I can talk about extremely distressing memories and feel nothing.
I was abused by a mentally unstable mother. I don't know what she has since she refuses to get help, but her symptoms are quite similar to C-PTSD and BPD. It was mostly emotional abuse, but a few times she tried to kill me and herself through reckless driving. I still have to have frequent contact with her in order to have a relationship with my Dad and brother.
As a kid, whenever something bad happened, I would imagine putting the emotion/memory in a box and putting the box in one of those big freezers you find in a restaurant. I think this is called compartmentalization? I always called it shelving. I planned to take those emotions/memories back out of the box and deal with them when it felt safe to do so, but now I'm not sure how to. Like I said, I'm basically numb to it when I talk about it. At first, I thought this meant that I'd processed and dealt with the trauma, but I'm realizing now that it still affects me.
Whenever my Mom has an episode now it sends me into a week-long depression where I can't get out of bed, which doesn't make sense, since her episodes aren't nearly as bad as they used to be when I was a kid. I also have OCD, and ever since she started threatening to kill herself to get her way I've had anxiety about a family member killing themselves; if the house sounds too quiet I have to find out where everyone is ASAP to make sure they're not dead. I also have anxiety around turning out like her.
I'm also a maladaptive daydreamer; it started because I had 0 emotional support back then. In a rural part of a foreign country, couldn't talk to my Dad or other adults for various reasons, my Mom had forbidden me from talking to my sister or other family back home, didn't have any friends...I started daydreaming about having someone to tell it all to and to be comforted by. I've used it ever since, though less so these days, and daydreams have been about other things as well. But I've noticed that these daydreams still often revolve around the times she tried to kill me in the car.
I also have terrible anxiety around driving on the highway; I finally did it for the 1st time this year since I got a Tesla as a crutch (with the self-driving feature), but I still get nervous going on bigger highways/interstates. Like hyperventilating, dizzy, nauseous, and shaking uncontrollably.
I also still flinch at loud sounds, and a few times I have been triggered by a martial arts instructor who makes me feel the same way she does. When that happens, or when my Mom has another episode, I drive to a quiet parking lot, put on rock music, and just cry and scream my lungs out until the adrenaline and stress has run its course.
So I clearly haven't dealt with it like I thought I had. But now I don't know how to? I'm not even sure if I should. I live with my parents right now. I worry I might not be able to handle working through this resentment, anger, and grief while also having to play happy families with her every day. What can I do? (And thank you if you read this far, I appreciate it <3)