The Helpful Three

Tags

Domestic Violence by proxy, Lexi, memories, parental alienation

YOU’RE A FUCKING SLUT WHO’S LIED TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE!

These were the last words I ever heard from my amazing beloved 15 year old firstborn and adored daughter before parental alienation syndrome took completely over my life.

It was about 8 days after I buried my father, I’d been lied to non-stop by my estranged mother and sister the entire time while I had attempted to juggle the emotional, mental, and physical shock of this sudden and totally unexpected grave loss.  The shock had manifested with mental confusion, emotional agony and had been accompanied by the severe immediate onset of various physical effects.

The nausea had hit first and had not ceased since that initial phone call from my sister who in a very purposeful soft and tender voice informed me my dad had dropped dead 5 hours earlier in Los Angeles, California and continued that gentle hushed dripping compassion tone while informing me of various probate laws she had apparently researched in the 5 hours waiting to inform me my dad had dropped dead.

Quite literally unable to eat, I had been existing on ginger ale and an occasional cracker since that day.  Interestingly enough, from the day before his funeral, I had also had sudden back pain so severe, I could not stand up straight and had walked hunched almost in half for 3 days.  The hotel shared a parking lot with an medi-center, I had hobbled to the morning of the funeral in desperation for help so I could make it to my dad’s funeral that day.  I did make it through the funeral with the assistance of the pain pills the medi-center had prescribed.

At the time, this back pain was confounding.  I had never in my life experienced back pain or had back issues. In hindsight, I find it fascinating that those days after arriving in Ohio where we buried my dad, while I was planning the funeral, my children had been spending time with my estranged mother, sister, and ex (my children’s father).  I had been excessively grateful to these people for spending this time with my children while I suffered through the physical hell which had settled in as well as the emotional agony of planning my dad’s funeral.  The irony is that my back pain set precisely simultaneous to these “helpful” people stabbing me in the back to my children with outrageous lies about me, their mother, as I thanked them graciously every day for helping me by spending quality time with my children.

I had watched Lexi grow more hostile and sarcastic to me each day we were in Ohio and it was hurtful as she had never in her life treated me with such bitter smoldering and random disdain ever in her 15 years.  I did not respond in kind to this sudden hatefulness or even acknowledge it, I simply assumed my daughter was rightfully angry at the sudden loss of her grandpa.  I had no one to offer me personal support, except my sister’s constant exaggerated over-the-top gentle “kindness” which was actually very thinly veiled manipulation that I grant her sole-executor of our dad’s estate.

I had no one.  I was surrounded by only the very people who had abandoned me 13 years earlier and my ex who had mentally abused me and our children and then stole our family home to punish me for not tolerating his cruelty to our children, specifically our youngest Savannah but Lexi hadn’t been totally excluded in that cruelty either.

These three snakes, plus my children, were who surrounded me as I hunch-backed my way through burying my dad.  So when Lexi suddenly started treating me with nothing but sneering hostile sarcasm, I did not respond.  I assumed she needed a safe place to vent her pain and anger over losing her grandpa and I was more than willing to be her target as long as she needed to be angry.

However, the night she screamed these words, YOU’RE A FUCKING SLUT WHO’S LIED TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE!, I was immediately more confused and discombobulated, but my instincts told me that the suddenly “so very helpful three” had created something pretty nasty in my devastated and vulnerable 15 year-old daughter while I had entrusted them to provide supporting love and compassion to my children while I planned their grandpa’s funeral. None of the “helpful three” had ever provided love, support, or compassion to me, but I had not ever expected them to be willing to take advantage of my hurting and heartbroken children.

So, I learned the hard way  how deep their hatred for me really ran.  They actually all three hated me enough to literally lie and manipulate my children during this moist vulnerable and painful life crisis.  I’ll never forgive myself for being so naive as to not assume they’d grab this opportunity to drench my children in poison.  I really should have known better.  They’d never shown any level of genuine conscience or authentic sincerity in my entire life.  In fact, as far as I had involvement with these “helpful three”, they’d acted as nothing better than greedy, punishing, hateful sociopathic insidiously evil snakes slithering around the wake of our devastation with greedy opportunistic delight.

I own that stupidity.  I take responsibility for it completely.  None of these three people had ever shown me they were anything but the snakes they were.  I don’t know why I assumed grabbing this rare and wonderful time of vulnerability to poison my children with their hate would ever be off-limits.  Bit, I did.  I suppose I looked at my amazing two daughters, so loving, so wonderful, so hurt by this loss, and never fathomed anyone could hate me enough to want to hurt them.  That was just unfathomable.

Oh my,  this was intended to be a post about my oldest being a confessed liar and even still, I can’t help but wander off to place the blame where it truly lies.  Even as my now adult daughter continues her lies and embraces treating me even worse than the “helpful three” ever did, I can’t bring myself to hold her responsible for this.

Is that more proof of my stupidity?  My desperate need to live in denial of sociopaths (the very kind of denial that made this possible at all)?  Or is it the depth of a mother’s love and willingness to love and try to protect her children at any personal cost?

I don’t know.  And, I know what it is doesn’t matter any more.

A few months ago in a very brief moment of acknowledging I exist, Lexi told me she had been lying to me for years prior to my dad’s death.  I guess she grasped this moment of my desperation to have any communication at all with my child, to blow my wounds up and take a nice directed stab deeper into them, claiming our entire relationship (the one I thought we had) had all been nothing but a lie….for years.

When she told me this, it had knocked the wind out of me.  I had no idea how to even reply to such a deep and permanent stab.  I immediately began sobbing and desperately trying not to let her hear my sobs and make her angry enough to end this communication ,albeit cruel stabs, it was still precious moments of hearing my child’s voice and her acknowledging I exist at all.

Beggars most definitely can’t be choosers, right?

And at this point, the “helpful three” had stolen my family, stolen my future, and stolen my childhood, but I held tightly to the 15 years I’d struggled through raising my children alone.  The memory of those precious 15 years of the heart-to-heart mother daughter chats I’d always dreamed of having as a child.  The 15 years of wild giggles and belly laughs I’d prayed for sharing with my mother as a child.  The studying together and making it fun I’d longed to have as a child. The environment of unconditional love and trust I’d always wished for as a child.  The heart-filled memories of desperately learning with my beloved two girls how to mother my children in all the ways I hadn’t ever known, but had dreamed of as a child.  In the 6 years since they were poisoned against me, I had held onto this.  Sure of only one last thing, these could never be taken from me.  They could steal my past, destroy my future, but I would always have those 15 years of truth and happiness (with struggle too, of course) that no one could never ever take from my children and me.

Lo and behold, in one statement, Lexi had taken even this.

So, stifling my sobs for a moment of silence after her claim that our entire relationship had been a lie, I finally very quietly (desperate she not hear my stifled sobbing, creaky begging voice and scream at or hang up on me) pleaded with her, Okay Lexi, may I please ask you something though? Without you getting mad?

Was anything ever true between us?  Did I do anything right?  Ever?  Were you ever actually as happy and full of love for me as you pretended?  Was anything ever actually true or good, Lexi?

Of course it was, Momma!  I have a million wonderful memories with you that I cherish!

(Still holding back my sobs) Oh, thank God it wasn’t all a lie then… Okay, may I ask you something else without making you mad?

When did it all become a lie?  Was our relationship when we lived in our house on Roosevelt which you once claimed was the happiest time of your life and most treasure memories, was that real?

Here, I was desperate to sort through my memories of our life together and needed to know what I could still believe was real because those memories were all I’d held onto for the six years my children had pretended I didn’t exist and made outrageous claims of enduring lifetimes of abuse.  All that had kept me going that someday my children would remember the truth, stop the cruelty, and let me back in their lives…

Oh, I dunno Momma…  I guess when I was really little?  I wasn’t lying when I was little and didn’t know any better…

Okay Lexi.  Well, thank you for being honest and not getting mad at me for asking.  I’m sorry you felt you had to lie to me most of your life.  I’m sorry we didn’t actually have the relationship I thought we had.  I’m sorry my best efforts to give you everything I didn’t have and never knew fell so drastically short.  I truly never knew.  I truly believed we had a wonderful open and honest, loving relationship.  I don’t know why you felt the need to start lying to me.  That’s exactly the opposite of what I’d tried to create and what I thought I’d done well.  I wish I’d known how to do it right.  I wish I’d known you felt this way.   I’d have done anything in my power to fix it, but I could never fix something I wasn’t even aware of.  I’m sorry.  I guess I should have just known.  I didn’t though.  I really didn’t know, Lexi.  I really thought we were happy, we were close, and we were honest.  I was literally clueless and I’m so sad because if only I’d known…  I would have done anything.  Anything.  This was my only goal in life from the day I knew you were growing in my body. I would have done anything.  Anything for you. 

At this point, I was openly sobbing and Lexi , clearly bored and possibly frustrated, had to go.

After we hung up, devastated and in utter shock and confusion, my whole body shaking, I, a grown woman who had endured gang rapes, many punches to the face, being strangled until I passed out, being slapped, having my face shoved into broken glass, being betrayed, a massive stroke, having my home stolen, being totally abandoned, and  overcome the lifelong confusing hatred of my own mother…. I just sobbed and wailed like an infant, staring at my phone in disbelief.

I suppose it’s better to know the truth, right?  As deeply as it stabs, as much as it doesn’t make any more sense than all the lies, as much as it goes against my every memory of reality, as much as it feels like it’s going to kill me with the worst pain I’ve ever known, it’s better to know the truth, I suppose….

In just one sentence, my beloved child, had literally severed my last lifeline.  Now, even my most treasured memories were poisoned and destroyed, labeled as nothing but more lies and betrayals, from the one of two people in the world I loved and trusted most; I’d have done (and did do) anything for.

The last thread of hope ripped away so nonchalantly, with as much care and concern and deliberation as a snake devouring its unknowing prey.

This is my beloved child.  This is my own heart outside my body.  This is the person I would take a bullet for, would give my dreams up for, would willingly give my last crumb, my last cent, my life, my love, my world.  This is she.

She also needed to take my last hope, my last memory of truth and happiness.  She’d had to have that too.  Nothing I’d ever had to give was good enough for her anyway.  Nothing I’d ever striven to give her even had come close to being good enough. I would do anything for this child of mine.  Anything.

Why did this hurt and shock me so much?  This was, quite literally, exactly the only “love” I’d ever been shown in my entire life except by my dead dad.  It’s exactly the way I’d always been “loved”.

So, I gave it to her.  And said, thank you.

ADELE – ‘Make You Feel My Love’

 

 

 

 

Trapped Shards

Tags

abuse, emotional abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, parental alienation

Perhaps a big part of the reason malignant narcissists are so successful in their abuse is that it’s extraordinarily difficult to tell the story of these monsters’ insidious tactics.

Stories of bloody noses, broken bones, overt verbal abuse, and harsh sexual violence are obvious and easy to tell.

Stories of looks that inspire terror, 55 tiny little “harmless” digs a day, subtle financial abuse slowly over time, seemingly innocent manipulations, etc, these are far more difficult to tell and explain the damage they do.  And particularly difficult when the average attention span exceeds about 2 inches from any person’s self-involvement.

Who has the care or time to sit and listen to someone explain such subtle and clever intricacies of abuse with multiple layers of impact that build upon one another over time like millions of tiny glass shards.  One little glass shard in your skin seems harmless and such a ridiculous thing to cry over.  5 tiny glass shards?  Really?  Just pull em out, clean the area, and get on with it. 25 tiny glass shards?  Well,  that’s unfortunate, but again, pull them out, clean the wounds, and get on with it. Shit happens.  There’s still just no need to go to a doctor and explain the story of each and every shard, how each individual shard got embedded into your skin, and how painful each one was or wasn’t at the time of entry.  A doctor wouldn’t need to hear those minute and lengthy details and it’s unlikely he’d have the time or patience to listen to it all even if each shard’s story was somehow relevant.

You’re not a whiner.  You’re not a pity whore or desperate for sympathy.  Maybe you even deserved some of those shards?  Maybe you even knowingly went back to the scene after the first 15 shards?

Do’t be ridiculous.  You just pull them out as best you can, clean the area, and get on with it, obviously determinedly hoping to avoid the shard infested area in the future.  You’re not stupid.  You’ll simply choose to stay far away from that danger zone.  If you can’t clean them all up, you’ll walk around it, even if it takes incredible cautious and care.

You’ll just tip-toe around the shards from now on.  And get on with it.

But what happens when you get 10,000 tiny glass shards in your skin?  Still, the damage is relatively minimal.  Just get to the time consuming task of pulling them out, clean the wound, and get on with it.

You might need to see a doctor at this point, but still you aren’t going to load the doctor down with how each and every shard got in there.  It’s senseless.  You just say you had an accident, get the care your wounds need, and get on with trying to clean or tip-toe around the avoid the danger zone again. Surely, you’re not stupid enough to  intentionally walk carelessly in that same area?  Right?  Why bother anyone with the boring story of each and every stab, every piercing of your flesh that subtly pinched or stung?  It’s irrelevant and it’s just dull.

Take care of it and get on with it.

So, what happens when you get 25,000 tiny slivers of glass embedded in your skin?  You dismissed the 5, then the 25, then the 10,000.  Now you have 25,000 and more keep coming even as you’re still pulling the last batch out.  You don’t understand where they’re even coming from at this point.  They just keep coming and now with more speed than you can pull them out.  Confusion settles in.  You doubt yourself because who could be clumsy or stupid enough to keep inadvertently hitting that danger zone of shattered glass?  It seems like a moving target, but you just can’t understand what, how, or why.  You just know they sting and they seem to be gaining momentum the harder you try to avoid them.

After a few years of this, with millions of “harmless” shards embedded as well as a few far less subtle, deeper daggers and stabs throughout that time that have done more significant damage.  Suddenly, you’re actually damaged and the damage is confusingly extensive.  Now, how does one go back to explaining those first 5 shards?

What about after 48 years of it?

How do you expect anyone at this point, even a doctor or friend or therapist, to bother with the time, effort, and extensive bother of listening to the details of every embedded shard, the maddening impossibility of avoiding the danger zone despite constant exhausting effort to locate, repair, and clean up the site?  Really, it’s too far gone to repair or resolve now anyway, so why burden others with that weight?

Who would care enough to be burdened anyway?

You can tell the story of the first 5 shards or maybe the last 20 shards, or maybe you just selectively choose to explain only those random shards that were not so subtle in their damage?  Only tell the worst of the billions?

No one can be burdened with the whole senseless lifelong story of every ridiculous shard you now have piercing your skin.  But there’s too many to ever remove now.  And a handful of 15 minute selective explanations could never even begin to adequately describe the depth of damage or the permanent pain of all the deeply embedded ancient shards still ripping your skin…underneath the surface.  Stabbing you relentlessly, always ripping through your flesh, under the surface…. unseen to the naked eye.

And yet, how would you ever explain the amount of damage without that burden? How do you ever get to them all to remove them and clean and repair the wounds without that ridiculous burden?

Sun Porches and Socrates

Tags

innocence, memories, nostalgia

On a good day, I can step onto this tiny sun porch in this old nostalgic house haunted with a million memories of laughter, love, and joy.

Closing my eyes, it’s August of 1993. There’s a young girl sitting on that tired bamboo sofa covered in sun-faded flowers, her long tanned legs curled up under her, messy sun-kissed blonde ponytail that wishes it were drenched in sand and sun whipping about on the beach.

I can see her so clearly, I almost can convince myself to reach out and touch her. Have a conversation with her. Advise her…. Warn her maybe?

I’m not sure if I should….

But she’s too deep in concentration, brow furrowed, nose buried in a heavy textbook absolutely determined to intelligently decipher these wise debates between Aristotle and Socrates. At least enough to make her own clear arguments on any essay question put to her in the near future.

It’s her first semester of college. Her daddy is 100 feet or so away, his feet propped up on his favorite old blue lazy-boy recliner. The soothing soft sounds of golf play on the television, he dozes in and out, having just returned home from 18 holes in the perfect Michigan sun.

It’s summer of 1993. Her whole life is ahead of her. Her daddy will live forever. She’s confident she will be deeply loved someday by a wonderful man and they will have a beautiful happy family after she’s an established attorney providing legal counsel for the poor and underrepresented.

Her only concerns in this world are getting an A- not a B- on her political science exam Thursday, who she’ll hang out with Friday night, how she’ll manage to pay for 4 years of college, and if the weather will be as nice on Saturday so she can go to the beach since she’s had to spend this perfect summer week studying to make certain her GPA remains high enough to qualify for the honors courses.

She’s hopeful that her mom will love her…someday. She doesn’t really worry about such things though. She’s too determined and far too optimistic to stress. All she has to do is work hard and be a good human being. She just instinctively knows that she’ll be the most amazing human being, lawyer, wife, and mother someday.

She believes without hesitation that all the worst life can do to her is behind her.

All the best is yet to come.

Any possibility of future failure and a life full of empty loneliness and agonizing daily terrors aren’t even glimmers of thoughts in her head.

She doesn’t know she’s beautiful and I want to convince her. She’s endless optimism, an infinite summer frolicking on the beach. She’s hope and faith. She’s trust and kindness. I want to bottle that up, wrap it in cashmere and keep it safely tucked away in a drawer for some day when she’ll desperately need to believe in such things again.

I’ve so much to tell her. Dammit, she’s right there… and she needs to know…

She’ll never know or understand how i envy her. Even if I could tell her, she’d just set about to debate with me on the silly futility of envy and compassionately tell me every beautiful thing she sees in me that I can’t see at all.

I like her so much but she’ll never know that either until it’s too late and everything that she is and all that she believes has been depleted… vanished.

Your misuse — hijacked amygdala

Tags

abuse

They can tell you Because you’re not going to back down You won’t sell your sisters for a side ways glance You won’t burn your bra, you may need it to strangle someone You have the same look All of you The ones with green hair and multiple piercings who say fuck off before you […]

via Your misuse — hijacked amygdala

How I Got Here. Part 1

Love is useless

As I am writing this I have fallen into the deepest hole in my life. I have been through so much in the last seven years, but more on that later. Right now I sit here heart broken, unemployed and working myself back up from a nervous breakdown. I have been seeing a therapist once a week and they have put me on antidepressants. One thing I have learned is these so called “happy pills” actually just make me numb and unable to cry. Do the thoughts of suicide still creep into my mind? Well of course but I have at least learned that these are negative thoughts that can be curbed and controlled.

How did I get here? Well, it all started with my divorce. I was married for twelve years and the marriage was slowly dying a slow death. I had been sleeping on the couch…

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Understanding the process with PERSPECTIVE! — After Narcissistic Abuse

With abuse we mourn the loss of reality in our life, along with dreams, memories, time together, small laughs and shared experiences. We mourn the loss of our life as if a part of us was suffocated or died from this hideous abuse. Our emotional/psychological scars cause us to doubt and question the truth of […]

via Understanding the process with PERSPECTIVE! — After Narcissistic Abuse

I Remember Her

Tags

memories, narcissist mother, Narcissistic Abuse

I remember this day.  I remember that little girl.

She was newly 4 and her grandma made these beautiful Easter dresses!

She could not wait to wear it, even though her sister’s dress seemed so much prettier and more grown up than hers…  She knew she’d never be quite as big or smart or pretty as her older sister she adored, but she hoped someday when she got big she might be smart and pretty too.

She loved singing into the metal fan. The silly voice vibrations made her giggle so hard!

She was painfully conscious of being little…smaller and weaker than everyone else in her world.  Always aware that she wasn’t really like the others in her little family.  All she saw in the mirror was that ugly, unruly white hair and sickly pale skin.  And she stared a lot: stared at her sister’s beautiful soft brown skin and shiny, sleek, well-behaved hair which was just like Mom’s except shorter, hoping when she got big, her hair and skin and eyes would look beautiful like theirs. Hoping she would fit in better when she grew up.

She felt so much smaller and less than the world around her.  She tried hard to make up for this by being cute or silly or funny. It didn’t really work with her mom, but she could make her daddy laugh.

Laughing with Daddy was the best thing in the world!

Her beautiful mother, whom she thought of as a fairy tale goddess, never seemed pleased with her, but she’d never ever give up trying; telling herself, when I’m big and smart and pretty, she’ll love me so much!  Then, she will love me for sure! 

Not too long after this glorious day when she picked dandelions and wore the beautiful princess dress, mom had given she and her sister some money to walk to the store next door to buy ice cream for the 3 of them.  Ice cream bars were 25 cents next door. It looked like her sister had a handful of shiny quarters Mom had given to them to spend. YAY!

She loved going to the store for her mom.  It made her feel grown up and responsible.  Mom wanted an Eskimo Pie and she and her sister could each choose an ice cream too.

It was so exciting to get to go to the store with her sister and get to pick her own treat!  She had chosen an ice cream sandwich and her sister had chosen a treat and grabbed an Eskimo Pie for mom.

At the counter, she saw behind the clerk were Cracker Jacks.  She didn’t like the taste of Cracker Jacks very much, but she knew there was a surprise inside the box and she thought how happy her mom would be if she could give her a present. What if it was a beautiful ring or necklace?  Oh, Mom would be so happy!

So she told her sister, they should get the Cracker Jacks instead of the Eskimo Pie so that they could surprise Mom with a beautiful present.  Her sister didn’t think this was a good idea at all.  Dawn said, Okay, but Mom’s gonna be really mad…

She didn’t understand this. Dawn must be confused. How could Mom ever be mad when we would be giving her a surprise present?  Probably a beautiful diamond ring or something better even.  There was no way Mom could ever be mad at that!  So, she begged and begged her sister to get the Cracker Jacks.  She wished she could see the prize inside before buying it to know what it was, but she’d seen the commercials on TV, she felt positive it would be something just beautiful that would make Mommy so happy!

Dawn relented and bought the Cracker Jacks.

Ohhhh… she was so excited, she could barely wait to get home to open the Cracker Jacks in secret and then run out and surprise her Mom with something beautiful!  She practically ran the few hundred feet home to her mom.

When they got home, Mom was sitting in the baby blue crushed velvet chair in the living room.  She ran straight up to her and thought she was clever to very nonchalantly say, Mommy, these Cracker Jacks are for you, but I’m going to take them upstairs for a minute and I’ll be right back down, okay? 

Before the whole sentence was even out of her mouth, Mommy backhanded her across the face, screaming furious words she didn’t understand.

She was stunned and shocked.    Maybe a surprise wasn’t a good idea after all.  So she explained, Mommy, please don’t be mad at me!?  I got you a surprise.  I bet it’s a beautiful diamond ring or necklace.  There’s a surprise in the box for you!  I got you a surprise!

Mommy backhanded her face again, even harder…or maybe it wasn’t harder than the first.  Her cheek was just still stinging hot from the first one and her nose still smarted a bit before the second one hit so maybe that’s why the second backhand felt harder even after she’d explained there was a beautiful surprise, she wasn’t sure.

She was utterly confused at the ferocity of this sudden and unexpected anger!  Why was Mommy mad?  She just wanted to surprise her with something beautiful.

Maybe Mommy still didn’t understand that the Cracker Jack’s had a beautiful surprise for her?  Maybe that’s why she was still mad?  She just didn’t know what I meant when I said we got it to give her a surprise?  Maybe she’s too mad to hear me over her screaming?  I’d better be quiet and go to my room for now like Mommy says.

I’ll try again to explain it later. Mommy will be so happy!

A Typical Death

No one blinks an eye when a 75 year old man dies.  Why would they?  75 years is a long life.  Why would dropping dead from a heart attack be odd for a 75 year old man?  Albeit one who plays golf 3 times a week and has more energy than most 30 year olds.  Odd coincidence that it’s the very day he’s leaving to fly home from this vacation.  After all, he’s 75 years old and has battled his weight all his life.  Those 75 year olds drop dead; that’s just what they do.

I’ve been doing some research to find out exactly what really happened when my dad died.  I’m sure it’s all on the up-and-up, but something just sits funny with me regarding it all.  They can’t get their stories straight and being that my dad was on vacation 2,000 miles away from home, on a bizarre vacation with his ex-wife who screwed him over 100 ways from marriage and an oldest child who rarely even talked to him in his lifetime and most likely wasn’t even his blood child…

Nothing odd about that, 75 year olds drop dead.  That’s what they do.

Yet, when I talked to the Los Angeles detective, he was helpful but got quiet as I described my unease.   After listening, he said, those do seem odd coincidences, if it were my dad, I’d wonder too. Then he said, well, in 20 years with the Los Angeles police department, I can assure you of one thing, no one just “drops dead” on the street of Los Angeles…

My sister, who couldn’t wait to cremate him, who was obviously manipulative in her attempts to persuade me not to bother myself with the legalities during this tragically difficult time…this sister who hadn’t cared about me, my children, our lives, and had had nothing to say to me for 16 years, was suddenly so deeply concerned about my sensitivity and my love for my dad.  As was my mother, his ex-wife.  Suddenly so very caring to me after 16 years of total silence as I had struggled through handicaps, near-death, and overcoming an abusive relationship with my children’s father, while I raised two beautiful children all alone with only the help of my amazing dad.  Suddenly, they cared deeply about my sensitivity and how very hard this would be on me!

He should be cremated in Los Angeles!  You don’t want to see him this way….  You wouldn’t be able to handle it.  You  want to remember him lively and happy as he was in life. Trust me, you want him cremated in Los Angeles and then shipped home for burial. YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO SEE HIM THIS WAY!

No.  No, I’m sure I don’t want him cremated across the country before he’s sent home to be buried.  I need to see him before he’s buried. He was my daughter’s and my whole world. We need to see him.

No, no!  It’s going to be terrible for you!  You don’t want to see the father you loved so much this way, trust me.  It’ll be much better for your children and you to just cremate him here!

But, he never wanted to be cremated.  He wanted to be buried next to his mother in Kentucky!  He’s told me that all my life for as long as I can remember.  And I need to see him again.  He can’t just go on vacation then never ever come home again.  That doesn’t feel right. No.  We’ll need to see him before he’s cremated or buried.  And, he really didn’t want to be cremated at all…. He was very clear about that.

No! You’re distraught.  This will be too hard for you .  I promise you, it will be better for you and your daughters this way.

No. No, it won’t.  This doesn’t even come close to what he wanted or what sits well with me. No.

Okay… Well, oddly enough Dad was telling me just last night where his will is.  But you don’t have to go get it.  Mom will fly in straight from our vacation before even going home and go to his house for you to be there for you and your kids.  We don’t want you to have to go through that.  His will is pretty straightforward.  Split down the middle between you and I , his only children. The only thing is, he never signed it.

You two haven’t cared about or spoken to me at all me for 16 years….Really?  That’s so kind of you!  I think it would devastate my daughters and I to have to go to his home without him there now, but our dad is dead.   I’m sure you wouldn’t lie about his will.  How could money matter to anyone now?  He wasn’t rich and he’s dead now.

My mother and sister currently on vacation in California with my dead dad, who neither live with him or near us, nor care one whit about him except to use him to their advantage in screwing me over suddenly cared so much about my “sensitive” feelings and how hard this death would be on me and my children.

And, coincidentally, they also know every detail about his will, as “just last night” he told my sister where it was in Michigan.  Not only did he tell his cheating, lying ex-wife who lives in Ohio and his apathetic daughter who lives in Seattle where his will in Michigan was precisely located the night before he suddenly keeled over dead, he also just happened to mention literally just hours before dropping dead that it wasn’t signed!

I can hear the conversation now.  We’ve had a great 6 days of vacation here in California, but I’m 75 you know, and my youngest daughter and her kids are my entire life, I’m healthy and happy, but my will is in the second drawer down on my desk that sits on my porch in Michigan.  Oh and, I didn’t sign it. I went to all the trouble to make a will.  I spent $500 on will software to be sure it was perfectly done and absolutely to the letter of Michigan probate law, but I never bothered to sign it. It’s not signed.

I’m going to drop dead within 6 hours of telling you this.  I’ll never make it home to my daughter or her children, but you should know where that will is and that it’s not signed.   This is very important information for you to have, although I’m healthy and happy and have enjoyed a wonderland 6 days of vacation with you two.

Also, Darlene, my beloved ex-wife, although you screwed every man imaginable while we were married…although you led me on for 30 years after you left me that you’d leave the man you left me for, and we’d be together, so I never moved on from our marriage, I want you to know I’m sorry for all I did to hurt you.  I am sorry to you. 

And you both should know that my will is sitting unsigned  in a desk drawer in Michigan. I, an OCD riddled with precision and perfection no-stone-unturned type A personality, purchased very expensive will making software to make my will perfect and legal, but I did not sign it.

Then drops dead.

Nothing odd at all that my dad’s sister, when outraged at how long it was taking Los Angeles to deliver the body,  my mother said, I’m just so hurt that your aunt would think I actually did something to hurt your dad… or kill him… (sob, sob) Baby, I would NEVER do such a thing!

And I, in my stupid innocence, said, OH MY GOD, WHAT? No one thinks that, Mom!  She just doesn’t understand why it’s taking so long to ship his body home from California. No one is saying you hurt him!  That’s silly!  Don’t cry!  No one would ever think such a thing!

They each tell different stories to different people about where he suddenly dropped dead.  Well gosh, that’s understandable! It must be very difficult to remember the precise place where you stood with your dad when he dropped dead.

My mother brags throughout the funeral about how it’s her “60 years total married  anniversary” and brings her first husband and current husband to her second husband’s funeral.  And laughs the entire time about the bandaged scrapes over her eye which she’d somehow gotten while helping him when he dropped dead.  Mother thought it was just adorable to tell everyone at the funeral, John made sure he got the last punch in (giggle, giggle)!

I’m still waiting for the EMS incident report with the exact details of this dropping instantly and suddenly dead, but I’ve since learned that EMS services were already there caring for him when he dropped dead.  (Some how this was never mentioned in any way to me when telling me how he died) The EMS team were there caring for my dad when he dropped, but somehow, he took my mother down with him, not one of the EMS technicians helping him, which strangely enough, doesn’t match their tale whatsoever.

My sister very specifically told me he had gotten suddenly dizzy after they were leaving from having a “nice lunch”, had had to sit down for a minute, then said he felt fine, stood up, and “keeled over dead before he even got all the way up”, taking mother (who’d been sitting with him to help) down with him as he’d tried to stand back up.  Her story directly implied that there was no cause or time to call 911 between feeling dizzy and dropping dead.  Yet, now I find out from the hospital report, that the EMT technicians were already there when he died.  They witnessed the death, but no word to me about having called 911 at all.  It was simply, he was dizzy one second and then just immediately dropped dead right there, that second. 

So apparently, if their story of my mother’s injuries at my dad’s death is true, rather than the EMS technicians helping him stand up after feeling ill enough to call 911 for help, it was my tiny mother who helped him to his feet while the technicians just watched her help him and both dropping as he dropped dead.  Watching him take her down with him and get her face scratched and scraped from the fall as he died…

In addition, neither of them accompanied my dad to the hospital.  I understand he was already dead at that point, but if you love someone enough to take a week’s vacation with them and they suddenly drop dead, wouldn’t you go to the hospital with them?

Nah, why go to the hospital with his body? Makes more sense to just immediately start researching Michigan probate law so you can wait 6 more hours to call his other daughter to even tell her he’s dead, but have yourself fully informed of Michigan law before you inform her he’s dead and then specifically misinform her of the very state laws you researched surrounding his will, rather than having wasted your time going with the body to the hospital, right?

My sister started lying and manipulating me from the first phone call to tell me he’d died and her lies didn’t stop until after the funeral when I refused to grant her sole executor of his estate, at which time she immediately went back to not speaking to me at all, just like mother.  Her lies didn’t stop until she stopped talking to me at all.

She even lied about his military records.  My dad’s time in the Air Force was so important and meaningful to him.  He deserved a veteran’s burial. I knew how important this would have been to him.  He’d proudly earned that privilege. Yet, she told me, she’d contacted the Air Force for his records to secure a veteran’s burial for him and the Air Force could find no record of his service.  He’d been receiving veteran’s medical care since his retirement, but they had no record of his service?  I thought it strange that he was receiving veteran’s medical benefits for 10 years without the Air Force having any records that he’d served, but I didn’t bother to check myself because it never occurred to me my sister would ever feel the need to lie about such a thing.  Strangely enough, as I was sorting through his files yesterday, I discovered an envelope labeled “Air Force Info Discharge Papers” clearly written in my sister’s very unique handwriting.  Yet, she specifically had told me no one could find any record of his military service, not even the Air Force itself!?  And here were the very records of his service, labeled in her own handwriting?

WHY LIE ABOUT THAT?

They waited 6 hours after his death to inform me he’d died because they “didn’t want to upset me at work”. So even though I was out of work at 5 PM, they waited till  9 PM to let me know.  In the interim of waiting to inform me, they researched the various legalities of Michigan probate law. Then for some unknown reason, promptly and intentionally lied to me about those Michigan probate laws when they called at 9 PM to tell me he was dead.

My sister after begging (literally pleading) with me for an entire week not to go to the probate lawyer’s office with her; to leave all that legal stuff to her because it would just be too hard on me to go through all that, was busted out on her lie about Michigan probate laws within the first 5 minutes with the attorney.  I looked directly at her when the attorney busted her direct lie wide open, she stared straight ahead at the lawyer, refusing to look me in the eye.  When I stopped the lawyer’s talking to say, wait a minute, but Dawn, you said….  Dawn, never meeting my eyes, still starting straight at the attorney, simply said, Oh, I guess I got it confused.

Yeah, I suppose when you’re busy researching probate laws and local crematories for your dad’s sudden and instantaneous death, before his body is even cold and hours before informing your sister he’s dead at all,  it must be easy to get those laws totally twisted and confused… the exact probate laws you felt were so important to immediately know before telling anyone he was dead.  The exact law you told your sister you’d researched so you’d have the important information to give her when informing her he was dead.

So easy to see how confused you might get during such a difficult time. So confused and twisted that you actually mistake the law for its literal opposite when informing your sister, Dad dropped dead….but I know where his unsigned will is and oh, by the way, Michigan probate law says…

Oops.  Did I accidentally get that all directly flipped around?  See, I told you a million times you didn’t need to bother yourself with talking to the probate attorney.  You should have just left all of this to me like I’ve insistently begged you to for the entire week we were burying him and you were trying to comfort your devastated children…

Now here you are still sobbing uncontrollably about your dead dad with me in the lawyer’s office with  and all I want to know is, WHEN DO I GET MY GODDAMNED MONEY?

 

Impossible Cravings

Tags

emotional abuse, Narcissistic Abuse

Since this nightmare began in 2012, I’m plagued with flashbacks of memories I’d long ago forced back into hidden places in my naive and desperate attempts to believe the best of people I loved.

Many of these flashbacks seem so silly and superficially innocuous.  Hindsight with research and education of malignant narcissists, make it clear how easily this method of abuse was inflicted and how many years it went on, slowly, quietly, chipping away at my sense of self, my faith in my own perception, even my belief that I was intelligent and sensible enough to comprehend reality itself.

Much of it was never as clear as a punch in the face (although there were a few of these, but I typically blamed myself as deserving of those too) and thus, was so simple for me to deny even to myself and explaining it to others just made me look nit-picky, so I took those little vague but incessant yukky feelings as more evidence that I was just imagining they hurt.  It had to be my over-sensitivity.  Surely, no one intentionally did and said these things to a daughter or a lover!  Surely….?!?

Being alone in a state far away from home, sick with pregnancy complications, starving for days, begging your mother to send a few dollars for groceries, does something strange to someone’s mind as your mother refuses to help and instead insults you, all the while saying, I love you.  It’s difficult to describe the mind-fuck of this level and impossible to accurately define how it seems to actually erase your humanity itself.  Obliterating those little pieces inside that believe you deserve even the basics to live, food, water, shelter; twisting one’s understanding of love into something less even than the very basic necessities. Which leaves a person with the understanding that love and compassion, kindness, and consideration are massive luxuries you could never have, much less deserve, as a human being.

Somewhere among going so long without food while carrying my firstborn, Lexi in the midst of narcissistic abuse from my boyfriend after spending my childhood with the exact same treatment from my mother, I stopped believing I deserved anything good at all and my highest hopes of relationship transformed into nothing beyond wishing for merely the lack of bad.  There was no such thing as hoping for happiness or joy or love or kindness, I literally only wished not to have pain intentionally inflicted on me.

After the period of starving was over and my mother had helped me understand that I was too disgustingly pathetic to deserve even food for my gestating baby, my boyfriend and I had moved again to another state where I had no friends or family at all.  I still called my mom regularly, lonely and abused in a strange place and utterly dependent on my narcissist. I desperately wanted a mother- not to save me from the daily abuse for she had taught me well that I deserved that infinitely- but for comfort in my loneliness and general fears of a first pregnancy.

I lived in fear and loneliness, but I was grateful when my mother took a few minutes to talk to me at all.  I was grateful when I had food to eat.  I was grateful my boyfriend provided a roof over my head, utilities, and those occasional pathetic long distance phone calls still begging for my mother’s love.  I craved two foods while pregnant:  Caesar salad and a childhood favorite-Skyline Chili which was only available back in Ohio.  I would wake in the night with a longing so fierce for Skyline Chili it seemed almost tangible.

A few times in those desperate calls to my mother, I laughed with her about my cravings.  I was excited that three times while pregnant, my dad had sent me money and I was able to use it to go to Perkins for their lemon chicken Caesar salad, which I shared all three times with my boyfriend of course.  I wouldn’t want to be selfish and think I deserved to spend that money all on myself or that I deserved an entire  salad for just myself.  And I laughed with my mother about how silly it was for me to crave Skyline Chili so badly – a food I knew was utterly unobtainable from this state, even if I’d had the money to spend.  I laughed at myself with her for being that pregnant woman who had to crave something impossible!  Of course, I’d be that ridiculous kind who’d have craving for something hundreds of miles away…

A few days before  Christmas when my mother actually called me (yes, she called ME for once!) and my baby girl was due early January to discuss her Christmas shopping, family gatherings, and general holiday stuff, I was beyond delighted to have received a call from her.  My fears for a healthy baby and giving birth grew exponentially each day her due date gained momentum and I felt like maybe mother did care about me.  After all, the day was getting closer and she called me!  She had actually picked up the phone to dial my phone number and talk to me about her holiday stuff.

I floated with joy just to be on the phone with her as she discussed how impossible it was to shop for my step-dad-what DO you buy the man who has everything?! and her various thoughts on her struggles choosing for my sister and her husband in Florida-Dawn has such eclectic tastes, you know?…

I was giddy to think of family and to be included just to get to hear about these things, not to mention it was a welcome distraction from the impending delivery day fears I battled every day alone in my head because my boyfriend’s work stuff and his fears over the upcoming birth were far greater and more important than mine, so I didn’t dare try to tell him of my silly pregnancy fears, or my loneliness, or how I could never stop worrying that the time I went without food might have damaged her somehow.

So, this lovely conversation with my mother about these general holiday woes were a welcome distraction as well as a flattering gift of attention.

As our conversation came to a close, mother tells me that after all the inner debate and frustration, she finally had decided to get everyone the same thing for Christmas.  She had found a way to order Skyline Chili for the entire family and have it shipped cross-country even to my sister and her husband.

Oh my gosh, I was deliriously excited…  I WOULD ACTUALLY GET TO HAVE SOME SKYLINE CHILI!  MY MOTHER HAD FOUND A WAY THAT EVEN LIVING OUT OF STATE, I COULD HAVE MY INSANELY IMPOSSIBLE PREGNANCY CRAVING FOR SKYLINE CHILI! AND I WOULD HAVE IT FINALLY JUST WEEKS BEFORE MY BABY WAS DUE EVEN!

I said, Oh mom, that is the best idea ever!  After all that turmoil deciding, as usual, you thought of the most perfect  gift idea of all!  I’m so excited to have some Skyline Chili!

The line got quiet for just a moment.  I thought perhaps the call had dropped.  I said, Mom?  Mom?  Are you still there?

And I hear her.  She’s still there.  She says, Oh… I didn’t get any Skyline Chili for you and Mark.  I thought I might, but then I remembered you’re a vegetarian, so I knew you wouldn’t want that for Christmas!

As massive as my disappointment was, my confusion actually overrode it.  I said, What?  A vegetarian? I’m not a vegetarian…  I’ve been craving Skyline Chili my entire pregnancy, Mommy!!  Were you maybe thinking of six years ago when I challenged myself to eat vegetarian for a month just to see if I could?

Oh, you’re not a vegetarian?  Oh my, I’m so sorry!  I thought you were!  If I’d known you weren’t a vegetarian, I would have ordered some for you too!  I ordered it for the entire family except you.  I don’t know why I thought you were a vegetarian?! What a shame it’s too late to order any now.

That’s okay, Mommy.  It’s the perfect gift idea, I’m sure everyone will love it. 

I hung up the phone feeling sad I would miss out on the perfect gift and wondering how I’d been so impossibly crazy as to mislead my mother for six years into thinking I was a vegetarian.

What a silly misunderstanding!  Hmmm…!?  So very strange that she didn’t know I’m not a vegetarian!  It’s my own fault, though.  Somehow, I mislead her into thinking that month challenge six years ago was a permanent decision.   My lack of clarity has now led to me not  getting Skyline Chili, my most fervent 9 month craving,  for Christmas.

I’ll have to work harder on being more clear in the future. If I weren’t so confusing, I’m sure this misunderstanding would never have been possible!

And I couldn’t help thinking of all the meals we’d shared in those six years; dinners where I’d ordered- and eaten- meat.

What a strange and unfortunate misunderstanding, indeed…

Olfactory Dreaming

Tags

Dreams, innocence, nostalgia, olfactory dreams

I don’t recall my dreams often any more and that’s a grace considering the depth of horror most of them entail, encapsulating my real life horrors so that even sleep doesn’t provide a moment’s respite.

This dream was different, though.  I’m grateful for it and yet it leaves me trying to analyze what most likely was just a dream.

In this dream, my neighbor, Juanita, was visiting.  We were chatting in front of my big built-in bookshelves when she accidentally knocked something over and most of the books on the shelves fell behind the case.   I was dismayed and assumed they’d be lost back there forever with no way of retrieving them and putting them back in their rightful position on the shelves.

I tried to move the built-in shelves out to see if it was even possible and surprisingly, it moved easily!  Effortlessly, I pulled it out far enough to squeeze behind.  My first thought was, oh my, I’d better vacuum back here before I slide it back.  It’s a dusty mess back here!

The strong odor of sawdust and that distinctive scent of  fresh new remodeling hit fast and heavy.  That wasn’t dust!  It was remnants from remodeling or building the bookcase that had not been swept up.  Fresh and crisp, preserved in time back there as if the bookcase had been built just earlier this very day. My dad did not install the bookcase, it was here when he bought this 1896 house so I can’t possibly know when that mess was made and left behind.

But I am taken aback in my dream with the surprising joy of this unexpected olfactory treasure.  In my dream, as I stand there behind this built-in bookcase, I’m flashing back in time.  It’s summer of 1988 and my dad and I are touring this house for the first time…me, giddy with adoration at the historical element as well as the little secret idiosyncratic treasures massive ancient homes often display. I’m looking at my dad, gushing about that beautiful library! Then, I’m coming home to construction guys working in our house, the smell of fresh, clean paint, and my dad in the kitchen hollering out as I toss my book bag on the dining room table, I made some supper, baby! How do you like that color in the living room? 

I’m transferred back to 1988 when my dad was alive and well, my whole life was before me, and I still believed in love and that children would never betray a momma who loves and cherishes them; transported to an innocent time when my dad could protect me from everything and I knew I’d marry a wonderful man who loved me and be the best momma ever someday.

In my dream, I breathed in that smell so deeply over and over… and resolved to never vacuum or sweep back there, just so I could pull out the shelves once in awhile and visit this pristinely fragranced land of nostalgia.

I woke up confused.  I’ve never smelled a nonexistent smell in a dream before.  There’s no remodeling going on here today and that was a million years ago; there’s no sawdust in this house.  And this was so distinct and strong a smell which came from such a random, trifle of a dream.

I googled “smells in dreams” and it turns out the research is limited, but it’s not a very common occurrence. I did find an analysis of the sawdust though:  to see sawdust in a dream suggests that you need to clear up an emotional wound that has recently opened.

What an astute analysis for- of all things- sawdust!  Yet, I have no recently opened wounds.  Just  the same ones I’ve carried for six years now that refuse to heal at all.

I can’t imagine it says much for my sad, empty, meaningless existence that even in my dreams- a place where my fantasies could run rampant and I could be drenched in the joy and happiness of my children again, my dad could still be alive and laughing that infectious larger-than-life belly laugh and I could be living life as I once did, that even in that realm of limitless fantastic world of impossibility,  my greatest imaginable joy is reflecting on the nostalgia of a time before I ever imagined this could ( much less would) be how my life turned out, rather than dare to dream of some new wondrously alive or happy occurrence.

The only remote possibility of feeling joy, even in my dreams, has become the same nostalgia I feel in my waking hours.  My vast imagination is even limited now to believing the only joy possible is revisiting times before I could have imagined the things done to me since were even possible, much less inevitable.

A time when I truly believed a boyfriend slamming my face repeatedly into a glass door or a mother’s inescapable incessant cruelty was the worst my life would ever be…

I long for those days now.

I can’t quite put my finger on what that all means, but it strikes me at my core to realize  how nonexistent any hope for happiness or belief that it even exists for me at all has become.

It was delightful to just dream of having the sweet nostalgia of sawdust scented innocence and faith.