‘I couldn’t outrun my trauma’: nobody talks about parenting with complex PTSD

‘I was angry that she could never understand what it felt like to be abandoned by your parents.’ Illustration: Susanna Gentili/The Guardian

The grease hit my bare skin and landed in the space between my shoulder blade and the arch of my back. We were in our kitchen, my mom frying a chicken meal on the stove. My father was soon to arrive home from work, and she always worked hard to have his meal ready.

My dark chocolatey skin sizzled, and I cried in pain. My mother picked me up and tried to calm me down, wiping tears from my cheeks. As soon as my father opened the front door, she saw disappointment all over his face. He greeted her with “What happened to her, Lisa?”