C-PTSD – Notes from an Invisible Woman

A Tale of Two Grandmothers

I’m revisiting significant memories from my past. My therapist wants me to think about the messages I’ve been subconsciously given about myself through the things I’ve experienced. I’m hoping to gain some understanding of how I ever reached the point where I became invisible. This is part of my backstory.

When I was young (I’m not sure how young, pre-school aged, I guess), I was apparently in a bakery with my mother. The bakery was on the main road in the suburb where my paternal grandmother lived.

According to my mother, she and I were standing in line to be served at the bakery when my grandmother walked in, pushed in front of us so she would be served ahead of us, then left without acknowledging my mother or me. She apparently saw us as she was driving past with her partner, made him stop the car, and deliberately came into the shop to ignore and inconvenience her daughter-in-law before leaving without a word.

I can picture the bakery – where it was positioned on the street and the long glass display counter filled with all the traditional 70s bakery treats. I have a hazy sense of random people and a wire display rack with loaves of bread within the store filling the space and providing a backdrop for our little family drama.

My memories of the store are an amalgam of multiple visits and probably multiple similar stores, not an accurate backdrop for that specific memory. To be honest, I have absolutely no memory of that event at all. I know that my ‘recollection’ is based entirely on my mother sharing the story multiple times over years. There has never been a spark of personal recognition when she’s told it to me, other than the familiarity of hearing her voice shape the words.

The story always ended with my mother reminding me that my grandmother’s behaviour was unnecessarily cruel and selfish. My grandmother and parents were apparently at odds about some issue at the time, but to ignore your own grandchild because you are unhappy with their parents was, in my mother’s view, unforgivable.

In the past when I’ve randomly thought about this anecdote, the mental and emotional pathways have been reasonably linear. It’s a memory from my childhood where my grandmother was mean to my mother in my presence. There are no associated emotions. It’s consistent with what I know about my grandmother, but I don’t remember feeling hurt or rejected at the time (because I don’t remember it at all), so it’s not really a factor in how I feel about my grandmother except in a purely academic sense of being another (small) facet of the picture of her that I have in my mind.

The reality is that this story isn’t really about my grandmother, it’s about my mother. I have no memory of this event, but I have strong memories of my mother sharing it with me – repeating it to me over and over. I have clear memories of my mother using this story as an example of how difficult my grandmother was and how inappropriately conditional her love was, that she reserved her affection for those who made choices she approved of and that she was superficial and inconsistent in the way she demonstrated her love.

And that fact – that this memory says more about my connection with my mother than with my grandmother – means that this is no longer a linear family anecdote, mentally or emotionally.

I’ve wondered at times about the details of this particular story, although when it comes down to it the details don’t really matter. It doesn’t even matter if it actually happened because I don’t remember it and so nothing I’ve ever heard about it has been about explaining my perception of things. It’s always been about creating a memory, not explaining it or providing reassurance. (ETA: extended family has confirmed that it did happen and it was something my grandmother bragged about doing after the event.)

Taking that into account, why would my mother share this story with me so frequently that it’s become a pseudo-memory that feels like it belongs to me when it really belongs to her? What was there for her to gain in demonstrating to me that my grandmother didn’t care about my feelings? Why would she choose to remind me that I’d been rejected by someone I should have been able to trust unconditionally? If my grandmother’s behaviour was so hurtful and inappropriate, why did my mother put so much effort into making me relive a hurtful moment?

Perhaps she felt she was helping to protect me from my grandmother’s inconsistency – forewarned is forearmed, so the saying goes, and what better warning than a real-life example of her selfishness? That doesn’t explain why she continued to share the story with me into my adulthood, however, and well beyond my grandmother’s death. What protection would I need from her at that point? And I was always encouraged to spend time with my grandmother and to show affection towards her. I was encouraged to stay with her in school holidays and visit her regularly on my own as I grew older, so why encourage me to do that while giving me reasons to keep my distance?

I have several pseudo-memories like this one and as far as I’m aware, my mother hasn’t bombarded either of my sisters with hurtful memories from her life or their childhood. Why was I the one selected to hear my mother’s memories of hurts inflicted by others and reminders of how many times I’ve personally hurt and disappointed her?

And more relevant to my life now, why did my mother put so much effort into passing judgement on my grandmother’s lack of love and concern for her grandchild when she’s distanced herself from my children because she’s so disappointed in the way I managed my separation and divorce? Barely any contact with the children for the first 18 months of the separation and nothing for the past 12 months – no cards or texts for Christmas or their birthdays. She’s even moved to a different town without letting them know or making any effort to contact them, even though they’re all in their teens and she has their phone numbers. By her own standards, her rejection has been heartless and inexcusable and my children will remember not because I embed a pseudo-memory for them, but because they are all old enough to understand that their grandmother rejected them for no reason at a time when they most needed her support and unconditional love.

In many ways it’s an innocuous anecdote and as memories from my childhood go, this one is far less traumatic than many others. For me, the significance is how it contributes to my growing awareness that my mother’s baseline for choosing right and wrong behaviour is how it makes her feel. It’s a skewed way of looking at the world and it’s given me a lot to think about as I look back over my relationship with her.

Decisions and Expectations

I have, at various times in my life, been quite fit. I’ve had gym memberships I’ve actually used and at one stage even walked to the gym a couple of mornings a week, worked out for half an hour, then walked home in time to get ready for work. I’ve enjoyed bike riding and walking for exercise and pleasure. I even took dressage riding lessons for a year or so. I’ve gone to fitness classes and I’ve worked out at home.

I have also, at various times in my life, been quite unfit. I was a child of average weight who became a teenager of more than average weight in a family of significantly more than average weight. In my early 20s I was seriously under average weight for a period of time.

None of that is particularly remarkable, except to demonstrate that I’ve had the usual range of fitness experiences including fluctuations in weight and varying interest in exercise. I’ve always found focused exercise mindlessly boring, but not stressful – simply a necessary evil to ensure I don’t head down the same path as most of my family.

In theory, that should mean that exercise is a non-issue. I’m currently not happy with my general fitness and weight, exercise produces lovely endorphins to help counteract some of the less happy stuff circling in my brain, and I have a track record of finding regular exercise useful and achievable (if uninspiring). It should be a no brainer.

But recently, when my husband returned from a run and was talking about his fitness goals, the app he’s using to track his stats, and his plans to regularly join one of the local Park Run groups, the fluttery ache in my chest became more pronounced and my thoughts started to spiral. I could feel my heart rate accelerate.

The train of thought that triggered the anxiety quickly progressed from thinking about exercising with my husband to thinking about how that would involve tracking goals and stats, to feeling completely overwhelmed by the knowledge that I’d never be able to keep up and I’d just slow him down. I felt irrationally pressured to have stats worth tracking. And I was already bracing myself for my husband to be disappointed that I’m not fitter and more interested in running (which he loves) and feeling a sense of abandonment because this would something he would pursue without me. [Those negative thoughts are all a reflection of the mess in my head, not anything he’s said or done.]

By the end I was feeling teary and anxious and frustrated that the thought of exercising (or more specifically someone else exercising) could derail me so quickly, when it’s something I’ve done in the past with so little effort. It’s an overwhelming irony that I seemed to cope so much better with life when my life was so much worse.

But the anxiety isn’t about the exercise, of course. it’s about the dysfunctional assumptions about implied goals and targets and expectations. All the expectations of what I should be able to achieve and how I should be prioritising this over something else. The expectation that I should be able to make decisions and follow through without everything becoming some kind of existential crisis. All the things I should do and be and think, that I never manage to achieve. All the ways I think I disappoint people.

A lifetime of failing to live up to the expectations of my parents and ex-husband and an awareness from my earliest memories of what I should be doing means that just the thought of setting fitness goals made me panic. I felt useless and like a failure before I even started.

I have a friend who has deal with some tough times by setting herself fitness goals and focusing on achieving them. She’s explained it as something that’s completely independent of others – she sets her own targets, pushes herself to achieve them, then sets the next goal. She doesn’t have to rely on anyone else and she gets the satisfaction of knowing that she’s achieved something by herself, for herself. It’s an empowering thought and I can understand the appeal for her.

But it’s hard to shake a lifetime of being told implicitly and explicitly that my focus should be helping others achieve their goals, or achieving the goals set for me by others. Pushing past those well established mental and emotional barriers is painful and exhausting, as ridiculous as that sounds.

I should be able to push past this – I know exercise and fitness is something I need to prioritise. And if this was the only decision where I was battling my expectation trauma response, then maybe I would find it easier to force myself past the initial resistance. But it isn’t the only decision. I fight this battle dozens of times each day at home and work. I’m exhausted by the constant need to review each emotion and thought to ensure they aren’t shadows of my past rather than a reflection of my present.

Exercise. Social commitments. Music choice. Work. Parenting. Relaxation time. Family priorities. Writing. Health. Hobbies. Everyday life. The decisions each day seem endless and most of them involve effort to override the anxious thought that whatever I decide, the decision will be the wrong one.

I’m counting it as progress that I can think this through and recognise the dysfunctional thought patterns. I was able to continue to function after the conversation with my husband, where previously the thought loops would have gained momentum and the rest of my evening would have been lost to panic and damage control.

I’m getting better, I think. It’s slow and painful and exhausting, but I’m hoping that these tiny steps forward will gradually gain momentum. Until then, I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other (but won’t be tracking my step count).

Unravelling

Once, when I was very young, my grandmother removed a splinter from my finger with a sewing needle threaded with a strand of cotton. I asked why she needed to thread the needle and she replied that she would use the thread to pull the needle out if she lost it in my finger. It didn’t occur to me that she might be joking. I was in my teens before I reviewed this memory and had a WTF moment as I realised the absurdity of what she had said.

As children we absorb the words of those we trust unprocessed and unchallenged, and as adults we often don’t unpack those memories to evaluate the validity of what we have accepted as truth. With some memories, such as this one, it’s not a particular issue one way or another. It’s a nice memory of my grandmother and serves as an amusing anecdote but not much more. Other memories are not quite so easy to process.

A significant component of my C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) therapy has involved working through old memories, reviewing the messages I’ve taken away from those moments, and evaluating the validity of those messages.

Reliving memories from my marriage and the first 18 months after I left it has been awful, triggering guilt, self-doubt, anger and panic. It’s been confronting and has left me feeling bruised and exhausted.

Dealing with memories of my childhood has been far, far worse. I feel like I’m unravelling.

As with the splinter anecdote, reviewing memories connected with my parents has involved rethinking the ‘reality’ those memories imprinted in my mind and it’s not as straightforward as simply realising I misunderstood the first time around.

As an example, when I was about seven (or probably a little younger) my mother asked me to choose between her and my father in a very tense situation. I chose because I was asked to. My mother has reminded me of that moment, and that choice, repeatedly throughout my life, always emphasising how hurtful my choice was. Those reminders reinforced the message that I am, and always have been, selfish and thoughtless.

I’ve never had a rose-coloured glasses view of my childhood but there were plenty of happy moments amidst the conflict and challenges. Creating a timeline of memories with my trauma therapist has revealed a pattern of judgement from my parents that has caught me by surprise and accepting the dysfunction of my relationship with my parents on several levels has been disorienting and upsetting.

I want to rail against my parents for the unfairness of the way they raised me – that I was expected to be perfect and judged for falling short of that goal, made responsible for things that were clearly beyond my control (including the behaviour of others) and reminded often that my choices were disappointing and my attitude selfish. While other family members caused drama and difficulties at every turn and were forgiven, it was made very clear to me that my failures were unacceptable and disconnection as punishment was far more frequent than I realised until I began to create the timeline. It’s been confronting, but it’s also helped me understand why my response to others choosing to disconnect is so strong and so painful (and why I always expect people to walk away).

With the help of my therapist, I am slowly allowing myself to process the events of my past in ways that don’t simply reinforce that I’m always to blame, always inadequate, always a disappointment. Seven-year-old me responding to a request to choose between my parents isn’t proof that I am thoughtless, insensitive and selfish. It’s an impossible situation for a child to navigate, and blaming me for my response and spending the rest of my life reminding me how hurtful that response was says more about my parents than it does about me.

I want to be angry. I want my parents to take responsibility for all the hurtful, diminishing, undermining, self-esteem destroying things they have done and said. I want them to understand that I tried my best, and beyond my best, to be what they expected me to be, even though it was never enough. I want to respond to accusations by both of my parents in recent years that I am selfish and think of no-one but myself with a list of all the ways that I am damaged and incapable of prioritising myself because they taught me, explicitly and implicitly, that my thoughts, feelings and opinions are insignificant. When asked to make a choice, even a simple one like what movie to watch or what takeaway to buy, I instinctively choose what I think will work best for others. Prioritising myself takes effort on my best days and is impossible and distressing in my lowest moments. I have my selfish, self-absorbed moments, of course, but to accuse me of caring only about myself is particularly hurtful coming from the people who taught me that my needs don’t matter at all.

I’m gradually realising that processing these memories isn’t breaking me, it’s helping me to discard thoughts and beliefs about myself that I should never have taken hold of in the first place. It’s unravelling the network of lies and unrealistic expectations that have kept the real me restrained and silenced, and stopped me believing in myself and *being* myself. It’s about removing the tangle of distorted perceptions and expectations imposed by others so that I can be myself, not the person they’ve told me I am.

It’s scary to do that. The dysfunction is familiar and my overwhelming self-doubt is safe in it’s own way. There is a weird sort of comfort in assuming that I’m always to blame, always wrong, always inadequate, always responsible but never good enough. Being myself is scary and overwhelming. It’s like I’m having to relearn how to think and feel and function, yet life goes on at the same pace and there is very little time available to adjust and recalibrate. As a result, I’m making lots of mistakes, frequently triggering the well established pathways in my brain that tell me I’m inadequate. It’s a constant battle to reject the influence and control of people who never liked who I really am (a thought expressed by both my mother and ex-husband)

Taking a step back and realising that I’d blindly accepted my grandmother had a Plan B if she lost her needle in my finger was amusing. Taking a step back and realising I’ve blindly allowed my parents and my ex-husband to define how I see myself – that I’ve accepted their disappointment as valid and reasonable – has left me feeling vulnerable and disoriented. It seems stupid to say that at 47 I’m having to relearn not just who I am but how to be that person when I interact with others, but that is where I’m at. It’s so hard to resist the behaviour patterns of a lifetime. The task of working out who I am and what I want seems impossibly huge, especially when I’m trying to integrate that with my existing relationships and responsibilities.

As always, I feel completely inadequate for the task ahead, but I’m holding on to the hope that there are better days ahead. Unravelling is just another necessary step in this journey.