Hi friends. I just listened to a great podcast by Youtuber Jerry Wise, outlining signs that you've experienced significant childhood trauma. These are CPTSD behaviors. And I tick every box. I'm starting to see that I did not have the normal, healthy, happy or functional family I was gaslit into thinking I had. Just the fact that my parents divorced (blew up, ripped apart) my nuclear family and started new families, is dysfunctional, unhealthy and abnormal in itself. I'm still dazed that they could even suggest it was normal. I'll blog more on that later.
What I had were four narcissistic authority figures (sic parents) who subjected me to a kaleidoscope of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, triangulation, manipulation, exploitation, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. These are dysfunctional behaviors I have developed as a result. And while they are very dysfunctional, they're not me. They're defensive coping mechanisms. I am capable of functioning well, which the very fact that I survived, is proof of. I need to keep repeating this to myself as a mantra, continually. These CPTSD behaviors are in no particular order.
1) I shift behavior when someone comes into the room. I go into what I call placating "perma-grin" mode, hoping to please others and ward off their expected anger, shaming, punishment and abuse.
2) This is because I dwell in perpetual guilt and shame. The amount of adult expectation on me, from narcissistic childish "parents" was boundless. Which of course being not only a child, but also not being taught how, I constantly failed them. And the demands changed constantly. So as a result...
3) I'm unbalanced. The give side of the balance sheet is endless while the receive side is empty. I did not get the basics they owed me as parents. I was expected to parent parents as a child. I was simultaneously a burden and a crutch. They demanded obedience like parents and care like children, service without serving. Consequently..
4) I'm always exhausted and depleted. They were ginormous parasitic battery hogs, continually sucking all my everything. They stripped my resources and broke down my resistance, leaving me with broken autoimmunity, emotional and physical. Because of that...
5) I startle easily. I'm jumpy and nervous. My dad conditioned me to be ever-vigilant to his and his wife's "needs" (demands) and to jump to their every expectation. He randomly hit and screamed at me. She passive-aggressively pouted which he blamed me for. Then he accused me of being "too sensitive" and told me to lighten up. So now,
6) I'm too biddable with authority. I expect unreasonable demands, shame for failing to meet them and ridicule for being so "weak" and compliant. And that led to
7) Difficulty forming healthy relationships. Not being able to recognize and so tolerating abuse. Being victimized by dangerous people. I was exploited and taught that God wanted me to let people take advantage of me. But also not allowed to make friends. Because they would keep my from all my "family" "duties". Being the family servant and scapegoat,
8) I'm both childlike and parental with parents. They taught me that was their child (as in possession) but they were not my parents. They had no responsibilities to me but I had endless responsibilities to them, to be both child and parent. I was taught to give them whatever they wanted at any given moment. You need me to act childish to prove your superiority, you got it. Oh now baby needs me to be mommy, sure. And this chameleon behavior made caused to
9) Have no friends. My weird fawning adult-child behavior didn't fit well with normal kids. And not having things most kids had, made me even weirder. And my parents were so weirdly embarrassing I never wanted anyone to see. Any friends I did make were shamed and scorned or made confidantes of my parents. My mother dumped on my one friend and made her very uncomfortable. And then shamed her to me, behind her back. And now I
10) Struggle to understand who I am, what I need, think and feel. I was so enmeshed in them I didn't know where they ended and I began. They so trampled any boundaries I might have had, that I did not know that I existed separate from them. And yet, they all excluded me from their families. I've become a kind of Caspar, the friendly ghost, always there but never seen, until someone wanted something.
All this has led to me being very disconnected from reality. I had to dissociate or go mad, from the constant and constantly shifting trauma that came at me from all ends. I existed in a fugue state which I find now, almost impossible to get out of. I don't know how to make decisions, or maybe it's just that I'm terrified to. I was so gaslit, second-guessed and undermined that right is wrong and wrong is right.
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