Observation

[Please help]

Hello All,

  I posted recently about my fantasy life and was surprised to see I am not alone. You really are a great community.

  One theme I have noticed on this section of the forum is that we all have been let down and hurt by the people who share our DNA with us. Evolutionary speaking, these are the people that are supposed to fight to the death to help us and we the same to them. It's so unnatural what happened to us. However, many of us survived and we are prospering with the scars.

It's important to understand first and foremost their behavior is unnatural and that is why it's so stressful. We always need to keep that in mind so we do not get too worked up.


I made some breakthroughs over the past few weeks with my healing. I realize my fantasies were a way to create a sane world in the midst of insanity

  I switched schools (systems) 8x between k-12th grade. There was a town that I spend the majority of my childhood in although I went to different schools.  Many of my fantasies were based in this town because it's familiar. Random people would be inserted into my fantasies.

As someone pointed out here, the main themes were a mother or family, financial security and love.

This was my way of trying to survive around unnatural behavior. I created different worlds.

When one is dealing with sick people who are trying to hurt you or at the very least ditch you, it's hell and you have do do whatever possible to maintain sanity.

  I hope we can all continue healing and getting better at dealing with BPD's. 

[HappyChappy]

Having read you back story “pleasehelps" just like to say well done on surviving all that.  I also like your written style, have you ever considered writing short stories, put you fantasies on paper? Lewis Carol’s mom was believed to have BPD, so a good pedigree.

I also had fantasy thinking and dissociation as well. But my fantasy thinking was very much a mechanism to stop ruminating about the terrors of childhood. A good computer game can do the same, as it’s very arresting. But I’ve learnt to replace this with mindfulness, as these days life is good and I want to be aware of the good times.

Also your point about sharing DNA, we also share fantasy thinking with BPD/NPD. So when the BPD mother is triangulating, they find a way to see everything the scapegoat does as failure, for example. They avoid breaking out of their fantasy thinking and it keeps them stuck, unable to develop. In case you've not got a good link for mindfulness.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/mindfulness.aspx

 

[Kwamina]

Hi please help

I'm glad you've made these recent breakthroughs. Thanks for sharing this with us

When you are dealing with disordered and abusive parents, this really isn't easy for a child. It makes sense to then develop certain coping mechanisms to help us get through the day. In a way many coping mechanisms are our mind doing whatever it can to help us survive the pain and trauma. The pain and trauma might have been too much to bear so another mechanism was needed to help you get through it.

As adults as we heal and grow, we can come to realize that certain coping mechanisms, though they served us well as a child, might not necessarily be so helpful anymore now that we are adults. I really like what HappyChappy says here:

I also had fantasy thinking and dissociation as well. But my fantasy thinking was very much a mechanism to stop ruminating about the terrors of childhood. A good computer game can do the same, as it’s very arresting. But I’ve learnt to replace this with mindfulness, as these days life is good and I want to be aware of the good times.

This is a great example that shows how a coping mechanism served a clear and valuable purpose during the hostile environment of childhood and now in the new found safety of adulthood can be replaced by a new more healthy and constructive coping mechanism.

[Please help]

I was speaking with an old friend the other day. How many of us had close friends? I was fortunate to have a few close ones. It must have been difficult for many of us to develop close friendships either due to not having stable homes or so much chaos in our lives we were not in a position to do so.

I spent many years living off and on in a town where 95+% of the kid's came from fairly stable (financially). I am sure there was plenty of drama behind closed doors i.e alcohol abuse, beatings, neglect, etc. Overall, the kids were middle class.  There were only a handful of kid's that did not live in single-family homes. I say this because there has been much research about the correlation between the stability of home ownership for a child and success in later life.

I vividly recall being dropped of by my F's friend (the guy who would take me on burglaries with him) and all I had to wear was a blue t-shirt and sweat pants. I was using my Grandmother's address to go to school. She did this as a favor to her daughter (my mother) who ended up ditching me anyway. My behavior was bad and the teacher's lived in this community. They sat there wearing nice dresses being prim and proper taking care of cute little kid's who were all well-dressed and possessed good manners. My essays about breaking my father out of jail or making sexual remarks in the 5th grade was perceived as highly inappropriate. This usually lead to the school psychologist's office. Whatever school I landed in, I was always almost immediately sent to the "specialists". I am sure there were numerous red flags. 

I remember one teacher who lived up the street from the school. She would talk to a few boys about tennis because her husband would see them on the courts while he was playing.   One could tell most people were comfortable there. She wore plaid dresses and would have been considered and old-fashioned teacher. She pulled me aside and told me one day "there are homes for kid's like me". My outbursts in the class and sneaking out during lunch etc was behavior not usually seen in this school system.

As my friend and I were reminiscing about the old days, it occurred to me how rejected I felt by most of the kid's and of course the school admin. I usually hung around with the troublemakers and quickly escalated the bad behavior.

I write this so that we can all reflect on how outside forces affected us in good and in bad ways. I am grateful that I had a few friends who helped me through very dark times. At the same time, I look back on being an outcast with laughter and humor. Quite frankly, it would have made a good tv sitcom.

  I hope we can all see how the positive and negative influences in our lives shaped us to who we are today. Most of us are a bit unusual ( in a good way). I suspect we are all fairly stable yet have so many harrowing stories that polite company does not know how to react to us. Therefore, there are many aspects of our lives we do not talk about. My wife said when someone asks where I am from, there is a bit of a hesitation. This is because I have to assess the situation and give the appropriate response.

I also wonder if we are a bit more prone to loneliness. To be candid, how many people can truly "understand us"? I avoid dysfunctional people so most people I deal with do not have crazy stories like mine.

Not sure why bu these past few weeks have offered some real breakthroughs. I just realized as I wrote the above statement why I always felt alone. There are only a few people who truly know us and understand what we have experienced.

[Starting_Over]

Have you looked up maladaptive day dreaming? 

[Please help]

Yes, I have and Maladaptive dreaming fits precisely into what I have been doing.

[Please help]

I want to first encourage people to stay on these boards as they do help. I also think us giving each other insight is helpful. Sometimes I feel I take more than I give to this forum. I need to fix that. Over time, you will feel occasional breakthroughs as I am now. It does feel good. I can see myself as a younger person and all the forces that caused my abuse. There was no big conspiracy against me just a lack of anyone giving a crap and everyone seeing me as bad.

Both my g parents (both sides) hated me as I ruined their kids' lives

I quickly became the "dirty & somewhat homeless child". F went away (jail) mother ditched and I bounced from house to house.

I recall a few teachers who let me stay after class and one lady holding me while I cried in the 7th grade. She was real nice and I forget the events that lead up to it.  It's funny, growing up I always found the other troubled kids. I do not know how. Children somehow know who and what they identify with. Or it could be I simply me all my friends in detention ( ha, ha).

Both parents started new lives and I was not part of that so I moved on. I bailed my F out of jail 15x (yes fifteen) even though he was not always around. Anyone who showed me the slightest affection I quickly became attached to. This is why I feel bad for kids who get sucked into gangs and orphans who become child soldiers. I can see how it happens.

After writing that statement above I remember coming home with my M from visiting F in jail. We pulled into the driveway, she saw her bedroom light was on. We went in, M grabbed a shotgun and a rifle. She loaded both and since I was about 6 she handed the rifle. I was then ordered to go upstairs into her room to "shoot the cop". She stood at the bottom of the stairs with the shotgun trained slightly above my head while screaming obscenities of how her kid was going to kill the person.  I remember stopping to look back at her she she screamed at me and motioned with her hand to get the "f*** up there". I was petrified and went from room to room opening closets and looking under beds while she was screaming directions at me. After a search of the house, she got undressed, ran the bath water, poured herself a glass of wine and took a bath. I sat outside the bathroom door cradling the rifle because I was so scared.

I realize now I was scared of my own shadow as a kid. Kid's would pick on me as all I would do is cry and run. I remember sitting in the woods by myself and I think that is when I began my fantasy life. It was always the same theme. Stable surrogate family that had a beautiful and wholesome daughter. We would go to church, etc and lead a very stable life. I would create bizarre scenarios of how this surrogate family would come to adopt me. Often it was me rescuing someone from drowning or another hero type situation that lead them to taking me in. Oddly, it was never a pity party. They benefited somehow as well. 

I know I have been a bit redundant lately but i am merely writing my thoughts. It's amazing how clear one can see their life when they see how these various and unrelated forces impacted them.

Until recently, I was so angry at a few of my F's friends. I only knew them when I was a kid but he would take me over to their houses while they partied. The wives would sit around drinking and often complain I was a bad influence on their kids. One of those kids became a heroin addict and another was involved in a murder but acquitted. I truly think the hatred from this group towards me was nothing personal. It was simply not having a mother to sit at the table and defend me. I was somewhat dirty & did not have a fixed address. I presume my F was the biggest loser in that crowd.

I did view these people somewhat as a family as we spent so much time around them.   I always wanted to bump into them and in a subtle way show I am not that loser anymore.

After these recent breakthroughs, my heart does not have an ounce of animosity towards them. I realize they were adults acting like losers (drugs, alcohol, etc) all the while putting me down for forces I could not control. I do not recall any of them ever telling my F to knock it off and be responsible. I would tell my friend to knock it off if he was doing drugs in front of his kids. 

I don't know what it is. Maybe working in solitude for the past several weeks has made me contemplative. I feel alot of old pain leaving my soul and it feels great.

Thanks for listening

[Kwamina]

Hi please help

Thanks for your continued sharing in this thread.

I want to first encourage people to stay on these boards as they do help. I also think us giving each other insight is helpful. Sometimes I feel I take more than I give to this forum. I need to fix that.

I want to tell you that by sharing your story and making us part of your journey, you are actually already greatly contributing here Other members can benefit from reading your story and this can also help them feel less alone. Also people who are just reading here but haven't registered yet, can greatly benefit from your posts.

After writing that statement above I remember coming home with my M from visiting F in jail. We pulled into the driveway, she saw her bedroom light was on. We went in, M grabbed a shotgun and a rifle. She loaded both and since I was about 6 she handed the rifle. I was then ordered to go upstairs into her room to "shoot the cop". She stood at the bottom of the stairs with the shotgun trained slightly above my head while screaming obscenities of how her kid was going to kill the person.  I remember stopping to look back at her she she screamed at me and motioned with her hand to get the "f*** up there". I was petrified and went from room to room opening closets and looking under beds while she was screaming directions at me. After a search of the house, she got undressed, ran the bath water, poured herself a glass of wine and took a bath. I sat outside the bathroom door cradling the rifle because I was so scared.

This really sounds like a horrible and quite possibly traumatic experience. You were just 6 yours old at the time. Do you feel this incident impacted or affected you as you got older?

After these recent breakthroughs, my heart does not have an ounce of animosity towards them. I realize they were adults acting like losers (drugs, alcohol, etc) all the while putting me down for forces I could not control. I do not recall any of them ever telling my F to knock it off and be responsible. I would tell my friend to knock it off if he was doing drugs in front of his kids.

I am glad you are able to see those people for what they really were, troubled individuals, yet at the same time are not holding on to feelings of animosity. They were wrong to treat you the way they did. They were adults and you were just a child. They quite possibly were projecting their own insecurities and problems onto you to make them feel better about themselves, albeit for just a fleeting moment.

I don't know what it is. Maybe working in solitude for the past several weeks has made me contemplative. I feel alot of old pain leaving my soul and it feels great.

It really sounds like you've had some very significant breakthroughs in your healing process. I am very glad that you feel that old pain leaving your system now