Only recently my mother passed away, 12 years after my father, they had
been divorced for years and the marriage was not positive shall we say,
my mother had some emotional issues and sort attention where she could,
my father was overbearing and thei...
View more
Only recently my mother passed away, 12 years after my father, they had
been divorced for years and the marriage was not positive shall we say,
my mother had some emotional issues and sort attention where she could,
my father was overbearing and their marriage was splattered with random
events of violence, my elder brother bought into my father's view of the
world and my mother, whereas for some reason I was on the outer with
him, the accusation quite often thrown my way was "your just like your
mother" in various negative formats, so I developed a distance between
myself and my mother, I was never close to my father or my brother yet
it is interesting to me that to all their circles they were perceived to
be great guy's. I copped quite a bit from my father on occasion with at
one stage having my upper thigh & bum almost completely black with
bruising, I have seen my brother take his stepson into a room with the
son emerging with a black eye when he slipped and "fell" on the bedpost,
but the one I feel for the most is my mother, she went through her
entire life being rejected by those around her, she was promoted to
everyone as "OH that's just Sheila!" by her family, by her husband and
then her children, she faced physical violence when he was drunk or
feeling bad, she was a timid soul and must have been scared witless at
times by my fathers "Righteous" rage when confronted with a cold or
dried out dinner because he had spent the evening drinking, she faced
being put down her entire life, but the worst I think that was done to
her was to have her children turn on her as my brother did or turn away
as I did, most of this I only realized after she had died to my shame,
we kids were weaponized by a parent in his one sided war against the
person he should have loved and supported, now I am left with regret,
and a struggle to reconcile and process a lifetime of trauma, however I
have broken that cycle of violence and need for power and control, my
family although not perfect is relatively normal and my children are
much better parents than I ever could be, but now I grieve for what
could have been, for my mother , for me , for my children as we were
robbed of the opportunity to have a relationship across those
generations by domestic & mental violence,
PTSD for Medical and First Responders
