How do I tell my mother that I don’t ever want to visit her house again? My father died many years ago in my childhood home and my mother still lives there. I was a teenager at the time but had some first aid training, so I attempted to save his life while we waited for the ambulance crew to arrive. Ultimately, we were unsuccessful. Only recently was it suggested that I have PTSD and I am now seeing a trauma therapist.
Since that night, I have always dreaded returning to the house and though I now live more than 100 miles away, I still get the same feeling every time I visit. Sometimes the feeling is stronger than others; it can vary from a vague discomfort to all-out dread.
If I confide in my mother, she will feel compelled to sell up and move; I know she does not want to do this. And even if she does, I worry I will still dread the idea of seeing her (and my siblings) because they remind me of what happened that night. My mother was there when it happened so it must have been traumatic for her, too. We love each other, and talk occasionally, but are not particularly close.
I am so sorry that this happened to you. Losing a parent at such a tender age is devastating enough without the added dimension of trauma. Seeking treatment for PTSD is a positive step, no matter how much time has elapsed since the event. “After treatment, usually Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), a person will hopefully be less traumatised by the memories,” says clinical psychologist Linda Blair. “But you still have to go through a desensitisation process if you want to be near the site of the event. It also sounds like the problem has been generalised to include the other people who were there, so a multi-step process is required.” On the positive side, Blair says that there is a very good chance of recovery.
I was curious about why you want to address the issue of visiting the house now, and it’s something Blair also wondered. “Think about what has changed that you feel the need to have this conversation now. If you can’t think of anything, why don’t you keep things as they are and wait until after your therapy is completed?”
The psychotherapist Matt Wotton agrees. “As human beings we love clarity and certainty, we crave it. It drives us to rush at things rather than taking a step back and deploying ‘watchful waiting’, seeing how things go. The latter can feel unsatisfactory but the truth is you don’t need to make a hasty decision about having an impossible conversation.”
He suspects that you are locked into a pattern of thinking, likely driven by feelings of guilt. “You imply you can’t see your family because they remind you of your dad, which is a really sad, tough position to be in. Might it be nice to remember your dad as he was: the fun one, the silly one, or however he was?”
Wotton also suggests you reframe the movie you’re replaying in your mind. “You tried to save your father. It didn’t work, but if this was a film, that could be a moving, compassionate scene. Without minimising what happened, try to find something poignant and beautiful in that moment, rather than focusing on a sense of failure.”
If you can’t delay speaking to your mother, Blair suggests writing a letter. “You have been thinking about this for years but it could be shocking, brutal even, for her to hear it out of the blue. It’s fair enough that you want her to be aware of your distress but do it gently. Something like: ‘Mum, I wish my feelings had gone away about what happened with Dad but they just haven’t. I’m working on that but in the meantime I’m always reminded of it starkly when we’re at home. Could I stay in a B&B next time and we can still have happy times together? I wanted to write to you so you have time to think about this before we talk.”
Then, when you do visit, I would introduce an enjoyable new ritual, for example taking her for afternoon tea or a pub lunch which would give you both something to look forward to, rather than dwelling only on the past.
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