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.
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