A writer with trauma

  Photo by Noelle Otto Suicide ideation is quite common. Or so I've heard. Living with complex PTSD can make life an incredibly confusing experience. You cannot be in relationships because you are bound to repeat the traumas of your past. But you are also yearning to be in relationships, hoping that this new person is not going to hurt you. (but they do because of a thing called repetition compulsion) What is there to do when you want something really badly but you know you can't have it? Or if you do manage to get it, it causes you incredible pain and suffering. Exactly, you are thinking of not doing this anymore, of playing this game. This game called life (thanks, Florence Scovel Shinn). Why? If something you're doing is hurting you (in this case, life), wouldn't you (or anybody else) want to stop doing what you're doing and just end it? That is exactly what living with complex PTSD feels like. You are overwhelmed on a daily friggin basis with emotional triggers...

  Those of you who have a narcissistic father know what's that like.  He will find any opportunity to put you down and minimize your accomplishments. He'll tell you what you should do with your life and show how unimportant you are by ignoring you, not calling you (my father only called me twice in my entire life), picking on the music you like, the food you eat, and the friends you have. You get my point. Having a narcissistic father sets you up for a life of insecurity and feeling like you're not good enough. But I wonder if the greatest Czech writers of all time felt the same way. I wonder if Franz Kafka also felt like no matter how great he was as a person and as a writer, he'd never be good enough, at least not for his father. Read this letter to have a glimpse of what it felt like for Franz to grow up with such a critical and cold father. It makes you think that his writing was great because he needed to overcome his narcissistic father's abuse and prove to hi...