Abuse plus denial

Tags

abuse, Domestic violence, Narcissistic Abuse

Narcissistic abuse is a dual edged sword. It will never admit … much less apologize.. for the damage. In fact, it denies and belittles, making you feel even worse, more vulnerable, more crazy, more abused.

More like a victim….. helpless and victimized from every edge….

The first boyfriend I ever had beat me senseless physically . He didn’t emotionally or mentally abuse me though….  Just random, irate, wild physical attacks. I was lucky to have survived a few of those vicious attacks, but still I’d choose that over narcissistic abuse like my mother, my ex, or my children. 

Recently I got very reflective on that first boyfriend. And I texted him to just state my feelings. I wasn’t hoping for anything more than the chance to say how I felt about the abuse and a few things that happened concerning him after my dad passed. I truly expected him to actually deny it ever happened! That’s how distorted narcissistic abuse has made me…

But he just apologized. He didn’t deny. He didn’t belittle or minimize the abuse. He literally just apologized!  He even went so far as to say ” I would pay the devil if I could take back how badly I beat you”.

He SAID that!! 

And I’m just flabbergasted….  I’ve never had anyone hurt me deeply and actually demonstrate remorse or regret of any kind. It’s always been “I didn’t do that” or “sorry you think that’s what I did”. Never EVER just a straight out I’m so sorry for how I hurt you. I wish I hadn’t. 

NEVER EVER! 

I’m amazed at what a difference just the  acknowledgement of truth makes! Much less, the sincere apology. It’s astonishing actually! 

It makes all the difference in the world. 

Narcissistic abuse is hands down the most vile evil abuse there is. 

I’d so much rather be beaten. 

Truth and Suicide

Tags

#erased mother, Narcissistic Abuse, parental alienation, suicide

Suicide – that dirty seven letter word… I once thought of suicide as a by-product and side effect of mental illness.   I had experienced hard suicidal thoughts while a child with no means or hope to escape abuse and cruelty.  Still, I assumed that meant I was severely mentally ill.

But, is suicide always from mental illness only?  What if it’s not?  What about people with no history or indications of mental illness who are suffering terminal illness and just don’t want to suffer anymore?  Is that mental illness? Or possibly a justified desperation to simply not be in chronic pain anymore?  Isn’t is some form of masochism to want to continue in pain forever?  Wouldn’t that seem to be a mental illness in itself?  Like people who experience pleasure or joy from pain and anguish?

If you knew you would suffer indefinitely with no hope for that to change, what would make you not want to make the pain stop?  Your family?  Your children?  Your job?  YOur hobbies? What if you could no longer do or enjoy your hobbies or your job? What if your loved ones treated you like a burden?  Or ignored your existence altogether?  Then, would anyone want to continue suffering indefinitely… with no hope for change?

I’ve had some heavy thoughts weighing my mind down the last week or so.  And today, I happened upon several posts regarding various mental illness issues as well as a few related to various opinions of suicide.

I feel ashamed that a few kind subscribers here have questioned in concern as to whether I’m suicidal.  I never cease to be amazed when strangers actually care enough to, well… to care.  I’ve not been exposed much to genuine selfless kindness or concern in my life other than from my dad before he died and my children before they left and threw me to the ravenous wolves on their way out.  My shame, however, is that I am suicidal and I’ve addressed the concerns of a few here by acting as though I’m not.  I offer no excuse, but an explanation perhaps?  I don’t want help.  I’m not even entirely certain this is a mental health issue at this point, although I suppose that, in itself, makes me question if my mental health has deteriorated to the point that I can’t see it clearly or if I’m just being brutally honest and with myself regarding my past, present, and future circumstances and finally accepting it all just for exactly what it is.

I value every kindness and concern granted to me – every single one. I would never want someone offering concern to me to feel any obligation nor to burden them with the long, sordid details of my futile circumstances.  I’m also not a liar by nature.  I feel terrible guilt when I mislead anyone and particularly anyone who has kindness in their heart for me.

I feel like a person who’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but one whom is not fortunate enough to pass away relatively soon from it nor whom has any hope of suffering through it and eventually overcoming it.  I’ve always adamantly believed in euthanasia for people who will do nothing but suffer endlessly until they finally are graced with death to subside the pain.  I’ve always told the people in my life (when I had people in my life) that if I’m ever suffering endlessly or in a position that I’d be nothing but a pain in the ass burden on those who love me, to please just help me end it.  Please, do not ever allow me to be a constant source of burden and responsibility to the people I love and who are gracious enough to care about me in return.  In addition, if I’m in chronic agony and unable to experience joy of any kind or bring any joy to others, please just help me go…

I’ve even pondered my many accusations and unforgivable offenses which have deemed me unworthy of the love, affection, compassion, and time of my own children.

If I were an alcoholic, I could look forward to my next drink.  I feel deep shame if I even just ponder having a glass of wine.  Thus, I very rarely drink alcohol now.  Selfishly, I think, maybe if I were an alcoholic, I could try to get in a program and perhaps I could connect to other people at least from the mutual point of struggling with alcoholism and battling it.  Maybe I could help someone, maybe someone would want to help me (even just a paid addiction specialist?).  I’ve gone so far as to go to addiction counseling and hope that I’ll be diagnosed as an addict and qualify for help fighting that, just to have a point of connection with others and a ray of hope that if I fight the alcoholism and win, maybe the level of pain I’m in would cease and my suffering would subside?  After all, if that’s my problem, then resolving that problem should ease my “issues” and problems at least somewhat, right?  Unfortunately, I don’t qualify for addiction treatment and even when I focus on the times I’ve severely abused alcohol as a coping mechanism throughout my life, I still do not qualify as an alcoholic or addict of any kind.

I’ll be brutally honest here, show the depth of my crazy, my desperation, whatever it is and admit I’ve actually gone so far as to try to become an alcoholic, hoping if I can make that the problem, then I can go look for the solution.  Plus, I can numb my pain along the way as an added bonus.  I’ve purchased lots of alcohol and tried to drink enough to numb out, get past the shame I feel for drinking anything at all, and give myself a few moments not to hurt.  I can’t do it though.  After I force myself to have a few drinks, I just don’t want anymore – not physically and not emotionally. I don’t want it.   The only time I can overcome not wanting alcohol is when my PTSD is severe and my anxiety is through the roof.  Then, I can appreciate the little bit of relief the first two or three drinks bring, but even after that relief comes, I can’t force myself to drink more.

If I were a slut, I could look forward to having sex. I don’t totally understand it, but apparently a few people here and there still find me attractive enough to want me sexually.  However, the depth of my sexual shame has reached such proportions as to have completely eradicated any sex drive of any kind, toward any person.  I’ve shoved this down a few times over the past five years and tried really hard to feel even slightly sexual or to enjoy sex or shut my mind off long enough to see if even my body can maybe enjoy sexual activity on a sheerly physical level, if not any other way.  I despise sex.  I feel zero sexual excitement or desire.  Utterly zero.   After being a touchy-feely hugger person my entire life, I now can’t stand being touched, not even touched platonically. The last few times a friend has hugged me, I cringed inside. I felt unbearably, vulnerable and painfully panicked. Yet, I also desperately wanted to cry with relief at being hugged and believe even if just falsely or momentarily, in the hope that someone cared enough to hug me and not want sex.  No tears would come, though.  Thus, I can’t and don’t look forward to having an intimate relationship again someday, neither sexual nor friendly.

If I were a selfish monster, I could live my life totally for myself, no longer worrying about others’ happiness or wishes.  I could do whatever I pleased, come what may, knowing I no longer owe anyone in this world anything.  Or I could have ended my pain years ago, committed suicide, and neither been a burden to anyone anymore nor a miserable human being, spending my last years writing in agony and trying to be quiet about it understanding that no one in this world wants to hear of pain they can’t help or miserable circumstances which can’t be changed.  If I could be totally selfish, I would have committed suicide when I most wanted to, about a year after my children left and threw me to the wolves.  The pain of my persecution was severe, as was the chronic self-doubt that made me constantly tell myself I must deserve this; I must just be in denial about the truth of what a disgusting, worthless pile of flesh I truly am.  I don’t deserve it though.  I am not guilty of what I’m accused of and being infinitely punished for. I’m guilty of many flaws and mistakes, but I’m not guilty of what I’ve been accused.

I wanted the pain to stop, yet I also held onto hope – the very thing which was causing my pain to turn into agony.  Like clutching the blade edge of a knife and squeezing it harder hoping the pain would stop.  I held onto the glorious happy memories life has given me in spite of the trials, the memories my children have erased or deemed insignificant…  I told myself with those memories, no one can permanently erase them nor dismiss their value.  Someday, they’ll remember….just hold on another day, another hour, another 60 second…  But memories are impossible to hold onto when those whom you’ve shared them with seem to have forgotten them as easily as if they never really happened at all.  Well, maybe not so much impossible, as impossibly painful to have those memories all alone, questioning your own reality and fighting within yourself to try to say, that couldn’t have happened that way, if those memories were true, you couldn’t possibly be where you are now, hated and deemed worthless by the very people you shared all those years of giggles and joy, heart-to-heart talks, and holding each other’s hands during struggles…

I wish I were guilty of what I’m hated and judged so harshly for because then I might have the possibility of relief from the hellish agony of total impossibility.

What is  the meaning of existence?  What is our purpose for life? Isn’t the biggest purpose and pleasure in life from connecting with others?  From knowing your presence in this world matters to someone?  That your life makes a positive difference in some regard?  To someone?  To anyone?

What if you faced a life where there was no hope for joy anymore?  A life where you could no longer laugh?  Forgot how to smile?  Where anything that once made you feel happiness suddenly only brought you shame and pain?

My “hobby” was loving people and helping others.  I can no longer do that or feel enough confidence to think anyone would even want me to.  My interests were being silly and laughing and bringing joy and smiles to others.  I was once well known for being a very sunny place in this world – for shining light on the darkest of situations and people.  I also loved to dance.  Dancing is no longer an option. I hoped to be loved someday and find a partner, that is no longer a possibility or even a desire.  I’ve no desire to love anyone nor to be loved by anyone except my children, whom have turned into the new, updated version of my lifelong abusers.  I could walk away from abuse no matter how desperate for “love” I was.  I’ve eventually walked away from every person who abused me, no matter my fears.  But I can’t imagine a day I won’t love my children and now, that’s become exactly the same as loving an abuser.  Only this love is the one love I simply can’t bring myself to release.  So, I no longer can imagine a day when loving them won’t feel like hopeless agony.  I can’t imagine a day when I won’t care that they hate me for all the wrong reasons or that they’ve blatantly lied, or feel helplessly distraught that they criticize everything I say, do, or feel no matter how carefully I say, do, or feel.

What if you knew you would never get it right? Like, ever?  What if you knew you would never be given the chance to speak the truth because just doing so made them hate you more?  And not doing so, you were forced to quietly accept everything you’ve never once been in your life?

After my light was snuffed out in 2012, hope kept me going and now, and when hope dwindled, faith jumped in to give me a boost.  Now, hope has turned into my greatest enemy.  I can’t afford to hope any longer and faith is nowhere to be found.

I don’t believe suicidal thoughts only come from mental illness.  I think for some people they come from mental health.  Healthy people do not want to suffer indefinitely.  Healthy people do not choose indefinite pain and endless suffering.

I no longer want this pain.  I wish to not love my children.  I wish to erase or negate every happy memory that clings in my brain because those are the ones that hurt the worst of all.  I don’t want my children to ” wake up” one day, remember, and possibly feel the brunt of my suicide either.    Fortunately, my children have made it abundantly clear that my existence alone is insulting to them, so I don’t feel they’ll ever wake up.  Either their lies are truths I can’t accept or they believe them so fully that they’ll never wake up anyway.  In which case, my death (via suicide or any regard) would simply be an easing of the burdens they claim my very existence is for them.

The Narcissist’s Legacy

Tags

Family dysfunction, Narcissistic Abuse, narcissistic mother, parental alienation

I made a little video in honor of my maternal grandmother yesterday.  I had found so many old photos of her on my dad’s computer and I wanted to preserve them in the event that anything happens to me, so I figured a YouTube video would best keep them somewhere forever.

Photos…memories…nightmares…nostalgia…. ugh!

I sent the link to several family members, including my daughters before I recalled Savannah’s reply when I told her my mammaw (her great grandma) had passed and that I would pay for her and her sister to fly in for the funeral if they wanted to attend.  Her reply was, “This isn’t a convenient time“.

Strange how this tiny little phrase was so very unlike my daughter and so very exactly her father.  My children were sweet and thoughtful, exceedingly unselfish, and advocates for the less privileged as well as against bullying and cruelty.  Nothing this child had ever said or done in the entire 13 years she was in my care would have suggested to me she would ever make such a heartless reply. Only a pathological narcissist would feel “inconvenienced” at the timing of a family member’s death enough to actually say, it’s inconvenient…  I read this reply and felt literally nauseated at the striking likeness to a narcissist’s typical reaction and heartbroken deep inside at the blatant implication of what my child has become in the four years in her father’s care.

Apparently, the depth of selfishness and cruelty of a pathological narcissist does not subside, not even with death.  Sad, too, that this was the only great-grandparent my children had left as far as I’m aware.

Aside from the narcissistic implications, this saddened me even further.  It seems the circle of dysfunction and brokenness my mother began will have no end.  Its sharp, jagged  knives continue to slice into generation after generation.

My mother didn’t speak to her mother for years as I was growing up. Because of this as well as some added geographical distance, I wasn’t permitted to develop as close of a relationship with my grandmother as my cousins had. If mother didn’t like someone, her children simply were not permitted to like them either.  And my mother had a plethora of various “wars” with her family members all her life and mine, which true to narcissistic form, heavily influenced my family circle and bonds (or lack thereof).

Although my mother told me many (conflicting) tales of the cause of these family alienations – all of which she was the poor victim of their cruel injustice, of course -I have been privy to facts which better and more sensibly explain the truth behind these things.

• My grandmother testified in court against my mother getting custody of my sister and I and for my father’s behalf.  I’ve since discovered that this was because my mother was habitually unfaithful to my father (as well as her first husband), rarely was home with us as babies when my grandma came to visit, and because she had made it blatantly known to her entire family that she had despised me from my conception.  My mammaw was quite concerned about these things when my mother left my dad for a man she’d been having an affair with.   This, of course, is not at all the story my mother tells…
• My mother’s version is that my dad was gone for weeks at a time, drank every dime of his paychecks leaving us to starve to death if my mother (the selfless hero!) hadn’t worked her ass off to provide for we kids, cheated on my mother constantly, beat her, and treated her like a maid.
• Hmmm….  yet her own mother testified against her in court for custody of her children?  A religious, righteous, woman raised with the deep old traditions of the south regarding marriage and motherhood?
• Another contradiction of my mother’s version of family events was that her father adored her, spoiled her, and was a righteous, good man.  And yet, when he died suddenly and very young, she wasn’t “speaking to her dad” at the time and claimed to carry all this unresolved grief every year on his death anniversary.  Naturally garnering a great deal of sympathy every year for this “tragic unresolved grief” she suffered.  Strangely enough, a tragic loss in the midst of shunning her own father never prevented my mother from continuing her alienations of her other family members!?  One would think all that unresolved tragic grief would have taught a lesson in staying mad and distant from family for unreasonably long periods of time… Not my mother though, she was mad at (and alienating) half her family for my entire childhood.

Regardless, I thought I would be the catalyst to end these sad and destructive familial fractures.  Although I worried very much about my children even knowing the bitter, hateful, evil woman who despised me all my life, with my dad’s pleadings and my desire to be the bigger person, as well as my strong wish that my children have all the family possible to love them since I did not have that as a child, I allowed my mother to know my children.  Mostly with an agreement with my dad that he would not ever leave them alone in her care or presence, which he agreed to (but did not honor I subsequently discovered after his death).

In yet another great display of irony, this relationship I allowed via my dad, greatly assisted in the destruction of my relationship with my daughter – a bond I truly believed could never be damaged, much less destroyed – not even by pathological narcissists like their father and my mother.  I would give my children all the love, attention, and respect I did not get from my mother and in my ignorance, felt that created an unbreakable shield protecting my children and I from the dysfunctional alienation my mother had started decades earlier in our family.

It did not protect it.  The strength and pathology of two narcissists with influence on vulnerable children who recently lost their patriarchal figure was evil and deceitful enough to break that bond I’d spent years building like a fragile twig. Another mistake I’ll never forgive myself for.  I allowed them to even be in the presence of the deception and hatred of my mother.  I allowed that, naively believing I was demonstrating being the bigger person.  Even if that woman chose not to love me or be a good mother to me, how could anyone not love my amazing children?  And how could I be hateful enough over her mistreatment of me to prohibit my children the luxury of having a grandma?  The luxury which had been all but taken from me as a child? A luxury I had always envied other children having while I was growing up?  I could not then, in good conscience, keep my children from having every ounce of love and affection from all the people in the world.

So, now they have all the love in the world, except they’re void of any affection, compassion, or love for their own mother.  Thus, my mother’s legacy of dysfunctional alienation lives on in spite of my attempt to discontinue it.

And after all, death is just so very inconvenient for the living, isn’t it?

 

Narcissistic Parents

Tags

Narcissistic Abuse, narcissistic mother, narcissistic personality disorder

When the adult survivor embarks on adult relationships, they often do not have the skills required for to develop and maintain a healthy relationship, with partners, friends, and sometimes with their own children.

Often adult survivors of narcissistic parents have poor, unhealthy boundaries, that cause more issues – such as becoming an easy target for further abuse in adulthood.

Surviving narcissistic parents, is literally all about survival. Narcissistic parents treat their children like extensions of themselves. The child is there entirely for the needs of the parent(s). The child learns to navigate issues, they are never meant to endure. A childhood being raised by narcissistic parents, is far from normal. Narcissistic parents are toxic and selfish […]

via 10 Damaging Ways Narcissistic Parents Emotionally Harm Their Children ~ Lilly Hope Lucario — Healing From Complex Trauma & PTSD/CPTSD

Wild Horses

Tags

accusations, children, empty, injustice, Lies, loveless, Narcissistic Abuse, Rumors

Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered by Matthew Joseph @fotodudenz

I sit down to write and my mind flash floods, making my thoughts and fingers stumble and preventing anything too coherent or well written from rendering itself here.  I keep pushing myself to write something, anything, just TRY to get something out, dammit!

The Wild Horses are here… dragging me away in a drawn and quartered manner, tearing me to shreds for the past five years.  I’m giving into them.  I can’t exist with this pain anymore.  I can’t accept the injustices, the lies, the twisted exaggerations…  I can no longer.  It’s as if I struggled through it all, all my life, simply to not exist anyway.

Those Wild Horses are here.

Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones

 

Real Life Monsters

Tags

abuse, Cruelty, Narcissistic Abuse, parental alienation, rape, Real monsters, torture

My monsters and murderers did not come to me wielding axes, brandishing revolvers, or wildly grasping shiny blades of gutting destruction. 

No, I was not so lucky. 

My assassins arrived with big smiles masking snide smirks and as time slowly passed, the effort to mask the sneers were less and less. The mask became an unnecessary effort as I ceased to understand the difference between a heartwarming smile and a sadistic snake-like sneer of sinister inner satisfaction at my growing confusion and chronic futile attempts to see the mask again… the smiley mask I mistook for  reality… to find a way to perform the same circus act (whatever it had been?!) that I had unknowingly performed in the beginning to cause them to grace me with that smile they’d presented at the start. 

The man who approached me for a comforting hug and pulled a pistol out of his pants saying, ” you’re not going to scream are you ?” was far more compassionate than my monsters. He ripped his mask off in seconds and I knew exactly who he was and he told me specifically what he demanded.

I would choose being raped and robbed with a gun pointed at my head all day long over my lifelong monsters. Mr. Rapist released me when he was finished.  Other than a few lingering occasional nightmares and anxiety attacks when I see people in hooded sweatshirts, Mr. Rapist didn’t prolong the torture nor send it out in decades of ripples washing out to every aspect of my life. His hell was fast and furious and the confusion faded over time. Mr. Rapist destroyed a tiny piece of my soul. 

My insidious monsters came straight to my door as life, spirit, and soul demons intent on sucking every last piece of joy I had known or could have ever known in my future. They left a desolate wake of barren lands where once there were lush waters of hope and green trees of faith. They did not release me until their burning destruction was complete and final. And I opened the door to them. 

This is what true monsters are. This is the after effect of dancing with the devil of narcissistic personality disorder; the Trojan horse blasting into every nook and crevice of your life, you love, your joy, and your spirit with furious fires of destruction that don’t stop until it’s cleared every last root of love and hope for the future. 

Yeah, I’d most definitely choose Mr. Rapist’s brand of hell over the sadistic narcissistic monsters any day.