Co-dependency Training and Double Binding Growing up

[bethanny]

My mother once explained her concept of love.  One takes care of the needs of the people one is supposed to “love” (family and friends -- my mother never acknowledged or focused on romantic and sexual love -- the older I got the more I suspected my mother may have been sexually traumatized as a girl and that may have also been an extra factor in her hyper-religiosity) and they take care of your needs. So, understand?  You don't ever put your own needs above those needs of your supposed "loved ones."  Recipe for pure codependent living.

My mother would explode with bitterness from time to time over how she was upholding her end of the “love” contract but others -- me and/or everyone else -- was not.

My mother considered me a part of herself symbiotically-speaking and readily “outsourced” me to help the others she wanted to help as part of this taking care of others’ needs utopian contract.  Ill relatives, neighbors who needed babysitters, etc. I was “her” girl to be donated to help my their appreciation of an commitment to MY MOTHER. I was to get people to appreciate me in order to appreciate her.  My mother instructed that the fact that people in need she was sending me to wanted me to help them and liked me for it was a tribute to me.  Resistance was futile.  It was also un-Christian to not want to fulfill the commitments she made for me.  

She would later praise me for my choice to help others as if I had had a choice.  But she always pretended it had been my choice, after she had made it.

During my No Contact decade when I turned to the 12 step program to help me recover from so many years of borderline and alcoholism trauma there was one program part I resisted.  “Sponsorship.”  Either being a sponsor for others or being sponsored by others.  I was in some 12 step programs with recovering addicts as well as co-addicts. Since codependency was a big issue with me I would have trouble with boundaries with people who were more “takers” than "givers" -- drawn to them surprise surprise -- since I was trained and encouraged to be an over-giver (though in the double bind department my mother used to at times attack me for having no spine with others -- others that she did not want me being codependent with as if I should have awareness and self-possession automatically for her convenience).  

Anyway, to be in a “sponsor” role freaked me because it seemed like I was to be an automatic giver and the other sponsee would have a blank check over me.  Kind of like my mother had presumed all my life.

As for being a "sponsee" myself, I felt frightened to be in a role in which I was supposed to follow instructions and advice from a more experienced other.  My trust had been so exploited by my  mother, and once again, I had lousy boundaries.  Both of these roles felt like traps to lose my hard won independence.

Another manipulation trap I still wrestle with is the “double bind”.  One dimension it hurts to look back on was my mother insisting all my life I could and should “fix” my father so he wouldn’t drink and their marriage would be fixed and everyone would live happily ever after. When she dropped the boom on me after my semi-escape to college and I ridiculously assumed my future belonged to me she went into full out witch-intimidation and punishment mode, triggered a breakdown in me, and insisted all the more stridently my destiny was totally linked with my father’s alcoholism and her pain, I felt doomed to their marital quicksand.  Understood was zero tolerance for resistance from my mother. I was so codependently and traumatically bonded with her, separation from her, total separation was impossible to conceive of.  I was so in denial, and so eager to have “good mommy” defining how “perfect” I was in her “other” mode. It took another 10 years as hostage before I separated.

Now, the plan for me to “fix” my father from compulsive drinking (for her sake more than his which certainly doomed the plan which was doomed even if it was mainly for his sake, given the nature of addiction) had another dooming dimension. My mother so often explosively frustrated with my father suffered bouts of jealousy over my father’s sometimes good will toward me and my sometimes good will toward him. She demanded total loyalty from me and his periodic alcoholic and non-alcoholic ragings drove me in that direction.  But the focus on convincing my father to stop drinking demanded by my mother was crazymaking in that at that same time I was to be coaxing my dad to give up drinking and being there for himself and all of us I was ambushed by her clear anger at any positive relating to my father I was enjoying.

I have read that to make a child “schizophrenic” a parent only needs to keep giving the child contradictory goals.  

NO WIN SCENARIO.

I was a natural for the “double bind” manipulation traps with others even after NC. And it is a common manipulation trap.  I even see it set up sometimes in my work setting. Like we won't pay overtime but this and this and this must be done before you go home. I am slower than others in surrendering to the impossibility of such demands and get angrier when I recognize the trap.

When NC finally happened, and I never realized NC would mean not only NC from my mother but the rest of the borderline primary and secondary family matrix my mother had such control over (why was I so surprised?) I found myself too easily “double-binded” with and from friends, particularly women friends, particularly when their love relationships were in trouble.

I was conditioned to be a people pleaser.  I also assumed that give and take took place in equal measure IDEALLY in friendship without staying awake to reality.

Today when I find new women friends in stressful love relationships it now begins to trigger a PTSD reaction or jitteriness in me.  Looking back I see friendships sabotaged by some triangulation similar to how my mother set me up as daughter with my father.  

One new friend soon married an alcoholic and cried on my shoulder a lot and asked for advice and then kept encouraging me to be friends with both of them as a couple, wanting the three of us to do things together.  He quickly seemed to hate me and be rude to me when I was with them which she seemed to so not mind while I felt set up.  Clearly she was quoting my advice and feedback during their battles over his drinking and I was the “enemy” influencing her against him. It was a thankless and creepy role for me and I backed away fast. I cared about her but I had spent enough years as watcher and cheerleader and helpless as my mother stayed in the scenario and even worsened it for everyone but wanted to use me as sounding board and comforter.

Another sad scenario was a friend I'd met in a writing class whose husband I had never met until he began to suffer from Alzheimer’s.  Suddenly she was turning to me a lot to help her caretake him. I empathized with a tragic and frustrating situation my friend and her husband were struggling with. I also recognized that her role as a stressed out victim of the situation seemed to give her a sense of entitlement to ask for what she needed, and to ignore my right in the friendship to assert my own needs which I was already not that great with asserting to begin with.  

This was so reminiscent of things with my mother, that she as victim of an alcoholic husband, had a blank check to get unconditional support from me any time, any where. My asserting my feelings and needs was PURE SELFISHNESS given the scenario my mother made clear.  

In this relationship with my poor friend and her poor husband, I actually had a PTSD experience with the degree of double-binding and I felt driven to NC but not after trying to negotiate mutuality. The friendship was too toxic for me.  And yet I knew the stress of what Alzheimer’s does to its main victim and the loved ones of the main victim victims deserved a lot of slack.  

I felt guilty but also I felt given my own history, I think I was right in being so self-protective.  

I was also stunned with this friend over how when I asserted or tried to the needs I needed respected even in the context of her stress she did not WANT to negotiate, saw not a scintilla of responsibility for her own behavior on the stress with me, but dumped me in a NY second and had people immediately at hand to replace me. Similar to my mother’s unwillingness to “negotiate” before my NC.  Funny, I am glad I wrote that just now. Because I still carry guilt about abandoning her with NC as I have in my history with my mother.  But actually she was the one who would not "negotiate" or COULD not begin to fathom the scenario from my point of view at all. I am double binding myself. I should have stayed friends and should have changed her when you can't change someone. Only they can change themselves.

I recognize that friendships and love relationships need MUTUALLY giving and taking contracts.  That doesn’t mean one party doesn’t get to lean and be nourished during crises, but not on an ongoing basis. Turns are taken.  Should be taken!

Best,

Bethanny

[Suzn]

Hi Bethany

What a terrible experience you've had with your mother. I'm sorry this happened to you.  

I've read other posts wherein you've explained this no win scenario and how your upbringing set you up for codependency. This thread, which I saw yesterday originally, gave me some food for thought. Thank you for posting.

My mother never outright raged, she got mad occasionally but she had control over us by simply saying our names, my brother and I, in the right tone most of the time. In the past I never considered my mother to be abusive, though her thought process I see today set both my brother and I up for codependency. We were left to fend for ourselves on a couple of levels. She did not protect us from emotional and physical abuse, mainly because she was too fearful to recognize it herself. She knew, she saw the actual bruises, she didn't see the emotional scars that had been developed, till recently.

Even now, after figuring out some of it, she is still attention seeking, looking to us to sooth her. I talked with her on the phone last week, she had been looking for a video that I had posted last year on Facebook of my nephew dancing at a fair I had taken him too. She had asked me about this over Facebook and I decided to call her to chat and told her I would find it and share it so she would have it. She has the habit of going through my photos on Facebook and sharing tons of them all at once, once in a while. Anyway, we talked for a while, the call went fine. I found the video and shared it and tagged her in it to make it easy for her to see. About 30 mins or so after our phone conversation I noticed she posted on Facebook and said "I feel like there is only one "little" guy that would miss me if I were gone. Isn't it ok to have a pity party once in a while?" It was a little longer than that and she's speaking of my nephew. My old knee jerk reaction would be to call her right away and ask what's wrong? I didn't do that this time, it did make me sad for her.

Like you, I'm still exploring all of what happened in the past and finding explanations for why my brother and I both have these traits. We were both taught how to become invisible and at the same time wanting to please people to avoid being hurt. I have PTSD as a result and I've seen the same PTSD episodes in my brother. As adults, my brother chose to cope with alcohol and drugs, I chose the perfectionist route. My brother is sober today and has picked up the perfectionist route. He is completely dependent and has no comprehension of interdependence right now.

As a result of all of this we have both been susceptible, like you, to the minefields in relationships with friends and romantic partners. I've done a lot of work on my dependency on other people and holding myself accountable for needing to be capable of recognizing early red flags in relationships with friends or potential partners. That said, I also cut myself some slack from time to time knowing these traits were ingrained throughout my childhood.

Both of the scenarios with friends you shared remind me of two friends of mine currently. Like you, one of which I have had to cut ties with for the most part. Her partner is physically and emotionally abusive, I've seen the bruises. One of which was on her head right behind her ear which could have been life threatening had it been a stronger blow. For years she complained about the texts and phone calls she received from this person and led everyone to believe they were no longer together. In the past I listened to her complaints and simply offered my support. There was one occasion where we had gone out together just to hang out and socialize, this person showed up and she wanted to leave. I was happy to oblige because I wanted no part of any drama, this person followed us outside and began to rage at my friend. I told her I'll see you later and left her to deal with it. I had told her at the time that I wanted no part of dealings with this person, I didn't want her to know anything about me lest I become a target. To make a long story short, this person recently got into her phone and found my phone number and started texting me. My friend has obviously made the decision to stay with this person which is her choice however I can't allow anyone to draw me into drama like this for my own perseverance. I cut ties.

This was a few months ago when I had first moved back home and wasn't in any state to be capable of "being there" for my friend. I wasn't "available." She is still a Facebook "friend" and my cutting ties wasn't to punish her it was to save my sanity. Maybe someday our paths will cross again and we will both be in a better position emotionally to continue our friendship. I am in a better place however she is not. I am ok with the now though I did feel guilty for a little while for cutting ties.

The other friend I have has gone through some very difficult situations and is dealing with some deep grief. I won't go into the details however I noticed my reaction and have questioned my intentions. We use to talk almost daily and that has changed, I'm ok with that, I know she's incredibly busy and I rarely call because of that, she usually initiates the calls. Although recently, I was starting to feel the absence of our conversations and reached out. For one, I started feeling guilty that I had been "unavailable" for my friends for some time and maybe my not reaching out sooner may have offended her, my mistake for thinking for someone else. Second, this is something I've always done, that being "considerate" in my mind that people are busy. As in, don't be needy. But in this scenario was I projecting? Is this being fearful of being rejected if I reach out to get my needs met? Well, I am the other half of this friendship and yes I have needs too. She isn't "available" right now and I completely understand how that feels. I was told "I don't need you to be there for me." I'm trying to balance that maybe she is doing what I was doing and relying on herself to get through as she is in recovery too and is quite serious about it and trying not to be hurt that she won't let me be there like I have been in the past and what my past thinking meant. I'm still in the thought process on this one. I'm not obsessing I don't think but I'm trying to be compassionate with myself and her and checking myself for twisted thinking of my own from the past. 

I think we can give ourselves permission to build on our thoughts, question even when we have originally have feel adamant of our perspective. I certain have felt adamant in my values in the past and left little room for re-evaluation. I'm trying to change that a bit.

In both situations I have learned that sometimes we can't be there for each other, for different reasons, and sometimes it can't be reciprocal. I think it's healthy to reach out to close friends when you are struggling as long as our expectations, on both sides, are kept in check. I also know that I have worked very hard to be "ok" on my own if I have to let people go to deal with their own struggles, in their own time, and be open to reconnecting later down the road if it's healthy for both sides. I mean I do love these friends but I have to care about myself too. Always a work in progress.

 

[bethanny]

Suzn,

Thanks so much for responding. Codependency is a toughie for me.  I have to be so diligent and awake and vulnerable.  Trusting and receiving is hard for me.  

Sounds like your mother though reined in with her anger had serious control and power.

Actually, my mother when she got icy and withholding I got most nervous. No eye contact and a locked jaw and cold cold tone or no communication to punish.  

And I think my mother got angry in proportion to my father maybe 1 in 100 times but I would prefer his 100 to her one.  

I appreciate that "need to be soothed" mode messaging.  It is hard to share on the website as well as in the old 12 step meetings about the roller coaster of multi-personalities we have to deal with, including the nice one.  That is what makes this dis-order so cruel.  I would get re-seduced to trust and then get clobbered emotionally with guilt or contempt or shame when the roller coaster went on that particular harsh loop once again.

Your mother's ignoring physical abuse is a profound betrayal!

Your mother's Facebook comment dismayed me.  Really? After you were so kind about the video she so blatantly solicits pity and scolds everyone else in her life for not caring?  Geeesh. And that is a "call for help"?  It is pushing away punishing in reality!  But her cue for attention at the same time according to her pattern.  What an off-putting way to solicit help.  :)ouble binding -- take that verbal slap, but that means come closer to see what is wrong with me?

I am glad to hear you didn't pick up the cue.  

I am sorry to hear your brother seems in denial.  

The "perfectionistic route" says it well, Suzn. Some psychologist once wrote in a book that we often treat ourselves like a roommate we don't like.  It made me laugh but it also chilled me.  So many of us seem to have internalized that perfectionistic voice of our uBPD parents and our own thoughts hound and harass us.  We would never talk to a friend the way we often talk to ourselves.

"Minefields in relationships."  Yes, yes. And sometimes they are not even minefields.  Instead of those early minefields toughening us I think they made us gun shy to stress of any kind.  Molehills even with me at times.  That is how i feel.  PTSD throws us back into "infant time" where when stressed we do not experience our adult bodies and capacity to fight back verbally, emotionally and even physically, we suddenly are helpless and frozen before looming and hostile parent figures who wielded so much power over our basic welfare and power in mirroring dangerously who we supposedly were. Often their mirrors were scary and freaky fun house mirrors that didn't reflect our true wonderful selves. Sometimes they seemed like generous mirrors that showed us bigger and stronger than our actual selves, but looking back, they were inaccurate and dangerous fun house mirrors as well as the more obviously cruel ones.

How hard to be close IRL to a good friend who is in both psychological and physical danger like your friend that can't/won't leave the abusive partner.  The fact that you became targeted was certainly a tipping point I'd have to agree.  

I remember getting in the back seat of our car as a kid and my father would start driving erratically and dangerously and my mother would begin sniping and pouting that he was obviously drunk and my heart would be beating and I wondered if we all would be killed in a sudden car accident.  Why wasn't my mother demanding he stop the car?  She was angry and complaining but we were still in harm's way! She seemed so strong but this wasn't smart strong?  This was an angry kid not getting real dangerous reality.

One therapist kept stressing this to me.  How my mother often was not being sane about her situation and her children, and it was up to me and them to be sane about our welfares, even if it meant having to detach since she couldn't fathom the reality and the harm it was doing to her and everyone around her.

You also remind me that we must respect our own emotional capacity to cope as well, especially given so much dysfunctional coping we witnessed and were forced to resort to. In 12 step meetings they used to say our defense mechanisms as children became our character defects as adults.  They protected us then, now they sabotage our potential for success and happiness.

I was expected to fulfill such a dazzling persona for my mother's reflected glory at times so that I often waded in expecting myself to be able to handle things I couldn't. I would feel humiliated and shocked that I couldn't handle what I had been told I should be able to handle.  I was merciless in beating myself up for my failure, my flawed immature self. I had to learn to acknowledge the difference between bravado and grandiosity vs. courage and maturity.  Forgive myself and move forward at the rate I could, often two steps forward and that one backward.

My mother used to praise her father for something confusing to me. He had a drinking problem but when he was inebriated he did not stay around the family apparently.  She made it sound like if you cannot be perfect it is better to go away by yourself and come back when you are convenient and even perfect again, and not leaking human feelings and issues I guess.  

That message got into my belief system unfortunately.  I often think I have to be in a perfect mood to be with people rather than appreciating that people can help me get to a better mood and they don't expect or want a Stepford friend to show up but a real human being with a lot of emotional channels.  None hopefully in strident mode. i think the likelihood of going to strident mode happens when people have the cap on feelings too tight and then the extremes happen, kind of vomit out from being so struggled against for so long.

You give me hope Suzn as you talk of patience with yourself and with friendships and our recovery process which needs sometimes solitude and detachment but for certain periods not forever. Sometimes others need to be alone and we need to respect that, and our need to be alone can be respected by truly empathetic and worthy friends as well. We need to learn better when to engage and when to detach. 

Thanks for sharing! Appreciate!

Best, Bethanny

[Suzn]

Your mother's Facebook comment dismayed me.  Really? After you were so kind about the video she so blatantly solicits pity and scolds everyone else in her life for not caring?  Geeesh. And that is a "call for help"?  It is pushing away punishing in reality!  But her cue for attention at the same time according to her pattern.  What an off-putting way to solicit help.  :)ouble binding -- take that verbal slap, but that means come closer to see what is wrong with me?

I still have no idea what triggered her post. Her H, my brother, I don't know. I had never heard of double binding till your post. In the past I have called her on these types of posts, meaning I'd call and ask why she's doing that. Her response is always the same "I know, I know, you're right I shouldn't do that" I don't need to be right I just wanted to know why.  

I am sorry to hear your brother seems in denial.

He is. I wonder sometimes though the fact that he doesn't recognize it if it's really denial. He's "in it", deep in the FOG of his relationship so I don't think he even thinks straight. I know I didn't back when I was. He will tell you "I have no self worth" and I think that's true but it seems to have turned into an excuse to continue his decision process instead of working on it. His T told him this and now when his world falls apart he recites what he was told instead of looking for solutions. I've been super supportive but I can't work on it for him.  

How hard to be close IRL to a good friend who is in both psychological and physical danger like your friend that can't/won't leave the abusive partner.  The fact that you became targeted was certainly a tipping point I'd have to agree.

I could have handled being "targeted" via the text messages however my friend started lying to me, it was a combination of everything. She started standing me up when we would make plans and not show up. I told her I was fine if something came up but I deserved a text or call that she wouldn't be able to make it. I wouldn't hear from her for a week or two. Once or twice ok but it turned into all the time.  

I remember getting in the back seat of our car as a kid and my father would start driving erratically and dangerously and my mother would begin sniping and pouting that he was obviously drunk and my heart would be beating and I wondered if we all would be killed in a sudden car accident.  Why wasn't my mother demanding he stop the car?  She was angry and complaining but we were still in harm's way! She seemed so strong but this wasn't smart strong?  This was an angry kid not getting real dangerous reality.

That is scary Bethany, it would have scared me too.

One therapist kept stressing this to me.  How my mother often was not being sane about her situation and her children, and it was up to me and them to be sane about our welfares, even if it meant having to detach since she couldn't fathom the reality and the harm it was doing to her and everyone around her.

I think this is where our situations are very similar. Knowing you are putting yourself and your children at risk by moving into a violent and dysfunctional home. We lived with family members a lot since we moved around a lot.

You also remind me that we must respect our own emotional capacity to cope as well, especially given so much dysfunctional coping we witnessed and were forced to resort to. In 12 step meetings they used to say our defense mechanisms as children became our character defects as adults.  They protected us then, now they sabotage our potential for success and happiness.

Agreed. My mother never helped us deal with our emotions. If we were sad or angry it was always something else other than the actual reason... .oh you're tired or hungry. Not that we might be scared or lonely without her awareness of what was really going on. So it's taken some diligence to learn to identify my emotions to learn to respond appropriately.

[Leaving]

Hi Bethany

My mother 'outsourced' me as well and I now realize that she was using me as a means to get narcissistic supply.

It really did have a toxic effect on me- just like you, where I and my needs became invisible and my role was about serving others and fixing broken people- even at the expense of harming myself. You see, she always told me that I was stronger than everyone else, that I was more fortunate than everyone else, that I didn't have anything to lose and everything to gain. 

My mother also used my brother but in a different way.  She molded him to identify with money so that she could, of course, always have access to it.

It's all so sick and disturbing when I recall specific incidents and realize how we felt uneasy or uncomfortable engaging in her drama dynamics without realizing at all why we felt uneasy.

I don't think my brother realizes how dangerous our mother is or how she is responsible for most of his current problems.  I hope no one will think that I'm excusing our accountability but those of us who know what it's like to be conditioned in such self defeating ways  realize that we never could be accountable for our own circumstances IF we didn't know that we were being manipulated and controlled; not allowed to be accountable.   We only gain personal accountability once we cut the strings and quit being their puppet. 

A therapist once told me, ' Well, YOU chose to marry him'... .yeah, I did but that wasn't really MY choice.  From her perspective, I can certainly see why she would think that and how she was attempting to get me to start taking control of my own life but she also failed to realize that if I had chosen my own path, I would have also paid dearly.  The conditions in my family were very simply, a no win.  Either we did as mother so affectionately suggested or we were betraying her and her good wisdom and she would discard us.  To most people, the idea of losing a family, our only family is a tremendous threat to our well-being.  We were forced to choose the lesser of evils.

The old adage, ' Pay now or pay later' is truly what my entire life has been about.  I only wish I had chose to pay then so that I could have begun rebuilding my life at an earlier age and wouldn't be bankrupt now.

[bethanny]

Suzn,

Your mother acknowledges later that "she shouldn't do that" re those messages on facebook but won't go deeper into them. Does that feel as if it is at least something, or just part of the cycle of provoke and apologize until next time? 

Re your brother it is hard to witness a frustrating enmeshment of a loved one and a kind of surrender of their spirit. I am so glad, though, that he has a T as a base camp of sanity as well as having you.

Actually, I relate some to him and am hoping my participation on this website will help inspire my own mojo and combat my spiritual weariness.  The 12 step program advises not to give up five minutes before the miracle.  It also has a statement called the "promises".  I seem to be a threshold dweller. Not willing to go the margin of distance after doing so much hard recovery work.  Or is it recovery is learning to let go of what you never had and I am still gripping onto hope that reality was not as grim and crazymaking as it most likely was.

Today I went to the dentist and I had postponed going for an embarrassing time.  It was a new dentist the last time I went in and I was in crisis and he tended to me but he had some long term stuff to do and we agreed to wait until the new year for when my insurance became renewed, but I kept procrastinating. I had procrastinated in going to him out of continued shame and reluctance to have to face the reckoning of the procrastination, making it worse.   An old pattern that I eventually kick myself eventually and am in awe of how so much dread ended up being not as dreadful, but embarrassing and self-sabotaging.

I felt some old shame.  He and his assistant were gentle with me and made the visit as painless as possible, though considering my irresponsible lapse of time they did acknowledge it in a nervous and passive aggressive and teasing way but the message and frustration was there.

I also realized that they are not personally committed to me only professionally in a sea of other clients and my fear of the depth of their disappointment in me is not realistic, though might lessen also their professional commitment to me. Sad for me the recognition of their personal indifference and confused disrespect for me of why I don't take better care of myself.  I seem to ride the roller coaster of commitment to lapsed commitment and back again.

I used to do meditation every day and I am getting more and more infrequent with that. I am going to do more journalling and meditating. I know from years of recovery that stuff works.

I am reading the statement about your friend lying to you. You asked for consideration and that is a service to yourself and the quality of your friendship!  You were clearly seeking out a reciprocal friendship contract and unwilling to play handmaiden, though it must be hard to detach.  With the last close friend I detached from I was shocked that she didn't seem to have the will or hope or feeling to try to explore with me what was happening. I always think it is myself who has trouble being honest and that when and if I finally get there, it will be celebrated by the person I am honest with. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes so not.

Suzn, you stress the importance of finding the safest and sanest place to exist as possible. That is what we owe ourselves and our innocent loved ones in our orbits.  Our pity shows our open hearts, but we need to recognize our self-loyalty and honor it and how sometimes our pity for others seduces us to betray ourselves.

When you speak about your mother and other uBPD parents blaming our exposed and not convenient emotions

consistently on the wrong reasons -- that resonates for me.  What a wise thing to bring up.  We have been conditioned to sweep those real reasons today under the rug.  I am hoping that my re-committing to daily journalling will help with that.  Nice to be reminded of that! 

Thanks, Suzn. 

Good luck to both of us.

[bethanny]

Leaving, thanks so much for commenting!  Nice to see you.

You write:

My mother 'outsourced' me as well and I now realize that she was using me as a means to get narcissistic supply.

I appreciate what you are saying about being praised for being "strong" and feeling obligated to do everything that was asked to deserve an attribution that was really a trap.  I became self-estranged. My real self was abandoned by my mother and too much of myself. It was abandoned to the "role" that infected my ego at the expense of real and the right to gratification and authentic self-possession and self-expression.

You speak of your brother serving a different role. In our dysfunctional family the roles went according to the alcoholic family playbook of hero, mascot, lost child and scapegoat with some doubling up at times depending on the number of children and switching roles depending on circumstances and resistance. I was for years mascot who lived in fear.  When I became scapegoat I lived in anger and then on to lost child which triggered profound loneliness.  The role I don't feel I ever had was the hero. The hero apparently suffers from profound guilt.

I was not strong enough to take on my mother when it would have been WISE to do it, and when I had a less eroded self-esteem in my early twenties.  But I was too enthralled, too codependent, too pitying, too enmeshed, too role-obsessed.  My mother I sensed was willing to assassinate my character. What I wisely perhaps feared was she would assassinate it significantly in my own eyes.  When I detached at the age of 30, she set about assassinating my character to protect her image among our mutual social network, but I was more self-possessed and mourned what she was doing but I didn't abandon myself.

I appreciate what you are saying about the pressure from counselors as adults to demand we take responsibility for our toxic conditioning and turn it around.  But I think we first need to really grasp the level of it and forgive ourselves for being as deeply wounded as we are, not just from the anger but so much confusion and inconsistency.

I know the "familiar" more than the "safe" always attracted me to people, male and female.  With men I confused fear with sexual attraction.  There's a dangerous conflation!

Leaving, to be continued. Take care of your precious self.

Best,

Bethanny

[sunflowerhope]

Wow, it's so good to read about other people in these situations. I remember one time, the night before thanksgiving, after spending most of the day cleaning house and taking care of my three brothers, mom said she wanted onion cheese bread and custard pie for tomorrow. She wanted three of each, I thought they were for us and she just wanted to make sure we would have left overs for the whole week end. So I, at age 13 stayed up cooking until one in the morning for my family. Only to wake up in the morning to find that she had taken 2 of the three to her friends. I'm pretty sure she told them it was her that made them too. And of course when I said anything about it, I was selfish, and not in the spirit of the holiday. It sounds like your mom did stuff like that all time too, I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm so scared of turning into my parents that I'm worried there's not much more to me than fear and escapism, you know?

[Leaving]

Wow, it's so good to read about other people in these situations. I remember one time, the night before thanksgiving, after spending most of the day cleaning house and taking care of my three brothers, mom said she wanted onion cheese bread and custard pie for tomorrow. She wanted three of each, I thought they were for us and she just wanted to make sure we would have left overs for the whole week end. So I, at age 13 stayed up cooking until one in the morning for my family. Only to wake up in the morning to find that she had taken 2 of the three to her friends. I'm pretty sure she told them it was her that made them too. And of course when I said anything about it, I was selfish, and not in the spirit of the holiday. It sounds like your mom did stuff like that all time too, I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm so scared of turning into my parents that I'm worried there's not much more to me than fear and escapism, you know?

Sunflower, You won't turn into your parents because you won't let that happen.  All of that ' defective' belief about ourselves comes from them and their wanting to control us and keep us from experiencing a full life.  It seems rather sick that anyone, especially a parent, would want LESS for their child than they had.  BUt, some parents never grew up and are still angry and jealous children.  My stepsister and I both started counseling in our early 20's in order to help us be the best parents and spouses.  My stepsister has two beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband.  I didn't have children- not because I didn't want them but because that was part of my defective belief that I wasn't healthy or good enough or financially responsible enough ( all those beliefs perpetrated by my mother).  I remember telling my G-d mother that my mother told me that I could never have children or never should have any children because she didn't want to be a welfare grandmother.  My G-d mother was stunned and then said, ' Who does she think SHE is?  She was a single parent who was taken care of by her own parents her entire life!"  She told me that I would have been an excellent mother and I do believe that I would have been.  There's no doubt in my mind and you too should not second guess your ability to love and nurture others.   The key is to be aware when and if you ever get triggered and falter and then apologize.  No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes but decent people with good character will acknowledge their mistakes amend them and not repeat.  It's the repetitive hurtful behaviors that are abusive.

[sunflowerhope]

That is horrible, when ever I hear of those things, or catch that look of horror on another person's face as I'm reminiscing, all I can think is "how was that rational? How was that good? And how can someone act that way towards another human being?" my mother was so strict about manners, and would say"remember when you leave the house you're representing this family. " ( and by family she meant herself)

[sunflowerhope]

And then turn around and behave in away that's so despicable, it boggles my mind, and always will.

[Leaving]

That is horrible, when ever I hear of those things, or catch that look of horror on another person's face as I'm reminiscing, all I can think is "how was that rational? How was that good? And how can someone act that way towards another human being?" my mother was so strict about manners, and would say"remember when you leave the house you're representing this family. " ( and by family she meant herself)

Image is everything in a dysfunctional family. Just open up the family photo album and everyone will be there smiling    

I too grew up with very strict etiquette.  On one hand I'm glad that I was taught those things but on the other hand, those 'good manners' created a lot of confusion for me and I felt like a fraud.  It was rare that my family did anything together without there being a major fight before the event and yet, we would all show up, perfectly dressed and well-mannered- appearing to be so ' normal'.  Everyone would conveniently compartmentalize the truth and put on their pretentious happy face.  Of course the ride home was a different story- that tense smothering silence.

[bethanny]

Leaving and sunflower,

Thanks for your sensitivity to this dynamic.

I think today I still sabotage myself as misdirected rebellion (reaction formation?) to rebel against so much pressure to be the Stepford daughter. 

I also have a fear of becoming so enmeshed trying to impress others that I will lose myself and ignore my own needs and wants. 

My mother's mandate, you take care of others' needs and they take care of yours, was really twisted and the foundation of codependence.  In 12 step rooms they asserted "God, ourselves and others" were the priorities.

best, bethanny

[bethanny]

I meant to say God-ourselves-others were the priorities in THAT particular order.  Others not before ourselves. We got brainwashed into not taking the time to know and listen and take care of ourselves.