Hi friends. Thanks for going back with me to sort out the mess my life has been. I'm rethinking what happened and finally seeing it not as healthy family behavior but abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, invalidation, shaming, enmeshment, parentification, scapegoating and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. Today, I'm going to try to answer the question that has plagued me all my life. What's that question? Well, you might be surprised.
Is the question why did they do all these things? No, but it should be. I should be demanding what the hell they were playing at screwing me over like they did. But then, I wouldn't have had to because they wouldn't have done these things in the first place. The fact that I can't shows how abusive they were. Because if you know histrionic/narcissists that's one of the many questions you can never ask. They get really mad if you call them out. Or even if they (which is more likely) just think you are.
It's not safe, especially if you're their child. You basically have to put up and shut up. And even if I did ask, I wouldn't get a straight answer. The two times I did, it didn't end well. I was lied to, lied about, screamed at, further gaslit, shamed, bullied, mocked and assaulted by their partners whom they sicced on me. Both experiences were absolutely terrifying and left me shattered. And as per usual, I just picked up the pieces of myself and carried on. Never an apology from them or admission of anything.
So I have been avoiding that question too, but for self-preservation. All my life, I've excused, exonerated and defended them and punished myself. Because as the scapegoat I was always at fault and responsible. But now that I getting healthier, I just don't give a damn, anymore. There was never any excuse for it, end of.
The question I am trying to answer today, is why was I so afraid of them? What was I so afraid of? Because terrified, I sure as hell was. So much so that 60 years later, I am still terrified of them. And two are deceased. In fact, I'm probably more terrified now than ever. Their specters have loomed so large that they've become enormous, unstoppable juggernauts. They've grown in power and magnitude. I can't think about them without being sick with fear. But a fear I've covered all my life.
And that is both the cause of and answer to this question. This fear is primitive because I was so young when they began frightening me. And so bizarre guerilla-like in the manner of doing so. Both of my biological parents and stepmom presented as calm, balanced people. My stepfather was just bat shit crazy angry. But my dad would fly into these insane and random rages. And my mother and stepmother would turn septic out of the blue. Both were venomous and seething angry, I now see. Back then, I didn't.
Because they painted themselves as righteous, put-together people, these outbursts seemed out of character. (At least my stepdad was honest about being a raging maniac.) So I assumed and they told me, that I provoked them to wrath. That I caused it. Even though they never gave me the tiniest clue as to what I had actually done wrong. Or if they did, it was blown out of proportion, twisted, exploited, manipulated, etc.
Sometimes my dad (I realize now) was mad at his wife or one of his kids and just took it all out on me. Another time, when I was 16, I came home 15 minutes late and my mom's (unemployed, lazy sponger, living off my child support) husband grounded me for a month. Another time, I sat in the drive talking with a friend an hour past when I was supposed to be in he went so ballistic I thought he was going to combust. He kicked me out of the house. She stood by and let him.
They used a lot of narc word salad (bullshit) about how I was disobedient, sassy, a nasty person, too sensitive, too critical, selfish, unChristian, a show off etc. But I have no memory of actually doing the things they said I'd done. Or if I did, I remember it being an innocent mistake that was twisted into something horrendous. Very frequently, I'd actually done a good thing, trying to please or placate their ceaseless expectations. But it wasn't done right. (?!) Or I hadn't tried hard enough (?!?) Or their demands had changed and I wasn't kept up to speed (??!!) Or even I had the wrong motives for doing it (?!?!?!) There was never any winning, or pleasing them. I couldn't hope to be good enough.
And being so bloody terrified I wouldn't have dared to do bad things to start with. When I made mistakes it was because I was so nervous and frightened of their displeasure. And then my dad (the King of oversensitive) would say I was overreacting and needed to lighten up. As if! And, come to find out, everything I'd done or even supposedly done was actually stuff all kids, including my four parents had done.
My mom snuck out of the house, mouthed off to her mom and destroyed a dress she'd made. My dad wrecked family cars, told his parents off routinely. My stepmother never did a thing around her house. My stepfather beat a kid half to death for shits and giggles. They told those stories with pride. They continued their childish behavior into adulthood. And poor me, who jumped at her own shadow, was made to be more adult at 6 than they'd ever been in their lives.
So what WAS I afraid of? What was I afraid they would do? They were four rather dysfunctional adult children. They are all emotionally frail bullies. What power did they have over me? Adult me doesn't have an answer. Child me is too afraid to pry her hands off her eyes to ask. I think if I can manage to do that, I'll see that what I'm afraid of is a chimera based on myths, lies and gaslighting.
And saddest and scammiest of all, they said that it was God who was angry, displeased and whom I was letting down. They made God into a Golem to terrify me into submission. So one level of my fear was upsetting God. I wasn't even afraid of what they could do to me. I'd taken their worst all my life and survived. I'll say this, I was hard to keep down. I just kept coming back for more and they got better at the abusive tactics.
So fear of displeasing God. But another level was, I think, fear that ultimately, I'd never make anyone happy, no matter what I did or how hard I tried. I didn't just fail, I WAS failure personified. And that I couldn't and shouldn't live, with that knowledge. That somehow I was the exception to God's unconditional love. That everyone would be better off without foolish, failure me in the world. Which doesn't make sense, I know. But when you've been bashed in the head since childhood, you tend not to think clearly.
I think maybe, as a therapist once put it so well, I was trying to keep myself alive. And running out of reasons to do so. That explains to some extent, the terribly traumatic dreams and nightmares. My dream make up convincing lies about things I've supposedly done that are unspeakable. Planted by my parents to perpetuate this idea that I'm their only problem. Get rid me and viola, all's well.
Does it help to answer this question? I wish it did. I wish, that seeing my demons unmasked, I could laugh off my fears and move into the light. But old sins cast long shadows. And I have lived in them for so long, I'm not sure that I can or ever will, be able to shake them. And that makes me afraid too. Afraid that by admitting I'm damaged will be letting someone down, again.
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