Hi all. I'm hoping you have the best year ever, this 2025. I think for me, it's going to be another rough ride because I've still got a lot of unpacking and sorting of past issues to do. And not just over and done past. Don't I wish! Issues that happened back then but affect me now and which are creating new issues. And present problems that make old ones more difficult to successfully conclude. And which add extra tension of their own which thanks to all of the above, I've not got the resources to cope with. And all my old coping skills are compounding that. So it seems to me that I need to find or devise some new ones, and not just to cope with but also get out of situations that are overwhelming and find healthier ones.
So of course if you've read my past posts, you know my backstory of childhood trauma and lifelong stress, shame and anxiety from four narcissistic, chaotic, demanding and abusive parents. I was not cared for but made to care for all of them and their families. Abnormal and heavy adult burdens were placed on me and I was harshly criticized for not meeting the unreasonable demands. I was exploited by enmeshed parents who saw me only as a tool for them. My parents didn't follow rules but made up overly strict ones for me. I thought all this was normal, if very unpleasant and hurtful. Turns out, after to talking to other kids, my experiences were pretty unusual.
What I took into adulthood were very broken ideas about myself and my role in relationships. I let others exploit and abuse me as I had been abused. I did for others and what they should do for themselves. I didn't just help, I enabled and carried others. And was too hard on myself. I expected too little of them and too much of me. My entire identity was non-existent. There was no me, just them. My reality was flip-flopped to the point of living in a parallel universe. My normal was abnormal and vice versa.
I saw that others' worlds were different but had no idea why that was. I assumed and was told, that it was because I was wrong, bad, flawed and constant disappointment to others. That I was just getting what I deserved. So I kept giving and they kept taking. And then that wasn't enough so I gave up everything and then just gave up.
Am I saying I was perfect? Yeah, pretty much. But for the wrong reasons. I never disappointed because I was scared to. I didn't complain or talk back because I was taught that this was unspeakably wicked (and not just stuff normal kids did). And if I had complained no one would listen anyway. They'd just tell me I was too sensitive, showing off or bad. If I'd have had a normal-er childhood, I'm sure I'd have been more occasionally disobedient like other kids. And that would have been safer and healthier for me. It's exhausting and debilitating having being the "model" child, always on pointe and terrified to be anything else.
And especially when the parents still treat you like a wayward brat no matter how hard you try to be perfect. That's another broken thing about over-demanding, hypercritical parents. You never actually learn right from wrong. You just learn to dodge bullets. You learn that your only job is to keep them happy and fix what they break. If you're good or bad, it's the same result. You can never please but you don't realize that's because they expect too much. You just feel a downward spiraling sense of shame, failure. You feel worth less and less every day. Ironically, you don't give up (but you should). You just keep trying harder and harder and they keep demanding more and moving the goalposts.
Because when your get too good and being good, they have to change it up. Why would they do that? Why wouldn't they just be thankful you're a good kid? Well if you ask that then you're a good parent. Good parents are pleased when their children do their best. Even if the children don't succeed, good parents applaud the effort. Good parents expect their children to err occasionally because they are kids. Good parents qualify children's behavior as mistakes. They look for good in their kids and find it. Bad parents twist good behavior into bad, normal things into mistakes and errors into major offenses. They set their children up to fail and then exploit it when they do. And why would they do that?
Because it fits their spun narrative that the child is the cause of their problems. They do it to defect attention from their selfish, bad behavior. They do it to keep your focus on your failures and not theirs. And to keep you ever-striving to please them. If they don't mix it up, your compliance will show them up. They won't have anything to browbeat you with. In some cases, they actually rewrite rules that contradict themselves. And definitely contradict God.
I was a very biddable kid. I was groomed to turn a blind eye to all my dad's crazy actions and even approve my mother's very immoral behavior that was in direct contradiction from the Bible she preached from. And it was proportional. The more I overlooked and accepted, the more they gaslit me into believing I disobedient. She had me believing I'd said things that were so awful things that she had to slap me though I can't recall saying anything let alone something that would merit that. My dad would rage at me about things I have no memory of doing. I have very distorted "memories" that I may never be able to put right.
If this resonates with you, hopefully, one day, the scales fall away from your eyes as mine did. And you will begin to see more clearly. It isn't you that's damaged. It's them and they damaged you. You aren't the failure. You've been I failed. I wasn't flawed, my home life, what my parents modeled for me, was. And if I was disappointing, it was because parents put inappropriate expectations on me.
I was never going to please them because it's in their own selfish interest to keep me striving. They keep changing the rules because I was too good. You only change something that's not working. And because I worked so hard to obedient, clearly that wasn't the end goal. I have to conclude that at least some or maybe all of these things I'd supposedly done or said were lies told to keep me in constant confusion, fear and hypervigilance. I believe they manipulated situations, lied, gaslit, created chaos, deprived and cut me short on necessities to wear me down. To keep me exhausted, reality blind, nervous, overcautious, ready to jump on command, shell shocked, battered, barmy, broken, muddled and befuddled. In a word, CPTSD.
Because oh how you can manipulate a kid who's been driven to rock bottom, convinced it's her fault and desperate to please.
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