Exposing your children

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black sheep, child abuse, childhood, children, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, Mother, nightmares, parent issues, rain, sadness, sociopath, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

I’ve reflected a lot on the “exposing your children to your narcissist abuser” issue. As stupid as it sounds (and it IS sheer ignorance), I was shocked to find that meme!   To know that someone else in this world made even that critical, senseless, ridiculous error after living a lifetime of abuse, just astounds me. In the same way that I’m still frequently overwhelmed with disbelief (literal “OMFG” moments) when I read someone’s words that explain situations, feelings, events, etc. that I truly not only believed were unique to MY life, but also never discussed because describing and explaining the sometimes subtle nuances of narcissistic abuse feels impossible.

…Then you read words that actually sound like they’re coming from your own life…your own thoughts…things you’ve never discussed…and thus, couldn’t possibly be copied! It’s a real contradiction. I always feel shock first at identifying so well with someone’s words, then I feel guilt that those words from that persons torturous hell actually make me feel validated on so many levels. Then, I feel horrified that ANY other person experienced ANY thing like my life and I’m overcome with gigantic waves of compassion for that person and my heart hurts for them and my head rages with their injustices.

It’s a strange process.

As far as the exposure issue, I don’t feel, for myself, that’s forgivable. I sadly have realized it’s one thing I may never totally absolve myself from. And worse yet, it makes me furiously angry at God! Madder at God than maybe anything else I’ve been mad at God for.

My narcissist mother made this choice easy for me. I can actually thank her for that. Yes, I was still living mostly in denial (desperately trying to blame myself for all the senseless pain she inflicted in my lifetime and the life handicaps that result from that). I was still praying for the miracle that it WAS my fault, I could fix me, and she would someday maybe love me.

She made that easy. Her cruelty during my first pregnancy was blatant. Or perhaps, it was the same as it always had been and I simply was becoming more aware with wisdom, experience, therapy, and age? In spite of that blatant cruelty, I still desperately begged…and begged…pleaded and jumped hoops, essentially shoving my head so far up her ass in the desperate need for a mother’s love while experiencing all the fears a soon-to-be mother experiences. In short, I had never wanted or need a mother more than I did while pregnant. The sheer terror of being a mom, knowing how to be a mom, and ironically the fear of ensuring I didn’t repeat my mother’s example…all made me pathetically desperate for her love and acceptance.

And as any true narcissist will do, the more they sense that power of your desperation, the more cruel they become. And she did become more cruel; more openly, hatefully shamelessly cruel. Which of course, pushed me in said desperation to REALLY step up my efforts to be loved by her. Which is a snowball effect of endless insanity right there. The harder I begged, the crueler she became…the harder I begged…the crueler she became…and on and on and on…

I stupidly never intended to keep her from my child. Even when my sister gave me a blatant, chilling warning of what would happen someday if I didn’t. I STILL kept praying maybe we would FINALLY bond in motherhood. FINALLY!  I might have a mother at last…and my daughter might still have a grandmother!  YAY!  There was hope!

No. she used it all to hurt me more even while I was finally the adult who could be and should have been safe at last from her terror…independent and ready to become a mother myself. At the time when she finally no longer held ANY power over me (other than that desperate for a mother’s love thing), I willingly HANDED that monster all the power to continue hurting me.

I called her when my narcissistic sex addict fiancé (identical to my mother) was cruel or abusive. She would antagonize and aggravate those feelings. I called her when I was reflecting on my fears of being a mother. She would pick, pick, pick at those fears…deepening them into absolute gaping terrors. I called her when I was scared of my baby’s safety in my womb, she would encourage that fear and add a few more for good measure. I called her over trivial little struggles pregnant women have, like, Mom…I stood in the shower today and cried because I couldn’t reach to shave my legs….knowing Mark (Narcissist fiancé) would tell me how disgusting I was because I was fat(i.e. 8 months pregnant) and couldn’t shave my legs. My mother said, “Most husbands would be happy to help with that. It’s too bad no one loves you enough to help you with that.”

I called her when my cheating violent fiancé went into 30 day sex rehab treatment and I had no food. After almost four straight days without food, I started having nightmares about my starving fetus. I would literally picture those kids on the Ethiopia commercials inside my womb, crying and begging for food.   So I finally felt scared and guilty enough to swallow my pride and call my mother to ask if she’d send me $40 for food for the remaining 3 weeks my fiancé would be away dealing with the fact that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants or stop beating me up after he put it inside yet another chick. My mother said, “Oh, you don’t have any food? That’s too bad. That’s what welfare is for. Go apply for welfare.” I said, “I only need a little bit of food, Mom. Mark will get food when he gets released. I feel bad applying for welfare.” She said, “People like you are why welfare was created. I don’t know what to tell you except to apply for welfare”. I got really quiet because I didn’t know what to say to this and so she changed the subject. She started telling me how she and her wealthy husband had bought too many Omaha steaks that year and they had had to give a TON away to his employees. Following that up with, “I thought about sending you some, but you don’t eat very much red meat, remember?” Which threw me into confusion because I had been a part time vegetarian TEN YEARS earlier for about 6 months.

I then had to spend the next year hearing my step-father talk about what a real piece of shit my fiancé was because a “decent human being wouldn’t let a dog go hungry, much less a pregnant woman”…and always wondering how he could say that with a straight face, never realizing that mother certainly hadn’t told him I called her asking for money for food when I was pregnant and hadn’t eaten in nearly a week! After all, he would have wanted to help me! We couldn’t tell him that kind of thing…we were “blaming that on Mark”. So, I blamed that entirely on Mark too….all but forgetting that excruciatingly painful and humiliating “go get on welfare…I can’t believe we bought too many Omaha steaks” conversation I’d had with her. After all, it was only Mark’s fault.

Fucking cruelty. And I let that monster around my children.

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Ain’t no sunshine

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adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, sexual abuse, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

http://shadowness.com/maria-amore/between-faith-and-doubt-2

Loss – true, deep, profound, crippling loss – is a loss beyond imagination and to a great degree, that loss is more profound and crippling when it’s an unnatural loss. The loss is exponentially pervasive into one’s life when it’s a loss brought on by betrayal, deceit, hatred, or brought on with the sheer intent to punish you for some unknown and/or unintentional “misdeed” of sorts, even sometimes a “misdeed” that’s merely fictional – a fabrication created solely from the dark billowing folds of a sick and twisted mind of a sociopath. I mean, there just ain’t no sunshine after this kind of loss.

People say; move on with your life. Let go of the pain. Recreate yourself. Recreate a life for you that you love. Have faith.  Everything happens for a reason.

(Which by the way, I could now happily punch myself in the throat repeatedly for EVER thinking “everything happens for a reason” is EVER appropriate to say to ANY one!  Except maybe (big maybe here) in the case of divorce or breaking up with a sociopathic narcissist.  In THOSE cases of using the term “loss” so loosely, then yes, it really does happen “for a reason” and you are truly better off.  Other than that, then everyone who falls back on that phrase (myself included), can fuck off!)

So, you look in every hidden corner of your life, your heart, and your mind…stretching your limbs and your definitions to find that possibility. You become a detective of possibilities, looking for them anywhere and in anything:

Maybe this book will help. Maybe that book will release my mind from its torment for a moment…or this movie…or a conversation with this person about the struggle….or a conversation with that person about anything but the struggle? Maybe art, perhaps painting or coloring or creating a DIY project will provide a moment of relief?
Maybe God? Worshipping Him, being grateful for the many wonderful things you know are there but no longer bring any joy, forcing yourself to look for that joy and insist it is there?  Maybe singing to Him, or listening to music praising Him?

Maybe a new pet, a colorful squawking bird or an innocent playful puppy or a soft fluffy cuddly kitten?
Maybe reminiscing? Or not allowing yourself to reminisce, removing as many painful reminders of all the places joy once stood? Maybe cleaning until your skin is raw, bleeding, and cracked and looks like your heart feels? Maybe not cleaning? Living in squalor, letting everything get and stay as messy and unkempt as your life and your thoughts feel?
Maybe music? Country music? Classic rock? Reggae? Heavy metal? Classical? Gospel? Hard rock? Really loud music? Really soft, subtle background music?

Maybe gardening? Putting your time into cultivating a beautiful plant which signifies life? Or growing tomatoes to remind you to survive, you must eat? Maybe plotting the revenge you don’t believe in and would never seek?  Maybe imagining karma or refusing to allow yourself to believe you “don’t deserve” this kind of pain?  Or forcing yourself to think you deserve this and much worse?  If “much worse” exists?  Maybe fantasizing about how “much worse” might be or feel?

Maybe too much time on Facebook or Twitter or blogging or Pinterest? Maybe joining support groups and reaching out to help others who are hurting? Maybe volunteering for a domestic violence shelter or the humane society? Maybe do daily affirmations in the mirror? Or practicing the Law of Attraction?

Maybe drinking too much wine? Or not allowing yourself to have any alcohol? Maybe writing letters? Or emails? Or joining causes you believe in? Laughing foolishly about the silliest stuff your brain can think of?

Maybe planning your suicide? Writing your will? Organizing vast piles of paperwork? Maybe dancing like no one is watching? Playing in the rain? Hand writing letters to lonely souls in prison? Reaching out to long-lost friends? Reconnecting with friends you’ve grown distant from? Maybe having sex with an old boyfriend? Or going on a date with someone new? Maybe drinking more tea? Making infused waters? Maybe browsing through hundreds of old photos? Or hiding every reminiscent photo?

Maybe living in another state? Or another state again? Or the same state where you lost everything? Maybe changing your name? maybe writing of the abuse you’ve never spoken of? Maybe writing of anything but your grief, sorrow, pain, or past abuse? Maybe writing the stories of your multiple rapes? Your mounting dealings with injustices? Maybe giving compassion to others who’ve endured similar experiences and not even speaking of your own?

Maybe get a tattoo? Alter your flesh somehow to tell yourself you are now officially and physically not the exact same body who experienced these things at all?

After a while, you listen to everyone tell you how to move on, let go, live again.  And you are a detective of joy survival; madly and frantically searching for brief any flashing moment of joy happiness serenity peace relief to alleviate the pain and sorrow that has somehow infused itself into every recess of your brain.

Maybe beg for a lobotomy?

Complete culpability

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adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, generosity, grief, hopes, invisible, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, safety, sexual abuse, sister, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

I miss you, Daddy.

It’s pity party time… I’ve officially spent my second birthday and the second anniversary of my dad’s death alone. Without one single phone call on either day…not a “checking in to see how you are”, not a “hey, I’m thinkin of you”…not a single friend or family member thought of me on the two most significant days of my life.
After 44 years of life, millions of friends, several boyfriends, one husband, and two children of my own, I now realize what I feared most from my earliest days is literally true. My mother, my sister and all those other people over 44 years couldn’t ALL be wrong about me; I’m not someone who can be loved. I’m just not…
I suppose I could write of how it’s my mother’s fault. How being raised by a narcissistic sociopathic woman damaged me so cruelly, left me with huge holes in my soul that can’t be filled, making me so desperate and needy for the one thing that scared me most, love. I found it crazy ironic to discover at 26 that I have a flap in my heart which doesn’t close properly. What a perfect description of me…it was almost an explanation at last for what I am that I can’t seem to help or change. The pieces of me that are so just wrong that they’ll never be right finally made literal, physical sense when the doctors told me that back when I was pregnant with Savannah Grace.
I suppose I could write how it’s other people’s fault, as well. How being so painfully insecure and desperately needy for love and approval for as long as I can remember being alive led me directly to the kinds of people who would manipulate and abuse that…furthering the unlovable clause I was born with. Seriously, WHO gets molested as a 6 year old by a teacher and a babysitter? And WHO is ridiculous enough to get raped *three* times in 44 years? And WHO is blessed enough to have had so many wonderful men profess the most beautiful depths of undying love and still ends up alone? What kind of idiot runs so fast and so often over a lifetime from the very thing she has been praying for since the tender age of 4? I certainly could never convince myself that it was all THEM…that there was something inadequate with every one of THEM. No, the common denominator there is me…and only me. I chased, pushed, argued, and crazied every one of them away from me, even the most tenacious of them. I could try to blame any one of a hundred girlfriends who shit on me, stabbed me in the back, devastated and used me…..but again, who’s the common denominator there? Me.
And what about my daddy? I was fortunate that my mother kicked me out with just a trash bag full of clothes at 16 for lying about smoking a cigarette. Thus, I spent the majority of my life, from 16 to 42, with a most amazing parent who demonstrated love, acceptance, kindness, honesty, integrity, and joy. So many children don’t have that kind of example or love in their life from ANY where growing up, at ANY age. Hell, I was fortunate that my daddy somehow always found the strength and ability to love me at all. Why didn’t that fix those fucking holes I was born and raised with? Not everyone who is unloved by her mother is blessed enough to be unconditionally loved by her father. If the cause of this unending and irreparable unlovability issue isn’t ME, at my very core, then that shower of my daddy’s true blessings would have repaired that. It should have, right?
Yes, it should have. It would have. If it wasn’t me, my fault, my issue, my fault, my inadequacy…mine, mine, MINE.
I’ve never felt good trying to blame any of this on other people anyway. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, I’ve just never been the person who could blame someone for anything at all really and feel confident it wasn’t really my fault. When the teacher molested me at 6, I even felt guilty when he got in trouble…even at that tender age; I felt it was me, my fault. After all, I had actually appreciated the special attention he had always given me, hadn’t I? I had looked forward to his smiles in the elementary school hallways that made his face beam whenever he saw me….it actually made me think of my daddy’s huge grin whenever I got to see HIM! And my favorite was the day he lifted me up to drink from the big drinking fountain. I had appreciated feeling special to a grown-up who saw me every day and still seemed to think I was someone special in this world. I would have never told on him intentionally. Not EVER! And I really didn’t want him to get in so much trouble either. Somehow, even way back then, at such a young and innocent age, I just knew it was my fault. Everything was my fault, so that had to be too. All three times I was raped, no matter how cruelly, I still felt deep down it was my fault…that I HAD gotten what I deserved. And I think I was always afraid to tell my mother because I knew she would be sure to bring that to my attention immediately and then all doubt of me “not deserving” to be raped would be totally eliminated. Hell, somehow I’ve been “asking for it” since the age of 6! I’m sure at 17 and older, I was REALLY asking for it. I just wanted to blame them because I never figured out HOW I “asked for it” and thus, couldn’t figure out how to stop “asking for it”. I only blamed them in my own mind out of frustration that I couldn’t fix what had always been wrong with me.
I’ve never minded taking the blame for things, actually I usually prefer it. After all, if it’s MY fault, then I can fix it. If it’s not, then I’m powerless to ever get it right. And yet, in spite of years of therapy, and so many wonderful years with a loving father, a zillion self-help books and strategies, I’ve never been successful at fixing it. And I still don’t feel satisfied trying to put the blame on other people for anything really… It’s been my life problem as long as I can remember; therefore, it’s still MY problem. My ex-husband even said to me once, “NO one in this world has such chronic shitty luck as you. The shit that happens to you regularly, just doesn’t happen to anyone…not even one of then usually, much less a lifetime of them!?” He was so right. I’ve always known that deep inside too. It’s me…it’s GOT to be. There is no other logical explanation. Hell, my mother abused the hell out of me physically, mentally, and verbally for 26 years and I was STILL desperate for her to love me. I’ve counseled so many children whose parents were fiercely abusive and still, they loved them and would do anything for their love. Me? I have two children who tossed me AND my love in the garbage without a second thought or one single look back to just wave good-bye….just threw me in the trash like the worthless garbage I’ve always been. And in spite of all my mistakes and failings as a mother and a human being, I gave those two children the very best of anything good I have ever had inside me to give, which was still apparently utterly worthless.
And since it seems to get worse the harder I’ve tried to repair whatever this is I was born with, what does that even really mean? If I own it all, I still can’t fix it; if I blame everyone else, I can’t fix it either.
I have so many of my daddy’s amazing qualities…deep down I think, where most can’t see them, but I have them damnit! So, why don’t they make me and my life even a fraction as valuable as my daddy was in this world to almost everyone who ever met him? Why can’t I fix what’s wrong with me?
Why?
I realized recently that I’ve never really been afraid to die… Well, as a mom I was because I felt my children deserved to know the love and nurturing of a mother…the love I never knew and started my desperate journey toward a life of failure lacking. Other than that, I never was afraid to die though. Obviously, my greatest fear is living. And figuring out why I’ve been forced to do something for 44 years that I’m just not able to do well. I’d rather not do something at all, than try for 44 years just to get worse and worse at the effort.
I did always hope that someday, before he passed or I did, I’d have the opportunity to deserve to matter in this world by giving back to my daddy somehow. I always told him, “someday Daddy, I’m going to get myself together and do something REALLY amazing for you to repay all you’ve ben and done for me over my life time”. It still wouldn’t have ever been enough, but I really always hoped I’d have that opportunity and ability someday. I didn’t. He is gone and I’m still fucking alive and every bit as unworthy, useless, and unlovable as I was born.
I’m sorry Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t get it together in time to return your wonderfulness to you even a little bit. I’m really sorry. I know it made no difference to you whatsoever, but it really would have made the world of difference to me.
It seems so cruel. So much death all around me over the last two years since my daddy passed. All these beloved people and children dying and leaving behind heartbroken masses of hurting folks who loved and admired them. Yet, on and on and on I go…. 44 years of nothing but worthless efforts to somehow give the world what I always dreamed of. A life of nothing; worth nothing, for nothing, meaning nothing. No one notices or cares I’m alive and who can blame them? I don’t. So, why does God take the cherished ones and leave the insignificant failures to continue being a burden.
Yet, on I go…

Velvet Validity

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adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, life, loss, loveless, mean mothers, Mother, nostalgia, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

It felt like his innocence was gone. I saw that in him in glimpses before of his cruel apathy, but this time was different. And not just an age thing either, it was a sexual thing… I think any time you go back to someone you had before, it’s never the same. And it’s certainly never exactly the way you have formed the memories in your mind over the absent time. For me, it’s always a bit of a disappointment; it’s somehow just less than it was before…or maybe than it had been in your rose colored hindsight.

And yet, not exactly; not with him. No, my every moment with him, comical, serious, sexual, friendly is all blanketed with the velvet validity of everything I remember. All my time with him is though. He is my exception. My exception to every rule. I said to him, “I do want to be friends…and I get sad when I think we can’t be. I mean, I love you…I love you either way, you know?” He responded, “I know you do.” Yes, he does know.

I’m playing Rose Colored Glasses – the song that in my mind always defined my dad’s unconditional and enduring love for my mother. How strange that even as a child with no comprehension of my parents’ marriage or romantic love at all really, I always felt that song was my daddy’s song for my mother. Maybe it’s the conversation we had one day while riding in his red Bonneville with the pin striped velour seats I thought were so soft and pretty. I was maybe 10 or 11 and this song came on the radio and he turned it up and said in his deep joyously loud voice, “Oh baby, your daddy sure burned this one up!” I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked him what he meant by that and he laughed and said, “I used to play that one on the jukebox over and over and over again until people would tell me to knock it off!” Wise beyond my years even then about lost or unrequited love, Daddy didn’t even have to actually say the words, I knew he meant this happened during the worst of his heartbreak era after my mother left him.

I am undoubtedly my father’s daughter. My mother never suffered from silly nostalgic memories or wasted time wallowing in a broken heart from lost love. My sister surely doesn’t suffer that affliction either. Neither of them would ever be such ridiculously silly romantics. Just me. Just me…and my daddy. So maybe it’s my family legacy that I uphold with this unconditional and enduring love I have for D? Maybe this kind of everlasting depth of devotion just runs in my veins?

Perhaps the only love that could have forever kept me from accepting my love for D again is my daughter’s… Her beautiful heart was the only thing which gave me the strength to at least minimize the depth of emotion I have for this man and place it on that tiny back burner. …And as life’s cruel steel-fisted irony would have it, I now no longer have hers.

For the love of Pete, will my life ever cease to fully represent the sappiest of country songs? Having been born into a situation of unrequited maternal love, chronic loss, regular betrayal, a thick aura of unrequited love surrounds me as I live my silly old Lifetime Movie life. And I don’t fool myself anymore into believing my happy ending might come. I think this is just what my life was meant to be for some reason: a cautionary tale about love and loss – the kind where you cry at the end because your heart aches, not tears of joy that it all turned around and the heroine overcame at the end. Hell, maybe I’m not even the heroine? Maybe I’m just the sideline story going on in the background, as the good guy gets the girl and rides into the sunset hand in hand with the love of his life? Maybe my daddy was the star of the show and it ended bittersweet…or maybe it’s one of my daughters’ show? And the happy ending will come for her life?

Oh well, I just love him. And just as I feel some sense of resentment at that blasted stubborn truth I can’t seem to change no matter what I do(ugh!), I hear another song which perfectly identifies my daddy as well, Here For a Good Time.
Daddy enjoyed life to its fullest all the way to his very last second. He may have felt the acute sting of lost love just like I do, but he never let it stop him from laughing, loving, and living to the fullest for very long. He had hiccups from it and he kept right on going. Unlike him, I have full-on break downs.

So, in his honor, I’m not going to beat myself up today for loving this man the way I do. I’m just not. It isn’t going to change anything, so I may as well just embrace it. After all, the unconditional love of my daddy is gone now and my daughters don’t care either way anymore. And even brief moments with D give me the bittersweet glimpses of joy my daddy miraculously maintained with his rose-colored love for my mother till the very end of his life. Bittersweet was good enough for my daddy till his dying day, so it’s surely good enough for me to appreciate and not resent or fight.

After all, it really just is exactly what it is.

Outrageous audacity and gratitude lists

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adapting, Audacity, black sheep, children, DENIAL, depression, desperation, Disability, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, Gratitude, grief, history, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, nostalgia, parent issues, sadness, the ex, Tragedy, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

The outrageous audacity of some just sets my throat into gag-mode and it’s no exaggeration to say, I’ve just thrown up a little in my mouth.
And when a person or event has successfully forced bile to rise in my throat, well, it’s goodbye Grace. I simply can’t balance grace with horrifically disgusting audacity. I just can’t. Or perhaps I just won’t. Who knows? At any rate, Grace who prefers not to pass judgment; Grace who wants to spread peace and love around with tiny bubble decanters to provoke joyous giggles in others; Grace who smiles through her pain and has become an expert in never letting the depth of her pain show; Grace who feels her mission on earth is to practices radical kindness and unconditional acceptance…Grace jumps out the window tossing maniacal laughter out as she flies, and bellows, FUCK YOU!
Narcissistic sociopaths should be burned like witches from the Salem era. First though, they must be strung up by meat hooks, whipped and taunted while their long line of soundproof ear-plug wearing victims take precious spray bottles filled with rubbing alcohol and lightly mist their wounds. La-dee-da-dee-daaaa…. Frolicking nonchalantly among the hanging perpetrators of gross injustice and catastrophic cruelty…mist…mist…tsk…tsk…absolutely unaware of the piercing shrieks of pain they’re inducing. What was that I heard? Ahhh…sweet would be the blissful silence among the filthy bastards as they take a spoonful or two of their own cruel and inhumane medicine.
This would be akin to the depth of absolute uncaring, unconcerned, audacity these mother fuckers maintain as they rip your world into tiny pieces, piss on those pieces, set them on fire, and then go bitch about how ungrateful their victim is…what an incessant whiner their little sacrificial lamb is. For God’s sake, why can’t their victims suck it up, burn alive and be grateful for the experience. WHY? After all, this experience couldn’t possibly be any worse than the irritating hangnail the Narc had just last week! Right?! The betrayal and emotional torture the Narc has imposed upon their victim(s) was nothing near the depth of hut the narc felt that one time he was 6 and got vanilla frosting on his surprise birthday cake rather than the chocolate he’d preferred. Now, that was pain….pain to cry about for years to come; pain great enough to hold the blame for every slander of reputation, slice of innocence, and pound of flesh he took from others over his next 40 years. No one else’s “pain” could possibly compare to these delicate infractions the Narc was put through all his life. No, the only acceptable complaining or whining is the Narc’s. After all, his pain is just so much more intense and unbearable than anything any one else has endured…ever…ever before or ever since. In fact, I suppose a Narc can’t even comprehend that other’s feel pain at all since they can’t grasp existence outside of himself. And a sociopath might have the emotional intelligence to understand others do in fact feel pain, but hasn’t the conscience or soul to care one whit. The Soc is way too busy frantically feeding off power he gets from inflicting pain on another against their will.
Oh yeah….bile in the mouth. I got sidetracked for a moment there trying to wrap an adequate description around these two earth roaming, life demolishing monsters.
Can you imagine for a moment this scenario:
Your dear, dear long distance partner/significant other has been involved in a tragic accident. Due to no fault of their own, he or she has abruptly and absolutely lost the ability to walk, talk, feed themselves, go to the bathroom alone or wipe their ass. He/she is alive though, and is successfully regaining the ability to talk and breathe again without outside help. It’s slow going, but it’s going. The prognosis is long term paralysis and a high unlikelihood that they’ll ever live independently again. Your friend also is the single parent of a 20 month old child and has another child on the way.
In addition, this dear friend of yours, has a sociopathic narcissistic mother who flew several states in “grave concern” to arrive at the hospital just shortly after being moved from the ER into a private room. This delightful, loving mother arrives as you are holding your SO’s hand…maybe you’re grateful they are alive, maybe you’re feigning concern, maybe you’re grateful that you get to leave this antiseptic hospital after you’ve done your duty and get back to your life, having others to take care of your 20 month old as you continue frolicking through your own life, just as before…I don’t know why you’re holding their hand, but you are.
Arrive Sociopathic mother on the scene, who coldly says to you, I’d like a few moments alone with my child. You happen to know your SO has a strained, at best, somewhat abusive relationship with this woman, but you’re just grateful you get an excuse to get out of this duty-filled environment for a moment. You release the hand and exit the room.
Sociopathic mother then sets her handbag down on the hospital bed, and leans in somewhat close to whisper in a satanic tone of voice, “You deserve what you fucking get”, grabs her bag, looks to her third husband sitting in the corner chair and says, “Let’s go”.
Fast forward a few weeks later. You’ve made the three hour drive to visit again. It’s perfect in that it’s close enough that you can do this duty on your day off from your job and not have to inconvenience your schedule much at all. This time, you know your SO is struggling with depression, fear, anger, and frustration. You know this. So, you thoughtfully decide to set about helping them with a gratitude exercise. Yeah, they’re still struggling a little with their ability to speak, but this is still an appropriate exercise, right? I mean really, it’s a thoughtful and kind thing to do!
You enter after driving your car, from your house, and off for a day from your job. After you leave here today, you’ll go visit your 20 month old daughter, hold her, maybe play with her a bit…you know, those things you might do with your very young child when you only see her a few weeks a months…
Your SO is painfully aware that they may not ever drive a car again, work a job again, live independently again, or God forbid, even play normally with or care for their daughter ever again. But, you’ve got this covered. You’re going to take these precious moments hereto assist with a gratitude list! That’s exactly what they need…to count their blessings and remember to be grateful! And gosh, aren’t you, in all your health and problem-free normal life, just the person to remind them of this blessings, no matter how disguised or buried…?!
And you are just pissed off to no end to find that this cranky, angry, partner of yours is pissed off and has no interest at this time in doing a gratitude list. Ahhh the nerve of such ingrates! This is, in fact, such an outrageous travesty of character, that 13 years later, you’re still telling the story to your new “significant other(s)” about the audacious ingratitude of your former SO.
There’s just nothing at all wrong with this little scenario, is there? Well, except for that ungrateful bastard.

Letter to the father of my children

Tags

adapting, children, Daddy, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, gossip, grief, history, integrity, life, loss, manipulation, Mark D, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, sociopath, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

Mark,

I can’t imagine or even fathom what is going on right now. It’s like the moment when I became conscious, was told I’d suffered a massive stroke, realized I was paralyzed, and then it slowly dawned on me that it wasn’t just a nightmare. This situation is so similar in that this feels like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I rise each day, think about my children, start to go to wake them and tell them what a horrible dream I’ve just had… and then as it dawns on me all over again fresh, with all the betrayals, hurts, and ugliness, I have to reflect for a few minutes to convince myself this is actually the reality.

I’m up praying my morning prayers as I’ve done for years, and of course, I include you in them as I’ve done for just as many years. As I speak to God about my gratitudes, hurts, struggles, and blessings from past and present, I can’t help but to reflect on my dad and other life-transforming factors of my 40-some years of existence.

I have never been one to blame others for long for my individual hardships and life challenges. I’ve found over the years that doing so simply held me in that difficult place. So, rather than stay there stuck, I’ve learned the practice of deeply reflecting on such issues, discussing them intimately with God and asking Him what my part and responsibility is in whatever matter. I do this in order to effect change within myself – the only place I know with certainty that I have the power to effect change at all. I’ve learned that for me, it’s much easier to always blame myself rather than others because if I can find my fault in the issue, I can attempt a repair. If it’s truly another’s “fault” entirely, then I’m powerless to actually fix anything about it at all. Thus, I actually tend to prefer to take blame on myself, both from within and without.

I think this is an excellent practice. However, I also have learned that my willingness to do this is a dangerous setting within relationships involving others who are still stuck in the blame-others game. Somehow from their perspective, I’m an easy scapegoat because I’m so willing to take on the blame and do the work required to change the situation. I’ve learned to discern these particular relationships as those which stay stagnant within those negativities. After all, if I’ve accepted the blame and then done the work to change and the issues remain the same over time, then the logical explanation is that it was not actually my issue after all. As again, the only person and situation I have the power to effect true change at all is within me; thus, my efforts are truly futile…and I’m simply spinning my wheels attempting to change that which I can’t – others. This wisdom of discernment has proven very accurate and powerful over a lifetime through which I’ve regularly found myself involved with people who sit on the other side of this change-fence; those whom prefer to blame others rather than take responsibility for the change required to affect the situation.

I was beyond fortunate to have had a father like I did. Since he passed a year ago, I’ve noticed something recurring. When I talk of him I’ll occasionally have someone remind me that no matter how wonderful my father was, there’s no way he was as “perfect” as I remember. You know, that’s absolutely true. He was not perfect. He was amazing, wonderful, and maintained an integrity to which I aspire, but he certainly was not perfect. And in this time, I’ve come to realize something about why some people tend to think I’m describing my dad as “perfect” when I’m simply speaking the truth of him, my dad was perfect. He was absolutely perfect in his willingness to admit his imperfections and perfect in his motivation and ability to accept responsibility for those things and effect the changes he needed to correct whatever situation which brought the issue to light.

One of my favorite earlier, “grown-up” moments from childhood was once when my dad, whom I saw infrequently, made a poor choice while my sister and I were with him. I think I was only around 8 or 9 and my dad was my ultimate hero. This made his poor choice (the first I recall him making ever that I was old enough to have some understanding or awareness of) that much more horrific and confusing to me being that I was so young and had a pristine, impeccable vision of my dad. However, that frightening incident turned into one of my earliest favorite memories and lessons from my dad. Upon fully realizing his poor choice, my dad took my sister and I aside, sat us down, and apologized. He made no excuses for himself, although I’m sure he could have made many and we being so young wouldn’t have doubted his excuse for even a moment. He made none. He simply apologized sincerely and that was that. He didn’t fall all over himself apologizing and begging for forgiveness as I tend to do when I know I’ve made a mistake. He didn’t blame anyone else or simply refuse to admit he’d even made a mistake like my mother chooses in such situations. No, he just apologized one time from his heart. This instantly restored my vision of him as my hero. Do you know how I know he meant it? It never happened again.

It’s truly ironic that one of the last conversations I ever had with my dad was something similar. We sat in his car on my morning break at work. I was a little hurt and disappointed over a choice he had made just the day prior, but I wasn’t talking of it. And he said to me, “Chloe, I’m sorry. I want you to know and you to tell those babies that they’re going to see a change in Papa.” I almost cried, Mark. My dad didn’t even really owe me an apology. What he had “done” was so minimal and unintentional, it’s not as though I could have ever been angry with him over it. My dad was then 75 years old and still maintained the well-deserved acknowledgment as my biggest and greatest hero.

Another huge lesson in integrity I learned from my dad, in spite of the fact that my mother practiced the literal opposite, was his absolute unwillingness to speak down about or to others. In all the years between you and me, all the struggles and hurts we’ve experienced together and the heartbreaks my dad watched some of that create in his daughter and his two grandchildren, he never once spoke an unkind word about you. And beyond that, in spite of the horribly hurtful and life-altering behaviors my mother did to my dad, no matter the heartbreak she caused, or the depth of disappointment he felt from it, I never once heard him in 42 years say one unkind thing about my mother either. And as an adult, I realize there must have been more than a few times when his heart just ached from her choices; still, not one unkind word or hateful gesture in return. Not one. Not ever. This truth means so much more to me when I think of the horrible things my mother told me as a child about my dad. Things I doubt were true, but strangely enough, even if they were at all true, they’ve never once changed my perspective of my dad.

I believe these two points of character he chronically demonstrated over the span of my lifetime are the very reasons there’s just not much anyone could say negative about my dad, true or otherwise, which would be reason enough to see him as less than the wonderful example of a man, father, and human being that he was.

I may never fully understand your choices or this vendetta you seem to have waged against me as a woman and as the mother of two of your children. And you might even delight in knowing that although I’ve felt no romantic love for you in a very long time; your choices in this situation have broken my heart beyond any kind of heartbreak I could have fathomed possible. I truly thought I’d experienced the harshest of heartbreaks before, then I realized what the true depth of what heartbreak could be when my dad passed last year, and still, you’ve effectively exceeded any threshold of pain I’ve experienced prior. I don’t know what kind of man you are anymore Mark and I wouldn’t presume to know much about your character for certain these days, so I can’t know if sharing that truth brings you some sense of peace, joy, or closure which you may have been seeking or not. Truth is, I’m no longer affected on any level by what drives you to do what you do. I simply know that what’s true and real is true and real.

In all this, as heinous as it’s been and remains today, I willingly accept my responsibility in naively presenting to you the ripe opportunity to induce this level of life-shattering pain you’ve inflicted and I’m not sarcastic when I say, I do hope you’ve at least received the satisfaction you were seeking with the “pounds of flesh” you’ve attained with it.

I’m deeply sorry you feel the need to spread untruths about me and speak so ugly of my character in general. Over the past 16 years, I can honestly tell you, I’ve always diligently attempted to avoid that choice. Regardless of your choices, how confusing or painful they’ve been… regardless of the efforts it required to find excuses or veils adequate enough to cover the transgressions and their effects on my life, I have strived to hold onto the basic respect I felt you were entitled as the co-parent of my most valued treasures God chose to bless me with – my children. I realize over the years of our association, I’ve probably disappointed and perhaps even hurt you at times as well. I can honestly say that it was never my intention either to do so or to gain any personal satisfaction or gain from it. If I’ve ever caused you a fraction of the pain and depth of destruction you’ve created in me with all of this, “deserved” or otherwise, I offer you my sincerest apology.

And finally, regardless of how this situation plays out, I will always strive to maintain the integrity my dad demonstrated throughout my lifetime. I will continue to attempt to find his kind of perfection within my many imperfections.

God bless you in your own struggles and life-challenges past, present, and future,

~C