Triggered by friend’s situation

[ballet]

I’ve been out of my abusive situation for a few years now, and lately I’ve been doing pretty well. I have a job I love, my therapy has really helped, and for the first time I haven’t been feeling haunted by the past day in and day out.

I have a friend who is physically and emotionally abused by her dad and has been ever since childhood. We’re close and she likes to offload on me sometimes. I want to be there for her, but lately I’m finding it triggers my PTSD and I feel impatient with her unfairly. She’s a financially independent woman – why does she have to go back to him at weekends just because he says so? Why does she have to hand him huge portions of her salary? And so on. I know these questions are unfair and my friends could have asked similar things about me with regard to my ex. This is probably why it’s so triggering for me – it’s reminding me of a time when I felt powerless and I was going along with whatever unreasonable controlling thing my ex wanted, out of fear. Maybe it’s my past self I’m angry at, not her. (detail removed by moderator) she reached out to me because her dad is refusing to let her travel to see me as we’d planned, and I simply haven’t replied to her message, because seeing her write, “I don’t know what I should do” just made me feel so unreasonably angry, and then sad at the same time.

I don’t know what I hope to gain by posting here, but I hope someone understands.

[KIP.]

Perhaps you could gently signpost her to therapy?

[HopeLifeJoy]

Put yourself absolutely first.
Simply say that you need time for yourself to work on your trauma. She will respect your decision.

Your friend has to recognise and acknowledge first of all the fact that she is being (financially) abused in order for her to take actions to change her situation. You can maybe suggest her to search and read about abusive power and control, financial abuse, financial exploitation etc…

My sister used to belong to a religious sect. She was asked to give a large portion of her salary ( nearly the same amount as her rent!) and work for them for free(!!) on weekends on top of her own full-time job. There was no way to make her see the light. We all tried. This went on for years, a decade. They dismissed her when she lost her job and couldn’t contribute financially anymore.

Wishing you the best

[Author]

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