Shame-tough evening this evening

I haven't experienced P.T.S.D. in a long time. This evening was rough and my P.T.S.D. became triggered. Let me explain; when I was growing up I grew up in a house that had the smell of cat and dog feces and urine. Ruth did try when I was young to do repairs on the house, but that smell got into the wood. This meant that there was dog and cat feces that needed to be cleaned every day a couple of times a day. The animals would bring in mud and it would make the walls full of mud when they shook it off. It was my responsibility to clean the main part of the house from top to bottom every Saturday. I wasn't allowed to go out except to work when I got older until the house was clean. This entailed; the walls, floors, ceilings (for cob webs), cabinets, windows, stairs, porch, dusting all of the nick knacks, the back porch and the bar space. I hated it I grew up with five brothers and one sister and I was the only one that had to do these chores. Yes, I did feel like Cinderella.



I never invited any friends over because I was ashamed of what the house looked and smelled like.When I was 14 years old I invited a friend over because Ruth was upset that she never got to see my friends. I honestly think this was one of her alters because she was genuinely happy when I invited Debbie over. It took me 14 years to do that and she was the only friend I ever invited over. To say I had issues of shame was an understatement. When I married the kids father he knew of my issues around Ruth's house. His favorite thing to say to me to be mean was that I kept house worse then my mother did. This would literally make me come unglued. Of course it was P.T.S.D. and I didn't know about that then. One of the things abusers that perpetrate domestic violence do is to isolate you. When we first got married I loved to have dinner parties. At one of the parties he put on a white glove and walked the company around our apartment. He took the white glove and checked my dusting and cleaning under things on the counters in the kitchen. I was mortified and this led to me not wanting to have dinner parties and was exactly what he was going for.

I kept a good house and was very proud of it and he would complain that the house was horrible. This would make me feel so bad because I was trying my best to keep a good house and I couldn't make him happy. Looking back it is easy to see that he was trying to reinforce how bad the house looked to prevent me from wanting to have company over. As the years went by he would sell all of our good furniture and replace it with stuff that didn't match. You can have the cleanest house around but if you have furniture that doesn't go together it doesn't look good. Having people over to my house is still something I struggle with today because of shame when I was a child. I rarely had company over (except for his family) for almost five years.

This evening my son and I got into an argument about how my room looked. He wasn't being mean. He has really been helping out around the house. When he didn't help out I did share with him that it was hard to be the only one that was cleaning. He was saying to me that my space was messy and that he was keeping up his space really well. Was this a lie? No did it sent me into P.T.S.D.? Yes. Why? Over the shame of how I was keeping my personal space. Stupid I know but wow! I became angry, lashed out, I cried and was shaking. It took me a good thirty minutes to be able to talk about it. When we got into the car to do an errand he apologized for hurting my feelings. I started crying again and I told him what he said was accurate. I said to him that, "I'm not looking for attention but that the shame about the house was something I have carried me throughout my whole life." This made me cry worse. I explained to him that people don't understand the long term effects of child abuse. He told me, "You got dealt a raw deal with your childhood and marriage to dad." He went on to tell me, "I am so proud of you. You are dealing with this so well. When I was little you would go off the wall." I shared with him that one of the reasons that I want to tell my story is to teach others about the long term effects of child abuse. People think that we can just get over things and sometimes that isn't true. Even when we are doing great P.T.S.D. can rear it's ugly head. I'm glad this has now passed. Have a great evening, Rosie