survivor guilt -- some thoughts re my own history

[Depression = 72% of members]

I believe I suffer from complex-PTSD from my experiences with a uBPD mother and an uNP alcoholic father.  They have both passed on.

Survivor guilt is one of the four major symptoms of PTSD I read a good while back. It is a sensibility of guilt having survived in the context of some significant other or others who have not, whether in terms of physical or psychological/emotional survival/well being, SURVIVED I am thinking.

When I was growing up, as the only daughter after my baby sister died at two when I was five, I was praised by my mother especially for any sacrifices I made to focus on and do things for her and her needs.  I remember hearing her exclaim, "It is not every little girl who would spend the afternoon taking care of her sick grandmother."  There was a whole range of sacrifices she expected of me and praised me for.  They used to give me pause because I knew they were less choices than involuntary mandates from my mother.  And when I didn't live up to her expectations of me being a "helper" and eager to please child she would exclaim with anger and horror, "WHATEVER POSSESSED YOU?"  The worst label my mother would lay on me was being "selfish."

I read once about the difference between gratification and satisfaction.  Gratification is about pleasure in life.  It is not other-related or goal-related.  It is physical and/or emotional sense of spontaneous pleasure and lifts our spirits.  Satisfaction is important in that it also lifts our spirits re our achievements and our channeled energies toward goals. But gratification is human and wonderful and an important part of our lives.

My mother did not role model or encourage gratification. With her uBPD high levels of anxiety and depression and anger at times, and her chronic frustration with my father's alcoholism, I did not feel entitled either to fully embrace opportunities for gratification.  My role in the alcoholic family was for a long time "mascot" and I strove to bring a lightheartedness to the unhappy people in my family. Desperately, since it seemed I could only be happy if they were happy.  Finding it for myself, especially with others outside the family orbit, pulled at me but often was clouded with guilt for being overly "self-focused" when I had that demanding role.

When I went to college and was unleashed for longer periods from my mother's needy and controlling thrall I remembered having this extraordinary lightness of being.  I remembered having my mother's actual blessing (by me being AWAY at college) in pursuing an intellectual and social life and I cherished it and felt it was such an escape from the emotional roller coaster of my family. The Camelot of my life history. I had some serious codependency dysfunction by that time away from the family and a rocky self-esteem, but it began to climb away from ambushes of invalidation from significant family members, especially my mother who would heap praise on me -- conditional love -- when I was a good girl daughter and ice-cold disgust or hot anger on me when I disappointed.  I lived on a tight rope trying to anticipate and perform the praiseworthy behavior around her.  A false personality I had to present that eliminated my human need for gratification.

When I got out of college my mother revealed a lot of harbored anger and frustration and jealousy and resentment that I had expanded my social network and embraced gratification and joy and had a growing sense of hunger and entitlement for that.  I remember a scene in which she came into my bedroom in my parents' home and read me the riot act in a chilling and angry way.  She said it was time for me to take responsibility as an adult.  The college indulgence was over.  And that my destiny was to ease my family's pain. I was to forego marriage for one thing because my family needed me and to focus on my primary family.  She told me she was ashamed of me and disappointed in me that she had been forced to put this into words, that I should have automatically recognized this role.  Also, all my life she had told me I was the only one who could stop my father's alcoholism. 

I had the debt of a student loan.  I was now separated geographically from college friends who had helped me build my self-esteem.  My siblings one by one were doing "geographics" to move away from the strain of the family. 

Alcoholic family rules spelled out hyper secrecy of all things re family.   

I broke psychologically with that grim future spelled out for me.  My life was to play sponge for my parents' pain. I was a hostage.

Also, the loud message from my mother was my happiness and pleasure and independence was TREASON. It would only have her blessing AFTER I made everyone else happy, especially her.

My mother was a dutiful daughter to her mother. But she had married and had a family.  Why was it not okay for me to visualize and pursue having my own family and adult life? But when my mother was in a Ms. Hyde mode I did not try to debate her.  It brought on even more invalidation of me when I did.

I became seriously clinically depressed soon after. I felt like a hostage, doomed to never be released. I was not strong and free enough to fathom what was being done to me.  My mother, after all, was worthy of pity in my eyes and her craziness at times I attributed to stress from my dad's drinking.  I also felt shame since she was such a martyr and so religious that her negative assessment of me must be deserved.

Ten pain-ridden years later I became estranged from my mother over a modest assertion that had zero tolerance for my mother. The estrangement lasted about ten years.  In that ten years I sought healing in the 12 step community.  But those years I was haunted by such guilt and confusion.  And a "survivor guilt" that I was defying my duty as a daughter and loving family member. My reputation within my family network was profoundly damaged.  I was considered mean and/or crazy abandoning my poor mother when the estrangement happened, even though it felt like rejection by my mother of me not by me of her.

Sorry to go on so long. I will end here. I have grown and found inner peace with the enlightenment i have garnered about alcoholic and borderline families.  But the conditioning was strong and still sabotages my potential for happiness and joy and even more inner peace and at-ease not dis-ease.

I know the "survivor guilt" sensibility still reins me in as a fulfilled human being.

[bethanny]

I believe I suffer from complex-PTSD from my experiences with a uBPD mother and an uNP alcoholic father.  They have both passed on.

Survivor guilt is one of the four major symptoms of PTSD I read a good while back. It is a sensibility of guilt having survived in the context of some significant other or others who have not, whether in terms of physical or psychological/emotional survival/well being, SURVIVED I am thinking.

When I was growing up, as the only daughter after my baby sister died at two when I was five, I was praised by my mother especially for any sacrifices I made to focus on and do things for her and her needs.  I remember hearing her exclaim, "It is not every little girl who would spend the afternoon taking care of her sick grandmother."  There was a whole range of sacrifices she expected of me and praised me for.  They used to give me pause because I knew they were less choices than involuntary mandates from my mother.  And when I didn't live up to her expectations of me being a "helper" and eager to please child she would exclaim with anger and horror, "WHATEVER POSSESSED YOU?"  The worst label my mother would lay on me was being "selfish."

I read once about the difference between gratification and satisfaction.  Gratification is about pleasure in life.  It is not other-related or goal-related.  It is physical and/or emotional sense of spontaneous pleasure and lifts our spirits.  Satisfaction is important in that it also lifts our spirits re our achievements and our channeled energies toward goals. But gratification is human and wonderful and an important part of our lives.

My mother did not role model or encourage gratification. With her uBPD high levels of anxiety and depression and anger at times, and her chronic frustration with my father's alcoholism, I did not feel entitled either to fully embrace opportunities for gratification.  My role in the alcoholic family was for a long time "mascot" and I strove to bring a lightheartedness to the unhappy people in my family. Desperately, since it seemed I could only be happy if they were happy.  Finding it for myself, especially with others outside the family orbit, pulled at me but often was clouded with guilt for being overly "self-focused" when I had that demanding role.

When I went to college and was unleashed for longer periods from my mother's needy and controlling thrall I remembered having this extraordinary lightness of being.  I remembered having my mother's actual blessing (by me being AWAY at college) in pursuing an intellectual and social life and I cherished it and felt it was such an escape from the emotional roller coaster of my family. The Camelot of my life history. I had some serious codependency dysfunction by that time away from the family and a rocky self-esteem, but it began to climb away from ambushes of invalidation from significant family members, especially my mother who would heap praise on me -- conditional love -- when I was a good girl daughter and ice-cold disgust or hot anger on me when I disappointed.  I lived on a tight rope trying to anticipate and perform the praiseworthy behavior around her.  A false personality I had to present that eliminated my human need for gratification.

When I got out of college my mother revealed a lot of harbored anger and frustration and jealousy and resentment that I had expanded my social network and embraced gratification and joy and had a growing sense of hunger and entitlement for that.  I remember a scene in which she came into my bedroom in my parents' home and read me the riot act in a chilling and angry way.  She said it was time for me to take responsibility as an adult.  The college indulgence was over.  And that my destiny was to ease my family's pain. I was to forego marriage for one thing because my family needed me and to focus on my primary family.  She told me she was ashamed of me and disappointed in me that she had been forced to put this into words, that I should have automatically recognized this role.  Also, all my life she had told me I was the only one who could stop my father's alcoholism. 

I had the debt of a student loan.  I was now separated geographically from college friends who had helped me build my self-esteem.  My siblings one by one were doing "geographics" to move away from the strain of the family. 

Alcoholic family rules spelled out hyper secrecy of all things re family.   

I broke psychologically with that grim future spelled out for me.  My life was to play sponge for my parents' pain. I was a hostage.

Also, the loud message from my mother was my happiness and pleasure and independence was TREASON. It would only have her blessing AFTER I made everyone else happy, especially her.

My mother was a dutiful daughter to her mother. But she had married and had a family.  Why was it not okay for me to visualize and pursue having my own family and adult life? But when my mother was in a Ms. Hyde mode I did not try to debate her.  It brought on even more invalidation of me when I did.

I became seriously clinically depressed soon after. I felt like a hostage, doomed to never be released. I was not strong and free enough to fathom what was being done to me.  My mother, after all, was worthy of pity in my eyes and her craziness at times I attributed to stress from my dad's drinking.  I also felt shame since she was such a martyr and so religious that her negative assessment of me must be deserved.

Ten pain-ridden years later I became estranged from my mother over a modest assertion that had zero tolerance for my mother. The estrangement lasted about ten years.  In that ten years I sought healing in the 12 step community.  But those years I was haunted by such guilt and confusion.  And a "survivor guilt" that I was defying my duty as a daughter and loving family member. My reputation within my family network was profoundly damaged.  I was considered mean and/or crazy abandoning my poor mother when the estrangement happened, even though it felt like rejection by my mother of me not by me of her.

Sorry to go on so long. I will end here. I have grown and found inner peace with the enlightenment i have garnered about alcoholic and borderline families.  But the conditioning was strong and still sabotages my potential for happiness and joy and even more inner peace and at-ease not dis-ease.

I know the "survivor guilt" sensibility still reins me in as a fulfilled human being.

[bethanny]

After writing this it occurred to me that there are a lot more dimensions relevant to this exploration of my survivor guilt.

For example my mother's focus on Catholicism and "sacrifice" and "suffering."  We had crucifixes around the house which were a reminder of the noble and devastating sacrifice of Jesus. 

My mother would rarely acknowledge the subject or even existence of sex. This was major messaging growing up in terms of "gratification."

My mother did embrace gratification when it came to food.  She enjoyed eating. That was a legitimate form of gratification to her for herself and the family.  It was also when she lovingly cooked for and gave to the family.  I think I look to food as comfort too readily because of this. I struggle with overeating today.

Finally, re my parents and their chronic frustrations and struggles. I tried for so many years to cheer them up.  I saw their unhappy "inner" children.  I saw their efforts and successes to be there for us kids when they could and push against the narcissism, but I saw how disordered they were and how sabotaging their over-reacting to our natural development and efforts as growing children were.  How their egos were too attached to our choices and actions and that was such a burden to us as children. Unreasonable perfectionism.  And they say stress makes people narcissistic and they created such stress for each other.  How symbiotic my mother was with me and how she demanded I be "the perfect her" and also how lonely and needy she was and how she tried to give rewards for her children's giving her attention.  Also, what a traumatic childhood my father had had when his mother died when he was five. My mother often justified to us kids his lack of empathy by relaying how harsh his life had been and for us to picture him as a struggling youngster.

I pitied my parents.  The older I get the more appreciation I have of how one can become disordered from so much conditioning.  My parents victimized, but they were originally victims themselves.  That pity added to the conditioning for my sensibility of survivor guilt. I think my brothers probably share that about my parents, too.  They also may have an extra dimension re me since they moved away and had less day to day trauma from my parents for a long time compared to me. At the end of my parents' lives they were much more involved in their lives than I was.  My brothers recognize my struggles with the symptoms of PTSD.  Have their own psychological symptoms of growing up with such dysfunction at the same time.

I am glad I have a strong sense of empathy as an adult. That was encouraged and conditioned in me.  I am sometimes a passionate political activist against profound dysfunction with authority whether governmental or in the workplace, etc.  I am willing to and articulate in questioning authority.  My respect for morality and decency and empathy as well I am sure my pushing back against authority abusing its power when I was growing up. Shadow-boxing with my past. I don't want to change this sensibility in myself.  I appreciate it and exercise it.  Maybe I would like it to be a bit less compulsive at times and less intense. Especially when it leaks out re local authority like in the workplace.  I have lessons in conflict resolution I am still learning.

But I do want more pleasure and joy in my life.  I think one can be conscientious and concerned about the struggles of fellow humans and oneself, and also on a personal level enjoy happiness and inner peace in spite of evil dysfunction existing in our shared world.

[Kwamina]

Hi bethanny

I've read your post with great interest. I've read in articles that it is indeed so that many adults who suffered ongoing childhood abuse or neglect, find themselves suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Have you ever talked to a therapist about your suspicions of having complex PTSD?

When I was growing up, as the only daughter after my baby sister died at two when I was five, I was praised by my mother especially for any sacrifices I made to focus on and do things for her and her needs.

You made this post to explore your survivor's guilt. Your baby sister died when she was just two years old. How did your parents deal with her death and communicate it to you? Did they perhaps make you feel guilty about her dying or told you how thankful you should be that you are alive? I am wondering about this because it could also be related to the survivor's guilt you experience(d).

I remember a scene in which she came into my bedroom in my parents' home and read me the riot act in a chilling and angry way.  She said it was time for me to take responsibility as an adult.  The college indulgence was over.  And that my destiny was to ease my family's pain. I was to forego marriage for one thing because my family needed me and to focus on my primary family.  She told me she was ashamed of me and disappointed in me that she had been forced to put this into words, that I should have automatically recognized this role.  Also, all my life she had told me I was the only one who could stop my father's alcoholism.  

It is very hurtful and wrong of your mother to have treated you this way. Based on this description it seems she viewed your whole reason of existence was to serve your parents in every way possible. This event was followed by some very difficult years for you but I'm very happy that you later were able to start healing yourself

[bethanny]

Kwamina,

Thanks so much for responding to this post.  I found that during the years I went to therapists my fellow 12 steppers and I were far beyond many of the ones I encountered in terms of research into our disorders and issues.  I don't say that with grandiosity but straightforwardly. 

I feel like I spent a lot of time teaching my therapists about growing up as a child of an alcoholic and what I was learning in the meetings and from books. I read a self help book or two or three each week.  I gleaned a lot of the latest theories and perspectives at meetings. 

Now I am economically challenged and can not afford therapy easily (neither could I then but I was more optimistic then of a faster recovery) and am a bit cynical about the experiences I had with some of the half a dozen therapists I saw though a couple of them were wonderful and helped me during some hard times. I think I may be better helped in a group therapy setting at this point rather than one on one. But thanks for planting the seed in my head today.

Thank you for asking about the tragic death of my baby sister.  My mother was understandably inconsolable, but I was distressed when I heard her insisting to comforting relatives that my sister was PERFECT. She kept dwelling on this to an uncomfortable and weird degree.  She also told my brother and I that we must not be sad about her death because God wanted her in heaven with Him because she was PERFECT. Perfect again.

At five I knew how strict my mother's rules were. How she had once packed my suitcase when I was three when I angrily told her I hated her. My mother played hardball.  Zero tolerance.  She heaped on praise if you fulfilled her rules but if you came close to defying them, she was terrifying.

My sister was a very sweet baby I recall, but I so didn't like the way my mother kept describing her to relatives as a perfect child.  Like a saint instead of a real person.  Denying her human-ness.  She deserved to be mourned because she was beloved without all the perfectionism talk. And the message to my brother and me not to cry.  Why weren't we allowed to cry when she was? It was confusing to me.  And also the message God wants perfect people to die young?  That is confusing enough to launch fear of success and failure in one.

I remember meeting someone I hadn't seen in years who used to be in the 12 step rooms with me.  At one point as we reminisced she suddenly said, "I remember you were so jealous of your dead sister."  I was shocked. "What do you mean?" I asked.  She said my mother loved my sister more than I.  I felt frustrated she had it so wrong.  I was mad at my mother for not celebrating my sister as the real being she was.  Her spirit without the perfectionism thrown in.  I am sure that idealization had to do with my mother's guilt at having a daughter pass on under her protection.  I didn't bother trying to change the woman's mind.  It had impressed her enough to remember it over the years with her own explanation that I found jarring and untrue.

I don't think I got to adequately grieve my sister's death in a timely way. My brother and I were told by my father and grandmother not to bring up my sister's name ever because it would upset my mother too much as if something awful would happen to my mother if she got seriously more distressed.  I had to forego my needs in the grieving process to parent her needs clearly.

I look back and recognize that my mother's pain over my sister's death, like so many things, magnetized everyone's attention away from their own grief processing and mine and onto rescuing her with hers. So many years later I remember a cousin asking me if I was okay and needed her to do anything for me when my grandmother had died who had lived most of my life in the family home and with whom I had a significant and pretty positive relationship. 

I was stunned and explained that it was mainly my mother's loss, she was the one who deserved my cousin's solicitations, not I.  My cousin, a nurse, kept assuring me, "You deserve comforting, too."  I was grateful for her focus on me though it felt so strange and disturbing.  It was illuminating how over-focused on my mother I was and self-denying. Her pointing out to me my own loss startled me since it was true and it warmed me to recognize it and to receive the ambush of TLC from my cousin.

Finally, K, the scene with my mother declaring after college I owed my entire future to her and my father really devastated me emotionally for some time.  I knew I did not have the social support suddenly and the financial independence to push back against her hostage-taking it felt of me. I think I had been fearing living with my parents again. I recognized how my life had suddenly been stopped and would be regressing returning to my childhood role (re alcoholic family roles) as "mascot". As good girl.  As over-controlled daughter. My life was not a delicious adventure as it had felt in college and I was wading into a quicksand that would pull me down.  I wanted to help both my parents be happier, but I knew I couldn't make it happen and having it expected of me like that was overwhelming and depressing and angering but I was too enthralled and fearful of my mother to get in touch with my anger.  They say crying is anger turned inward. I suddenly could not control frequent crying jags.  My tears were like gasoline on fire to my mother who shocked me with her malice and contempt of my helpless weeping as if it was under my control.  She had no empathy for me with scary mood swings into deep depression I was suddenly and frequently having. 

Thanks for asking about and listening to all this. Brings up a lot of feelings right now.

Best,  Bethanny

[Kwamina]

Hi again bethanny,

Thank you for asking about the tragic death of my baby sister.  My mother was understandably inconsolable, but I was distressed when I heard her insisting to comforting relatives that my sister was PERFECT. She kept dwelling on this to an uncomfortable and weird degree.  She also told my brother and I that we must not be sad about her death because God wanted her in heaven with Him because she was PERFECT. Perfect again.

... .

I don't think I got to adequately grieve my sister's death in a timely way. My brother and I were told by my father and grandmother not to bring up my sister's name ever because it would upset my mother too much as if something awful would happen to my mother if she got seriously more distressed.  I had to forego my needs in the grieving process to parent her needs clearly.

Losing your little sister is a huge and very tragic event. Having your mother treat you this way only made it more difficult. Have you in your adult life been able to do the grieving you weren't allowed to do as a child?

Finally, K, the scene with my mother declaring after college I owed my entire future to her and my father really devastated me emotionally for some time.  I knew I did not have the social support suddenly and the financial independence to push back against her hostage-taking it felt of me. I think I had been fearing living with my parents again. I recognized how my life had suddenly been stopped and would be regressing returning to my childhood role (re alcoholic family roles) as "mascot". As good girl.  As over-controlled daughter. My life was not a delicious adventure as it had felt in college and I was wading into a quicksand that would pull me down.  I wanted to help both my parents be happier, but I knew I couldn't make it happen and having it expected of me like that was overwhelming and depressing and angering but I was too enthralled and fearful of my mother to get in touch with my anger.

I am sorry that you experienced this. I can really relate to what you describe here, college seems to be a time when the fear of abandonment and extreme controlling and/or raging behaviors get triggered in BPD parents. I went through a similar scene with my own uBPD mother, in my case not after college but in my first week of college, an all out 'Witch attack'. This experience still haunts me to this day because it had a huge negative impact on me.

They say crying is anger turned inward. I suddenly could not control frequent crying jags.  My tears were like gasoline on fire to my mother who shocked me with her malice and contempt of my helpless weeping as if it was under my control.

Have you been able to reclaim your tears and transform them into self-compassion for the young and powerless child you were that needed to be loved and nurtured?

[bethanny]

Kwamina,

Thank you so much for responding to these memories.  The "witch attack" you refer to in your own life describes my mother's annihilating anger pouring out at me perfectly.  She sustained that anger at me, too, which exacerbated my downward sinking into depression. I was isolated from nurturing friends and ripe for serious emotional battering. She re-broke my spirit as she had effectively done at vulnerable defining moments as I was growing up.

I was so "con-fused" by her since I had been living normally and happily away from the family and enjoying what I thought was her "blessing" to some degree of embracing adulthood and she had not communicated with me during most of that time what apparently was my horrible evil in her mind, though she did begin to get extremely passive aggressive and punishing at the end.  Icy coldness on the telephone that left me stunned and numb.  Once I was out of a nurturing support system and I was in her home she lowered the boom.

The messaging of the witch attack was i had done something to her that was beyond forgiving.  I was an obtuse and monstrous human being who had repaid her love and kindness with selfishness and cruelty. There was never mentoring or help in terms of financially becoming independent from her.  She used finances to catastrophize around me so I couldn't seem to escape. My student loan was suddenly something I should be ashamed of and shackling me to my parents' unhappy home. I was so enthralled to her will. She was an angry god who presumed the right to judge and completely control me and whom I was to obey even though there would be no forgiveness from her. 

My future felt hopeless.  Friends I had bonded with were advancing in their adult development in careers and love relationships.  And suddenly I was facing in the wrong direction.  Suddenly I was put on a very short leash and I was to "succeed" career-wise but God help me if I took my focus off my mother and her constant needs.

It also was chilling how my mother gunny-sacked all the injustices and slights she perceived from me and dropped them on me like a bomb, instead of along the way communicating honestly.  Ever since I was little she would accuse me of not knowing how she felt about everything and pushing me to accommodate all her needs and fix her problems even though they were beyond me.  The major one she insisted I accomplish was to get my father to stop drinking.

It was exhausting and crazymaking and has made me too easily codependent with others later (or even simultaneously) in life. I confused healthy intimacy with the emotional incest she was perpetrating on me.

I think growing up with such emotional battering takes an entire life time to grieve and try to recover from.  Can we recover from complex-PTSD?  Maybe to a degree.  But fully?  My feeling of entitlement to joy and pleasure have been damaged by so much toxic messaging. I recognize my parents were such damaged people. I grieve for their pain, too.  I also recognize my pity for them and trust in them as a child made me all the more vulnerable to their toxic messaging.

best, bethanny