I can't escape my parents, even when I'm an ocean away.

Trigger warning: abuse (controlling behaviour)

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I'm struggling a lot with flashbacks recently. It's been hard.

I was triggered earlier today. I'm calmer now, but I'm still extremely stressed and scared. I've been journalling and posting on the forum in an attempt to relax and process my feelings, but while the panic is subdued, my mind is still stuck in the past.

Those who have flashbacks will know this feeling well: You know you're safe, but you're still getting hurt again and again. You know it's over, but you're still reliving it again and again.

I've been abused my entire life. I still am. I struggle with my feelings of guilt and self-blame. I constantly ask myself why I'm still in contact with my parents if every conversation with them ends in pain. I blame myself for not twisting out of their grasp, even though I'm an ocean away from them. And I know, when they die, they'll still have a hold on me.

I ran away from home once. I planned to sleep at my school with the cats, because school was a safer place than home was. Yet, at school, I was also being abused. Teachers did not help me, because they were also hurting me.

I grew up having nobody but my family to rely on. Now that I have truly kind friends who care about me, I can also rely on them. But I don't, because I was raised to believe I couldn't trust anyone else.

Do you know what the most cruel thing my mother said to me was? It isn't "I hate you." It isn't "It's your fault." It isn't even "I regret giving birth to you."

It's "I love you." Not because it's a lie, but because it's the truth.

Knowing that my parents loved me, even though they abused me in every way possible, is one of the most painful and lonely feelings in the world, because it convinces me that it's the best sort of love I'll ever get.

My partner is so kind and patient with me. He respects me and cares about what I actually want. Yet I still crawl to my parents for comfort — a tiny scrap of validation, or a little bit of reassurance, anything...

I was still a child when they started telling me that I couldn't trust other people, that they were the only ones that cared about me and would never leave me. Hearing that every time I brought up making friends, or talked about going to my siblings for help, or finding any source of support that wasn't them...

I don't understand it.

I lived with them until I was 24. I still don't know why they let me move out. These people have talked about chaining me to their bed or installing cameras in the house to monitor me. They have punished me for using the toilet without telling them and reversed the lock on my room so they could lock me in whenever they pleased. They controlled every aspect of my life down to what clothes I wore — and suddenly, they're letting me move across the Atlantic?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm misrepresenting them. I tell myself, "Everything they do is out of love. I shouldn't complain about them. They did nothing wrong."

But even if that's true, it hurts. It hurts so much. I want to be free from them, but I can't get away from them, even when they're nowhere near me. I could block them right now. I could uninstall the tracker on my phone. I could tell everyone I know to keep my life private. But I can't.

Why can't I do it?

Why? Why? Why?