural response was to make it go away by ignoring it or blaming us.

We all tried to "Reason" with her and each of us tried our best to have her "Hear" us, as what we all needed from our "Mommy". But that day never came and certainly won't for I still live with her remains today. My Brother's all refused to even pick up her ashes from the funeral home and I had to do it and she sits quietly on my shelf a few feet from me now.

We are all relieved she is gone. She was very cruel and brutal and some would say was "Borderline" or "Narcissistic" or "Psychotic". She had "Shock Treatment" when I was 9 months old and I still clearly remember her being "Dazed" and very spaced out and staring into nothing as a child as well as having severe anxiety and depression. She drank to self soothe and was a nervous wreck always. Her own Mental Illness destroyed all of our lives.

It's always very triggery for me whenever I have to answer those assessments asking if "Mental Illness ever ran in our family?"

When I first heard that Rolling Stones song "19th Nervous Breakdown", I could personally relate for that was what I grew up with as she was always in and out of the Mental Hospitals for "Nervous Breakdowns". it sucked!

I would like to say that for us "Boy's, we can all clearly state that each one of us tried our whole lives to try and get some "Motherly Validation" from her. But it never came. She was Toxic on a Chernobyl level to be around. My Brother's had to distance themselves from her, both physically and emotionally as a way to try and still be "Good Sons". I am much worse off than they are, because when I tried to move far away, up a dirt road intentionally because I thought she would be too "Spooked Out" by being so far out in the woods, 1,000 miles away from her, they instead bought a piece of property almost next door and Up the the road from me and retired there!!!

The two years or so before they moved here, my good friends and neighbors said I was much happier and healthier, but as soon as they moved up here, they say openly that they saw me spiral down the drain quickly and never recovered. I was 24 then, and Thursday I turn 50!

As Far as the belief that "Mental Illness" is "Genetic" and caused by Nature, and not by Nurture, I would like say that is a very unrealistic way of viewing this matter. It's way too easy to blame either the "Parents" or "Genetics" for these things and move on. But does society no good in the process.

If four Generations all suffer from the same "Mental Illness" (like PTSD and related Trauma disorders), is PTSD caused by "Genetics"? There is not a single Human Being Alive today that doesn't have a horrific family history in childhood. The question is How many generations has there been since it ended? I would like to say that personally, both in our own Family (on both sides) as well as what I have witnessed in other families that it seems to take 3 generations for there to be almost no signs of it, after it has stopped. The Great Grand Children seem to be all very "Healthy" and Successful". I have noticed this everywhere.

In regards to what I am going to call a "Biological" need to seek validation form our families of Origin about our childhoods, sadly, this most often than not, is a very futile attempt.

I suspect there are many factors involved with having successful results. It is possible, but most of the time it seems is not likely to happen.

To be "fair", who am "I" to throw stones about "Other's" deep denial?

In Alcoholic's Anonymous, The First Step is said to be the most important one.

Step One. "We admitted that we are powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable."

Without acknowledging that we have a problem (in any shape or form), how can we even begin to work on it?

As my dear friend's, best friend "Tim" told me (who was THE best Therapist in the State of Hawaii for treating sex offenders and the families and the victims) told me when all of this first cropped up for me during what he called a "Free Session"...

"Denial is the Strongest and first line of defense! It's THE Hardest Barrier to work through and get past!. It's just a natural defense system that all humans have. Without breaking through that strong barrier, nothing else can be done but protect those who are victims of it."

He spoke of the "Denial" of spouses who knew of the ongoing abuses in the home and looked the other way to allow it to continue. He talked about how pervasive denial is within all societies on the subject of childhood abuse.

His "Clients" were mandated by the Courts to see him as Sex Offenders. So in light of this, he really had lots of experience dealing with unbelievable amounts of denial. He said most were still in denial of their crimes even after being incarcerated for them.

He could spot the ones lying to try and tell him what he wanted to hear, versus the ones who really were coming out of denial and acknowledging what they had done.

Sorry if the last part was from a subject that may be a bit triggery here.

Again, I Deeply Feel for you and everyone else here as well on this particular issue! I cried a lot writing this.

Had we had enough of the support, validation, Love, and understanding we desperately needed in our darkest hours, I seriously don't think many of us would be in this forum right now!

This was a very very painful post for me to respond to for all the reasons already listed and many more that were not. It's a very triggery topic I suspect for many of us as well. I hope that my side tangents did not detract from the main topic. I strongly feel that having a larger picture is very important for being able to try and understand why people behave in these manners and I find helpful for being able to process and forgive them for their own failures as a result.

Perhaps this was not a healthy way for me to spend my day from the moment I woke up until 3:30 in the afternoon?

I sincerely hope I didn't offend anyone or hijack this very good thread in anyway.

Humbly
Lumps

Thank you for such an amazing reply!!!!!!!