Post trauma from mum

Hi @Kitkat,

Welcome to the SANE forums

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us, it can be a difficult thing to do. It can be such a difficult thing to come to terms with when one of your parents 'disowns' you or pushes you away, and we all have our own ways of dealing with this type of rejection. It sounds quite reasonable that you are afriad that this will happen again with your dad, particularly if you have not yet been able to process and come to terms with events relating to your mum.

While you may feel like it sounds stupid, people experience different types of trauma, and while your right in saying war is a kind of trauma, many other events can fall into this category as well. Also the experience can be very different for different people. Using the war example, some people go to war and come back home and may not experience any mental health symptoms at all, whereas others may return home and notice a difference in their mental health. The important thing is that there is no right or wrong here and it is perfectly ok that you are feeling this way.

Have you been able to speak with this with your GP or anyone else?

@Kitkat you have done well to complete year 12 and go to uni! It is good that you recognised you needed more time to complete the study during year 12, as we need to look after ourselves when we arent feeling our best. You may not feel it right now, but this is already an accomplishment! Other people may have discontinued their education due to circumstances such as these and I believe it is a sign of your strength and determination. Finishing uni at 25 isnt a bad age at all! We seem to be define alot in our society for the age of our accomplishments, and I myself have done the same thing with regard to the age I will finish uni, have a famiy etc..but what really matters is the fact that you have achieved this milestones and accomplishments, regardless of the age at which you complete them.

Hope this helps

Rockpool

Welcome @Kitkat

Adulthood comes upon us gradually. I only started uni at 23, finished at 29. Good luck studying, it can be hard work. The age of graduation seems important, but finishing and gaining knowledge and good experiences matter more.

I also had a mother who was a bit mentally disturbed and projected that on me.

Great that your dad could step in. Can you talk to him about your fear of having to leave, and what he expects as your contribution financially or housework wise? I usually feel more secure when I pull my weight or at least know other's expectations of me.

Hi @Kitkat and welcome to the forums. Well done on completing year 12 and getting to Uni, that is a fanastic acheivment with all you have had to contend with and studying when you have depression (and lack of motivation) but keeping on keeping on shows how resilient you are.

Wow, what a terrible time you had with the family situation, so glad your Dad is there for you. Whatever your Mum's motivation for doing what she did whether she herself lives with a Mental Illness is a bit irrelevant to the outcome - for you - you ended up abandoned and abandonement is a traumatic event, let alone all the drama pushed on you making no sense whatsoever. I feel for you deeply - how we make 'sense' of these events can be very difficult at the best of times, when they are so not-sensible to begin with we can often file them away in a way that has the blame mistakenly put on us ourseleves, without realising we are blaming ourselves. Have you managed to put this particualr event in your life into any sort of order? You are not to blame for what happened on any level, as a child (and 14 is coming into young adulthood but still we are kids then) you had no power in the situation at all. It was a random act of emotional violence really, appears to have been without warning and certainly without any foundation in fact - just you abandoned. Your mother bears the sole responsibility for these actions, not you. It is hers to own, but she may never do so, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up her burden and carry it around. You can give yourself permission to put it down and never pick it up again.

I really like @Appleblossom's approach too - talk to your Dad, just use your own words, and acknowledge that the fear is real, but the likelihood of an outcome of futher abandonment is not. You need reassurance on your place in his life and family. You can also give yourself that reassurance by looking at the reality of the situation, you have been there for years, you are at Uni and supported, the reality of it is that you have not been abandoned again.

I was bullied at school too, it is terrible to live through that and really impacts self-esteem. The bullying may have felt like a secondary issue for you with the huge event of being chucked out by your Mum, but this too would be contributing to your feelings of insecurity. Whatever they did or said was emotional violence and was motivated by their own twisted psychology - not you or anything to do with you other than you were the victim.

Gosh we have a hard time in life, getting over it, around it and through it is possible.