TV's Repair Journal

[lowbudgetTV]

I am a person who thinks too much. Some might say that there's no such thing but any mentally ill person knows there's always such a thing as too much.

So, I've been thinking. I'm finally doing what I need to do, want to do, and what's best for me by disengaging from a horrid family that I do not belong in. I've finally come to admit some truths, and one of those truths is the observation of if this was anything other than a child interacting with their parents, it would be accepted as unacceptable!

Yet, because I am a child, and the abusers of my life are my own parents, it seems like the fault is mine. A child is hard to rear, and for that, if non-physical issues arise, then it must be the child's fault. A child should love their parents. A child should be happy they are not beaten. Pfft. If anything, the physical issues of passive neglect, emotional cruelty, and everything in those categories should be well enough proof of an abusive relationship. I don't work correctly, like a human being should! My body is faulty, beaten by invisible weapons.

I have to remember as I move on: my parents were like an abusive partner to me. Partner, parent—they're one letter off from being a perfect anagram! We could list off so many things our parents have done to us and remove the relationship details and they'd be no different from someone ranting about an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend.

Demeaning somebody and then turning around to gift them elaborate things.
Punishments that did not match the crime, that were exaggerated.
"It's your fault I'm in trouble, in pain, hurting, ill!"
"If you don't do this, you don't really love me."
"Who are you talking to? Give me the details. I'm your —, you have to tell me! You could be doing something bad!"
"Of course I love you, just don't do these things I don't like and change your entire personality for me!"

I'm tired of living a lie. I feel like I'm not choosing to be an orphan, I think it was thrust upon me. I've felt despondent and lonely things since I was a preteen, and even in my guilt and shame of having angry, rebellious thoughts in my teenage years, I did know there was something wrong. Even if I ended up still believing it was all me. That I was ill; that I was having the delusions of grandeur and I was better than them. Well, no, I was really just a fairly normal and mature child. My parents were no different than my fifth grade bullies. Worse, even.

If anyone asks, maybe I'll say: I left an abusive relationship. No more no less. It's not a lie.

[StartingHealing]

Hi lowbudget.  Welcome! 

[lowbudgetTV]

Here's the truth: I have to get through one last weekend with my M before I work with my T to decide the best way to never engage with my family ever again is. Which I will be doing. I am lucky to have supportive friends and a real family I have crafted.

But, as I had described to my T, I am picturing my final hurrah in my mind as if I was an adventurer--an anthropologist, a psychologist! I think and reflect. I consider it a way to practice my skills and being myself.

The first night has gone fine. I looked to my partner and said: that's the problem!

(I also told my partner that I love them for being able to navigate and deflect and control a conversation. They control my M so well. I am at peace.)

The problem: my M puts on a front when not alone with me. They behave. They don't go too far or make the sounds that trigger me. Which, you'd think, would be good! And it is to a degree; I am thankful for it. But it is also torturous. I feel crazy, like I am the problem. It feels all a lie, the trauma in my brain. It was fine and normal.

My partner confided in me that me feeling the conflict and being triggered by words not being just bad enough for others to note how terrible the reality is is from that trauma. I remember, and I can never be normal around them, therefore I know what I must do. Writing it here too, to some public degree, helps keep that promise accountable.

I thought about it more and I've realized I've begun to relate to that one screenshot people online (like us) tend to tout around. Its from the Good Place (I've never watched!) and its the main character who says: My mother had the capability to change, it's just that I wasn't worth changing for. Not exact wording at all, but that's the gist and what I think about.

With the threat of death and aging, my M has changed. But that small, young child who needed them to change wasn't worth the effort. Now that I'm grown, and now that they have the fears, change is present if even just a little bit. Well it's too late. A little child wasn't worth it? Well, then you're not worth it.

I will continue to be my authentic self, ask questions, set boundaries, and love all children. They deserve respect. I did too. I still do now.

[lowbudgetTV]

Hi lowbudget.  Welcome! 

Thanks for the welcome--Sorry I was writing a whole word salad processing my nightly thoughts while you were doing it!

[StartingHealing]

Hi lowbudget.  Welcome! 

Thanks for the welcome--Sorry I was writing a whole word salad processing my nightly thoughts while you were doing it!

You're welcome lowbudget.

[lowbudgetTV]

I forgot to mention it in my last post/entry, which makes sense because that was a very stream of consciousness scrawl (+I just wanted to make sure I wrote my main thought), but I had also had another concept come to me.

It was like a flashback, or, well, more so me trying to reflect on my past. I realized a thought I've had before and currently was thinking about after the fine outing with my M. Sometimes, I wish it would just go south. Sometimes, I wish it was worse.

I know it's a common thought, I really do. But, because it's a common thought just goes to show how abusive cycles happen. We aren't really abused—(it's not that bad / people have it worse / at least I'm...)—but we're in pain. We want the pain to stop. So, we wish that the abusive person would finally cross THAT LINE and do something we settled as unforgivable so that we could finally say it: I am abused and I can run and everyone will understand. The water has breached the wall. It can finally flow free.

But it never happens. It never ever happens. We never feel the release we need.

I remember feeling the... lack of that needed release in an innocuous way: I barely passed a driving test. I got what I needed (the license) but I didn't get what I wanted (enthusiastic success). I felt a traumatic pang of disappointment from the instructor. But, she said, I'll give it to you. I'm sure that might be something to be said about them saying "you barely passed" as a positive psychological thing but it wasn't what I needed. I had enough disappointed sighs directly at me! I wanted support. I got, instead, a look of resignation.

(I felt a little better watching someone break a traffic law in front of me on my first licensed drive right out of the driving school parking lot, telling myself that I knew I was a very diligent, careful driver. Wow, I feel terrible remembering this. Moving on...)

It's important to feel success, not just reach it. My M acting tolerable is not a success. I never got the sweet release of airing my grievances on behalf of that poor, innocent child who was tortured. I never got the sweet release of rage. I just got... loneliness.

The child was told they did not deserve the sense of feeling they were valid.

So I sit here as an adult today and write out cathartic things. I am telling that child that they were valid. Their art will be the sweet release and it is so powerful and worth it, because it is for them and nothing more.

[lowbudgetTV]

Something serendipitous happened.

There was one of those animatronic fortune teller machines that prints a fortune ticket at the mall. My partner and I did it.

I began to cry. It read: A dark haired person who is trying to harm you will soon disappear from your life and you will be extremely happy.

My M has dark hair.

[Chart]

Hello lowbudgetTV, Reading your journal was serendipitous for me too. I'm pondering the recent atrocities of my mother and thinking that there really is no hope with her. She does not see herself, she does not know herself. She is torn-out pages of a human. The face comes from one place and the heart from another. She has disguised herself so well no one recognizes her either. I am perhaps the only person who sees her completely for what she is. And I struggle horribly still to reconcile that person with the one I so desperately needed as a child.

Some deaths occur long long before the internement. I've just been in too much denial to see it.

Sending support and welcome to the forum.
-chart