Messages

I'm new here, bach, so you don't know me. But I hope it's OK to say that your words in the un-sent letter to your M were so powerful and inspiring to me, full of the unshakeable, undeniable truth that you (like any small child) are never responsible for the neglect and abuse endured at the hands of the adults in charge.   As you express so well, it's absolutely not two-sided when one side is an infant, a toddler, or even (in my opinion) a teenager.  (As the mother of a teen, I still believe it's MY job - not my daughter's - to be the one taking the lead in modeling the compassion and respect that I hope to see in her.)  Thank you for sharing your courageous truth here. It helped me to read it.

So glad you got a good long sleep, Armee. I hope all of us can continue to get some good rest!

[Papa Coco]

Wow, I'm getting choked up by your replies.  Having people who are open to hearing this, and who can even relate to me, is not something I'm used to.  Thank you so much for the virtual hugs. I feel them.

Papa Coco, I'm so sorry and sad that you had to go through that when your mother died.  I'm so glad you found a way through.  You sure help others by being here on this forum with your hard-won wisdom and compassion. 

Armee, thank you for sharing your experiences, too.  I particularly relate to the feeling of wanting my mother to die, even though I know it will hurt so much.  I feel this way about both of my parents, because they have caused so much pain to their children, they continue to hurt us, and they both are in so much pain themselves.  And there is no way besides death for that pain to end for them, because they are old and stuck and have no emotional maturity or self-love.  Watching their slow, sad slide is heart-breaking for me and for my sister (my only healthy ally in the family).  It is so hard to hold compassion for them while also holding on to ourselves, because these broken people did so much damage to us.  I have the same wish for my brother, that he be released from life sooner than later, because he is so horribly damaged and lost that all he does is hurt himself and everyone he encounters. 

I can't share these feelings with most people, because I know they would not understand and they might think I'm a terrible person to wish my family members dead.  But I know I am not.   I know that I have loved them as best I can, helped them as much as a can (I've set up a trust for my brother's care when my mother dies, assuming there is any money left), and I will grieve them all when they are gone.  It's a maddening paradox that I wrestle with daily, actually:  How to heal myself when I have been hurt so badly by those I have loved so dearly.

[BeeKeeper]

Thank you all for your helpful replies.  And yes, I am safe and not at risk of falling asleep behind the wheel, so I think I'm going to let myself sleep - and to rest, like BeeKeeper!   I, too, struggle to rest, having been raised by people who never stopped moving, never even sat down, unless they were eating dinner or sleeping.  Even sitting down to read a book was considered "lazy" and unproductive.  (My elderly mother, who is battling cancer, still calls herself "lazy" on a regular basis because she doesn't have the energy to "get things done.")  Like BeeKeeper and Dante, I also have gone the route of taking classes, and finding other sways to "self improve," thinking that this is what will finally fill the void and make me worthy and whole - learning languages, teaching myself to play the guitar, volunteering, redecorating my house...  But these accomplishments never seem to do the trick somehow... 

For me, I think the key is that all of these "accomplishments" are just ways to not really be "with" myself and, by extension, also not "with" others.  They allow me to stay dissociated and busy, continually polishing my shiny armor to keep me safe and keep others at a safe distance.   And I don't want to do that anymore.  And: If people truly love me, do they really care how many accomplishments are on my resume or how pretty my house is? 

You bet!  I'd love to hear what you think of it. 

[bluepalm]

Thank you, bluepalm. Your kind words truly do help. 

Just needing to have others know how sad I feel today.  I saw both my parents yesterday. I generally avoid contact, but they are prematurely aging and frail and my sister and I share responsibility for their care - financial, medical, etc.  My mother is a pancreatic cancer "survivor," but we don't think she will last much longer.  Thinking of her as I saw her yesterday - thin and pale and helpless, and - as she always was - like a frightened little bird, so full of her own lifelong trauma (starting with her abandonment by her parents at age 5)... her sadness just breaks my heart.  At the same time,  my young self is filled with rage that her trauma meant she could never be there for me and instead asked that I take care of her.  She could never let me know that I was safe, worthy, of value in this world.  And she could never protect me from my narcissistic father or my brutally abusive older brother.  If I complained or was anything other than good and sweet and quiet, I was mocked or criticized or simply abandoned by her, because she could not cope.  So, little me is racked by lonely rage, so furious with a mother who did this to me, who didn't meet my needs.  But also heartbroken because I have always been able to see how much pain she is in.  She's like a little lost lamb whom I have been comforting for as long as I can remember - likely since the day I was born.  And for all my efforts, I was never able to save her.  And I think she'll die soon, and it's just so sad and unfair.  She didn't get a chance, or never made use of what chances she did have(?).  And so she handed all her pain to me.  And now I do have a chance.  And I am working so hard to heal my pain, to end this generational pattern of trauma.  But oh lordy, it hurts.  It just hurts that my mom is so very sad and broken and I can't fix it.

Saw my father, too, but that's another very long story.   

It seems like most people struggle with not being able to sleep, and I have so much compassion for that.  During the times I've had insomnia, it was terrible.  These days, I feel lucky that once I fall asleep (not always easy, due to my nighttime anxiety), I sleep well and hard.  And long.  Lately, like REALLY long.  As my recovery work has become more intense over the past year, delving into the dark corners I have avoided for decades, my dreams have become more and more vivid  - and they are mostly neutral or slightly positive, with few nightmares.  Sleep, once I get there, is actually feeling like my refuge.  Almost like a parallel life that I live while asleep (I keep thinking of the movie, "Inception").  I feel like my sleep is actually serving as a counterbalance to the intense, often agonizing work of healing that I'm doing while awake, and that my brain is trying to process everything by sleeping for long periods.  It's extremely hard to wake up from this sleep: Even if I've been asleep for 10, 11, 12 hours, I know I could roll over and sleep more, possible for the rest of the day.  I am trying to see this as a temporary situation in which my body and brain are trying to compensate for the relentless pain and struggle I experience while awake.  I think my brain is trying to knit itself back together, into new patterns, trying to incorporate the mind-bending, life-altering ideas that I am finally encountering and truly absorbing.  And while I feel like this is probably a good thing, it also is strange and disorienting, to find myself sleeping so much.  It also feels "wrong" because I keep reading that most people with cPTSD have the opposite problem  - too little sleep.  Has anyone else experienced a period of prolonged sleep during recovery?  I know that depression can lead to a lot of sleepiness, and I may be somewhat depressed, but this sleep feels more activated and, well, "productive" than just sleeping to avoid the world. 

I thought I'd share a memoir I recently read, as I haven't seen it posted here, and it was a very powerful read for me: "Just Ignore Him," by Alan Davies.  He writes about childhood abuse by his father.  I listened to the audiobook version (which he narrates beautifully).  His honesty and vulnerability was extremely helpful to me.  He also expresses a lot of anger, which I found helped me as well.  If you're like me and find solace in memoirs written by other survivors, I'd highly recommend this book. 

[BeeKeeper]

BeeKeeper, thanks for sharing your thoughts as you read this book.  I read it a few months ago, and appreciate getting the reminders.  I think I need to read it again, as there's so much useful information to absorb.  I find this to be the case for many of my favorite healing books - each time I re-read them, I get something new from them.   

And based on what you just quoted, this emoji comes to mind!:

[Dante]

Dante, thank you so much for sharing that with me, and for the term "dissociative fantasy."  That feels absolutely like what I've been living in, for many, many years.  My therapist says that my (very intense) fantasy life was adaptive, and was one of the ways I survived, and I guess she's right.  But now I don't want to live in a dissociated fantasy world any more.  I'm glad to hear that you have been able to do so much healing - it gives me hope that the same will be true for me, too.

Thank you all for being here and for listening and responding with such openness and kindness.

[bluepalm]

bluepalm, it's so nice to encounter another fan of Pippi Longstocking!  And I loved her (and still love her) for the same reason you did:  She was free and empowered, without any parents or older siblings to hurt her.  I've actually always felt myself drawn to orphan stories, and only recently did I realize that this was related to my childhood.  I've recently enjoyed rereading these orphan stories.  Some of my favorites:

My Side of the Mountain (not exactly an orphan, but a boy who runs away to live alone in the mountains)
Anne of Green Gables
Jane Eyre
Nancy and Plum
The Boxcar Children
James and the Giant Peach

I know there are many more orphans in literature, but these are some of my favorites. They have always made me feel calm and hopeful.  I wonder how many of these books were written by people like us?   

I know this thread is a little old, but it was so powerfully relatable to me that I need to chime in too.  Wow.  You people are all stunningly brave and wonderful.  And my heart aches for all the hidden pain you are carrying, because I carry this, too.  Dante, I absolutely relate to being home to a hidden cauldron of pain and rage, while my outside is presentable, put-together, and successful in almost every area of my life.  In my case, I have even made a career out of helping vulnerable people who are often ostracized in our society, and am seen by colleagues as a strong, caring, highly functional person, even a role model whom people seek out for advice!  But inside, I feel like Bluepalm: A tangled, bludgeoned mess.  I think I've always felt this way, and it has made me always feel different from others, always on the edge of the group (even if I'm leading the group!  I'm great at performing at a party!), a fraud, imposter waiting to be found out for the hideous evil wreck that I truly am. 

And until recently, I have never, despite decades of therapy(!!), put it together that a person who had a happy childhood (the one my family assures me that I had) would not feel like I do.  I would feel lovable and safe if I had been raised with love and safety. 

It is so lonely, isn't it?  Always feeling like you are set apart, somehow flawed and damaged, and longing to be seen and loved for more than just the perfect image you put out there to the world?  Of course, we are not flawed.  We ARE worthy, as all humans are. 

My therapist is encouraging me not to tear down and blame my high-functioning, perfectionist part.  She reminds me, as Kizzie said so well in this thread, that our "outside" part is not just a mask, but is a part of us that is working really hard to keep us safe, to keep the world together amidst all our inner chaos.  So I am trying to embrace this part of me, too.

I'm curious if anyone relates to this:  I'm a bit ashamed of this, but here goes. I've realized that one of my coping mechanisms for dealing with always feeling secretly bad and different was to become somewhat narcissistic.  As the daughter of a raging narcissist, I had a master teacher.  I was his "golden child" and groomed by him to see myself as "special." I now realize that this was not a kindness, but really manipulative, to tell me I was different and even better than other people.  It just exacerbated the feeling that I was a fraud, and put even more pressure on me to perform at a high level in every area of my life.  I do now see that being "special" and narcissistic just separates us from having any true and meaningful connection with others.  Being "special" feels pretty awful.  Yes, I'm special. But so is every child and every adult.   For me, the turning point came a few years ago, when I was actually at an awards ceremony for an award that I had been nominated for.  It was the pinnacle of my life's work and all my dreams.  I was in a fancy dress in a glittering ballroom. And standing there, I FINALLY heard the voice in my head, and it said: "You are loathsome. You don't belong."  That night changed my life forever.  I had achieved all my goals and it didn't matter (and my narcissistic father, whose love I'd been chasing all along), didn't even notice.  He was too wrapped up in himself to see me, yet again. 

This forum is such a gift.  I feel safe and seen here.  I feel like I belong here, like the dark mess inside me isn't so dark and shameful after all.  Thank you.

Thank you, Dante. If it were one of the rare occasions that I was able to cry, I'd cry with you.   

Thanks for all these responses.  I totally resonate with this - so helpful:
"Having a happy childhood doesn't produce traumatized adults. We each deserve to accept the severity of the negative parts of our upbringings. By accepting the severity of the abuse, we are more ready to accept the depths of the help we need to rise up from it."