My partner & I raised our daughter in a non physically abusive environment. There is no physical trauma, however, my partner was severely depressed, had severe CPTSD & for a number of years was addicted to pain meds.
I was the “healthy parent” per se, but have realized that really I “taught” our daughter to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering her other parent and that I never confronted my partners drug addiction until our relationship had already fallen apart.
There were plenty of verbal arguments, silences between myself and my partner and we didn’t separate until our daughter had graduated from highschool.
I can see the results in my daughter’s high anxiety, fear of confrontation & inability to regulate her own emotions.
She has been depressed & anxious since middle school, but was always able to get through things.
Now at 25 she is extremely anxious & reacts to low level stressors in a “over the top” manner.
She has a form of dyslexia that prevents her from concentrating on reading, but I think a “work book” is something that would help her deal better with the poor parenting she got from me.
Suggestions?
by LeSoliel18
4 Comments
Self-guided DBT workbooks have been a lifesaver for me. There are a lot of great straightforward ones for adults that might help her.
Hi, I grew up in an extremely emotionally abusive household, similarly where my mother didn’t confront her husband and I am currently now living similar to how your daughter handles low lever stressors as a catastrophe.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. This is a dense book, but I skimmed around and read it not so much from front to back, but inside out and all around.
The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns have been extremely helpful. It has activities you can do that will help you understand how you process certain scenarios and allows you to reflect on why.
Edited for typos*
Good on you!
If she doesn’t already, I’d suggest that she tries a therapist that specializes in trauma and/ or with Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families. I grew up in a similar environment to the one you described (although everyone is clean now), and I really love my family and enjoy being around them. I have this weird contradiction in my life where outside of the drug and untreated grief related dysfunction, my parents were incredible.
It kind of felt like a betrayal to attend trauma focused therapy, so I’d go to therapists who specialize in anxiety. The problem was that the anxiety is a result of my childhood trauma, so these therapists couldn’t help me. When I finally saw one who specialized in trauma, I saw massive benefits to my mental health and quality of life.
Seeing this from a parent means the world to people like me who are around the same age as your daughter with parents who still claim i am the problem.
Boy swallows universe by trent dalton: about a boy growing up in poverty in australia and the people he meets along the way. lit fic, about growing up. not really centered around anxiety but i found that the mental strength of the young boy in this book was super inspiring.
the seven husbands of evelyn hugo. a lot of people are gonna be like wtf? but sometimes reading about badass bitches that don’t give a fuck helps quell my people pleasing tendencies
where the crawdad sings. again, not about anxiety, but the story of the girl in this book is all about strength, resilience, perseverance. i often turn to this book for comfort during hard times
I don’t like to recommend books about mental health to people struggling with mental health. I’m not the type of person that finds comfort in someone else struggling the same way, and instead it just validates my mental illness which makes things worse. however there are a few notable ones that include recovery and have inspired me in my recovery journey
1. every last word by tamara stone. oh my god i cried so hard. the main character has ocd and it’s about her trying to fit in at school and the group of friends she finds are absolutely incredible characters
2. everyone in this room will someday be dead by emily austin. about a woman who has severe anxiety around death/dying and lgbtq+ identify and her trying to navigate working through these things
3. normal people by sally rooney. some people love this book, some people hate it. it’s very very lit fic and just follows two friends in their relationship with each other. i think it has some really good perspective about people we love struggling and us not understanding them. this may be the best book for your daughter
4. eleanor oliphant is completely fine. this is about a woman who’s life is just fine and her journey to discovering that she is worthy of love and happiness. a super heartwarming story