Whole family is nuts

[exodus]

Okay so I've been lurking here for a while already and now after much procrastinating here's my introduction.  There's so much to cover it's hard to even think where to begin, so I'll try to just keep this to the basics.  When it asked for the "person in my life" on my profile here I selected "family other" because while none of my family have a diagnosis, every single one shows strong cluster B traits in general.  They are all actually pretty severe but apparently do a decent enough job of hiding everything from the outside world.  My mother and my younger brother (only sibling) bear more of a resemblance to BPD while my father is much more narky.  Also I have already discussed the whole situation with a therapist who agreed with my observations.

Anyhow... .my earliest memory is my narc father flying into a rage and repeatedly hitting me when I was a baby because I started crying at night for some reason.  At first of course it got me crying even more but soon I realized the only way to get it to stop was to be quiet which somehow I eventually managed to do.  Before that I remember looking over at my useless enabler mother when he started hitting me and screaming for her, but she didn't do a thing except sit there looking at the whole episode with a sort of resigned look on her face.  It's kind of weird that I still remember stuff from that young but there you go.  Even as recently as a few years ago (before I completely gave up talking to her) my mom would lie to me to my face about it and deny that it ever happened even though she was right there.  I'm sure she counted on me not remembering so she'd never have to explain her cowardly response and lack of concern whenever I got older.  My dad would threaten violence a lot when I was very small like ages all throughout the single-digits range - saying stuff to me like "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about", "do you want some of this?" (with a clenched fist), "do you want a fat lip?" and at least one time "I'll slap you silly."  These weren't even punishments for things I did wrong - not that it would be an excuse - but just for him being in a bad mood basically and blaming me for it.  In general it was like we were always getting the message that we were all responsible for keeping his irrational anger at bay while we were never allowed to express any negative emotion whatsoever back to him.  A lot of times now I realize that these negative emotions were frequently deflected/triangulated back to each other in different ways.  He was overly controlling even when I started college, for example looking through my bank statements which were still sent to his address and stuff like that.  Pretty much keeping me in the dark about as many "grown up" things as possible demanding to be in control of all my legal processes while still going through the motions of me moving to a different place hours away and getting the "college experience."  Long story short, due to all the effects from the trauma and from another disability I have, I ended up getting burnt out not finishing college and unsuccessfully trying to make it on my own in a faraway place so eventually I had to move back in with my parents and now they can play the hero and talk to everyone about how they're "helping" me.

My mom as I said is more like a BPD than NPD... .most of her abuse was much more covert and a lot of it done by means of going into denial and making excuses for my father.  One really crazy trait of hers is that if I try to discuss anything meaningful with her she will respond but without even remembering what I said to elicit her response.  Sometimes she'll go into some long-winded monologue that's not even relevant and if I say "how does that even relate to what I just said?" she admits she doesn't even know what I just said.  Other times she will respond to a sort of strawman version of whatever statement I made where she takes two or three words of my original sentence, scrambles them around into something completely different and then responds to that new made-up sentence instead of what I said in real life.  There's more I could say about her but I'll leave it there for this one post.

My brother also resembles BPD quite a bit although I don't know if he technically fits the diagnosis. Throughout his whole life he has become so enmeshed with my father to the point where it's like his whole identity and self-worth revolve around my dad and getting his constant approval/attention.  It appears he calls my dad every single day he's not here in person which IMO is pretty crazy all by itself.  A lot of times in the past he would rage at me or just rage in general if he felt that I wasn't sufficiently sucking up to my dad the way he would, or just rage at me in general for some other crazy reason.  For instance when I first got accepted to college it was to a different school than my dad (which from a young age my brother saw as the only acceptable college to ever go because it's where dad went), and he got so angry about it.  Almost as if he was being cheated or something, he angrily asked my dad "how could you let him do this?"  One time my mother got my dad a present for some occasion that apparently didn't meet my brother's approval so he raged at ME about it - about some stupid gift I didn't even have anything to do with.  The rage that one triggered was particularly melodramatic.  He would yell in my face, "where's your PRIDE? Where's your DECENCY?"  Like umm do you even remember what you're talking about anymore... ?  It's funny to think about it now but at the time I was like What the heck.  Another time he raged at me I tried to sort of take a step back and told him that first he needs to calm down.  His response: "I AM calm!  Who the F*** are YOU to tell me to CALM DOWN?"  The self-blindness is just unreal.  There are all sorts of other examples but again I think I'll leave it here for this one post.  He once admitted during one of his rare lucid moments though that he does have this constant fear of abandonment, as well as trouble saying no to people.

Lately (since the time I really started learning about personality disorders) I started doing my best to always avoid them when at all possible, only talk to them when absolutely necessary, and never give them the reaction they're looking for.  Later on after finding this forum I discovered you guys actually have a name for it, "medium chill," so it was kind of neat to get that confirmation I was already on the right track on my own.  Ever since I started doing that things are usually calmer on the surface and they even get obsequious towards me at times; however I know better than to trust them and realize that it's no more than charming. ("charming" supposed to be a word for when the abuser tries to pull you back in, named after a brand of vacuum that starts with "H" - don't know why it's censored here)

More to come later on.  Strangely enough even just recalling all this stuff to type it out really drains the energy out of me so I already need a break... .

[Kwamina]

Hi exodus

Thanks for posting this introduction after lurking for so long

You are dealing with several difficult family-members which isn't easy at all. Do you feel like any of them has ever truly acknowledged that there might be something wrong with their behavior? Like when your brother said he has a constant fear of abandonment and trouble saying no to people.

None of them have been diagnosed with a personality disorder, but have they perhaps been diagnosed with other disorders? Have they perhaps ever gotten any form of treatment/therapy/counseling to help them deal with their issues?

Lately (since the time I really started learning about personality disorders) I started doing my best to always avoid them when at all possible, only talk to them when absolutely necessary, and never give them the reaction they're looking for.  Later on after finding this forum I discovered you guys actually have a name for it, "medium chill," so it was kind of neat to get that confirmation I was already on the right track on my own.  Ever since I started doing that things are usually calmer on the surface and they even get obsequious towards me at times; however I know better than to trust them and realize that it's no more than charming. ("charming" supposed to be a word for when the abuser tries to pull you back in, named after a brand of vacuum that starts with "H" - don't know why it's censored here)

I'm glad you have been able to find ways to make the situation a bit more bearable for you. Medium chill can indeed be very effective. There are also other techniques that you might find useful. I suggest you take a look around some more on this website (if you haven't already) and also look at the tools and lessons to the right of this message board.

More to come later on.  Strangely enough even just recalling all this stuff to type it out really drains the energy out of me so I already need a break... .

Getting your story out publicly like this for the first time isn't easy so I definitely understand when you say you feel drained. Your memories of your father hitting you are quite unpleasant. As you grew older he would still threaten physical violence which is a horrible thing for a kid to have to listen to from their own father. Did he ever cross the line again and actually hit you?

I'm looking forward to reading more of your story later.

[exodus]

Kwamina, thanks for the reply.  This next part I was going to include in my second installment but since it's necessary background for a few of the questions you asked, let me get it out of the way before addressing those questions.

While my mom was pregnant with my younger brother, my dad's NFOO decided to relentlessly bully her over an extended period of time.  Her mental state got so bad that she had to be hospitalized, and she even thought it was likely to cause a miscarriage.  Despite all that, my dad's response was that she was "being too sensitive" and the bullying continued with his full blessing.  Even when my mom told her own father about all this, he just said something like "suck it up" and didn't want to hear any more.  After my brother was already born, she finally went on antidepressants that doctors said could not be taken during pregnancy, and is still on them to this day.  Out of that whole situation nothing ever came to light (for everyone but me) except that my mom was slapped with the vague label of "depression" which was/is treated as if it was just purely "a chemical thing" and came out of absolutely nowhere.

Now then... .

Do you feel like any of them has ever truly acknowledged that there might be something wrong with their behavior? Like when your brother said he has a constant fear of abandonment and trouble saying no to people.

None of them have been diagnosed with a personality disorder, but have they perhaps been diagnosed with other disorders? Have they perhaps ever gotten any form of treatment/therapy/counseling to help them deal with their issues?

None of them have ever acknowledged any defect in their behavior at all.  Even in the case where my brother admitted some constant fear of abandonment it was framed as more like something he just innocently suffered with instead of an admission of manifesting in bad behaviors.  It was only admitted at all because my parents have mild hoarding tendencies as well and at that time he had plans to invite two friends over for Thanksgiving dinner.  He saw what a mess the house was in and started raging suddenly that it needed to be cleaned up even though the house was already like that for a long time.  I asked him why he suddenly cared about it so much (this was before I totally gave up the thought of having any meaningful conversations with family members) and he said he was afraid of his friends abandoning him if they saw the house like that, and that such fears of abandonment were not just specific to that occasion but plagued him in general.

Still, he will not admit that there is anything wrong with his behavior or any other family member's... .except for the times he wanted to nitpick some aspect of MY life, that is.  He describes my mom as "the sweetest person ever" and my dad as his "best friend."

Not even two years ago I told my brother about the story in the blue paragraph above and asked him how he can hold such a distorted view of my dad when "you could have died and he didn't even give a crap."  Apparently he didn't even know about that whole thing before I told him then, and even though he believed me, it still didn't affect his opinion about my dad.  He only proceeded to go on making excuses for him.  My brother just refuses to put 2 and 2 together and admit that the abandonment issues and other stuff don't just come out of thin air.  He also kept ending up with women who cheated on him and otherwise took advantage of him, but I suppose he thinks that's just a total coincidence too.

In answer to your other question, no, the only sort of disorder any of them admit to is my mom's "chemical imbalance" depression that I already mentioned.  So they've only seen doctors/therapists for that reason, and usually it's just focused on medicine anyway.  When I was younger my dad sent me to a lot of various therapists and doctors because I was depressed and timid and not outgoing enough (gee I wonder why).  In that span of time, only two doctors ever started to catch on to the fact that my family was likely at the root of these issues.  The first was when I was in either junior high or HS when we tried "family therapy" that my dad intended as a means for everyone to gang up on me about how defective I was, but when the T started to actually ask him some questions about his own behavior and his own childhood/parents etc, suddenly he got really impatient and offended, saying "I just don't see where this is going or what's the point" so needless to say that got dropped really quick.  The other time was early in my college stint where even though I was going to the sessions by myself the T told me that he thought something about my father's behavior at that time was unreasonable.  When I brought this up to my mom, she angrily snapped at me "well then maybe you should just have doctor-so-and-so be your father instead!"  So immature.

Did he ever cross the line again and actually hit you?

I think the constant yelling and threats "crossed the line" enough as it is, but the only hitting I remember after the instance as a baby was in the form of spankings.  Sometimes with a belt.  Usually done more out of anger than anything else, although he still paid lip-service to the idea of using them only in a calm way as a form of previously explained discipline.  Again, that self-blindness... .

Well part 2 coming soon maybe.

[exodus]

Let's see if I can't finish this now.  It's still exhausting for me to write about, and it reminds me of what happened when I tried to discuss all this stuff with a therapist a little over a year ago - experiencing a sort of sudden "stage fright."  Is that weird?

Anyway here are some of the more recent major details of my story.  In the past 2 or 3 years my brother has been less aggressive with me and sometimes even to an obsequious degree like I said.  However this is just as sickening because it's evident he has no actual respect for me as a person and is only worried about keeping up an appearance of "closeness" however fake.  He will say, for example, that people will ask him something about his brother when they make small talk and he doesn't like it when he has to say "I don't know."  I RARELY talk to him so you'd think the few things I do say to him would stand out, especially if he's so concerned about being "close" like he claims.  However a lot of times that I tried to tell him something significant, he will react as if he can understand it and it's made quite an impression on him only to completely forget it later on and spout some delusion that's the total opposite of what I told him.  When I once again correct him on the exact same thing he still acts as if he's so shocked and had no idea.  It's like he constantly lies to himself and then sincerely believes the lies afterward!

This part is really really crazy.  My mom has this brother who I believe is a sociopath.  He grew up as a GC with his parents making excuses for everything he did and spoiling him.  My mom switches from lamenting how much he's been enabled to actually doing the exact same thing herself and making excuses for it.  My grandpa actually ended up dying from all the stress he caused.  Even back when I was a kid my mom showed me a black spot on her skin and said that was where he once threw a pencil at her.  When he was around my grandparents he would sometimes throw stuff around the house or hit things and go on these intense screaming tantrums.  At my grandma's house not that long ago he actually ripped the bathroom sink out of its fixture during one of these rages which of course they never expected him to pay a dime for when they had to put in a new sink.  He's stolen money and used my grandma's credit card fraudulently.  Also he recently stole his ex-girlfriend's car and ended up totaling it.  That exgf didn't even go after him for it at all!  How are people like this able to even manipulate to such a degree?  Still after all this my mom once told him "you're a good person and you deserve good things!" and sounded like she really believed it.

My uncle went through this phase recently where he kept talking about suicide.  I thought that it was just to get attention but then he actually attempted it once.  What really scared me was when they checked him into a mental hospital during this time, my mom was talking to a nurse on the phone who was checking him in and after hanging up said, "she asked me if he was suicidal so I told her no... .I didn't want to make him look bad." ... .What. The. Hell.

Now this is just about the most jaw-dropping stuff I've seen from my mom so far.  She was over in the city where her brother lives and came back home unexpectedly taking my grandma with her.  She was in a total panic and told me how my uncle went into such a tremendous rage when he was alone in the car with her that she seriously thought she was going to die.  Somehow she managed to escape and take my grandma with her, and when I saw her she was a total nervous wreck.  Now my mom's perception is way off in general but since she normally bends over backwards to make excuses for that guy I figure it must have only been that much worse to shatter through all the layers of delusion.  I thought at the time that he'd finally crossed the line and surely at that point my mom would finally have to face reality.  Guess what, nope... .it's back to the same old push/pull FOGgy cycle song and dance once again.  I sincerely believe at this point that there is absolutely nothing he could do that they wouldn't move heaven and earth to excuse or cover up.  There's no denying it - in my family keeping up appearances is literally more important than life itself, like in some kind of cult, and it's been demonstrated to me time and time again from every single person.  I can't begin to express how utterly stupid I feel that I EVER doubted this!

Bottom line... .I've decided that going NC with my ENTIRE family the moment I'm able to is my only choice.  If you read this whole thing so far you can understand why.  If you did, thanks for reading.

I don't care one lick about wasting my time trying to "fix" these people.  I've already wasted enough time over the course of my life wrestling with so much misplaced guilt over things that it turned out were not even my fault.  My objectives for posting here are to recover from all the physical/emotional damage and also getting help with practical considerations in making the transition to NC.  Can't wait to truly begin my life... .

[Kwamina]

Did he ever cross the line again and actually hit you?

I think the constant yelling and threats "crossed the line" enough as it is, but the only hitting I remember after the instance as a baby was in the form of spankings.  Sometimes with a belt.  Usually done more out of anger than anything else, although he still paid lip-service to the idea of using them only in a calm way as a form of previously explained discipline.  Again, that self-blindness... .

I agree of course  I was only talking about crossing the line of physical violence but he clearly and unfortunately also crossed a lot of other lines with you.

I can't begin to express how utterly stupid I feel that I EVER doubted this!

When you are raised in an environment with disordered people all around you, this basically is all you know. Only with the knowledge of an outsider looking in would it be really possible for you to clearly see how 'dysfunctional' certain family dynamics were. The emphasis in your family on 'keeping up appearances' probably only made it harder for you to break out of denial. Being able to recognize these things as you're doing now is already a huge step forward

My objectives for posting here are to recover from all the physical/emotional damage and also getting help with practical considerations in making the transition to NC.  Can't wait to truly begin my life... .

Your objective is to recover and I think you've definitely come to the right place! To the right of this message board, you can find the survivor's guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through 3 stages: Remembering --> Mourning --> Healing. Each stage consists of 7 steps. When you look at the survivors' guide, where do you feel you are now?

No matter how you decide to move forward with your family, I think it's important to take good care of yourself. Setting and enforcing boundaries is an essential part of that as boundaries help you protect your own well-being. Do you feel comfortable setting and enforcing boundaries with your family-members?

Boundaries are how we define our values to others.   A boundary is nothing more than the outer perimeters of our independent core values -  it's like a fence  - anything inside the boundary is consistent with our core values and anything outside the boundary is not.  For example, if your independent core value is "always to be respectful of others" a boundary question might be "would abruptly walking out of the room when someone says something offensive be inside or outside of your definition of this value?"  It's not always obvious as we all see things differently.  As you can quickly see, with values, we have a significant responsibility to lead, educate and inform others - we must walk the walk, have effective communication and be consistent.

Here are links to more information about this subject:

Getting Our Values and Boundaries in Order

Examples of boundaries

[exodus]

Your objective is to recover and I think you've definitely come to the right place! To the right of this message board, you can find the survivor's guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through 3 stages: Remembering --> Mourning --> Healing. Each stage consists of 7 steps. When you look at the survivors' guide, where do you feel you are now?

It appears I'm just starting on step 20 and still have a long, long road ahead.  All the steps before it I've already done a lot of work on, through reading, lots of self-reflection, and a string of therapy sessions that concluded last year.  Steps 8 and 9 both could still use some work though.

No matter how you decide to move forward with your family, I think it's important to take good care of yourself. Setting and enforcing boundaries is an essential part of that as boundaries help you protect your own well-being. Do you feel comfortable setting and enforcing boundaries with your family-members?

I already do, as far as I can.  The thing is that right now I just don't have a lot of financial leverage to set certain boundaries and actually be able to enforce them.  So far I've been held back to an extremely embarrassing degree both by what I now recognize as lifelong financial abuse (the recent "mystification" thread started by Bethanny also really nails this), as well as a separate disability that I have to deal with on top of everything else.  However at this point I should be able to finally start the process of moving away and beginning the transition to NC sometime later this year, probably in October.  I'm trying to be very meticulous about making all necessary preparations in secret and in covering the major "what-ifs".

It's a funny feeling I get from the whole thing... .like, "Is it finally okay to get my hopes up?"  It almost seems too good to be true.

Boundaries are how we define our values to others.   A boundary is nothing more than the outer perimeters of our independent core values -  it's like a fence  - anything inside the boundary is consistent with our core values and anything outside the boundary is not.  For example, if your independent core value is "always to be respectful of others" a boundary question might be "would abruptly walking out of the room when someone says something offensive be inside or outside of your definition of this value?"  It's not always obvious as we all see things differently.  As you can quickly see, with values, we have a significant responsibility to lead, educate and inform others - we must walk the walk, have effective communication and be consistent.

I completely agree.  One of the most difficult things for me to come to grips with in the past was the realization that my parents and other family members didn't truly even have their own internal set of core values, and the supposed boundaries they did seem to set/tolerate only changed with the wind.  Eventually it became clear how futile it was trying to figure out what I must have been doing "wrong" the whole time, being expected to all but read their minds at every moment.

Here are links to more information about this subject:

Getting Our Values and Boundaries in Order

Examples of boundaries

Thank you.