Examples of family scapegoating and parental gaslighting about abuse and exploitation in my life

 Hi friends. I've been writing a lot about how I was abused, neglected, abandoned, exploited, toxically shamed, manipulated, scapegoated and gaslit about it all by four parents, two bio and their two spouses and later their some of adult kids. Today I'm sharing some specific examples of how particularly the family scapegoating and parental gaslighting worked. These are in no specific order and reflect only the tip of the iceberg. 

Family scapegoating. My dad and his new wife did not like each other. But instead of admitting it, they pretended they were fine but I was the problem. This meant a lot of brittle tension and air so thick you could slice it. Her way was aggrieved huffiness, weaponized "exhaustion" and passive-aggressive anger and cool superiority (which I learned later was basically  just poutiness). My dad just angry all the time with a pasted on grimace he thought passed as a smile. She was obese, lazy and self-pitying. She was always quietly seething about something but never said what. Which pissed my dad off. But instead of dealing direct with each other, they triangulated and aimed it at me. They never said what the problem was, they just knew I was it. 

And I always believed that I was. It was insanely stressful and confusing. I couldn't see anything I had done. I thought by doing the majority of the work (vacuuming, mopping, dusting, dishes, laundry, cleaning) and childcare (including sleeping in their kids' rooms)  would surely be enough to keep them happy. I knew in this very transactional childhood, I'd never earn their love. That was way above my paygrade. But at least they would not be mad. Which was really all I ever hoped for was that others would be okay. 

And that empath nature of mine was as I now see it, the biggest weapon in their gaslighting arsenal. I just gave it to them free. They both knew just how to push my buttons to get what they wanted. Like a cigarette machine. They wouldn't yell, per se, just hint that I was letting down, that I wasn't doing my share. That's true. I was doing everyone else's share. I remember all my dad had to do was say "your stepmother (or worse yet "Mummy") is upset with you." And I'd jump to fix. He could have told me to get her the moon and I'd have done it. And it would have done about as much good because that woman was never happy or ever going to be. Neither was he. 

And my mom and her husband were no better. She would pit him against me and sit back and enjoy the show. Not only did she not protect from his venomous wrath and bullying, she egged him on. They all  had such a good thing going with me. I was that broken slot machine that just kept paying out. All they had to do was say jump and I'd say how high? Pretty soon they didn't even need to say and I knew just how far. They got more adept at getting more and more out of me. And they made sure their kids extorted from me too. I was so twisted up inside by the time I moved out that I could look out my own ass.

I still am. Decades later I have to keep telling myself that the problem may not  be all me. It's so ingrained that I nightly dream that I have angered or upset and done some terrible thing to one of them. I've dreamed it so much that I have dream memories. And I'm always sure what's dream and what's memory. I actually have more dream memories than actual ones. 

And why? Their lies, manipulation, exploitation, parentification, abuse and scapegoating are imbedded in me brain and they always will be. I will hopefully with practice, at least be able to say it was wrong. But whether I'll ever really believe it, I don't know. The single sickest way parents gaslight their child is into thinking they're the cause of family problems. Especially a kid like me who tried so hard to fit in, to be loved and wanted. As if...

Two things I've learned about being abused then gaslit and lied to by parents

 Hi guys. Me again with more things I'm learning about my childhood experiences with parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, scapegoating, manipulation, parentification and gaslighting about it all by four (count them) narcissistic parents. Here are two things I've learned about being gaslit and lied to by parents. One is to question everything. Every. Single. Thing. And the other is that a skunk smells it's own smell first. 

About questioning, once you catch someone in a lie (a hurtful one, not the kind a parent might tell a child to protect them), you have to wonder how many other lies were told. And I have caught both my mother and her  husband in a plethora of lies about and to me and gaslighting of me. And my dad and his wife in a ton of gaslighting. Now understand, that calling these things lies and gaslighting, is all new to me. For the first 58-ish years of my life, I believed they were always right. I believed their version even when it was hurtful to me. 

And it always was. The gaslighting was to make me believe that their narcissistic abuse didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not their fault. And if it was, they didn't mean it. And if they did, I deserved it. (the Narcissist prayer, which is really eerily accurate if you've ever experienced such abuse. It's very affirming, somehow, to hear this mantra of narcs, expressed so clearly. It helps this survivor see that these self-centered people are not as scary as I thought and that they are just rather pathetic and predictable.)

So, back to the lies. Once I understood them as such, I began to look more closely at other things they did and said that seemed odd to me at the time but which I never questioned because, (cue chorus) they were always right. And I began to see not just a few untruths but patterns of lying that are pathological. I see that there was more lie than truth. And worst of all, that these lies have formed the basis my thinking and damaged every part of my life and completely sabotaged my memory of things. 

Because their acts of neglect, abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, religious and medical), abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, parentification, exploitation, scapegoating and toxic shaming, are so weird (see pasts posts on that), they're almost unbelievable. And they counted on my not being believed if I told anyone. And they gaslit me into thinking no one would believe me and that I was the problem. And worst of all, they exploited my very caring, empath nature. 

For all of my life, I've believed terrible things about myself, things I see now were tube fed to me by people in whose interests it was to keep me thinking them. I believed I was bad, flawed, worthless, evil, selfish, greedy, lazy, a bad "family member", a nuisance, hurtful. But also that I was only there to do for others, to be the scapegoat, servant, surrogate parent and surrogate spouse. That I  had to earn love and that I never worked  hard enough. I still have trouble accepting that these things might not be true. They were very good at gaslighting. 

But once I allowed myself to consider things from another angle, all the pieces began to fall into place. All this bullshit was told to me to keep me in my place. I was told I was bad so I'd keep trying to please them. I was told I was a nuisance so I'd keep trying to earn my place. I was told God expected me to serve others so I would. I was told I was angry, bitter, selfish, too sensitive, a show off,  to cover their bad behavior. And I was told (and probably others were as well) that I was the problem to draw attention from what they were doing. 

Once I started looking for lies, I found them. Once I saw what all they got from me, how much of their abuse I accepted, how hard I was willing to work, how much of their shameful behavior I was willing to take on myself, it became perfectly clear. They were playing me. And being weaned on these lies, I never knew and just got more and more brain damaged as they got more audacious with the abuse. 

So now I question everything they ever did or said. That's one thing I learned. The other thing is that a skunk smells his own smell first. What I mean is that weirdly they always called out others' lies especially "mine." Also, cheaters, scammers and thieves. They are always accusing others of lying, cheating, scamming and stealing. My mom's husband actually proclaims to be one of those people who can "always spot a liar." Which is a really stupid because no one can "spot" a liar because they are deceptive. Unless he is one himself and knows the tricks. I mean, I never caught on that they were liars because I was truthful and believed the best of them. It would not occur to me for nearly 60 years that they had been routinely lying to, manipulating, exploiting, stealing from and cheating me. And all those people who were supposedly so deceitful,  had been scammed and lied to by my parents. 

So why would they be so preoccupied with tripping others up? Because they were and have been hiding their own dishonesty. As I now see it, they have spent their lives lying, cheating, scamming and stealing. And for being so good at spotting and calling out these things, they completely missed that every person in their small enclave, is also a cheater, liar, thief and scammer. Accident or design, I don't know. And most ironic of all, one set divorced because they found out each other was lying (cheating, stealing and scamming). And the others just wished they had and hated each other. It all comes full circle. 

It still doesn't fix the brain damage they've inflicted on me over the years. But I'm working on that. 

Weird side effects of parental neglect and abandonment

Hi friends. I am trying to sort out the ways that parental neglect and abandonment affect me today. I have a lot of brain damage also called CPTSD from growing up in very disturbing and confusing trauma I experienced with four very narcissistic adult authority figures. I do not call them parents anymore because they weren't. I received very little of the care that a child needs yet had a lot of inappropriate expectation to be the adult and parent them (meet their needs, fix their issues, support them). And then later I was expected to care for their children as well. I was excluded and not given basic things every kid needs. And then gaslit that this was all okay. In my youth, I was very confused, disoriented and dissociated a lot of the time, as I tried to navigate adult expectations without even the tools of childhood. 

So the weird side effects are that I don't know what it is I don't know. It's like like being put on a hockey field without equipment or knowing the rules of the game or even where you are, what you are doing or why you are there and then being expected to play the game correctly. Living in CPTSD is extra difficult because although you don't look different, my brain is damaged and you can't think or feel in any kind of normal way. So you do a lot of faking it, watching other people for cues and making a lot of mistakes. Which make you look and feel kind of ridiculous and incompetent. 

Which is I guess kind of what I am. And that incompetency, that ignorance of basic things, is one of the most awful side effects of parental abandonment, endangerment, abuse, neglect and especially parentification. And parental gaslighting. That dream-like sense that there are things I should know and feel and should be doing that I can't and don't because I don't know what they are. I say dream like because that's  how many of my dreams (nightmares, actually) play out. I'm plunked down in the middle of unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar people in which I'm expected to do things for people that I have no idea how to do let alone even what it is  that's expected of me.  It's a generalized feeling of constant failure. Only this is real life. 

It makes even basic things like right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, safe vs. unsafe, me vs. them, impossible to conceptualize. I've said before that I don't know, for example, where others stop and I begin. I was taught only to care for others. That they mattered and I didn't. So I didn't develop a sense of self, a protective skin so to speak, that I was unique and separate from others. To take care, to speak up for, to defend and protect myself all that was wrong. 

I was  exposed to so many frightening situations, and gaslit into thinking this was all normal and fine (for me, not for others), with no caring adult to help me let alone even care what was happening.  Adults who were creating the dangerous situations and allowing other adults to endanger me. Adults who were exploiting, manipulating and hurting me, egged on by my parents. Parents who pitted their spouses against me and leveraged my inability to protect myself against me. Adults who expected terrible things, set terrible examples and expected me to do as they said NOT as they did.  

All this has had disastrous consequences that dog me today. And it's made more difficult by the fact that it's all in my head and not visible to anyone. On the outside, I look pretty normal. On the inside, I'm a confused, scared kid constantly looking over my shoulder. If I was missing a leg, it would be clear that I would  need some accommodations. When you're missing a childhood, a sense of identity, self-defense mechanisms and adults who helped rather than hurt, that's not so clear. But it's just as difficult. Maybe even more so. Because there's no prosthetic, no crutch to help compensate for these disabilities. 

Maybe the worst part of parental neglect, abuse, scapegoating, exploiting and excluding of one kid

 Hi friends. Hey just a word of warning, if you're dealing with impacts of parental abuse, this may be difficult to read. On the other hand, you might find, as I did, that hearing others' stories is affirming that what you experienced was indeed as bad as you remember. So today I'm looking at what is probably the worst part of parental neglect, abuse, scapegoating, exploiting, targeting and excluding of one kid. In my weird family set up (which was really no family), I was the one targeted. The others did not experience this. 

And when I say weird, I think you'll agree that is really was. My parents had only me and in 1969 (I was 5) moved us to Alaska to "convert the Indians." They weren't sponsored by any church and the one they happened to be in at the time they got the bright idea to do this, categorically said "NO! We won't sponsor you and you should not do this. You're not missionaries and there's no mission field there." No one in either family supported them either. But my grandiose narcissist parents went anyway. 

So everything was sold including my toys and anything my gramas couldn't rescue and store.  They had no jobs lined up and no place to live. They knew no one.  They expected, I now realize, that they'd just waltz into town and the red carpet would be rolled out by these "Indians" about whom they knew nothing. And they expected that these people would also feed, house, clothe and care for them because they said they were missionaries. They got this idea from the part in scripture where Jesus tells his disciples to let the people of the towns they went to minister to their needs. 

This sounded good to them because my mom and dad liked being cared for, especially my mom. And holding down a job was never my dad's forte. He was above all that. At no time did they envision actually doing anything besides "preaching" and running Good News clubs. And not even those materialized. The people did like my dad to play the violin and my mom to play the organ. But no one felt responsible to provide my parents food, lodging, childcare etc., for doing so. We ended up living (or I should say squatting) in over a dozen suuupper sketchy situations in the year we were there. 

My dad would leave for weeks at a time to go I don't know where. Not many phones and he wouldn't  have kept in contact anyway. My mom wasn't around much either and so I did a lot of wandering alone in unfamiliar places. Then after the Charles Manson murders, they agreed that  my dad should go (by go I mean hitchhike) to LA, on their non-existent income to convert the Manson girls. Actually, getting my dad out of the picture suited my mother just fine. She could play the poor abandoned single mom card more effectively with him gone. 

Also, she had been running around on my dad for some time, probably pretty much the whole time we were there. She was never around and just expected that the very elderly native couple who took pity on us, would care for me. I had to make myself brown sugar sandwiches from Mrs. Hammond's kitchen. I don't recall being made any breakfasts or lunches. I always felt guilty like I was stealing, which I was. Mrs. Hammond didn't mind. She saw how little my mom cared for me. 

Then my mom said she had a job offer on a remote island way up the inland passage. It didn't exist. But she would make me go to summer school so she could "work." I think because they fed us breakfast. She'd get very angry if I didn't want to go and just wanted to be with her. I now wonder if she was pregnant and having morning sickness. 

Because, in the month we were there, she left me for a week to go to Seattle to get treatment for a bladder infection (she said). I wonder now if it was to get an abortion. I was left with strangers, no idea where either parent was except literally thousands of miles away. Also in that short month, she decided to divorce my dad. We were still in AK and she had to go back to Michigan to do so. My dad was fine with it. He'd been pretty much gone on one long gap year, ever since we got there and he planned to stay and hang out with the bunch of teenagers he'd made friends with. He was 34. I wouldn't see him again for over a year. 

There was no money because no one worked. We'd lived off others' charity. My grandparents sent her money to come home. We went home and then things got really crazy. I drove by a few of the many places we lived and felt sick  with the horrible memories. I've written about those times previously and will again. 

So what was the worst thing about this? The lies and gaslighting. Neither ever mentioned Alaska again except to tell others what great memories "we" had. There was no we. There was him doing his thing. Her doing hers and me doing mine. My grama who came up to see us, confirmed this. She said the minute they got there, "Jack went one way, Nancy went the other and left us with Marilisa." She probably wondered who the hell my parents left me with when they weren't there. I never told them, but pretty much no one. 

My mother has never admitted to leaving me behind to go to Seattle. She lied to her doctor recently when I brought it up (she always needs someone to go with her to the doctor because she's so "feeble.") Just for shits and giggles, I brought up the procedure she had in Seattle when the doc asked about surgeries. She shut me down saying she'd had none and never been to Seattle. My dad made up stories to make it sound so glamourous. Even his other kids spoke with pride at his funeral how he went "missioning" to people.  Translation: abandoned me, leaving me at the mercy of strangers, to go on a holiday. 

Which is another part of the hurt and frustration. To know you're not even an afterthought. You're a nuisance and obstacle. My mom said as much when she bragged about what a great job she'd have had with the little church they were in "if it weren't for you." Well, I may have only been six but I can remember all the delusional fantasies. And there was no job. Beside the elderly couple, there were just a lot of strangers and creepy men. 

None of this has ever been talked about. Not the divorce, the abandonment, the neglect, the frightening things. And that's only my life up to age 7. 

 

Why birthdays are hard for a kid with CPTSD

Hi friends. Do you struggle with birthdays? I do. My 60th is coming up. Having lived with six decades of parental narcissistic abuse, my special day often wasn't. That's just one of the reasons why birthdays are so difficult for a kid with CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder). 

My entire childhood, teen years and even adult life were spent living in the shadow of abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting by four incredibly self-centered parents. I was not taught to value myself, prioritize my needs or even realize I had them or to express feelings. I was taught to obey, serve and cater to adult authority figures. Instead of learning to care for and protect myself, I was in fact expected to allow dangerous people to do hurtful things. 

They always made it very clear that any self-care I might show myself was selfish and serving others (mostly them and their children) was my only duty. And the way they did it was aggressively and also subtly which was much worse. They used me as the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb. They triangulated relationships with each other, pitting their spouses against me. Then they both would then shame, attack, threaten, mock, humiliate, rage at and generally terrify me. Then they'd sit back and watch me dangle miserably on the fry wire. Like a bloody Spandau ballet. 

 You know that sick feeling you get in your stomach when someone is enraged at you for something but they won't say what and you don't remember doing anything? No? Good! I'm glad you don't have that experience. It's appalling. I can still feel the humiliation, shame and self-loathing welling up like acid reflux. I remember literally groveling, nearly peeing myself, crying and begging them to tell me what I did wrong! I'm sorry!!  I'll fix it! Just don't be mad at me. And they just sneered and looked down their noses like I was some kind of repulsive vermin. It was so egregious that I have continual nightmares about it. (CPTSD). 

I realize as I write this that it must sound exaggerated that all four of them treated me this way. But if you think about it, or if you know toxic people like this, it doesn't. Really, the very fact that it does sound extreme is what makes me know it isn't. I could not and certainly would not make this up. 

I remember watching the movie "Sybil" (way too young but then, caring for Marilisa was never a priority). I was traumatized seeing the horrible things Sybil's mother did to her. I never connected it with myself. I was taught to be grateful for any crumb of good thing and that other kids had it much worse. But now I realize that there are similarities in my story. My parents new spouses were very good at humiliation and intimidation. And my parents gave them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to me. Why? Because their inflated sense of self got off on it, I guess. 

I can't imagine what kind of sick person finds pleasure it a kid's suffering. I can't imagine subjecting my child to such cruel torment. Did I punish my kids? Yes and sometimes wrongly. I was never one of those who could calmly spank my child. That seems like sadism. I should not have spanked them. But my parents spanked me and told me it was right. So in my addled, gaslit brain, I thought I should. Single biggest regret of my life.  But at NO TIME would I allow some stranger I plunked down in my kid's life to do that. Or to discipline them. Or hurt them in any way. Especially when they knew these people they'd married were emotionally crippled and dangerous.  

And at no time did I ever scapegoat or humiliate them. Or take pride and joy in it like mine did. I was as upset and sad as the children were. I was mad at myself for not being able to find a better way. And that I was too much of a coward to listen to my own good judgement and not spank them. 

It makes me fucking disgusted and furious now. This humiliation from them, has gone on, in one way or another, all my life. They just have to find a way to shame and belittle me. God, the many ways they've done it is sickening. And they make sure I know I've been put down. It's creepy how they have gone out of their way to do hurtful things. My mother once threw a pie in my face at her company picnic, just for shits and giggles. No one else was laughing, except her idiot of a husband. And he sure as hell wouldn't have been laughing if she turned the pie on him. 

These were not that kind of people and it wasn't that kind of party. I think, and hope, that they were all just disgusted with her and embarrassed for me. I never found out but I hope to God that she was called out in front of others for her foolish behavior. My dad has found ways to take out his sick rage on me, in front of whole crowds of people. His wife always had to find some fault to call me out on. It was spiteful and malicious. Like they just could not stand to see me happy.  

So, why are birthdays especially hard? For the same reason Christmas is hard. That was the arena they often chose to humiliate me. Once for trying on my new sweater. They made it abundantly clear that I was not special. I gave beautiful expensive gifts I sometimes couldn't afford. And I was given lame little dollar store gifts while they'd and announce loudly the lavish gifts they give each other. They don't bother to call yet expect me to make a holy day of obligation out of their birthdays. 

The birthday gifts I got from other family members have been stolen and sold over the years. Or given to the other kids. They were always competitive with their "real kids" with any good thing involving me. When I got my first new car at 56, my mother's first thought was that I should have asked the dealership for credit for her other daughter's car (?) When my dad passed she didn't extend condolences. She wanted a share of  his estate. She divorced him 53 years previously. 

They could not be happy for me, ever. And they surely didn't want me to feel special at all. Well, they got their way. I get it. I'm worthless except as a punching bag. And that's where all the sick, nauseating crap has stayed, in my heart and head. I've not said anything. I think part of it now is that I don't want to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that I see their little games. And it really doesn't hurt anymore. I just expect it and try to stay out of their way. Two are gone now so it's easier. 

Now, with my own family, things are different. My husband decorates the  house for peoples' birthdays. He does nice, thoughtful things. The same with my kids. No one is excluded, favored or left out. This really helps to be part of a loving family and knowing that I made it happen. I was the change I wanted to see. Does it help little Marilisa, teen Marilisa? Frankly, not as much as I'd like. She still lets their gaslighting and scapegoating stick. She feels icky a lot of the time. She still believes she is always the problem and that the best she can hope for is that others will deign to let her fix them. 

I wish I had better news. But that's the awful legacy of narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, exploitation, abandonment, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting. Those are the devastating consequences of messing with and damaging a kid's mind and heart. 

How I'm learning to stop unhealthy caretaking of others and care for myself

Hi friends. I've been working on recovery from the parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting about it all, by four abusive parents (two bio, two step). And I had an epiphany a few days ago about how my unhealthy caretaking of others was hurting me and preventing me from caring for myself. 

That probably sounds obvious to anyone who doesn't struggle with being a people pleaser. But for me, spending a lifetime under the collective thumbs of tyrannical, abusive and manipulative adults, it's not. Being shamed from childhood to wait on, care for, fix and parent parents, has left me with a cavernous, gaping obsession to be whatever anyone wants me to be, whether it's safe or healthy or not. And as you might guess, people who exploit and manipulate that in me, are not expecting healthy things of me. 

They want me, as their child, to parent them, to be responsible for their every whim but then to also be  obedient to them as a slave would be. That constant impossible paradox, of being both subject to and responsible for has made my head slowly implode, over the years. Neither one of those are healthy or safe. I was their child and they were the parents. They had a duty of care to me, not the other way around. And then factor in having to be subject to and yet care for "stepparents" and I've become one endless people pleaser, never taking care of me and letting others trample every boundary if they wanted. 

I never dealt with this. I just kept gaslighting myself into thinking it was all my fault. I kept a poker face about what had happened and tried to squash it all down. And I succeeded. Till I didn't. Whenever someone around me, especially someone I was in a close relationship needed something, I thought it was my job to provide. 

What I have learned is two-fold. (Mind this involves adults, not my children. That's a different situation) First, I need to determine if what I'm being asked to do is reasonable, safe and good for me and if I can actually do it. I've jumped in way over my head because I felt I should. And I should be politely asked to do it, not expected. And even if all those things occur yet I still don't want to, I don't have to. 

And then what I learned recently is that I don't have to help and that the other person isn't even asking. My husband gets loudly irritable sometimes. And I just figured out why it upsets me so. Because I think I not only have to stick around and listen to it, I have to fix it. Somewhere in my taken advantage of brain was planted the idea that I cannot just walk away. That is selfish. I have to do everything in my power to fix the problem even if the person is treating me disrespectfully and making it clear they don't want help. 

I explained this to my husband the other night when he couldn't find his glasses. He was surprised and said "you mean all this time, you felt you had to fix it? It's not your problem, it's mine. It's not your job to take care of me. I'm an adult. You don't have to do anything." But because I was never allowed, with my parents,  to do that, because whenever someone had a problem I was supposed do know and fix, to care for them as if they were a needy two-year-old, because I was the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb, I just expected that everyone felt that way about me. 

It was a real ah-ha moment for us both. So now when I feel that old pull to stay in someone's else's problem, I ask myself who owns it, do they really need help (or are they just trying to make it my problem), can I help without getting hurt, and do I want to. If I can't answer yes to all of those, then I have to walk away. 

The single healthiest thing I can do to help my wounded inner child

Hello my friends. If you have been following my blog, you know that I'm finally, as a 60th birthday present to myself, beginning to sort out all the hurtful things that were done to me as a child, teen and into adulthood with my "family" of  origin. That's in quotes because they really weren't a family to me. On top of catering to two very self-centered bio parents, I was made to cater to their also super narcissistic spouses and then parent their children. Between the abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, toxic shaming, trauma dumping, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all, I never had much of a childhood. And ergo no room to be a normal teen either. There are lonely, scared and confused kids of many ages in my head. 

So I'm kind of messed up when it comes to knowing what a normal-ish childhood or teen years would look like.  I do think and I have been told, that I was able to help my children have somewhat better childhoods. I say somewhat because I made a bunch of mistakes and did some bad things too. But they were, for the most part errors and not malicious damage. 

And as I look back, doing things differently with them than was done to me, is part of how my wounded inner child finds some peace. It is incredibly therapeutic to be the change you wish to see in others. I don't do it perfectly or even well, all the time. But I try. And I show up. Which is more than I can say for my parents. 

Why do I keep bringing up what happened to me? Because I never really did. And my poor little inner girl got sicker and sicker, keeping all the toxic inside. In writing about it, I can admit what happened and how I felt. As I work to do better with my kids and now grandkids, I can contrast the difference between their experiences and mine. This helps affirm why I've been so miserable, frightened, anxious and confused, and why I second guess myself all the time. Intimidation, undermining, shaming and exploitation were my normal experiences for me.  

When I compare the safety, love and care I give my own, with the neglect and shame I was given, it helps me understand me why and how what happened to me was wrong. When I recall my  life and experiences at their ages, I note how really disturbing and dangerous  mine were and how I'd never in a million years let that happen to mine. 

So, as per the title of this post, what is the single healthiest thing I can do to help my wounded inner child? Well, I can't go back and fix what happened. I've tried to go back and meet her where she is and it just makes me sadder and madder that I was subjected to all the trauma. But what I can do is be better for my kids and now grandkids. To give them what I needed and didn't get. And I can enjoy and be grateful for the times with them. To celebrate the circle of life that I'm blessed to be part of. 

I think that was the single most hurtful thing done to me was to not be appreciated, enjoyed and treasured. Everything that happened, the abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation, cruelty, gaslighting, parentification, scapegoating, manipulation and harm, all happened because there was a lack of love, care  and respect for me. 

So paying it forward with the new generations, is a win-win for us all. It won't erase what happened to me. It still makes me mad and sad for little me. But the joy I get from my real family and the joy they say that I give them, in a way is better. What happened to me should not have happened in the first place. And I'm not saintly enough to say how it all worked for good, that whatever didn't kill me made me stronger. Sanctimonious hogwash that perpetrators use to exonerate their bad behavior. 

It. Should. Not. Have. Happened. Period. I'm not a better person for it. I'm brain damaged, have no boundaries, and hate myself most of the time. What enjoying my now family and trying to do better does, is that it helps heal generational trauma and gives the new folks a better life. And it validates, so sad and hurt me,  that this is what it should have looked like with you, sweet little girl. 

 

Why even flying monkeys are helpful in healing from narcissistic abuse

 Hi friends. Last post I said that I'd explain more about how even unhelpful people (flying monkeys) are helpful in healing from narcissistic abuse. So first, a caveat. They are not  helpful in the beginning when you're still just beginning to understand how someone has abused and manipulated you. Flying monkeys (the people who protect and support the abuser) just make the abuse so much worse, initially with their toxic positivity, gaslighting and toxic shaming of you, the victim. 

But as you get better at self-care, validating yourself, trusting your version, disallowing the narcissistic abuse and cutting ties with the narc, the flying monkeys become helpful. I don't mean that they try to be helpful. Oh no, they're still shielding the perpetrator and making you that bad guy. They still shame  and gaslight you. (It wasn't that bad. She didn't mean it. She hurting too. You should forgive her. You're too sensitive. You know their bullshit.)

And that's helpful in what way, you're wondering?? Let me use and example. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I shared with someone outside the family, who was a former acquaintance of my dad's that he wasn't the easiest person to live with. (which is putting it mildly. He subjected me to his violent anger, enslaved me to his lazy wife, made me raise their kids, shamed me constantly, hit me, didn't give two shits about anything that happened to me, scapegoated and blamed me, yet made me responsible for pretty much everything and abandoned me  several times.) I didn't go into all of that. 

So I wasn't expecting much to begin with because this person is judgey, preachy and has shamed me in the past. I just kind a test-drove my newfound transparency, for shits and giggles. Immediately she went into pooh-pooh mode. Not unexpected, either. When I mentioned one of the more outlandish, and completely indefensible things he'd done, she actually praised him. Completely missing the boat. 

So how did that help me? Well, it confirmed that trusting someone you already don't trust isn't a good idea. That's another part of the weird brain-washy stuff my parents did, which was to scold me for daring to protect myself and actually encouraging me to let hurtful keep hurting me. It also showed that I was making progress in healing. Because in the past I would taken her defense of my dad as a criticism and felt guilty. Now I just consider the source. 

And it taught me something else too. That maybe, I'm hearing criticism where none exists. For one thing, the thing my dad did, is something that under normal circumstances would be a good thing. It's just that my dad did it in a weird, bad way, for the wrong reasons and ended up hurting me. And she didn't approve when I added that part. But my old self would have just heard the initial support of it and shamed myself for faulting my dad. And this time, I was able to hear past that. 

And it further confirmed why I would  have felt ashamed in the first place. Because I had been shamed by self-centered "parents" all my life.  I was taught to believe that, as the narcissist's prayer goes, it's always my fault. I should accept "constructive criticism" humbly and not be "so sensitive." And also never "criticize" them. By which they meant don't even bring it up.  How dare you feel bad when we're making you feel bad? Which is all a bunch of narcissistic contradiction. 

And I learned that even if flying monkeys are faulting me for telling what someone did to hurt me, or for being hurt by it or "not forgiving" it, whatever shamey BS, I don't have to accept it. I don't have to take the shame on myself. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said, "no one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission." And why would I give obviously hurtful people permission to hurt me? 

Because I was taught to. Really. Not only did my parents not protect me from hurtful people, particularly their new spouses, they threw me at them. They made any basic care contingent on serving,  humoring, obeying, parenting, waiting on and letting them hurt me. They lied and said that God expected me to do this. And then took the new spouses part when they lied and said I did all these terrible things which actually the spouses had done themselves. And shamed me for failing to please them. They made me responsible for their new families while they went about doing one destructive thing after another, to me. There was literally no low that was low enough for me. The bar was in the basement. 

This sounds exaggerated, even to me. But that just shows how deceptive and manipulative they were. And tricky. They'd sprinkle in a little random happy experience, just to keep me baited. They made everything so conditional, including love, food, a bed, a home, that I was forever hoping through hoops. And then when I succeeded, they moved the hoops. And then withheld and took things away, just because.  And I never confronted it because it was all lied about and twisted to be my problem. And I certainly didn't need more to feel guilty about. 

I won't ever confront it to them. The ones who have passed went to their graves maintaining that I was their only problem. If they did have consciences they never shared this with me. Another one has been so violent in the past that I won't risk that. And the last one just makes up lies and pretends she can't remember. I think she's convinced herself she can't. 

And if it seems I've strayed from the point of the post, I have but let me just see if I can round it up. What I have learned most about flying monkeys is that by their very nature, they prove that all the bad things I remember happening, happened. Otherwise, why such staunch defense of indefensible behavior Methinks they do protest too much. And they too have been taken in. 

And really, if they can defend parentification, abuse, neglect, abandonment, gaslighting, scapegoating, exploitation, theft, lies, endangerment, manipulation, trauma, then I have no respect for them anyway. So what do I care what they think about me? They can do their worst, and good luck, cause I'm not taking this crap anymore. 

Amen. 

Why I talk about bad stuff from my childhood (and you should too)

 Hi guys. Today's itinerary in my quest to heal my wounded inner child, is to explain why I talk about so much bad stuff from my childhood. And the answer to that is both simple and incredibly complex. Simple answer: I'm talking a lot about the negative stuff now because I never did then (or anytime really, during the last 59 years). And the complicated answer is the same. I never looked at, admitted to, acknowledged or shared how much bad stuff was happening to me. I didn't ask for help because I didn't know I could, because I was gaslit into believing nothing was wrong and if it was, it was my fault and/or I was exaggerating, lying, too sensitive or showing off. Sound familiar? Yeah, that's the narcissist's creed.  

I should, I was taught, just mop up all the crap and keep it to myself. My poor brain is an over-saturated sponge, filthy with all the awful memories, with no room for much of anything else. It leaks out, as sponges do when they're too full, in the constant nightmares of CPTSD. Which are what finally started me really seeking help. Which led me to cease covering up, making excuses for and defending the perpetrators (my two parents and later their partners and children) and discontinue believing their gaslighting. Which led me to start being honest about what actually happened, what was done to me, what I  experienced and was not protected from, how I was exploited and parentified, how my basic needs were neglected and how I was harmed and manipulated. Which led me to admit that I had dealt with all this alone, without help, support or validation. 

And that led to talking and writing about it. Which is what I'm doing now. What you've been reading in the last months is 59 years untalked about stuff. Stories not told, abuse and neglect never reported, love and care not received, shaming, harsh punishment, being hit, kicked out of my bedroom so that my uncle and his girlfriend could have it. Of being made to care for foster care kids so my mom and her boyfriend could play house in the basement. Of being kicked out of the house, by my mom's lazy, chronically unemployed new husband while they lived off my child support. Of being abandoned by my dad then being left with strangers on a remote island by my mom. 

Of used as a servant, being sexually harassed and shamed for telling, of being mocked for my breast size and for sleepwalking, by my mom's boyfriend. Of being screamed at, called names, threatened with violence and finally harmed. Of being made to sleep with babies and little children and care for them as if I was their parent. Of doing without Of being made to do other people's work that they were too lazy to do for themselves. Of being so scapegoated that I began to believe I was the problem and not fit to live. Of being miserable but faking happiness so no one else would feel uncomfortable. 

And so much more. 

And so I'm starting to talk about it. It doesn't fix anything that happened but it at least helps clear my head of some of the lies and brainwashing. But only with trusted people who are few and far between. But even the unhelpful ones, the toxically positive, the minimizers and gaslighters help. I'll blog more about  how in a future post. When one of my inner circle expresses shock I realized my story is shocking. When they show disgust and anger at my family for treating me this way, I learn that it's okay for me to feel disgust and anger too. When they label these things as wrong, it shows me they are. When I hear from them, that they've never heard anything like my experiences, let alone experienced them, it validates just how bad things were. 

Why do I need others to do this for me? Because I'm brain damaged and don't know how to think, let alone feel about my experiences because I was not allowed to. I need healthy examples because I didn't have any. I need, if not permission, at least reminders that I can and should be honest about what happened. And yes, maybe for a time, even permission. Because for all these years, I've never had that. I was scolded and shamed for even asking or mentioning things that happened. And they shut me down so much through my childhood and teen years that they got very good at it. They got so used to ordering me around and shutting me down that they just kept doing it for the rest of my life. Till I decided enough is enough. 

Two tips that help my CPTSD brain know right from narcissistic gaslighting

 Hi friends. You know how I said yesterday that when I have some good news from my CPTSD recovery front, I'll share it? Well, I  just thought of something. Two things, actually, that help my parental abuse-damaged brain know right from narcissistic gaslighting. Backstory, if you're just tuning in. About a year ago, at 59, I began down the path to heal from parental abuse--sexual, emotional, spiritual, physical and medical--(from four parents, two bio, two step), neglect, endangerment, parentification, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, family scapegoating, toxic shaming and a lifetime of gaslighting about it all. 

It took me nearly six decades to start to really look at what had happened. Not just what I was told had happened (gaslighting) by four very narcissistic, histrionic, anti-social (most all the Category B) personality disordered parental figures. I learned basically that right was wrong if  I was doing it and that wrong was right for them. I understood young that they were gods and I was to be categorically obedient to them, even if as so often happened, they contradicted the real God. Whom they ironically proclaimed to serve. 

Well, when I say served, that's a stretch. It was more that they believe themselves to be the mouthpiece of God, to tell others what to do, but are themselves above it all. Rules they shove down others' throats, don't apply to them. All four of them, each with his or her own spin. And I as the only child of my biological parents, was caught in the crosshairs of their mess. I've share some of the nightmares that this colossal arrogance created. 

I was made to parent their kids because apparently this was God's will for me. I was made to do the majority of the work in the family, including dancing attendance on their two pathologically lazy, manipulative new spouses. I didn't have things like a bed, bedroom, proper food or medical care or even a home. I lived with people. I know now this couch surfing is hidden homelessness. 

So I am now a messed up, confused adult, brain damaged by decades of gaslighting and abuse. I don't know where others end and I begin. I'm like an emotional leper with no protective layer to keep me safe. I was taught that self-care was selfish. Even though they all had whatever they wanted. I have been terrified into not listening to myself and letting others push me around. Right and wrong have been so trashed by my family that I struggle to sort it out. I know what's right but old gaslighting has damaged my confidence to assert it. 

But when it comes to my now family, that's another story. I have been everyone's lackey but I'll be damned if mine will. I wanted a different life for them and to the best of my ability, gave it. But I still screwed up soooo much it makes me sick. I did things, like spanking, which I didn't feel right about but because someone said I should, I did. I got in terrible rows with my husband when the shit in my head got the better of me. Would I have been a perfect person without all this trauma? No. But I would have been stronger and happier which would have helped. 

But back to the point of this post. Two tricks that help my CPTSD brain know right from wrong. Or should I say have the confidence to acknowledge right and wrong. Especially wrong. Said simply, I've started considering the source. As Jesus says, "a tree is known by it's fruit." And later, St. Paul, "faith without works is dead." And the old song "they'll know we are Christians by our love." It's not what we  we say but what we do and how we live. Without love, our words are just a lot of hypocritical noise. 

I've been reading these scriptures since I was a child. But my life with people who called themselves my "family" was soooo very different. In my childhood, it was their words, not deeds that ruled. And my deeds, or misdeeds were harshly punished. Very unlike the merciful God whose forgiveness they claimed for themselves. The God I was raised on was inconsistent,  played favorites and gave my parents jurisdiction to make up rules for me as they went along, but were not expected to model or follow them. 

But, you might say, "that was your childhood. You're an adult now.  You should just know better." If you are someone who thinks like this, please, move on. I don't need more gaslighting and shaming. I'd like nothing more than a tabula rosa, in which none of these toxic messages were ever implanted in my brain. I'd love to be that confident woman who knows God and others love her. I'd have given anything not to be the lonely little orphan looking in the window at others' loving families. I'd have given much to have been loved, supported, encouraged, wanted. Most of all, I'd have liked to know that God's love was for me too. 

But it wasn't to be. And what we learn in our youth is what we follow as adult. You can't just magically change how you think and do things, especially if doing that brought such drastic punishment. What I have to do now is to rethink, unlearn, reprogram, fumigate the gas and basically start over. I liken my task to being dropped down on an alien planet, having lost use of faculties and having to learn how to do it not just again, but differently. 

Okay, so I can see this is meandering and if you're still with me, hang in there (thank you). What is helping me to do this big reset is re-reading the scriptures and comparing that to lives of the people who have shamed and gaslit me over the years.  And what I see is uncomfortable. I see very flawed people who made one bad decision after another. Who not only didn't prioritize me, they neglected, abandoned, endangered and exploited me. I can't  recall very many times I felt safe or happy except with grandparents. I do remember being nervous, worried, stressed, having constant bad dreams, being in physical and emotional pain all the time. Of feeling bad, out of place, in the way, foolish, stupid and yet, somehow, responsible for everyone. 

That shit didn't come from nowhere. This isn't some teen angst or period cramp. This was my life, from as far back as I can remember. And it went on being my life with them till I halted it. But it's  not just that. If it was just me, and they were all, other than that, functional caring people, that would be different. But that would never be the case. Because functional healthy people do not exclude, vilify and exploit one family member. Only very dysfunctional people do that. 

And so I'm back to considering the source, or in this case their collective track record. Which is not pretty. All four sponged off other people, me. the government, aid to American indigenous, strangers, family for most of their lives.  They scammed and conned and their only friends were fellow scammers. They have lost foster cares homes, been found guilty of neglect and abuse, filed bankruptcy multiple times, lied stolen, cheated and manipulated situations and people. One tried to claim social security on a deceased husband she divorced 55 years previously. Another two used my child support to fund their new family. Two were prescription drug dependent, (morphine and Vicodin) for decades. One going so far as to write fake prescriptions and sell the Vicodin. They illegally grew, sold and used pot. Yet these chronically unemployed, drug addicted benefits scammers still fault the democrats for stealing from them!  

If trees are known by their fruit, then I fear for these trees. They've made a mockery of God and wantonly broken so many commandments. And worst of all, have expressed no remorse or contrition. But it also makes me stop and think, why am I giving these people free rent in my head? I've only to look at the track record to see that these are not folks whose words I' have much respect for. I don't hate them and in a very arm's length way, love them. But as mentors, no. 

I need to find a way to shut out these false teachings and find my way back to the garden. And although I learned otherwise, I think God will want me back. Because if I read scripture correctly, and not through the gaslit haze, He never left. 

How CPTSD brain damage affects me every moment of every day

 Hello friends. I've been working a lot in the past few months to understand just why I struggle so much with anxiety, fear, toxic shame and nightmares. I've been looking at my experiences as a child and teen and realized that they were not as I'd gaslit myself into believing. I'm starting to be honest about the parental neglect, abuse, endangerment, abandonment, manipulation, exploitation, family scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. This was bad enough when it was just my two parents but when they divorced and remarried, it escalated to all-out narcissistic abuse from all four of them. 

I was brainwashed into thinking that this was all normal, but looking back and talking to others my age, the things I experienced were incredibly abnormal. But the brain damage  that gaslighting caused makes me unable to see or admit that it was. I need a lot of affirmation that what I experienced should not have happened. Feel free to chime in on that in the comments. It's very helpful. 

I find myself constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting blame, criticism and punishment. I'm forever second-guessing myself, hoping I suppose, that one day I'll get it right and parents will finally be pleased. Or at least just okay. I don't just have trouble listening to my own insider wisdom, I'm terrified to. I've been frightened into believing that anything I think couldn't possibly be God's spirit and must be my own selfishness. I was taught this...to listen to others with louder more confident voices, even if they were obviously confidently wrong. Unquestioning acceptance, even of unacceptable things that no one else experienced. Blind obedience even though they were all behaving very disobediently to their own creed. To God. 

Not only can I  not make decisions, I believe I shouldn't because I'll just screw it up. Parenting kids was made so much  more difficult because anytime someone criticized me, I automatically believed that they were right and I was wrong. Consequently I did a lot of things I didn't think were right because someone said they were. No matter how wacky, inconsistent, arrogant, antagonistic, combative or hypocritical the person was. None of these voices, I discovered, had me or my children's best interests at heart. They just wanted to make themselves sound good. 

Not that I knew or  know everything. I don't know very much. But what I find is that most people are in about the same boat. And it would have been nice to bounce ideas off someone who really cared. It would have been helpful to have been able to trust someone not to weaponize my own confidences against me. Like the time I, in desperation, checked myself into Pine Rest mental health center, under my mom's encouragement. Only to find that when I was gone, she said a lot of nasty things to poison my kids against me and try to take custody of them. 

This from the person who left me behind  when I was six, in Alaska, to go to Seattle. Who, along with her boyfriend,  got her foster care home shut down due to abuse. Who kicked me out when I was 16 when I had done nothing wrong and actually helped support the family, to humor her husband. Who stood by while boyfriend humiliated and sexually abused me. And who was a big reason behind me feeling suicidal and checking in to Pine Rest in the first place. I shocked the psychiatrist who saw me, sharing just a few of my experiences. He said, "girl you have way too high a pain tolerance."

So yeah, I second guess. I expect back-stabbing, shame and scapegoating. Trusting anyone does not feel safe. Does that make me paranoid? It sure as hell makes me cautious. I know I should end this with some sort of reassurance that "it gets better, I'm over it, yada yada." Wish that were true and  maybe someday it will be. For now, I'm just in the XI preface stage of the book. 

Thanks for reading and hanging in there. Love you guys and when I have good news  to share, you'll be the first to know. 

How concepts of family, stepparents and half-siblings are weaponized by malignant narcissistic parents

 Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal from malignant narcissistic parental abuse, family scapegoating,  CPTSD and the emotional mess my life is, I'm looking at how words like family, stepparents and half-siblings are twisted by malignant narcissist parents. These concepts are weaponized to excuse abuse (physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual), neglect, parentification, manipulation, exploitation, abandonment and scapegoating of children. And then further distorted to gaslight the kid about what's going on. And sadly, they're just some of the things such parents ruin. 

The general definition of family is a group of people who love, care about, nurture and support each other. It doesn't always go smoothly, for sure. But family should not be a dangerous place. And it should not be manipulated by some family members to exploit another. And worst of all, it shouldn't be trashed and  reinvented by parents, then hung as a burden around a kid's neck. 

What do I mean? Well, when I was a kid, divorce among my peers was very uncommon. My same age husband doesn't  know of anyone in his life with divorced parents. In my extended family it was unheard of. So my mom divorcing my dad put me in an awkward place to begin with. Weirder because it was after moving us to Alaska and running around on him while he went for months without seeing us, on some imaginary mission trip. That's the trashing of the family I spoke of. Although actually we weren't much of one anyway. We did next to nothing, including eating meals, together. I spent the majority of time alone (from age 3-4) or with other people. I can't remember anything about the many places we lived. And this wasn't due to work. It was down to them being uninterested, having other priorities and seeing me as a hinderance. 

The reinventing, and super gaslighting part, came when my single parents began dating others, immediately. My mom and probably my dad too, didn't even wait till the ink dried. I was shoved into one weird situation after another through their various hookups. This was very uncommon in the early 1970s and I got blacklisted because of it. Parents didn't want their kids hanging with kid with no dad and a mom with a different boyfriend every week. At least one was married. His wife came to our house one morning looking for him and knocked my mom down the stairs. 

I was told to go to school and say nothing. So I did. And if that wasn't disturbing enough, on the rare times my dad was around, he, at 34, took me to see his 17-year-old girlfriend. I was 9. She still had dolls on her bed and we played with them. I never talked to anyone about any of this because how could I? It would have made no sense in their world. As you might imagine, I got really good at hearing, seeing and feeling nothing. There's tons of pain, fear, hurt, grief, anger, frustration and shame in this lil ole heart of mine. And none of this has ever been confronted. 

But the worst part of all is when they marry again and their new spouses hit the ground running ordering you around, demanding all kinds of scary and unsafe things of you. And your actual parent doesn't do a damn thing to stop them. In fact, mine encouraged them to exploit, manipulate, overwork, scapegoat, shame, mock, humiliate and use me like a personal servant. 

And they have the gall to call them your parent?? Eff that noise! All this business about marriage being "one man and one woman." What about parenting being one dad and one mom?? A kid has two parents, and they, in my case were more than enough heartbreak and work. The last thing I needed was two more immature, needy, demanding, selfish, lazy, entitled, bossy control freaks in my life. 

Mom's bf was a never employed, sexually, physically and emotionally abusive, vicious deadbeat. He told me sick dirty jokes and mocked my breast size (I was 11). My mother just smiled approvingly.  Never once, after she hooked up with him did she ever take my part or stand up for me to him. She let him do whatever he wanted and he did. Hell, I now see she was egging him on all along. She had me kowtowing to him when they were just living together. And then she decided to open a foster home. And shit got really bad. 

Shacked up was the term then. And boy if that didn't make me even more of an oddball pariah. No kid in my entire school or neighborhood (or any other I knew of) had a single mom with a live-in. Most kids didn't think I had a dad, that's how unavailable he was. And that wasn't because he was working. He just wasn't interested. He thought he was cool running around doing his thing like a frat boy. (It took my husband  to point out that none of my parents have been very good at holding down jobs.) I've just learned at 59 that this is called child abandonment and constitutes abuse. 

But boy did he want me back in his life when he got married. She was as sloppy and lazy as a hound dog. And had zero maternal instincts. Well, my narcissist dad wasn't about to babysit another woman and he certainly wasn't going to raise their kids alone. When I was 12, he decided to dip back into my life. He'd seen how much the other two had gotten out of me and wanted his share. No fair them getting all the unpaid childcare and housework! I owed him! So I was brought in as domestic help/nanny/housekeeper and handmaiden to her majesty. Also scapegoat when anything went wrong. 

And they kept up shit-facade by manipulating words like family, parents and siblings. I was gaslit into thinking that I was actually a member of the family. More fool me. Their new spouses and kids were my parents, brothers and sisters, only when it was convenient for them. I was there to sleep in the same room as the kids, so they didn't wake their parents. I've been made to take care of "my siblings" like I was their parent. To do the heavy, grunt work everyone else was too lazy to do. (bad backs, yanno?) I'm still suffering from the damage to my back, shoulders and hips from this. Or to be the brunt of their anger or jokes. Their kids were taught to exploit me too, big surprise. 

I've been stolen from, cheated, exploited, deprived of a bedroom or even a bed and kicked out of the house (at 16) for the privilege of all this. My toys were taken and sold. Nothing exists from my childhood except what grandparents saved. I've been made to sleep on unheated porches, taken advantage of, left out and kicked to the curb by all of them. I've worked since I was 14, buying  my own shoes since I was 13. My own feminine hygiene products since 15. 

So you'll pardon me for not calling them stepparents and half-siblings anymore. Having family was just a nightmare, literally.  I'm focusing on me and mine from now on. They're my family. 

 

Why I have so many nightmares and bad memories and so few good ones

Hi friends. So by now you might be wondering, um where did the posts about how I lost 100 pounds go and why am I sharing so much negative stuff about my CPTSD, family scapegoating, gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, etc? Well, the answer to that is simple and yet profoundly complicated. The simple answer is because I never could or did. In real time, while the parental abuse was happening, I didn't even know what it was. It's only been recently that I've starting to understand it. 

What got me started down the path was a need to get some peace from a lifetime of bad dreams. And when I say lifetime, I mean the nightmares go waaay back. I can't remember when I didn't have them. And when I say bad, I mean reeeeallllly terrifying, disgusting, horrible dreams. And I can remember them all in shocking clarity. 

I also began to explore why I have so few good memories. I listened to a talk by one of my favorite therapists, Patrick Teahan. He discussed why many people, who experienced childhood trauma can't recall bad memories. I have the opposite problem. Bad memories are pretty much all I have. It's the good ones I can't seem to come up with. 

Oh I thought I had a lot of positive childhood memories, because I was gaslit into believing that the abuse that was happening wasn't wrong. And I was told I was lucky, spoiled, lying about things, too critical, negative, yada yada. And if I had bad experiences, they were my own fault and I brought them on  myself.  A lot of bullshit to smokescreen what was really going on which was ongoing, neglect, endangerment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification. scapegoating, physical, mental and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, shaming and abandonment. By not one parent but all four authority figures, two bio parents and their live-ins and later spouses. 

But when I look back, I see that what I perceived as "happy" times were really just less bad times. or working holidays. Or good times for my family at my expense. Like the one family vacation my dad took me on but only just so I could babysit his and his new wife's kids. When I tell my husband my version of fun memories, he says those are just things most kids took for granted. 

That's because I was told I was so lucky to have things like a bedroom. I didn't. I was allowed to sleep in the baby's room, at both my mom's and my dad's homes. Which of course meant getting up with them when they cried or needed anything. So this explains, in part, why I have so many dreams and can't sleep for more than an hour at a time without drinking a lot of wine. I'm geared to being constantly on-call. I'm in perpetual REM sleep and rarely delta. My sleep studies have proved this. Where most people spend about 40% of their sleep in deep delta, I'm in it for maybe 5 minutes a night. 

I walk and talk in my sleep. I often wake crying or screaming. My mom's live-in boyfriend used to make fun of me when I'd wander down from the bedroom I shared with four foster kids (so my uncle and his girlfriend could shack up in what was my bedroom). He and my mom slept in the basement in a cozy little room as far from the kids as she could get. My dad's second wife ( I don't call her stepmom anymore) put a lot of distance between herself and her babies too. No prizes for guessing who had to sleep with (comfort, get up with, worry about) them? 

So it also explains why I'm so difficult to sleep with or near. And why I was not popular at sleepovers or summer camp. I scared a lot of kids with my nightmares and trauma responses. But not my parents. They didn't give a shit that I was going crazy to the point of suicidal with it all. Hell, they were the ones driving me crazy. 

And d'ya see how I call them my parents' homes? That's because I have never, till I got married, thought of homes as mine. I still have trouble remembering that this is actually my home. I live with other people in their homes and boy howdy, did they rub that in my face. Even when my mom moved her layabout, unemployed boyfriend into our home. It was his, not mine, or so I was told. And when he deemed me unfit to live in "his house" I was kicked out. Literally. I had to go and live with an elderly lady in town. And my  mom let him. Even though they were using my child support freely as their own. And I was (wait for it) sleeping with and getting up with their kids. They really shot themselves in the collective foot that time. Now who was going to care for their kids? 

I learned on Reddit that this type of life has a name and it is hidden homelessness. When a kid couch surfs between parents' homes. And it's hidden because no one acknowledges it. My parents would say I had two homes. In reality, I didn't have any. I had a place of employment at which I slept, badly. 

And I don't have good memories because I don't  have any. At least none with my parents and their new partners. The good ones are with my grandparents. And even there, I've blocked out a lot. Seriously. My cousin tells me that we had fun a family get-togethers when I went with my grandparents. I don't even recall meeting him. Which is really a shame because I could use more happy memories. 

I'm not sure whether I had happier times and can't recall or if there just weren't that many. I know that my response to trauma was freeze and fawn. I just kind of tried to ignore the crazy and placate the crazies. I couldn't take flight or fight it out. That wasn't safe. So I think that what happened is that good memories were iced out with the bad. That in trying to just survive with all the shit that I was living with, I had to just go numb. And in constantly pleasing people and humoring them, while ignoring my own pain, I damaged myself, my ability to think clearly, feel honestly, sleep peacefully and care for myself. 

But where I might have been able to drown out the fear, shame, misery and pain during the day, I couldn't at night. And I think my dreams having been waving red flags and screaming at me to wake up. To quit believing the gaslighting and protecting my persecutors. To start naming the abuse and calling out the abusers. To start dealing honestly with all this suffering because it's killing me. 

My bad brain-damaging experiences with church youth groups and summer camps

Hi friends. Part of healing from parental narcissistic abuse and CPTSD means looking at my various experiences with it, and why and how it occurred. Two side sources for me, beyond but also stemming from what was happening with my four parents, were church youth groups and Christian summer camps. Both of these situations can be (and often are) breeding grounds for child abuse. 

As I write this, I'm hearing voices of former friends, clergy and youth leaders, scolding. "How dare you, Marilisa?! Christian youth groups and summer camps are wonderful experiences for kids and youth leaders are spirit filled people preaching the word of God!!" That's what I was force-fed to believe too. And toxic shame and Christian gaslighting kept me quiet all these years about what really happened. What I see as an adult who has worked in the helping professions, is that summer camps and youth groups are a pedophile's playground and bloody dangerous for kids. This is my story and about damn time I told it. 

To begin with, let's look at the structure of youth groups and summer camps. Generally, they are led by a volunteer (or very low paid) staff of teens and young adults not that much older than the kids they are "ministering" to. And then there are the hangers-on, older teens and young adults who've graduated but just can't seem to make the break from youth. They are just old enough to make the age difference weird. 

Many are incredibly immature themselves, obviously. Most of the ones I knew (ages 19 to 22 or so) (when I was young, but also when my kids were young) didn't have real jobs or at least anything demanding. They weren't in college. They had no social life outside youth group or camp. They didn't fill any function within the group and were in fact more liability than asset. They were allowed to just hang out with kids, welcome to participate in sleepovers and group outings. Most were known to be psychologically disturbed, unstable and even violent. They'd had run-ins with the law. But no one saw anything wrong with this AND THEY WEREN'T MONITORED. 

In a school, they wouldn't not be allowed on the premises without a good reason. I don't like it either, that youth leaders are allowed into public schools to meet with kids. At summer camp where the child is there for a week or more, being around all this, it's just an accident looking for a place to happen. Now you might argue that the leaders were going into youth ministry as a career. Camp is like their student teaching. Ehh, no. Been a student teacher. We were monitored by a supervising teacher and the entire school staff. Camps are just open, poorly structured free-for-alls that allowed adults 24-7 access to children. 

And that doesn't even start to cover the fully-fledged adult ministers, camp directors, and leaders involved. Christian camps and youth groups have a bad habit of deifying these people. Most of the ones I knew didn't do anything except walk around in Jesus sandals and big beards, collecting admirers. I can still hear my personal creeper, Pastor Will (not even sure if he was ordained) singing in his big baritone voice, "There is a balm in Gilead" and all the campers wetting themselves like star-struck groupies. It's nauseating how he got off on that adulation. When I told my older son about my experiences, he said "Mom, you're describing a cult." 

Couldn't have said it better. Trouble is, I didn't understand it at the time. His attention felt icky-groom-y. All the weirdos that latched on to me, made me uncomfortable. At the time, I guess I sort of liked the attention because I didn't get it at home. But no, that's not it. I was TOLD that I liked attention. But what it really was, was my damn empath in charge. I felt sorry for them. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Not even when they tried to paw and kiss me. Blech. And I got in trouble for "making out" on the bus!! 13 year-old me was made to sit in the little exit well of the bus (that's not even legal) while the effing 19-year-old remained in the seat.  

So how about the "youth leaders" actually acting like leaders and putting that perv off the damn bus! And maybe instead of shaming me, they could, I don't know, find out if I was okay??? That's what I'd have done as an adult. But then, I'd not have let a 19-year-old near a 13-year-old. And he wasn't the only one. But no, they just turned a blind eye to all the sick stuff these guys were doing, letting me be the damn sacrificial goat. Probably glad someone else was dealing with them. 

And don't get me started on the shit that can occur at a campfire under cover of darkness. Did it really take "Friday the 13th" to teach us that? It gives "ministry" a whole new meaning. But it's all just  ignored. Hell, even I ignored it. "Boys will be boys" shit. Feeling you up means they like you. Small problem, though. These "boys" were grown-ass adults leching on a vulnerable kid being held hostage by her own sense of compassion and fucking useless "leaders" ignoring it. Pass the marshmallows and lets' all sing another verse of Kumbyah.

And why was I such a target anyway? It wasn't for my incredible good looks. I was just a frizzy-haired, bespectacled teen. In fact, if I had been very hot, they'd have left me alone. Out of their league. Because Christian youth groups are no different than any other. They put wayyyy too much stock in looks and affluence. So was family money or lack thereof the issue?

True I wasn't the richest kid there. Actually the stalkers all came from very wealthy families whom I now believe shunted their adult kids onto church groups to distance from the embarrassment. I laugh now to think of families donating a pew with the proviso that Camp Happy Christian take Randy and Preston and Jim and John and Chuck and other Jim, off their hands. The other wealthier kids (and you'd be surprised at how many really wealthy kids there were) wanted nothing to do with the creeps. So they hung out on the fringe, let to other nobodys like me to deal with. Like goes with like, I guess. 

And who's gonna believe the poor nobody if she were to report them, if she even got up the nerve to? The leaders who were turning a blind eye in the first place? Not bloody likely. The irony was and still is  that the victim of molesting is made to feel like the problem. Look how I was slut-ified and segregated from the precious baby boys on the bus? Not going to risk THAT happening again, ta very  much.  And I know broken record. But regardless of how often you may have heard it, the person experiencing feels like the only one. 

I may have looked "easy" but only because I was trying too hard to be too nice to these guys. Why the devil did no one see that? Why were they so quick to believe and treat me as if I was trash? Cuz now I look back, I was modest, moral and quite innocent. Naive, actually. Which made me an easy target. None of  my four parent knew, let alone cared, where I was or what was happening to me. Unless I was late to do one of my many chores or babysit their kids. And all four had subjected me to super nasty, disturbing sexual exploitation before and pretended that it never happened and if it did, I brought it on myself. So they had me conditioned to feel like the dirty one. 

I never wanted any of this. All I wanted was to be a kid with normal kid experiences. But it was in my parents' self-interests to keep me ashamed and cowed. So needless to say, I never told anyone any of the things that happened. I only just started revisiting the experiences a few years ago. Too ashamed that I'd be faulted and resigned to the fact that nobody gave a shit. Too afraid to find, as so often happened in my nightmares that I was a disgusting, deviated, morally depraved person not fit to live. 

And that's what marked me. Pedos can smell shamed, neglected, abused, gaslit, uncared-about kids like a BBQ. They have an unerring sense about who they can molest, terrify, gaslight and mentally eff up, unchecked. And the narcissistic megalomanic "preachers" are the dead worst.  A 21 year old acting creepy is bad enough. A 45-year-old pastor with a wife and teens of his own, is a menace. It's even worse than pedo priests, which don't get me wrong are sick enough. The minister has family who will suffer and whom empaths like me work like hell to protect. 

If I didn't dare to report a 21-year-old, I wouldn't dream of reporting Pastor Will. Who am I going to tell, his wife? His kids? His many followers who believed he walked on water and raised the dead? Nope. I would and did assume the problem was me. I somehow came on to him, led him astray, etc. I didn't even acknowledge to myself just how really gross he made me feel. And how he made me a pariah among the other camp counselors. (That's the isolation and grooming part of pedophilia).

But that's a story for another post. I'm too drained to write more.