Things My Mom Did That Were Just Straight Up Wrong

[NarcsEverywhere]

I feel like I've been constantly obsessed with women the past day or two, and confused about some stuff, and I think it's because of my Mom, I feel really angry at her, because when I was a kid, she'd mock me for asking people to spend the night on a school night, she laughed at me when I climbed 30 feet up a tree, threatening to jump when I was 12, because my friend kissed the girl that I liked, and I felt hurt. Oh, and she brought the neighbor daughter and mother over along with my sister, so I had 4 people acting like I am ridiculous when I was struggling.

She abandoned me to become popular at alcoholics anonymous and with her friends, and I was left to fend for myself in a lot of ways, I remember when my parents divorced, I was sticking forks in the light sockets, when I was like 7 and telling my Mom just to get attention. I feel so mad at her. She abandoned me like 3-4 times (and I had to change schools many times in 3-4th grade because of my Mom trying to save face and me acting out). She even was the recess lady at the school I got bullied at in the 6th grade (she followed there to watch me/keep me in line, pretty sure, since she worked for the school district), and then when I got bullied by kids, and blamed for kids bullying me, my teacher, by kids, and by the principle, because they thought I beat up little girls (I pushed a little girl off a swing, I think, and it was an accident completely, if I even did it, since it's vague to me, since I felt shame) I know, I was pushing her and going under the swing for fun, but anyways she didn't even defend me, and then used one of the kids in the class, who was her friends kid to shame me, saying how he doesn't like me all the time, disgusting. I was just a kid, and she didn't even protect me at all, gross! Even that teacher and principles piss me off, because they should be protecting all kids, not just the ones they think best of, gross.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Yeah so I reflected on my life with my Mom, and it looks like she hardcore sabotaged me, pandered to me, seduced me, we never had contact on that front, thank god, shamed me out of a sex life, convinced me to like women who looked like her.  Basically manipulated me into being too close/nice to her, gaslit me out of Buddhism (then I fell into depression) And ultimately killed herself trying to make herself a victim, to get my attention, when I was checking out into video games for sanity, ending with an unnecessary operation when she had pneumonia, that might have also been a way to stick it to me, beautiful.

[I Am Redeemed]

I’m sorry you went through all that, NE; you certainly have reasons to feel angry.

How does it feel to put these things down in writing?

It’s good to acknowledge the anger. Anger must be processed or it keeps us stuck. It takes time, though. I tend to think that I should skip over the anger and let it go, because I am afraid of getting stuck with the anger and unable to move forward with it. But the anger has to be acknowledged and given a voice before it can be properly processed.

It sounds like reflecting on your experiences with your mother has helped you recognize how she shaped your relationships with women.

I know you have posted about your father here, as well, and it sounds like you had two dysfunctional parents growing up. Did you have any “safe” adult in your life as a child that took an interest in you or cared for you?

[NarcsEverywhere]

Hey thanks for responding IAmRedeemed, not really, I’m so independent for that very reason, I’ve had to do everything myself. I don’t like feeling angry all the time, but I feel like it’s a productive thing. Just not if you’re lost in it. I feel like my behavior towards women has drastically improved but might need a bit of work still. It’s a little compounded by recent traumas.

I called the crisis guy and talked to him about it, and I processed some sorrow and anger, he was nice. It’s hard to balance the anger work with the meditation that I do for Narcissistic abuse, to mend the splitting. Today my hallucinations acted up because of the build up. I’m having a really hard day. The guy on crisis said that it’s probably like losing your mother again, and it is, I feel so sad.

I also feel a bit sorry to my sister and Dad because that’s one thing I got wrong and gaslit them about. Even though they mostly abused me, intentionally, where as mine was an accident.

I told my Dad about how it seemed like he used to be codependent more, but after all my Moms abuse and his lack of dealing with his emotions, he’s more like that now. One of the weirdest things in all of this is that my Dad abused me just like the stuff happened when my Mom died.

Like my Mom pushed herself too hard to martyr herself to get my attention and I avoided her. When I’d push myself to help the family for legit reasons, my Dad would abandon me. My Dad proded her stomach when it bothered her, before she died, which he did when I was sick from abuse. He left her at the hospital after she slave drove him to do to doctors appoints over and over, expecting him to stay with her always. And my Dad abandoned me and abused me when my back was injured. And when COVID happened and both my pets got sick, he abandoned me and abused me over them, because my Mom slave drove him on that, he gambled to screw me with finances like he did my Mom. Even his driving of me to doctors appointment and taking the pets to the vet, and buying us food he resented because my Mom was a slave driver with him about those things.

My Dad viewed me as my Mom, because I cared about her a lot, and because I took on her responsibilities. But the truth is that I had way better behavior than either of them, so he took out my moms abuse on me, it’s all very crappy. I wasn’t perfect mind you, I definitely could be bossy and rude, but mostly because of how he acted about it all. I was super patient and took on most of the work through all of this.

[I Am Redeemed]

I’m glad you’re able to utilize the crisis line when you need to talk to someone immediately. That makes sense that you would feel as though you’re losing your mom again and that you are probably in a state of grief.

Did you have anyone to look to for support when your mother died? It sounds like you and your sister don’t have the best relationship and your father made things worse.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Nope, did it all on my own, it's how I learned to journal and read a book that taught me about the stages of grief and such. My sister kind of played the victim with her friends and ditched all of her friends who weren't there for her. Which makes some sense, except that she expected them all to swoop in, and I think she might be somewhat like my Mom, as she has success, eating disorders, and has shamed, isolated and abandoned me, under the worst context, all things my Mom did. And also, if I look over her life, I'm suspicious that she was sexually abused by my Mom too, and ended up killing cats over it, it looks awfully suspicious. Really, the level of gaslighting I am unpacking here has caused me to go nearly catatonic today, but I recovered after peeling off layers and combining meditation with journaling. Looking pretty suspicious that my Mom molested me when I was a kid. This whole thing is going to take a ton of self compassion, I appreciate your input and support.

I feel like I need to figure this all out and care for myself before I can really reconnect to my Dad and sister in any major way, so I know where the cards and blame lies, but I will say, my Mother is probably the worst of the lot, and has destroyed my life and my family more than any of my abusers. I'm probably going to have to recode some memories and reinterpret sentimental stuff like my Shamrock plant, because it's been a huge source of inspiration for me, because of my own love and persistence.

I must say, I have huge respect for anyone who has peeled off this layer of suffering, as it's the most painful I've been through,. Although, I think my situation is exacerbated by how long it took me to really get out from under the grasp of my family and all the trauma I already have, but jeez, this is insanely hard, I'm impressed by how hard it is, even after all I've been through.

I'll use the crisis line as needed. I don't know what I am going to do about my appointment with my counselor tomorrow. But I am comforted by the fact that she reached out after I called the crisis line as they were concerned for me. It's been so long since I felt like people were really concerned for me, it's actually totally uncomfortable for me, but I know I deserve it and it's also nice.

[I Am Redeemed]

I read your other thread about your new counselor. It’s a good sign that she reached out after you called crisis.

After experiencing a lot of abuse, particularly in childhood, it can feel strange and different to have people who demonstrate concern and caring for our wellbeing. I know that it took me a long time to realize that I do deserve to have a supportive network of people, and also to trust that people could actually be interested in sincerely caring about me.

It sounds like you have some good coping skills and you use them a lot, which is a real strength. I struggle to be consistent in using coping skills such as meditation or journaling. I have periods where I do those things every day or almost every day, and then I start slacking off on them.

Coming face to face with the truth about our abusive family members and our traumatic childhood experiences is definitely one of the hardest parts of the journey to healing. I was in denial about just how dysfunctional my family was and how disordered my sister and father were until I had been part of this community for a good long while. I suppose I just thought that my situation wasn’t as bad as some other people had it, and it took a closer look for me to recognize the true level of dysfunction and how it affected me.

One of the best resources I’ve used for unpacking childhood trauma is a youtube channel by Patrick Teahan, who is a licensed independent clinical social worker who specializes in childhood trauma and is also a childhood trauma survivor. His videos have been so helpful to me in explaining how childhood trauma affects us and what we go through when we start facing the whole truth about our experiences. He also has great resources for dealing with family members as adult survivors of childhood abuse. He even does role plays which are really helpful (but sometimes also triggering).

[NarcsEverywhere]

Yeah, it’s nice that she reached out, that little act eased a lot of my anxiety. And we talked and I opened up a bit, and she seemed helpful, it’s going well. Thanks for the compliment on my coping skills being a strength. I have so many it’s kinda of annoying to be honest, sorting through what I need is exhausting. I think maybe women tend to be better at this whole support network thing, and also have more resources for it, so have less of a need for what I do. There’s boons and banes to everything.

How long have you been here? And how long did it take you to sort through it? Yeah, ha, I am realizing this trauma thing takes forever to work through, especially when I have this much.

Okay, I need to remember this thread, so I can maybe check out what you said about that guy, as I’ll probably need it soonish. But too tired tonight, gonna probably meditate and sleep. Thanks for showing concern and chatting about this, I Am Redeemed.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Yeah, I feel a bit safe with talking to you. And also this is really hard to share right now. But I’m doing this meditation on inner child healing by Lisa A. Romano, she’s really sweet and helpful to me, but also I get scared I’ll get too infatuated or attracted to her, because she’s pretty and these meditations seem so personal.

But anyways, tonight I did this meditation and I got sucked into my childhood room, in the house where my parents got divorced, where I was scared to look under my bed, where I was left alone, scared of silly things from TV, where I wet my bed and had nightfrights like I was possessed, and my mom resented even changing my sheets. I was only 7, and tonight it was like my body was possessed, I was kicking and screaming for my Mommy, not knowing why she wasn’t there for me. I thought the other stuff was hard, no, this is much harder. And the disbelief, it’s only the first stage of grief, this is going to take a long time.

Guess I’m going to parent myself through this. Have you been through anything like this? I’ll be patient for a response. Since I double posted.

[I Am Redeemed]

I came here about five and a half years ago. I started out here because I had just escaped an abusive marriage and I suspected that my (now ex) had bpd or something similar.

Lots of people land here because of romantic relationships with people who have personality disorders, and after a while they discover that their family of origin has similar traits and behaviors. A dysfunctional family lays the groundwork for adult relationships and so lots of us who ended up with partners who have pd traits find out that we were primed for these relationships since childhood.

I don’t necessarily think I have completely sorted through everything concerning my childhood; it’s been more of a process that is still evolving. Seeing how my children have been affected by events that happened because of my ex and my family members has helped me understand more about my own childhood experiences.

I took a look at that meditation you mentioned. Inner child healing is definitely important, but it sounds like you had an actual flashback and re-experiencing of a very scary event from childhood. That’s something that generally should only happen under the guidance of a trauma therapist trained in exposure therapy or other treatment models that may cause the client to actually re-experience the traumatic event. If that happened to me during a meditation I was doing on my own, I would be totally freaked out! That sounds absolutely terrifying. Meditations that one does individually are supposed to be calming;  at least that’s the reason I do it. I would be too scared to do a meditation like that by myself.

The meditations I do (when I do them) focus on breathing or training the mind to be in the present. That’s because I struggle to be emotionally in the present moment.

Patrick Teahan explains that childhood trauma survivors struggle to be present emotionally because in childhood, we “left our emotional bodies” and went up into our heads where we stayed hyper vigilant about the adults and what they were doing or might do so we could minimize the impact to ourselves. Makes sense to me.

I understand what you about women generally having more of a support system. It is more likely that women will reach out to other women and offer emotional support. However, it took me a long while to stop isolating myself so that I could find a good support system. I had coworkers who were supportive, but I never reached out to them outside of work. I finally got enough of a handle on my social anxiety so that I could attend church with my kids, and that’s where I found my support people. Even now, however, I still keep a lot of things to myself and struggle alone because I always feel that I am bothering people or wearing them too thin.

If I don’t reach out to others and don’t use coping skills like journaling, meditation, breathing exercises, etc., I start getting really high anxiety and kind of live in a state of “emergency” and panic which I shove down. Then I get really irritable and on edge a lot, constantly frustrated and overwhelmed.

Patrick Teahan also has great tools for reparenting ourselves. I need to utilize them more often, honestly.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Yeah, social anxiety can be really difficult I’ve mostly used it to reflect a lot, like if you can use it to see where the blame lies and realize it’s mostly their own issue or yours, then you can use it to take things less personally. When I first moved here I felt severe social anxiety, and I had a ton of internal struggles to deal with things. I’d lay in bed or journal to sort through it.

It was hard exploring all sorts of parts of myself to figure that out, and I’m sure it’s even harder with kids.

Yeah, well I didn’t like it when I experienced that, I’m trying to slow down meditation because honestly I hate the rapid progress, and that was hard what I went through. The main reason I do it is my energy levels get so low if I don’t.

Like I’ve struggled just to keep it all together, and exercise and eat and take care of my pets and do support stuff, or try to help others, trying to be more practical and listen to music for sanity. I feel like a lot of succeeding at life is about good priorities, you can do things better if you do them in a decent order. Do you agree?

Yeah, it’s normal to be a bit tribal I think, although for me it’s been the opposite I guess. It’s more comfortable being there, that’s for sure. Plus women deal with kids and the responsibility tends to fall on them, and they relate on that front. Really women are shorter on time and that’s a luxury I have, but it feels like at a huge cost at the moment.

I dunno, I have a lot of experience with being off putting to women when I need help and the opposite when I give it. I think even if people don’t realize it, there’s unconscious biases there. I actually don’t really dislike women, just certain dynamics are quite frustrating for me, especially when it feels like I get screwed by them over and over.

Yeah, it’s definitely good to use the tools at your disposal, I really need to use more support so that I can do more. It’s new for me to actually get useful support though, most of my support was emotionally distant men.

Yeah, I know I can wear people thin, but my situation is extraordinarily difficult. I’m actually trying to tone it down, by chatting with you here and to look to my other tools like crisis and my counselor.

I feel a bit more secure here so I feel like I have the luxury to do that. Before it felt like I was barely surviving at all. Even now I need to step it up on more practical activities. If my self care and care for my pets is failing though, that’s when I know I have to do whatever it takes.

I’m totally going to look into the Patrick Tehan guy here when I have the luxury and sanity to do so, without neglecting my life too much. I think it might be useful to me and I’m so tired of constant meditation and journaling.

Yeah, I definitely breathe. But I also combine breathing with body awareness. Some days recently I couldn’t  even feel my body without meditation at night, that’s why I’ve forced it more than I’ve wanted.

Yesterday was hard for me, as it triggered probably my worst trauma. As it was Friday and the vet place normally doesn’t help me on emergency anymore, I guess because I was a bit of a try hard with them and burnt them out. But I was more understanding with their situation and it turned out great. Still hard to deal with these traumas. It’s hard to find balance for me, but I think it’s improving.

[I Am Redeemed]

Prioritizing is definitely a key to feeling productive and doing Life. Doing things in a certain order is part of time management, too. In some situations, I’m really good at prioritizing things and organizing my steps to be the most efficient and productive I can (and sustain my energy while doing it).

In other situations, I feel like everything is important and I’m unsure how to prioritize or take action. I get really frustrated about that.

If your coping skills are starting to feel like a chore instead of a tool that helps, I can see how you would want to put them to the side for a while.

Are you referring to your past counselors when you said your support has been mainly emotionally distant men? That sounds like a huge disappointment and it makes me sad that there are counselors out there who don’t check in with their own selves enough to recognize that they are not able to provide their clients with the level of empathy or active listening they need.

I understand that being a therapist is emotionally draining, but it doesn’t help anyone when mental health professionals continue on seeing clients when they can’t communicate care and support anymore.

Living under the cloud of trauma can feel overwhelming and exhausting. It’s no surprise that you’re struggling with daily activities. It takes a huge amount of energy to hold the awareness of our trauma inside us as we go along day to day, doing things that we need to do, taking care of responsibilities, keeping our daily lives going. I sometimes have felt that everything should just stop for a while and give me a chance to rest and catch up.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Yeah, I mean, I just don’t like getting this backlog of trauma that is even harder to work out if I neglect it, if I can find the right balance it’s fine.

I find the key to prioritizing is just knowing when to take a break. And think things through after you get a bit of rest. Clarity normally happens during decompression. And if it’s not urgent/and emergency, it can normally wait. It’s funny how I used to push hard to get everything done at the end of night even though I knew that was dumb. Now I look at how the birds wind down at the end of the night or up in the morning, and I think, yeah, that’s how to do it! That’s how healthy people do it!

Like, I can be really high minded, but I almost always value practical wisdom over the deep crap, because it’s more versatile.

Guys just don’t have the emotional health to be there for people in that way, they’re good at advice or keeping you on track, very few have that. It’s a guy problem not a counselor problem, which is why I’m complaining! I’ve had 2 emotionally present men out of very many.

Yeah, it sucks, thanks for some understanding about that! I try not to mope about it, but it sure can get ridiculous.

[I Am Redeemed]

Taking breaks- yeah, that’s hard for me. I try to do better with that now, but I can easily get wrapped up in pushing myself to get as much done as possible because I somehow feel like I can’t relax when things are left undone.

I think for me, it’s come from people in my past criticizing me for “not doing enough” and some part of me is judging myself the way others have- except those people were disordered, and had completely unrealistic expectations that I bought into. I try to be kinder to myself today. It’s hard to break old patterns of thinking, but I can tell that I have made progress with it.

[NarcsEverywhere]

It's not easy to learn to restrain yourself enough to take the breaks that you need. Speaking of breaks, I need a break from the boards, to focus on other things. I'll be back when I am doing better, talk to you then. There's nothing wrong with pushing yourself at the right time, to feel a sense of ease and accomplishment, but sometimes it's the opposite that you need, we're only human, and so am I, which is why I need to detach from the boards for a bit and focus on life. I liked talking to you and getting to know you and I'd like to pursue it further when I have some things in order.