Adytum, an insight:

My mother . . . “I am glad she was there for us. She was the leaven in all of Dad’s bread—I know she lightened my burden when listening to our father began to filter his PTSD into me.” 

This quote from Adytum is a trigger for me. I cry whenever I read it. The memory of feeling like I was failing at life because I was doing it wrong overwhelms me. I believed that I wanted to be like my father. What child does not want this? But my father was too dark to emulate. And, unfortunately, my mother was too. Yes, she lightened my burden at times with her stories and soothing words—but she carried her own darkness.  

One of my brothers told me his memory of her. This is not my memory, and I was too young to know of this. My mother sometimes slipped into rages she could not control. He once witnessed her slamming his twin brother’s head into the corner of a wall because she could not cope with his antics anymore. Life was too much for her at times. She nurtured me after she learned a bit more about coping with her condition. But I witnessed her rage; it was a rare thing for me, but it was there—like a hard slap to the face. 

When you read Adytum, you will witness a life lived too close to PTSD to survive unscathed.