© Lise Winne
Please note: this post is about an abusive parent, not about parents or parenting in general. Read about what constitutes an abusive parent from this post.
Abusive parents are generally rejecting and unloving. They practice, make-up, break-up on a consistent basis with most of their children, unless the child is a "golden child favorite" (favoritism).
The graphic above are all typical reasons abusive parents will give you for your not being loved.
Also, the above reasons for why Mom does not love you are defined as emotional abuse. Abusive mothers can sometimes tell their children that they love them, but rejection is not love. In other words, the love they claim to feel is not believable. Love requires empathy. A lack of empathy is not love; it is the opposite of love.
Your mother may claim that you don't love her, so in reaction, she doesn't love you. This is retaliatory tit-for-tat parenting and that kind of reaction is always categorized as child abuse (and yes, adult child abuse counts too). Note: it is the mother's responsibility to love her child first, starting during the infancy stage, to get the child accustomed to being loved and loving back. A loved child will usually reciprocate love. A rejected child won't. It's as simple as that.
The reason why unloved children stop demonstrating love to a rejecting mother is because they feel it is of no use, and that they are too flawed for their issues and feelings to be taken seriously or heard (especially if they are under-age). They give up trying to be lovable or trying to love, especially if their mother put them on a merry-go-round cycle of make up, devalue, discard. There are only so many merry-go-round trips a child will take before getting off of the merry-go-round altogether.
Most adults of child abuse gradually begin to feel that "there is something wrong with Mom", especially when they are exposed to a lot of other mothers who love their kids unconditionally. They see the same "mistakes" being made that they made with their mother, except these "other mothers" never reject over the same mistakes. They may laugh, they may lecture, they may look with concern and ask their child how they are feeling, they may temporarily leave the room for awhile, but they don't reject or isolate their child from understanding and love. Children from abusive homes do eventually wonder why they aren't being unconditionally loved like so many children in other homes are, they may crave unconditional love, but they also know that their parent is not comfortable with a child who has self esteem, so they will constantly try to lower their child's self esteem for the purpose of putting themselves in charge at all times, and this means withdrawing love. The reason for abuse is power and control (an like an addict they will be demanding that you give them more power, control and domination over your life - or else).
The less self esteem you exhibit, the more likely you are to be accepted by Mom. If you cry the blues and say, "I'm so flawed! How could you ever love me! You're right, I'm crazy, I don't praise you enough, I'm ugly, you have every right to love my siblings more than me, I'm too sickly, I'm a basket case, and I'm especially a basket case without you!" the abusive parent is likely to want you back ... until they find another flaw they don't like and you are thrown away like so much trash from their hearts yet again.
The thing about these constant makeup/breakups is that the flaws they reject you over will be for smaller and more erroneous reasons than the last time. Some abusive parents beat or reject their kids over a look on their face, for their child confronting their parent about being stolen from, for forgetting to re-cap the toothpaste, for any kind of expression at all other than pain and tears -- yes, it gets as ridiculous and petty as that.
So, why does it get this petty? Why does it increasingly go in the direction of Turpin-style parenting where just about anything is game for rejection, devaluation, isolation and abuse?
Good question. It has to do with entitlement. Most abusive parents grow up in homes that were also abusive, but they also felt more entitled in some way too.
For instance, it could be that the abusive parents your mother had only loved her "if" while at home, but her parents made all of their children sound like model children ("better than"), without a flaw in the world, in front of strangers. Your mother's parents may have upheld a false image of the family, in other words.
Another instance is that your mother's parents may have insisted that their children all compete with each other for parental love and affection. Your Mom may have been favored by their parent while the other children were in various stages of rejection, and in return for being rewarded, they felt they always deserve rewards (entitlement). They might have been rewarded for sibling abuse even, and rewards have a lot to do with how a person conducts themselves later on. Your parent may feel that abuse will work in any relationship, to use it in any situation.
Another instance is that your mother may have had cruel rejecting parents, and therefore learned to be rejecting and cruel to get what she wanted from others. While they accepted being rejected by their parents, they may have normalized being cruel and rejecting themselves when they reached adulthood, so they practice it on their own children (privilege). Thus they expect to be rewarded by being rejecting and cruel -- this would be more unconscious than the above instances.
These are just a few ways that abusers reach the point of on-going and ever-growing needs to have their entitlement desires fulfilled (i.e. being rewarded for things they want at the expense of others). They are willing to hurt their children to fulfill their needs for absolute power, absolute control and entitlements that go beyond natural human limits. One reason they pick on weaker unsupported individuals (like children) is because they feel weakness equals "giving in".
One reason why suicide rates for abused children are much higher than for non-abused children is because child abuse victims have been brainwashed by their parents to think that it is their life duty to take care of their parent's needs, their parent's super sensitive feelings, their parent's need for absolute control over them, while sacrificing all of their own. When the child is seen as not fulfilling the desires of the parent and are rejected over it, the child often thinks about self destruction, including suicide. Believe it or not, it's a natural feeling -- brainwashing will pull a child's mind in that direction.
One reason I put a question mark in the spot of "she likes to hurt me" is because while it is a conscious choice in some parents to hurt their children (those vengeful, retaliatory, tit-for-tat parents for instance), it is unconscious in other parents (who grew up with abuse and therefore think it's absolutely "natural and normal" to hurt their children to get what they want out of them without thinking of their children's feelings, and without thinking of alternatives of relating to children).
It is often hard to tell if they intentionally want to hurt us, but it isn't hard to tell if they love us or not. The more rejecting they are, the least loving they are (they aren't practicing love, after all; they are practicing rejection and devaluation instead). You will have to accept that your parents don't love you, just like so many other survivors come to an acceptance about it and disengage. It will get easier to accept as time goes on, especially if you can find a good domestic violence therapist and a good trauma specialist.
Time and good company (like spending time with mothers who love all of their children equally and unconditionally, without the unreasonable demands in the graphic above) heal some of the wounds.
Time and good company (like spending time with mothers who love all of their children equally and unconditionally, without the unreasonable demands in the graphic above) heal some of the wounds.
It's hard for me to put into words what a difference your blog has made to me. I found it last summer and it opened my eyes. I have been searching forever (it seems) to find an answer to what was wrong in our family. I spent years in ACoA, which answered many questions, but not the one about why my non-alcoholic mother would enable my alcoholic brother to beat me as a child. (My alcoholic father is dead.) I loved her so much and wanted so much for her to love me, and she did, sometimes. But never with the uncritical passion she had for my brother, who could do no wrong in her eyes and who deserved the best of everything. Now that we are adults, he can't hit me anymore (because I threatened to have him arrested.) He has remained verbally abusive, however. I couldn't understand why my intelligent, compassionate mother would have this major blind spot where my brother and I were concerned. I couldn't understand how she could tell me I deserved it when I got hit, or when she would give my brother huge financial gifts and when I'd ask why not me, she'd be evasive and say I didn't need it or I didn't deserve it. When I saw your cartoon of the mother with her little boy and girl and she says to them "I'm special, now compete for my love," it was like the sky opened up and let the sun in and I could finally see what the world really looked like. It is so sad and so true.
ReplyDeleteI am so grateful to you for showing me this truth. I have been searching fruitlessly for years. It seems stupid, because of course the answer is right there in front of me. There is no possible way for a mother to watch her crying child begging for help literally hundreds of times not to understand that she is hurting her. There is no way it is inadvertent. But I just couldn't believe that it was true because I didn't know WHY it would be. I couldn't see what she would get out of it. And of course, I didn't want to believe it.
After reading this, I was finally able to change the way I think about my mother, my brother and myself. I was finally able to accept that things would never be different and there was nothing I could do. I also accepted this was not my fault, I couldn't have been a better daughter and I started to focus more on my own life and the things I could control to make it better.
Thank you. Thank you so, so much. It is not too much to say you changed my life.
Wow, you are welcome. Sometimes I write these posts and wonder if anyone is reading them, so the fact that you spoke, helps for me to write more on the subject.
DeleteNever blame yourself. Survivors are often brainwashed into thinking that abuse is normal.
Your situation is classic. The bully Golden Child and the Mom who lets it all happen, interestingly enough, is so similar in the majority of abusive families, it is like there is a script they all follow.
Eventually I will get to how you can shake up that script, but shaking up the script has to happen within oneself before you can shake up the whole family script. Even so, the family script has only a slim success rate in terms of this strategy I will be talking about, and sometimes the resulting "changes" are not what we want anyway.
Escaping is how most scapegoats deal with it. Once you are a runner, around half of abusive families stop trying to hurt you, and even go silent about the estrangement, and the other half tries to keep it going with smear campaigns (to try to absolve themselves of any responsibility, to keep making you the culprit/scapegoat, and to isolate you). One thing about abusive parents smearing you when you go "no contact" is that they will be blaming you for everything, and that's when the normal parents will start "being suspicious" about what they are hearing. That is because normal parents reflect on their own part in events, and even talk about it at great length to get other perspectives, whereas abusive parents will take absolutely no responsibility at all (the people your parents talk to outside the abusive family, that is). The reason why abusive parents eventually come under suspicion is because they are supposed to have taught their child etiquette, morals, right vs wrong -- so they look like failure parents. No child is always wrong, and no child is always a monster. The majority of people know that, so don't despair if you get a smear campaign because more than likely, people won't believe what they are hearing anyway.
I'm with them. I cant thank you enough for your blog. It's been nothing short of life changing. Thank you =)
DeleteAnonymous,
DeleteYou are welcome! Thanks for reading.
For me it is a sign I need to put up another post soon!
Be well.
I have spent a lifetime thinking about why my mother did not love me, and favored my sister over me. All I needed to do was to hang your graphic in my room.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much truth in all of this art.
Thank you, Anon. I never know if people are reading or looking at the artwork. You are the first to comment on the artwork, so thank you!
DeleteI dig your artwork too =)
DeleteThank you!
Delete:-)
Really! It helps!
Love, I would have taken "tolerance" over pure unadulterated hate. I knew she hated me by age 5. I wish I had not wasted so much of my life trying to get that woman to care about me. I hate when young people are told that parents automatically love them or even when people are told all children love their parents like we are supposed to.
ReplyDeleteI've had odd thoughts lately about families being biological prisons, I hope mankind can evolve out of one day. Yeah I knos sometimes I am strange LOL
Our society and it's religions tell people it is evil to "hate" your own parents, or even not like them or not love them, that does a number on abuse survivors.
I always read your articles Lise and appreciate them and your artwork. :)
Thanks for commenting Five Hundred Pound Peep.
DeleteI don't know if you know psychologist Dr. Judy Rosenberg's work (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOJvZ0gxCu_G5ufZjsI3TCw/videos), but she talks about abuse (and the hatred that parents have for their own kids) as multi-generational.
Scapegoats are likely to have much more functional families than golden children, if for the very reason that scapegoats tend to be empaths, are marginalized by the family, and the kids are a lot less exposed. The golden child's kids and grand kids are much more likely to be exposed, manipulated, forced into playing "exclusion games" (excluding various family members from family events like weddings, funerals, graduations, etc). They pass it down to their children, especially the bully golden child (under a half of golden children are super-empaths and the other half are bullies).
Abusive parents are hard to be around (except when they are in a love bombing stage -- though we all know that ends abruptly at some point). Some of them, I'm convinced really feel they deserve entitlements all of the time, and genuinely wonder why people aren't giving them what they want: i.e. being their marionettes. In other words, just over-the-top blind to the interests and drives of their children. They think they are being abused by their child when their child says no to being manipulated, terrorized, made to feel 100 percent responsible for how their parent feels at all times.
As survivors, we can become anesthetized to our parent's pain over this (because it is at our expense: their pain is about their inability to bully us into submission).
So it is not always conscious, and if you try to make an abusive parent conscious of what they are doing, they respond in ways that aren't normal: fuming, raging, blaming, shaming -- causing us to roll our eyes. And then they punish us for rolling our eyes! The classic: "That look on your face!"
It's crazy-making. All abusers practice entitlement (and hypocrisy in spades); that's a lot of the secret to their blindness. It's what drives their bias, their hate, their jealousy, their motivations to be vengeful, and their feeling right when everyone else sees them as being wrong.
Dr. Judy talks about how narcissists's feelings of jealousy is off the charts. But imagine that: filled with jealousy and hate to the point where the only thing that relieves it are bits and pieces of narcissistic supply (i.e. flattery, and only for a short while, then they are back in that hate/jealousy phase again).
Most of us aren't narcissistic supply addicts. We somehow generate enough confidence through work, relationships and every day experiences not to have to burden our children with having to supply that for us. We are even happy when our child makes his or her own decisions, which narcissists can never be happy with, as they insist on making the decisions of every member of the family.
By the time they are old, they are insufferable. When you have an 80 year old parent trying to micro-manage or punish a 60 year old child, it isn't tolerable, or reasonable, or looked at as anything close to normal by outsiders who are in the know. It becomes too much for the spouse and children of the 60 year old to handle. These old people are even more jealous and starved of narcissistic supply than when they were young, and it brings on ever more vengeful cruel behaviors and pretend-victim stories to get people to comply with them and get on their "hate train" (ostracizing, excluding).
They are pitiable, kind of in the way Gollum in "Lord of the Rings" is. Gollum is an addict in more ways than one, he's old, he's pathetic, he's still childish, he's duplicitous, and he's a narcissist.
Thanks I'll check out that video Lisette.
DeleteI agree scapegoats are more likely to have functional families but sadly scapegoating denies many of us scapegoats family especially now in a society where economics are so unjust, even affording to have children grows further out of reach. I think of my mother even as the murderer of the children I never had. Maybe this is extreme, but I consider that early medical treatment would averted the Lipedema, and other severe medical outcomes that ruined my health in terms of having children or affording any or raising them. Sorry to go off topic here, but here a scapegoat needs to break the cycle. I do think narcissists set things up too so the scapegoats don't have children. Aunt Scapegoat never did. Exploring Genealogy I found an ancestor in the "family" that may be adopted in my case of a woman in the 1890s, who died without children and in her case a husband, I found myself wondering if she had been a scapegoat. She looked healthy in this case, back in the old days a lot of scapegoats were kept home as caretakers. [Like Jana Duggar?]However a scapegoat who can get away, go no contact and has managed to retain money and health to have children, definitely can bust the cycle apart and have a healthy and far happier family.
I have read before the narcissists grow worse with age. It seems their declining cognitive powers too, to command all the monkeys and rest would frustrate them and bring forth more anger. I am treated at 50 like I was at 10, the growing disconnect with that, is alarming. My siblings never "grew up" and my brother [you saw my last post I take it] is still a scared little boy who wants to please my mother, while he is 51 and she is into her 70s.
I had thoughts myself and this facilitated my no contact, that I was in my early to mid 40s at the time and could take more of the BS and being treated like a little child. Yes they are more jealous and starved of supply.
I often wonder if mine will get what she deserves, her husband is dying, her golden child lives 200 miles plus from her, the golden child's children have left for college, and brought up in the nexus of upper middle class narcissism, careers and status come first and not visiting grandma.
My brother lives 200 plus miles away but the Queen even neglected him for the golden child for years, so that visit he tried to hoover me on, was the first in 9 years, she only saw him from her direction maybe once every three years.
Her family dropped like flies, and how many extended cousins and others who are still alive like Uncle Narc, can she drive around and go on constant trips to see who all live 70-120 miles away as old age sets in? She is irrelevant to people with their "own lives".
I can see her making demands to be allowed to live with people as she grows more decrepit, so she is not alone and "without attention". The other narcissists and sociopaths aren't going to pity an old person. So she will enter an arena of her own making.
I'm done and even if she is sitting on a street curb I'm not going back to that poison. Old age itself brings massive narc supply withdrawal. It seems if they live long enough, they definitely will be like Gollum, desperate, pleading and manipulating never letting go of the ring.
500, there is some research I discovered back in 2015 that many scapegoats do not have children. I started a blog post on it, but wanted to finish other subjects first.
DeleteThe reasons why many scapegoats don't have children is multi-faceted. Economics: many scapegoats are thrown away by the parent when they are going through major health problems, and this has economic repercussions for the scapegoat. The other reason is that scapegoats understand very early that they have to work, and work very hard, and they end up making survival and their careers all-important, because there aren't any safety nets within the family. The other thing narcissistic parents try to do is to keep all children, even a scapegoat, in the most child-like stage they can. The stories range from the mother still picking clothes and dressing her daughter every day like a doll (the daughter is in her thirties) to go to work (https://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/#archives) to micro-managing her daughter's career (https://narcsite.com/2017/02/28/the-micro-managing-narcissist-part-one/), and of course all aspects of Turpin-style parenting like the shackling and false imprisonment of adult children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case). So if you don't want to be their seven year old when you are 50 or 60, you are scapegoated to an extreme. My experience observing narcissistic parents is that they aren't impressed by your accomplishments, only if they can take credit for them in large part, and micro-manage all of your career moves. If they feel threatened that you won't follow their every direction, dictation and suggestion, they start sabotaging and scapegoating.
Psychologist Dr. Judy Rosenberg claims that most narcissistic parents die alone. The entitled bully-style goldens will do what is best for them: getting hold of the money and abandoning the parent to a nursing home or worse, and the super empath goldens will live with Mom and sacrifice everything in their own lives to do so (and still find out that Mom can't be happy with anything, and has left her money to charity). I've read some horrific stories about aged narcissists and sociopaths and their goldens.
One golden put his mother in a trailer on his country estate because he did not want to pay for a nursing home (a lot of spoiled goldens put money absolutely first). He locked the trailer, and would just shove in food on a tray a couple of times a day. No visiting, no T.V., no books. Just a bed. She was sometimes soiling herself, and the golden probably felt it was beneath him to take care of her bodily functions. Her grandchildren (the golden's children) weren't allowed in to see her because he had convinced them that she was sick and contagious. She was so severely neglected that eventually she turned to skin and bones and died alone in the trailer. Authorities said she had starved to death with multiple sores and infections. He was to receive her entire inheritance (she had two other children and left them out of the will).
I found this story on a forum (the person writing this story was one of her scapegoat children that she had ostracized 10 years before this incident).
That's just one of many stories I have heard, and it goes with what Dr. Judy Rosenberg has said.
Some narc mothers are screaming for their scapegoat children to save them when they are placed in "facilities". The reason why a lot of scapegoat children do not save these mothers is because they feel it is just another trick, another ruse, another nasty abuse or excuse for rejection. They are too wounded to show up at Mother Dearest's bedside. They find out after the fact that their mother was being neglected and threatened by their golden child sibling instead.
So, you are right. There are exceptions, of course, but overwhelmingly they are neglected and die alone.
I hope you can finish an article on many scapegoats not having children, I would be interested. I'll be honest, my not having them extended beyond the infertility, health problems and poverty, I just didn't want to be a "mother" with all the negatives that entailed and the extreme responsibility I did not feel cut out for. I don't believe I am related to my family now, or maybe just "some of them" but I had a fear I would give birth to someone who would become like them. I imagined a child lecturing me, and me not being good enough for them included, who looked just like my mother. LOL I wonder what a therapist would make of that. Well we never had the resources to have a child, and I think it would have been insane cruelty to pass on the 700-500lb life to some poor kid and the Lipedema. My husband's mother was a SEVERE schizophrenic, so passing that on too would not be good.
DeleteYes Economics, I believe many scapegoats end up far poorer, some never launch like Aunt Scapegoat and those who manage it do so, but end up poor and in apartments and barely able to keep bills paid. We don't have the social connections that many obtain good employment through or life and social skills too. Resultant anxiety disorders which I had in spades myself and depression takes a toll on future careers and money-making as well.
Yes many scapegoats work very hard, I know I did until I got sick. They know in this world they are on their own, but sadly yes, the being kept in a child like state and beholden to narcissists and trained to be a people pleaser, and living in fear and having one's confidence eroded all takes a toll on the future economic status.
The engulfing parent destroys life skills but then the ignoring types, leave one unprepared and untaught, where figuring out the basics, has to be done in adult-hood and brings in developmental delays. I am still figuring things out now, I should have had down by my 20s, and sure in my case I can blame the Aspergers to an extent, but this involves even basic social interactions and more.
continuing...
DeleteI wasn't chained to a bed like Turpins, but definitely not allowed to do anything and that limited me, no parties, no joining the Y, not allowed to take the bus, or visit people or act independently.
I agree that narc parents do not care about accomplishments. Even when I was at my "peak" [14 dollars an hour as art teacher in the 1990s and had student win national award for juvenile home art teachers] I was still deemed the family "loser". They both refused to come to my college graduation. So yes even if a scapegoat succeeds or even by some minor chance via hard work, luck, and things working out becomes stable or well off financially, they still will be scapegoated.
Oh that's another issue too, the sabotage, I believe many of the most hard core narcs do sabotage careers, and they find indirect ways to do so.
Probably a lot of the narcs who live long enough into their late 70s and early 80s or later could end up alone. The dominantly narcissistic family has moved on and has no interest in an elderly person who can't "do anything for them". My mother would not be able to buy presents, as even for the better off retirement/insurance etc money gets chipped away at, if one lives long enough. Yes the goldens will try and glom on to what they can get while sticking the parent away in a nursing home, and promising visits they will do the least they can get away with.
Some will be trapped into the caretaker roles only to find out they have been left empty handed when the will is read. Yes many scapegoats who never recover or leave get trapped in caretaker roles but you are right about more empathetic goldens doing so.
That's sad about the one golden shoving his mother into a trailer, yes that was definitely money based. The abusive American system of health care helps to advance abuse from the top down, he didn't want her estate cleaned out by the nursing home. It doesn't surprise me. These sociopaths often make other sociopaths, problem is malignant narcs and sociopaths aren't too kind to the ill or dying or very old, they kind of set up their own trap here. Yes scapegoats understandably stay away, they don't want another ruse, or to be trapped or shamed into caretaking of a person who we know will keep abusing them.
Things are different for me too as I needed care early on and my life of severe disability had things hit home where there was absolutely total lack of mercy. I also cannot be anyone's caretaker, though even if I was healthy I definitely would not be signing up for the job as far as my family narcs are concerned.
So yeah I can see why they die neglected and alone even having had children in their case. They abused the ones who had the conscience to give a damn, but they all went no contact to save themselves. They kept the ones around who saw growing old as a "weakness" to be exploited. So the sociopaths they produced aren't going to give them real care, companionship or anything either.
I feel really bad that you went through all of this, 500.
DeleteI have another blog post, like the one on scapegoats choosing not to have children, on the health issues of scapegoats (way more pronounced than the general population). That one is very long, and I still feel I have a lot of research to do on the subject. The root of it is PTSD, which effects not only the mind, but every aspect of the body as well.
With narcs I would never talk about your health. If they ask, say "Never mind." They get a dose of narcissistic supply if your health is suffering (they are sadistic and will do more to hurt you if you are going through medical issues). So in many ways it is good that you are writing as "500", anonymously. You are able to help yourself, and all of the ACONs out there without attracting the narcs, or the vengeful behaviors of narcs.
For me there were pluses and minuses to using my real name. I wanted the drawings and art to be attributed to my real name, and to show other survivors not to cower away in silence over abuse and resulting injustices. My own situation is such that the police would know exactly where to look if something happened. Lenora Thompson of "Narcissism Meets Normalcy" uses her real name, and I thought I'd try that avenue. My situation was worse than hers, so I decided on a professional way, rather than a personal way, of getting to the truth (through a lot of research) and sharing. It's the sharing that has validated me and made me more brave: "No, it isn't normal for (so-and-so) not to care about your health. No, it isn't normal to be blamed constantly or for beliefs to take precedence over investigation, scrutiny and reality. No, it isn't normal for a (close person) not to care about you at all, and to turn love off over a narcissistic supply issue" and so on. I was encouraged to write this blog by a domestic violence counselor.
I think ACONs have to live their lives in the same way that an alcoholic's family has to live it: "I didn't cause it, I can't cure it, and I can't control it" -- quote from Alanon. You live your own life the best you can. If you have to deal with raging alcoholics or narcs (have no choice, or it would be immoral to leave a child, or disabled family member with them, or you have to work with them for some reason in a job), there are counter-manipulations that are useful to get them going off in one direction, while you are going in the opposite direction.
The best thing to do is to get them out of your life. Sometimes it's best to do it quietly (slip out), and sometimes it is best to do it with fanfare, the police, or a legal team, depending on your situation (domestic violence counselors help you determine which situation warrants which response).
Anyway, thank you as always for your responses, your writing, your insights, and your commitment to the "cause."
Thanks Lise.
DeleteIs that health post up about scapegoat's health. Maybe I have seen it, but would like to read it. They have proven high ACE scores affect the health. I do sometimes wonder where I would be if I didn't face so much abuse. My disabilities can be a daily reminder.
I was tested for high cortisol, and it was HIGH, and you know I have written about the break down of the pituitary/thyroid/adrenal axis.
I agree don't tell narcs about health. Maybe informing of the Lipedema was a mistake but on my last NC letter that was to stand against the fat abuse. I did keep my diabetes secret for over 12 years and some other medical conditions. They definitely get glee for any suffering.
I am glad I am writing anonymously too. I now believe they never have found the blog. I worried about it for a time but the vengeful anger of my brother told me, the fall-out with the blog if it had been found, would have been pretty bad. Have I been scared they would find it, sure I have been but that level of anonymity does offer some protection. Some friends online do know my real name and the blog is connected to it but I try to keep it anonymous for a reason. I understand you wanting to show your art and other reasons for using your real name.
If the narcs die off, I may feel comfortable with using my real name one day, it is something I could change my mind on.
Yeah sometimes having your real name out there, can help on some things and the police would know where to look. I have told friends and husband if anything ever happens to me, [I know this would sound paranoid to normal people] you all know where to look first.
You have done a great job here of sharing the truth, and getting to the depth of narcissistic abuse and helping victims, so your blog has helped me a lot.
You help lay out what is normal and not normal in a clear and concise way. With all the gaslighting, ACONs need some reality testers to help us out, and be clear on what has happened.
I agree, we do have to walk away saying, we didn't cause it, we can't cure it and we can't control it". We all got burdened I know with that weight they gave us telling us "Its all your fault."
Thanks for everything you do too. Lise :)
No, the health post isn't up yet, and it's almost like one could write an entire book about it. The research on that is more extensive and varied than research on other abuse topics, at least as far as "fresh new findings" and not redundancies. Even so, while there is ample research about how abuse effects the body (general all-around child abuse in particular), there is not much about how specific forms of abuse, like gaslighting, effect health (or even PTSD).
DeleteI'm trying to push that research with some psychologists whom I know, because in child abuse, that underlies how parents get away with abuse, even severe abuse. Children who are severely gaslighted have trouble pursuing interests and dreams, keeping on track with one area of expertise, and are sabotaged at every turn to boot (and I bet learning disabilities have a lot to do with gaslighting). And just about every child who is abused is gaslighted. In fact, find me a child abuse victim who hasn't been gaslighted. Not going to happen.
My thought on it? It should be illegal to do to any child under age 18. Freedom of speech ("gaslighting talk") should not over-ride children's health, especially since children do not have much of a voice anyway. It is cruel, and it doesn't do anything positive for a child at all. It only produces negative results, and those negative results are extreme. The press is making a huge deal over Parental Alienation Syndrome and how it effects children, and some laws are on the books about it now. Next: gaslighting please!
I do have one post almost ready to go. It is about step parents and the blended family and abuse. Been working on it for months. And wow! When I researched that, it was an eye opener! In blended families abuse is over a thousand percentage points higher for children than in biological families (that is phenomenal!). The most common forms are incest (off the charts), murder and ostracism. I hope to have it up today or tomorrow, or sometime this week.
I appreciate your blog too. :-) Godspeed, sister!
I found your blog through a greeting card, of all things. This blog is all well and good, but I can't believe that children are all influenced by their parents. I am an elderly woman and I have kids fighting over my money, an inheritance. I have never heard so many "stories" about incidents that sounded completely different from one child to the next. I try to comfort all my children about what they are doing to each other, but then they accuse me of triangulating. I feel like I can't even open my mouth without making one of them angry at me and telling me I never cared about them or of getting to the truth.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the truth is, and I tell them that over and over. I understand some parents "decide" what the truth is, but I don't. I feel like it is an abusive family. They hate each other, and me, and if I ask them for anything, in return I have to listen to them go on and on about each other, and what I'll do for them.
There is such a thing as elder abuse too, where the kids punish you for not taking sides. I feel like I'm being manipulated by all of them. I can't believe I did anything to bring them up to be manipulative adults. If anything, I treated them as equally as possible and tried my hardest to instill co-operation in them at all times.
So what is your answer to my story?
LiseDecember 23, 2018 at 12:17 PM
DeleteHi Anonymous.
The answer to one of your questions is that I am writing about and researching elder abuse. AARP recently came out with several magazines devoted to the subject. I recommend those articles. The main culprits of elder abuse can be found within the family, or those closest to the elderly person like a home health care worker.
Secondly, I don't have answers to your present family situation except to suggest that you go to a domestic violence counselor. Even if there is no physical abuse between your children, emotional abuse is extremely damaging, and can lead to physical abuse, and most domestic violence counselors can get a sense of how bad the abuse is. The reason I am suggesting this is that this a terrible situation for you and for them, and I don't believe it can get better between all of you without professional intervention. My opinion. A domestic violence counselor can get a clearer picture from where the abuse came from, the attitudes about abuse in the family, why caring about each other's feelings matters, where safety needs to be applied, etc. A professional can more easily discern if there is any sibling abuse going on too. For instance, trying to get them to apologize to each other or caring about one another with sibling abuse in the picture won't work.
Many parents say things like "Why can't you all just get along?" And the kid's answers tend to be: "I can't get along with her or him because --". They are asking for an intervention, a caring investigative response from you about their issues, but you can't really give them one because you don't know the truth and you're in the middle of the fog of different stories that each of them tell about each other.
My feeling is that if you let this go on longer, it will get worse. Imagine them trying to take care of you, especially if there is a lot of arguing, twisting of the truth, and sibling bullying going on.
Note: therapy is not always a panacea for all family troubles, but it can help you make decisions about your own care and the plight of each child involved in this situation.
Good luck and I hope you have a happy holiday.