Aimeeh,
Your situation sounds somewhat familiar to mine. Both parents gone at an early age. I was 12 when dad died, and 25 when mom died. I am now 43, married, no children, and not in contact with MY violent and dsyfunctional childhood family. I am so very sorry that you had to go through all of that. It is not fair. I wouldnt wish it on anyone.
I also had nightmares, & PTSD, mostly from childhood stuff. I can tell you that for me, counseling helped tremedously.
Yes you can get counseling b/c there are community agencies that base their fee on income. Here where I live, in a city, you can get counseling for as low as $11.00 a session. Thats if you have no income. If you do have a small income, it goes up some, depending on how much or little you make.
Please google community mental health centers in your town and go find someone to talk to. If you have a good college in your town,either private or a community college, then sometimes they have free counseling for the community by thier graduate seminary guys, or psychology majors.
Churches also provide free counseling to anyone. It will be worht it. At least it was for me.
Contact your hospital. Ask to speak to a social worker and ask her for the names of low income or free counseling. They will have a list of low income services. People come into ER all the time with no money. The hosp social workers are there to help those people find the help and resources they need. I know. I used to do that job.
Does it get easier. Yea, in time. Grief takes awhile to work through. Complicated grief, such is what you may be dealing with, due to your history of abuse, takes longer. Grief is considered in the early stages for the first 1- 1/2 yrs. For me, I was grieving hard for the first 2 yrs. Hard. But now, 8 yrs later, I dont even cry at holidays. Everyone is different in the way they grieve and how long they grieve so dont compare your grief to any one else. I just offer this as hope to you that it does get easier, and that the pain does not cut as deep after awhile.
Please continue to post here. It may help to get it all out and talk about it. T here is healing in that. At least I thought so. Staying busy also helped me. There is no way I could have stayed home all day. Please try to find a part time job or volunteer job that will keep your mind occupied once in awhile. That really helped me and I do think saved my life. I dont know how I c ould have survived staying home alone all day long with nothing to do but think about myself and my sadness. All I know is, it would not have been good.
Hope you are having a better day today.
lauren