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.
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