A Life After Trauma

    TRIGGER WARNING: This entry mentions a family member’s suicide attempt.    When someone blames you for a parent's suicide attempt, you never want to set them off again. The backbone I had as a child has gone soft, and I say whatever my dad wants to hear, even if it suffocates me.    My mom says I need to tell him how I feel and ask him my questions. He’s blatantly lied to me. He fabricated a whole story of living in a Sober Living group home still and telling me his roomies were calling, so he had to call me back three times. He also wouldn’t take my call till he got out of bed and drove away from where he lived.    Then two days later, he says he moved out of Sober Living 1 month ago. A month ago? What? I knew I’d been lied to. Now a week later, my mom has me confront him. I asked him why he lied to me, but he played dumb. And it hurt.    First, he claimed I called him a month ago when he lived there. I told him it was a week ago. H...

TRIGGER WARNING: This entry mentions physical child abuse, gun violence, self-harm, drug seeking, & detailed descriptions of panic attacks & toxic behavior.    Learning to drive is always stressful. But when you have PTSD and BPD, it’s even worse. As a kid, before I got beat and when my dad pulled the gun on me and my mom, I felt terror. A terror that shut down my brain and floored my body. Now I relive it every time I fear I’ve disappointed my mom.     I forgot my blinkers, my mom notifies me, then I stomp my foot on the brakes, block my eyes or ears with my hands, and shout out on repeat, “I’m so sorry! I’m such a fucking failure!” As I feel terror and my brain completely shuts down. I’m running on pure instinct. The whole moment feels like a quick lightning flash in my mind. I’m so sure something is about to happen to me, and I’m unable to use my brain to process anything.    Then BPD takes the wheel. “You’re not a failure,” my mom says to m...