Feeling useless

There isn't a more ueseless feeling than knowing that the one that you love is in deep deep pain and there is nothing you can do about it. In this instance there really is nothing that I can do, because I don't understand. I don't know what it is like to have kids, and so I don't know what it feels like when you feel that you are unable to help that child when they need help. So I just have to feel useless. It is not a new feeling for me, but it is one that I really don't enjoy. I hate confrontation, I hate the fear of an argument yet to be had, I fear the torment of uncertainty of security. I can blame that on my parents, because they treated me badly during my childhood. They argued, yelling and screaming at each other in the middle of the night, and then behaving as if nothing had happened the next day. I recall vividly the terror of waking up in the middle of the night hearing the yelling, and not knowing what had caused it. The yelling soon spilled over into the daytime too, and my father would yell and scream about something at the drop of a hat. It was so unpredictable, that even if you tried to predict the screaming, you would live in fear of it happening. To the extent that it eventually became easier to precipitate the anger outburst just to get it over with. So now I have a fear of confrontation, of being yelled at by someone, of having to deal with someone who is so upset that they can't even express themselves properly. Even if that upset is not anger but hurt, and emotional distress. I guess I am just selfish in that I can't cope with the emotional turmoil of the effects that a disturbed childhood have had on a young adult. Someone who doesn't accept that they have a problem and so won't get the professional help they so desperately need, but instead take it out on a defenceless parent. Someone who will suffer the pain three times as much because guilt for causing the distress in another is carried alongside the pain of not being able to help a child, as well as the pain of their own suffering during an abusive relationship. So what does a person sitting on the outside of this do? Give space, obviously wanted by the person who shut themselves in the bedroom without speaking, give time, and give love. But it is not easy.