My weird, constant, CPTSD nightmares

Hi friends. Today's post is about the weird, disturbing CPTSD nightmares I have on a nightly basis. And when I say weird, I ain't just whistling Dixie. I  have so many dreams that I have dream memories. There not recurrent in that they change and piggyback off each other. I've had dreams involving all areas of the town I live in. I have more dream memories than actual memories, at least of childhood. Sometimes I can't separate dream from reality. More than once I've had regular dreams about something I thought had actually happened. But when I looked back, it only happened it my dream. 

 They are nightmares in that they are upsetting, scary, disturbing. I'm always in unfamiliar situations, burdened with loads of work I can never get done and caring for many children I don't know. There are endless expectations from others who do not help. I'm doing it all but I have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to do, how to do it, where to get the supplies to do it why I have to. There are always dirty bathrooms I have to clean. Toilets that turn out to be chairs, urine and feces everywhere. 

I'm always late, or I've missed something. I don't get schoolwork done. I am in a play and I don't know my lines. I've let people down. Children go missing and get injured or worse. Children are always in danger and I don't know how to protect them. My dream plunks me down in situations and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, who I'm responsible for. And people are always upset with or angry at me. They are accusing and questioning.

It loops endlessly. I'm never relaxed, off duty or enjoying myself. I'm waiting on others with no help. I'm scared, worried, exhausted and stressed. My home is broken down and filthy, with gaping holes and bugs and vermin. There are familiar elements but mostly odd or different. In short, my dreams are never good. 

 In last night's dream, I was with my oldest daughter Molly who was both and adult and a teen (her age went back and forth). I was in an unfamiliar church bathroom and found, on the bottom shelf of a changing table or toy shelf, a baby. She was abandoned. There were people around but no one claimed her. I called to my daughter who was outside. She was an adult but then a teen of 12. I asked her to ask some people if they had any formula to feed the baby. My phone wouldn't work so I could call someone. 

Now I also have many dreams in which I am still breastfeeding. I dream that I nurse my grandkids but secretly so my kids won't find out. I know this sounds super creepy. But I don't think it's really about my grandkids but the two stillborn babies I lost. I'm forever trying to reach them so I  can care them. It's quite heartbreaking, really. 

Anyway, while looking for formula, I said to my husband who was suddenly randomly in my dream, that today was the first day my milk had dried up. We were sad. When I woke, I had to bring myself up to present and recall that this happened decades ago. 

But then the dream jumped back to my daughter (a teen now in dream) and I (she is pregnant in real life, which might have had something to do with the dream). We couldn't find any formula. In my dream I was feeling bad about giving formula because I always nursed and somehow I felt I should with this baby, as if she were my own. The baby was okay but I knew she had to be getting hungry. 

Then the dream cut to my daughter now holding the baby, who still hasn't eaten ( I dream a lot that my babies are hungry because I haven't nursed them). Near us was a woman I recognize as "Jan" an older teen who was in a  singing group I was in (in real life). We younger kids were in hero-worship awe of her and her agemates and were kind of led to be. They were set up as examples of  holiness that we should follow. 

Jan (an adult but weirdly, younger than me, now) is lining people up with their babies to be in a pageant of some kind. She pulls Molly over, telling her what to do, where to stand, etc. She is being a little too nice and chummy and trying to elbow me away. I said, "no, this isn't our baby. We found her here. We don't know her and can't find her parents. I'm trying to do that. Have you seen them and do you know this baby?"

Jan ignores my question and screams at me to leave my daughter alone and butt out. It's none of my business. My daughter is looking confused like she should do this to keep the woman happy. I try to take the baby and the woman shoves me out of the way and tells me to stop being such a control freak. Everyone seems to just accept this as okay.  I say "Look, this child has been abandoned or lost by her parents! She has not eaten!" The woman says "she doesn't look hungry. She'll be fine!" I say "okay but if anything goes wrong and Molly needs help, I'm coming to get them, pageant or not" Woman says "no you're not!" 

In the dream I felt ashamed of myself and in the way. I was starting to believe that I actually was keeping Molly from something. Even though I knew we needed to help this child and so did my daughter, I felt like I was letting someone down by not going along with it. And I was still terribly worried. I felt torn between doing what's right and what was expected. I started by knowing what I should do but letting someone else gaslight me into ignoring that. The dream ends with me saying "you clearly know nothing about abandoned kids. I DO!" 

This is the first time I've dreamed this dream but it's very much pattern to my other dreams. I experience a lot of questioning. And what do I conclude from it? Well, I should have stood my ground and gotten my daughter and the baby out of there. The fact that I kowtowed against my better judgement (and often do in my dreams) tells me that I've often let bullies push me around. Especially people who were wrongly set in authority over me or as examples of "good Christians." It tells me that maybe I have even perpetuated unhealthy tolerance of bullies in my kids. 

Healing CPTSD and toxic shame by sourcing the disconnect

 Hello my friends. This blog has become about my recovery CPTSD caused by parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, toxic shaming, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting about it all by four very narcissistic parents. Today I'm looking at healing from CPTSD by sourcing the disconnect. And I'm doing that by paying close attention to uncomfortable feelings,  clues that I'm spiraling or may be about to.  

And this might be one of the trickiest things I've ever done. Why? Because I don't know how because I was taught to ignore bad feelings and red flags. My boundaries were so smashed by steamroller adults that they no longer existed. In fact, I don't think I really ever developed boundaries. I never knew where others  stopped and I began. Because "I" didn't really exist. I was a human doing and giving, source of constant narcissistic supply for the adults in my life.  

Marilisa was not a human being with needs, wants, goals, opinions and feelings of her own. She existed to be a supply, servant, surrogate spouse and/or parent, scapegoat and support (prop) for others. Needs were ignored and dismissed. Feelings were mocked and sometimes exploited. To have needs and wants was selfish. To have opinions or ideas outside parental ones were unspeakable acts of insurrection, instead of  just normal kid stuff. 

I was literally indoctrinated that self-care was disobedient to God, especially if it went contrary to whatever they wanted me to do at the time. For example: most of my  life I did not have a bedroom or bed. I was put in their kids' and babies' rooms of whichever parent I was living with. What was my room was  given to random people such as my uncle and his girlfriend, once. The parents were way across the house or several floors away. As far from the baby/children as possible. I still don't sleep more than a few hours at a time because I've been getting up at night with kids since I was 10. 

The one time I objected to that (well, not really objected but just not as delighted as my dad thought I should be), I was beaten in front of everyone. Another time, my mom's boyfriend exploded on me because the baby I was caring for, woke him up. He says I shook the baby Now I see he was lying to protect himself. I didn't then. And it so traumatized me that I thought I never should have children.

I also see now that that is not only abuse and neglect but endangerment, exploitation, parentification and gaslighting. But then those were just more ways I'd let people down. Those are just a few examples. And they've all congealed into a septic sewage dump of toxic shame in my brain. But for all the ick, they are silent until something stirs them  up. 

Then I start feeling fearful and anxious. I start looking over my shoulder, expecting some form of punishment. I start over-reacting. But since it's not down to anything that actually happened, but rather old memories, I can't see where it began. In fact, I don't even identify that I'm feeling this way because I always feel and have felt this way, just to lesser or greater degrees. I only realize it when I'm in full-blown dysregulation or panic attack. And I'm too fucking old to keep experiencing this. I'm sick of it. 

So I'm starting to pay much closer attention when the nagging anxiety. I'm starting to notice the ripples in the pond before a major hurricane occurs. I still can't sort out where they come from. Likely that swamp of toxic shame is deeper and dirtier than I thought. But I go with whatever I've  got to work with. 

Today, I sourced it to fear over not giving my kids a coupon I'd earned before it expired. Which I know is crazy. So it must be something deeper. I also had one of my famous bizarre nightmares last night. I found an abandoned baby in a church bathroom. My oldest daughter and I were looking formula to feed the baby. Then a woman put my daughter and the baby in a "beautiful baby" contest. I said no. We haven't even fed her or found her parents. But the woman snapped at me to stay out of it, mind my business and let my daughter be. She said the baby would be fine. I backed down but said that if my daughter needed me, I was crashing the contest and coming to help her. The dream ended when I said "you obviously know nothing about at-risk babies. She  hasn't even been fed!"

I'll blog on that more. I think this panic attack came from a constant sense of failure. That I'd somehow let my family down by failing to share the coupon. It hasn't even expired yet! But these are the things I dream about, missing deadlines, losing children, letting them get hurt, failing to do things, not picking kids up on  time, dropping the ball. Things I now recall happened to me on a regular basis. 

Healing from abuse and CPTSD by trusting myself

 Hi friends. I've been working on healing from parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation, shaming, scapegoating, endangerment and gaslighting from four narcissistic parents. Today, I'm looking at one huge thing I need to start doing and that is trusting myself. 

I've been bossed around, falsely accused, used as a punching bag, told off, pooh-poohed, blamed and shamed, criticized, lied to, gaslit and just made miserable by these people all my life. It extended into and got worse in adulthood. Their kids were now joining in. 

You might ask, why did I let them? You may as well ask the sun why she shines. It's all I knew. They'd been shaming and gaslighting me so long the poisonous arrows were embedded in my brain.   Once you learn something, even if it's wrong (maybe especially if it's wrong), it's virtually impossible to unlearn. No it is impossible. 

They don't even have to say or do anything anymore. I'm trained. I do the gaslighting, shaming, blaming to myself. Even when they die, their voices live on in my mind. So I have a nasty case of CPTSD as a result. I barrage myself continuously with self-doubt, self-recriminations, second-guessing. My self-esteem is shot to hell. Actually, I never had any. I just believed as I was told that I'm the problem. 

So actually, this title is misleading. I say I'm healing from abuse and CPTSD but I'm not. You never heal. You just hopefully find ways to cope. I say I'm learning to trust myself. Nah. The best I can hope for is to just start noticing the constant attacks and deflect them. Because I'm not just stuck in this, I'm buried under it. 

I'm sorry to offer hope and then pull it back. But I have to be real about how badly I really do feel about myself. No one likes to hear it, I get that. They want to be positive, to "cheer me up" But if it denies or minimizes what I'm really feeling, it's false and toxic positivity. Well meant, but still not helpful. And maybe, not even well meant. In a way, it's a perpetuation of the gaslighting. 

I have come to despise phrases like "let go and let God", ""you got this, girl" and especially "rise above" and "just get over it." They are so glib. They minimize what for me is a personal hell. And they just make me feel more ashamed because I effing can't let go, get over, rise above. I don't got this.   You might as well tell me to leap a tall building in a single bound. 

And for crying out loud, don't you think that if I could just get over it, I'd have done so ages ago? I hate this shit with all my being. No one wants me to get better more than me. I want to box it all up and incinerate it. I want do-overs. I want a childhood that wasn't filled with suffering. I want teen years without all the added shame. Those times are hard enough without people torturing you. I'd like to have been celebrated or loved, for a change.  

And it's abundantly clear that anyone who would say these things don't got an effing clue. They aren't experiencing it. If they were, they would not be so blase. It's like telling someone whose loved one has just died, that "he's in a better place." She doesn't want him in a better place. And who are you to pontificate like that? Just shut your mouth and love her, foo. 

So, what can I do? Well, for starters, I can be honest. I can keep saying what I need to if others don't like it, tough shit. I'll probably do that through this blog, though. Being scolded for feeling bad just makes it worse. So I'll consider the source. I can also recognize that nobody really gets it because they didn't live it. When they say unhelpful or hurtful things it just proves that. 

I think the most important thing to do is to poke holes in every crazy, negative thing that comes into my head. Every time I hear their voices mocking or shaming, I can talk it down. I can interrupt. I can contradict, argue with and reject the lies they tell about me. I can call it out and name it. I can listen to the good things people tell me. I can begin telling myself good things. 

10 ugly baffling behaviors of histrionic and narcissistic parents

 Hi friends. I'm working on healing from narcissistic parental abuse from four pathologically histrionic, antisocial and narcissistic (the category B personality disorders) parents. Here are 10 baffling behaviors that histrionic and narcissistic parents display. 

1) They take up all the oxygen in the room. Everything is about them. They require a lot of attention, in fact all the attention. They make every event about themselves. If they feel an event is focusing too much on someone else, they will do something to put themselves in the spotlight. And it's often something outrageous, disturbing or hurtful to someone, particularly the one getting the attention. 

2) They do weird things for shock value. Attention is good. Shocked, comfortable attention that makes their victim feel self-conscious or insecure, is better. The type of behavior differs depending on the type of narcissism or histrionic pattern (malignant, covert, overt). My narcissistic/histrionic mother threw a pie in my face at her work picnic. 

3) They don't see or hear themselves as others do. Their narcissistic/ histrionic delusions are so off that they don't realize that how odd they seem My dad believed that he was a preacher and a missionary despite having zero training or background. He would get mad when whatever church he happened to be in at the time, didn't allow him to preach. My narcissistic mother wore nightgowns in public. 

4) Narcissistic behavior changes as they age. People who begin as grandiose narcs tend to become more covert or malignant as they age. My mother was big grandiose when she was young and "hot". (I put that in quotes because that's how she saw herself. I feel uncomfortable with the word). As she got older, she decided that if she couldn't be the hottest anymore, she'd be the most pathetic (covert) Any attention is better than none at all. As I matured, she felt outshone and her behavior toward me became malignant. 

5) Narcs are waaaaayy off sexually. Both my parents used to run around buck naked in front of me. My dad took me on dates with his 17-year-old girlfriend when he was 34. My mom wore sexualized clothing, dressed as a hooker for a church Halloween party and a bikini in front of my friends. This was not acceptable back then. She talked to me about sex all the time, starting when I was 7. She spared no gory detail. She and her boyfriends were loud during intimacy. She tells people she  sleeps naked and paraded around my home nude, in front of my kids. 

6) Malignant narcissistic parents purposely expose their children to icky situations. My mom began having affairs when I was 6. She left me alone in unfamiliar places for days at a time. At least one affair was with a married man. They would make out in front of me. His wife came to our house one day and knocked her down the stairs. She blatantly lived with her boyfriend in our quite conservative community. She left me to care for her foster kids, night and day. 

7) Narcissistic parents are hypocrites. Both my parents put me in dangerous situations. They didn't monitor me. I was wandering alone at age 4 or 5. My mom had a foster care home which closed due to abuse. They lived immorally and very contrary to the Bible. Yet both believed themselves to be model Christians. They preached continually to others on how to live. 

8) Narcissistic and histrionic parents aren't safe. You cross them at your peril. Even if they just think you are questioning them, watch out. My  mom let her (chronically unemployed, abusive) boyfriend sexually harass, mock, hurt, attack and shame me. Later, he kicked me out of the house when I was 16 because I came home an hour late. The two times I confronted my mom on something, she went ballistic. Then she triangulated her husband against me. My dad went nuts and beat me once because he thought I wasn't happy enough about losing my bedroom and being made to sleep in a tiny room with their baby.

9) Narc parents gaslight with every breath. They like attention except when they are being held accountable for bad behavior. Then they pull out every dirty trick to make themselves the victims. They lie, mock, shame, humiliate, distort and throw sand in your eyes. Mine scapegoated me to deflect attention away from their abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, abuse, neglect, parentification, shaming and endangerment. They invent things you supposedly did and then crucify you for them. 

10) Narc parents get you to hate yourself. All the shocking acts. All the bizarre talk. All the out-of-the-blue accusations. All the exaggerated punishment. All the of the betrayal, backstabbing and passive-aggressive cruelty. All that sewage rots in your brain till pretty soon you don't feel fit to live. At least I did. 

This is only a sample of the baffling behaviors. If you're living with it, know you're not alone. I see you. You're not the problem. What you can do about it? I'm not the one to ask because I did nothing and just suffered with it all these years. Looking back, I'd at least tell a safe adult preferably one who can help. Don't keep it inside. You're doing no one any favors least of all yourself. Make noise but with safe people. Abusive parents aren't those people. Then get out of Dodge as soon as you realistically can. That's the only thing that saved me. 

Love, mar

7 reasons why I have to catalog every bad thing that happened in childhood

 Hi friends. If you follow this blog, you know I've been working on healing the childhood trauma I experienced throughout my life with my "family." I'm deconstructing the abuse (physical, emotional, mental, social, sexual, religious, financial and medical), neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, family scapegoating, mocking, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. 

And you may wonder why I always list each type of abuse that  happened, separately. Or maybe you don't. But the shrieking harpies in my head do. My brain is full of flying monkeys telling me that I'm showing off and making it up. That's one result of narcissistic abuse. My brain gaslights itself with questioning, undermining, insulting and name-calling. And that's one reason why I have to catalog every bad thing that happened. It's one of seven reasons. I'll get back to it so I can do them in order. 

First, I need to fill you in on my very bizarre (for the time, I was born in 1964) family structure and dynamic. My parents were both very self-absorbed. They left me unattended from around age 4, for long periods of time. Neither one held consistent jobs and I  have no memory of a bedroom, bed or toys. But they  had money for expensive breed dogs, riding lessons, English saddles, etc. We moved around a lot and actually squatted at various times. When I was 5, they moved to Alaska to be missionaries (unsanctioned by any church). My dad left immediately to in his words "preach." He wasn't a preacher either, except in his mind. 

My mom did her own thing and I wandered downtown Haines Alaska on my own. We lived with different people. Neither parent worked yet never had time for me. I walked to school alone. I was cared for by a native Tlingit couple in their 80s. Then she moved to an  island up the inland passage. I had no idea where my dad was. She told me they were getting divorced which in 1970. She left me for a week with strangers. Then moved us back to Michigan. 

My dad came back a year or so later. He got remarried almost immediately after a failed relationship with a 17-year-old (he was 34). I was bounced between homes. His wife did not want to include me in their new family until she realized how useful I could be around the house and with her kids. She and my dad bullied me into being their au pair, nanny, housekeeper and personal maid. My mother had affairs with various married men. Then opened a foster care home, met a guy whom she moved into our house. They didn't work and left me to care for the kids. Then they lost the foster care home, moved around a lot, got married. Her new husband was very abusive to me and she let him be so. He would later kick me out of the house when I was 16. Neither my mom nor my dad ever took my part against their very abusive spouses and would egg them on to further exploitation. 

It's the abbreviated version but it gives you an idea of just how bizarre and foreign my life was compared to the kids around me. And it helps explain how the complex was the abuse, coming from four different "parents" each with his or her own spin. Among them all, my life became a messy mix of abuse (physical, mental, emotional, religious, sexual, social, financial, medical), neglect, abandonment, exploitation, cruelty, bullying, exploitation, parentification, shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. So on to the reasons

Reason 1 why I have to list each type of abuse: to begin to accept that it happened. I don't know who needs to hear this but if you have been the victim of narcissistic parental abuse, you have also been gaslit into thinking you're the problem. You are not. They are. It's them. They have catechized you on the Narcissist's prayer. (credit to Dayna Craig). 

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

Reason 2 why I have to list each type of abuse. To begin to put it in perspective. All my life, I accepted whatever they dished out: the slapping, harassment, beating, name-calling, sexualizing, betrayal, mockery, ignoring. I worked like a dog to please them, doing pretty much all their work. Sleeping with their kids and getting up at night with babies from around age 11. I never realized how bizarre and abusive it was. Now that I have words for it, I'm using them to sort out what happened. 

Reason 3 to list each separately: to sort out how they did it and how it was wrong. I always defended every weird, hurtful or traumatizing thing my four parents did. I never questioned. Worst of all, (here's the part of the parentification) I parented them while they exploited me. I was expected to be surrogate parent and spouse, while also being obedient, subservient and scapegoat. They wanted the perks of being parents with none of the work. I had to be both parent and child. Cataloging how they did this helps me begin to frame how it was wrong. 

Reason 4 to list each abuse separately: to begin to see how each type of abuse affected me. Every thing I've listed are forms of abuse. But each affects me differently. Being hit makes me chronically flinch. Being emotionally abused makes me hate myself. Being neglected makes me feel worthless...a few examples. 

Reason 5. to quit gaslighting myself. For so many years, they each made me feel like the problem. I was disobedient, angry, selfish, lazy, too sensitive, too critical, on and on. All that has culminate in my gaslighting myself. They don't even have to incant the Narcissist's prayer  anymore. I do it for them. I still don't honestly believe that I'm not the problem. But hopefully I'll start to. 

Reason 6 to unpick the Narc prayer, line by line:

That didn't happen. YES IT DID. YOU DID THOSE THINGS TO ME

And if it did, it wasn't that bad. YES THEY WERE. THEY WERE WORSE THAN BAD. THEY WERE AWFUL. THEY FELT AWFUL. 

And if it was, that's not a big deal. IT IS A HUGE DEAL!!!! YOUR ABUSE HAS CRIPPLED ME.

And if it is, that's not my fault. IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT. YOU ARE THE PARENT. YOU HURT ME, ALLOWED AND ENCOURAGED OTHERS TO HURT ME. 

And if it was, I didn't mean it. YES YOU DID. THESE THINGS WERE NOT ACCIDENTS. YOU HAD TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO WREAK SUCH HAVOC. IT IS UNNATURAL, IMMORAL AND DEVASTATING. 

And if I did, you deserved it. AHAHA. NOW WE COME TO IT. THIS WAS YOURGAME ALL ALONG. TO MAKE ME THE SCAPEGOAT FOR EVERYTHING. TO BLAME ME FOR IT ALL. TO SHAME ME FOR IT ALL. I DESERVED NONE OF IT. I DESERVED LOVE NOT ABUSE, CARE NOT NEGLECT! RESPECT NOT SHAME! SUPPORT NOT EXPLOITATION! NURTURE NOT ABANDONMENT! I DESERVED TO BE PART OF THE FAMILY NOT APART. INCLUDED NOT EXCLUDED. I DESERVED TO BE A CHILD, NOT AN OVERWORKED, UNPAID EMPLOYEE. I DESERVED TRUTH NOT GASLIGHTING AND LIES. 

Reason 7. to find a way out of this effed up, screwed over, cluster-eff of misery and suffering that all this has caused. I don't want to write these posts anymore. I want joy, not a fake pasted on smile to keep others happy or at least not mad. I want to live my life not theirs. I wan to stop hating myself for things I was framed for doing but never did. I want to feel some satisfaction that I occasionally do something right. I want to restore the wounded kid in me to full health. 

Physical symptoms of CPTSD: health issues from childhood trauma. abuse and neglect

 Hi friends. I've written a lot about the emotional problems I experience from CPTSD, childhood trauma and parental abuse and neglect. Today I'm exploring the physical symptoms of early trauma. Many of these health issues (and they are many) are things I've experienced all my life but  never connected with  abuse and neglect. 

Quick backstory if you're reading for the first time. I grew up in unhealthy, unsafe conditions with four narcissistically abusive adults (two bio parents and their new partners). I was abused emotionally, physically, sexually, financially and medically, neglected, deprived of basic care, exploited, parentified, scapegoated, abandoned, endangered, toxically shamed and gaslit about it all, by all four of my parents. I only just, at 59, started really unpacking and talking about it. 

It's the medical abuse or actually medical neglect that I'm exploring today. But really, all the abuse, neglect, shaming, scapegoating, exploitation, endangerment and abandonment factor in. So the physical symptoms and conditions associated with CPTSD? Some of these might sound odd. But research has shown me that they are in fact quite commonly seen in childhood trauma survivors. 

But first, a word on the medical neglect (or neglect of medical care). This was part of a much larger pattern of neglect, deprivation, endangerment and abandonment. It began when I was a baby, in several ways. I was diagnosed with Congenital Hip Dysplasia and put in a Pavlik brace. All my mom remembers is that I cried and interrupted her but then got used to it.

It's my grandparents who told me about it. They worried all the things normal parents would worry about, but mine didn't. Once the brace was off, my parents seemed to forget all about it. No one ever checked to see of I had any residual problems. They didn't keep up with any follow-up. When I started having back problems (scoliosis, spina bifida and later, arthritis), no one cared. The fact that my dad and stepmom made me do all the heavy housework, vacuuming, mopping on hands and knees, ironing, sleeping with their babies and getting up at night with them,  climbing snowbanks to get laundry off the line (for real) tells me they didn't care a hoot if I had back problems or not. And they clearly never connected it with my hip problems. 

Now just a segue here on that. I've said before that their (expensive breed) dogs ate better than I did. Well, beyond that, they had better medical care. (this has a point, so bear with me). I recall all the vet visits their dogs had. When I asked why I might have so many back problems and could it be related to my hip issue, my dad got furious. He accused me of questioning his decision to put me in a brace and said "why don't you just sue me??" 

Of course I wasn't. I was just desperate to get feedback that might help. And that shut up any from him. I actually felt ashamed for asking and apologized. I apologized a lot to my dad for things I've not done.  But now I see that he felt stupid because he didn't know because he hadn't bothered to find out what the repercussions might be. But he knew all about the dog's problems. And it was, ironically, reading about German shepherds that led me to find the arthritis/ hip dysplasia link. Shepherds are prone to hip dysplasia and often develop arthritis from it and that ends up killing them. I find it further annoying how much info there is about dogs with these conditions and how little about  humans. I guess a lot of other people prioritize animals over people too. 

But it doesn't really matter because anything that could have been done about it then, wasn't and now I'm stuck with the arthritis, fused vertebra and neckbones, twisted spine, etc. And there we have ugly Mr. Medical Neglect to thank, again. Because they weren't there, they didn't care, it wasn't cared for, lather rinse repeat. 

All of which brings me back to my point which is the toll that abuse and neglect take on your health into adulthood. Being very self-centered, my parents were too preoccupied with themselves to have time for me. They still are. It's not a problem now because I cut most contact. But kids can't do that. They rely on parents. Or should be able to. But selfish parents are also incredibly unreliable. So I had to care for myself which was of course, impossible. Another vicious circle. 

I have had eye problems since I was a baby. But no one thought to have my vision tested or get me glasses till I was 12 and nearly blind. I've had years of headaches, blurred vision. I've had allergy issues since I was a kid but (wait for it) only just got tested as an adult. I had breathing problems that I only found out was apnea in adulthood. I've lived with chronic nightmares since I was 4 which I now know are CPTSD. And all my mom and her boyfriend did was to laugh at me because I talked and walked in my sleep. 

When I was six and we had moved to Alaska, I began having chronic throat problems. It didn't help that we were squatting in unheated homes without running water or electricity. Or that I was sleeping on the ground, floor or in a camp bed most of the time. Or that no one made sure I was getting enough to eat. Or that my dad had left us to wander around Alaska "preaching" and my mom was doing her own thing (having affairs, running off to Seattle, etc.). Or that I spent the majority of my time alone, homeless and wandering the town. 

But anyway, my throat got really bad. And they took me to an army MASH unit where I got cough drops. They didn't help. And my throat kept getting worse. Then my parents split and I was moved back to Michigan with my mom. Dad was still on perpetual holiday. By the time I was 9, I was chronically sick (like in missing 40 days of school in one year) with tonsillitis, strep throat and swollen glands. I was kept on penicillin for months at a time. That stripped out my immune system. I was left home alone when I was sick. My dad was back in town but I guess no one thought to have him come and stay with me? Or his new wife? Or my mom could have gotten a babysitter? But why would they? So I just managed on my own. 

It was only when my grandparents pushed them to find out what the actual was going on and why was nothing being done about it. Finally I had my tonsils out, was left alone all day to recuperate, got incredibly sick and lost a quarter of my body weight.  My mom and dad had their heads so far up their own asses that nobody noticed that I hadn't eaten in 3 weeks, following surgery. 

It was a little neighbor girl that brought it to my mom's attention that I was crying when trying to swallow some water. And then my mom got mad and forced me to eat applesauce which burned like hellfire. I think she was mad that yet again, someone else had to point out to her what would have been obvious to any parent. Or that someone would report her negligence leaving me alone so much. Or that I just interrupted her life. 

Another time, still living with my mom, I fell out of bed and broke my cheekbone. She just looked at it and said I'd be fine and to go to school. When I got to school, one half of my face was swollen to softball size. The school sent me home, thinking she'd do something about it. But she didn't. It wasn't till my dad saw me a few days later and said I needed it x-rayed that we found out I'd cracked my face. 

These are just a few of the instances of neglect I've lived with. And how it affects me now is probably not surprising. I have a lot of chronic pain but I'm so used to it that it has to get really bad before I do anything about it. And because I'm so used to being ignored, marginalized, dismissed and even punished for expressing a need, I don't. As one therapist put said "Girl, you have a scary high pain tolerance." 

After parental narcissistic abuse I'm not reparenting but just OG parenting

Hey friends, piggybacking on the last post, I'm looking today at how, after parental narcissistic abuse, I'm not reparenting but OG parenting myself. There is a lot of talk in childhood trauma survival about reparenting the wounded inner child. But if you missed out on a lot of it originally, as I did, you need to start from scratch. Especially if you were taught a lot of wrong things and gaslit about what was actually happening. 

Therapist and Youtuber Patrick Teahan and I must telepathically channel each other. Because just as I began to consider the many deficits I had in upbringing, he makes a video on developmental delays experienced due to abuse and neglect (which is just another form of abuse, thanks Patrick for affirming that). I've heard it called brain damage which is so accurate too. 

I can't remember any time that my life, up to early adulthood with my parents and their new spouses and families didn't include multiple forms of abuse. There was physical, sexual, emotional, mental, social, financial and medical abuse. At various times I was abandoned, endangered, exploited, gaslit, manipulated, shamed, parentified, scapegoated and always neglected. I was subjected to Draconian punishments for minor to nonexistent infractions. I was expected to do kinds of very adult things since around age 4 or 5. I was left to wander alone with no supervision, throughout my life . I was left out and left behind and regularly lied to. I was subjected to incredibly inappropriate adult behavior. I was gaslit that this was okay because my mom or dad was doing it but that others were wrong to. There was a looooot of hypocrisy. 

I was not taught to take care of myself. In fact, I was systematically indoctrinated not to care for myself. That it was sinful and selfish. My place was to care for others, to wait on, serve and let them hurt and exploit me. I was told that my normal kid behavior was wicked and selfish. Punishment was Draconian and cruel. I learned that to think or feel was wrong. If I expressed frustration or questioned, I was showing off or being "lippy." I had my mouth washed out with soap when I was 5 and by 8, was getting slapped across the face on a regular basis. I still don't know what I did or said that was wrong. Yet I was expected to know how to do things that many adults couldn't do, without any training. I spent a lot of time on my own, except when I had chores to do. Which was a lot. But even then, they pretty much ignored me, unless I randomly annoyed them. This happened a lot without warning too. And again, I still don't know what I did to upset them. 

So in all of this, I learned a lot of very dangerous things about myself, the world, and my place in it. I learned to expect to be hurt and exploited and that was what God wanted. What I didn't learn were , healthy coping skills and survival skills. I also had no social skills. I was used to watching my mom and dad and their spouses for cues. And that didn't serve me well. They did and said a lot of weird things I discovered did go over too well outside their little narcissistic fantasy worlds. They had a lot of odd ideas that didn't fit in well either. And being narcissists, they often behaved in awkward ways. 

I know you might think, oh yeah, all parents are weird to a kid. But it wasn't that. They weren't overprotective or anything like that. They weren't protective at all. They didn't care what I did so long as I was around to do the work. It was other adults who thought they were weird: kind of show-offy, oddly flirty, melodramatic, pouty, loudly Christian but also provocative and overtly sexual. Off behavior around kids. It wasn't me that thought so. I was always team parents. They could do no wrong in my eyes. I'll blog more on this later. 

The long and short of it is that I got zero, zilch, nada good and a lot of bizarre examples, of how be with other people. I had to kind of separate "real world" from "parent world" because the two were so different. I had to juxtapose how they did things and how everyone else around me (including their parents) was doing things. I had to be puppet-like, rigidly obedient, subservient and military respectful at home. I could never say how different my life outside home was. I could never bring problems home. They didn't care what happened as long as I played my part.

Dissociation and cognitive dissonance became my norm. I saw what was going on around me. I could see how polar opposite much of my life was. I was continually bewildered by my parents very unparental care of me vs. their apparent need for me to care for them. I saw other kids be kids with fairly reasonable expectations while I had all these adult things I was supposed to do. I saw other kids and adults react negatively to my parents' immoral and unsettling behavior. Yet I could never articulate that it was. It was wrong but okay because they did it. It was like living in parallel universes with very dissimilar rules, both of which were baffling to me. 

Living in this constant flux, had a disastrous effect on me. It caused my mind to existentially fracture. Then factor in all the neglect, gaslighting and constant nightmares. I literally believed that whatever bad I  got was good enough for who it was for. There were many times when I did not know reality from illusion. I still have trouble sorting it out. 

And factor in that it was very dangerous for me to express anything contrary to them. I was horribly embarrassed for example, that my mom was living with her boyfriend and that they behaved in rude, uncouth and immoral ways. She moved her brother and his girlfriend into my bedroom. They smoked, drank, cursed, partied and no one worked. It was worse because we went to church every Sunday and she considered herself a model Christian. 

But in 1972, where I lived, no one did this that I knew of.  It was considered trashy, Christian or not. I know people were talking about her, calling her loose and accusing her of "running around." Which she was and had been for years. But how does a child process all that? What kind of a terrible daughter would I be if I said anything. 

But I had to just paste a fake smile on and pretend it was okay. It wouldn't do to question my mom or do anything to thwart her getting what she wanted.  Even if it meant me getting really busted up in the process. And with her loose cannon boyfriend  whom she pitted against me and anyone who crossed her, I definitely  wasn't safe. Better to just play along and wear the perma-grin. 

So this is getting to novel length, lol. And I haven't really even touched on parenting vs. reparenting. I'll blog more about it but for now I'll end with this. When all you've gotten is shit in the upbringing department, better to throw it all out and begin fresh. That's what I'm trying to do. 

How parental narcissistic abuse and gaslighting imploded my sense of self

 So a word about my last post if you're following. I was really struggling and in a rough place. It might have read like attention-seeking or a cry for help or even a warning that I was going to self-harm. It wasn't any of those things. I was showing how convincing are the voices in my head, from decades of gaslighting by four narcissistic adult authority figures (two parents and their new spouses). I was repeating what I'd been told and what had been insinuated to me--that I was THE problem and the ONLY problem in their new lives with their new spouses and kids. 

I was told was told these people were my family. But based on their scapegoating, neglect, abuse, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, parentification and toxic shaming, that this was just more abuse and gaslighting. Real families do not exclude one child. They don't make her raise their other children or parent them (parentification). They don't single her out to do the bulk of the housework and childcare. They do not force her to dance attendance on their new partners. If divorced, they do not even expect her to obey the new partners as if they were bosses, certainly not when they're not even married yet but just living together. And that's just the start of the crazy I've lived with. 

And piggy-backing on this issue of me being the real problem. It's true that I was, if you look at things from my four "parents" self-centered perspectives. This won't be easy, I warn you. Because the "center of the universe" attitude runs deep with these four people. They want what they want when they want it, regardless of how hypocritical it might be or who they have to step on to get it. And it changes without warning. It was not difficult for me because I grew up enslaved to what mommy, daddy, stepmom  and stepdad wanted and needed and any given moment. I was used to it never being good enough. I made excuses for them and just kept trying harder. What I didn't see was how dysfunctional this all was or that it was all just a big narcissistic fantasy and not real life. Most other kids didn't live with this tree-ring circus of chaos. 

But it's their very immature, self-absorbed, demanding behavior that points the way. Self-centered people think only about what they want, think, need and feel. Mostly want. Not only did they want to make up the rules as they went along, they wanted others to unilaterally applaud every selfish thing they did.  The "above it all" ness was so prevalent, that they actually preached against the very things they were doing. And yes, in my mom's and dad's case I literally mean preach. Both of them fancied themselves legitimate ministers despite having zero training. And most egregious (and confusing to me), they were living very counter to what they preached. 

And they were very good at knowing what God wanted, for others. They were very generous with others' money. They had all these ideas which others were supposed to fund. They had no intention of doing any of the actual leg word. The were the preachers of the word, not the doers.  

But my grandparents, on both sides, saw right through them. They were loving, but also gently honest about the hypocritical, selfish, "sinful" (their words) lives my parents were leading. And this did not sit well with any of the "big four." They did not like being crossed. So the grandparents were cast as the villains of the piece, too critical, unloving, yada yada. And it wasn't just my extended family. Reality bit down on their narcissistic fantasies too. 

So they spent a lot of time disappointed, self-pitying and resentful when something got in the way of whatever delusion they had at the time, and it happened quite frequently. Except with me. I was eternally empathic, giving and eager to please. Unfortunately, this made me the perfect target and scapegoat. I was so enmeshed in their feelings, wants and needs (this part is profoundly sad) that I did not acknowledge or even know I had feelings, wants and needs of my own. 

This is part of the heart-breaking brain damage that neglect, abuse, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, toxic shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all, creates. I had poured myself into them, emptied myself of anything that might displease them, so entirely that I wasn't really a person. Just a kind of straw person. And the other sad part in this sad saga is that the more I poured the more was expected. It was as if they were wells without bottom. And it was pointless, because it was just peed away. I know what the scripture means about casting pearls before swine. 

So how was I the problem? I was never going to be able to fulfill their dreams for them. I was never even going to be able to make them happy or content. I was always going to let them down because their expectations were too high. Selfish people can never be satisfied. You can never give enough. They are one big behemoth, like Monstro the whale in Pinocchio, everything goes in and nothing comes out. I truly could have given till I died, and they'd have just  walked over my carcass and on to the next victim. 

And at the very core, was the inescapable truth that no one, especially not a child, can be your prop through life. No one is responsible to make you, your new spouse, your new kids, happy.  should be expected to  can, or even should do things for you that are yours alone to do. And my parents, like all parents, were responsible to me not the other way around. And they not only dropped the ball, they threw it as far from themselves as possible. 

And now I have the onerous task of trying to reassemble the shattered mess that is me. I saw reassemble but really it's just assemble. Just as I'm not reparenting myself, but OG parenting. 

I got it all wrong. I really am the problem.

 All the stuff I've written previously, I got wrong. All the abusive, neglectful, exploitative, harmful, dangerous things that  happened were what I deserved, just like they said. All the times they abandoned, excluded, shunned and scapegoated me, I brought on myself. Either that or it didn't  happen. I just made it up to show off and get attention. 

All the times I thought that by "helping out" when my dad demanded it, weren't good enough. In fact they were actually disobedience because I didn't have the right spirit. When my mom's boyfriend attacked me for "shaking a baby" he was right. I was and still am a worthless piece of shit. When he kicked me out of the house, he was right. I came home an hour late and deserved it. When my mom left me alone in Alaska with strangers, I was being selfish to feel scared. When she let her boyfriend mistreat me, it was his right. 

When I had to wait on my dad's new wife, that was fair. It wasn't my home and I had to earn my keep. And they could make up the rules as they went along. Being hungry a lot with no bedroom of my own, no time to myself,  being made to get up at night with the baby, having difficulty staying awake at school, that was perfectly okay and how selfish of me not to do it joyfully. And I should not feel good about helping because there is always more to do. More to give. If I'm giving on a exhausted empty stomach, who cares? 

This is where I am right now. I can't even cry although my eyes are overflowing with tears because I'm so disgusted with the mess I am. And how I've ruined so many peoples' lives. Where would I even begin to sort it out? I can never get it right. God has given up on me because I've let him down so many, many times.

But one question. Why then do I not remember doing these terrible things that my nightmares and voices in my head say I've done? Why do I remember trying so hard to get it right? Why do I remember loving others so much that it burns and aches? Worrying for them, agonizing over them? Why will it never be enough? 

CPTSD has made me ugly and crippled

I looked at myself in the mirror and an ugly, pinched, twisted hag of face  looking back. It is not crippled by viciousness, ruthlessness, self-pity or hatred. My face has been scarred and made ugly by others ruthlessness, self-pity, selfishness, toxic shaming and viciousness. My face has been twisted into a crumpled mask from trying to stay small, from hiding the abuse and trauma, from absorbing the shaming and criticism. From the constant bullying nightmares. My face is scarred by verbal and emotional abuse. And from trying to keep my head above water enough not to drown in the cruelty. To ward the constant mental assault that convinces me I'd be better off dead. And so would others without  me. Basically, as a therapist put it, I've spent my life trying to just stay alive. 

And all this CPTSD is taking its toll. I've even developed systemic rashes that won't heal from broken down auto-immune system. In short, my defenses have been so battered that they're shot. I've been let down, betrayed, exploited, manipulated by people who were supposed to love and care for me,  that I don't even know what it means to trust. I've been gaslit so often by people trying to convince me that I'm the perpetual problem that I believe them. I gaslight myself. 

And because there is no way out, no recourse, no hope for someone who doesn't just have problems but IS the problem, I'm at  my wits' end. I'm at the last station on the line and no one is waiting. No help has arrived. It's just the end. And I've run out of rope to tie knots in. I've let the gaslighters win. They're too powerful for me. I know, as I've always known, that they are right. I am the problem. Just by being. All the good things I thought I was doing are my imagination. The nightmares are reality and my life is a joke. 

I finally get why my parents treated me so badly

Hi again. Lots of waking up going on around here, about parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, scapegoating and gaslighting I experienced from four parent figures. And I finally get why they treated me so badly. It has to do with their dangerous combo of self-righteous, self-centered, selfish and self-delusional. I also get now why it took me so long to see it. 

For the last six decades, I believed that I lived in a loving family with loving people. I believed this because I was told it. I didn't see evidence of it, quite the contrary. What I saw was unloving behavior. My parents not only hurt and allowed others to hurt me but encouraged them to do so. Unrealistic, unsafe and unhealthy things were expected of me. I was expected to care for and parent my adult parents. I was made to raise their children. I was not given basic essentials. I was stolen from. I was exposed to sexual predators and very off sexual behavior by my mom. I was deprived of a bed, bedroom and finally kicked out of my home. My biological parents told me that their new spouses were my bosses, that whatever they said was law and that I had to care and provide for them. 

My parents scammed and cheated their way through life. They moved to Alaska to "convert the Indians" when I was six. They had no jobs, no home and no money. We squatted in various places and I'd have had nothing if it weren't for a caring native couple. They both left me to wander alone. My dad went no contact for over a year, doing such things as going to LA to witness to the Manson girls. They dumped me at a summer camp (how I don't know as 6  year olds are too young for camp). Then she left me behind in with strangers on an a remote island 1,000 miles up the Inland passage from Haines where we started out. 

My mother cheated on my dad and then had a series of affairs with married men. Then they got a divorce. When my dad finally came home, he (34) started dating a 17 year old. Then he married a lazy selfish woman who disliked me and used me as her servant. My dad scapegoated me for the rest of my life. While running a foster care home, my mother moved her unemployed, violent, pervert boyfriend into our house when I was 11. She lied about it, moved herself and her boyfriend as far from the children as possible and left me to care for four special needs children under four. She allowed boyfriend to whip the children. She threw me in the path of a dangerously sociopath foster kid who molested me and then got mad at me for reporting it. She took a girl to have an abortion (while claiming to be pro-life). 

So all this sounds like gutter trash behavior and it is. And it might be to some extent understandable if they didn't know better. But they were not raised like this. My grandparents on both side were good, kind, caring people. My parents went out of their way to do the most despicable things knowing full well what they were doing. They were warned not to. They got in legal trouble. But it was all someone else's fault, often mine. In short they did what they wanted when and where they wanted and expected no censure or repercussions. 

But for all the blatant immorality, the irony is that my parents considered themselves very moral upright people. They preached God and religion and told other people how to live their lives. Hell, they even called themselves missionaries and preachers. This is that dangerous combo I was referring to: self-centered and self-righteous. And they treated me so badly for the simple reason that I was the one roadblock in their fantasies. 

I was the "x" they couldn't factor out. Not by anything I did or said. Just because I existed. I was the reality that showed up all their unreal, irrational, delusions. I was the truth they couldn't ignore because I remembered all the crazy they had done. I lived it. I don't know if they have been afraid I'd bring it up or if they actually felt some conscience pricking. 

They needn't have worried about me. I never would have told. I was too empathetic and caring. I wanted to believe them. I defended and protected them. Regardless, they began launching very early, systematic gaslighting about every single thing that happened. They lied, covered, blamed, trauma dumped, weaponized, manipulated, exploited, twisted and shamed me into silence. Whatever self-care I might have exercised in telling someone and getting help was torched on the altar of their ruthless selfishness. 

There were only two times I confronted anything (and then only minor stuff none of the really bad stuff). That was a few years ago, I mentioned a few things to each parent. Their responses lying, self-pity, gaslighting, shaming, blaming, distorting, covering, trauma dumping and abusive anger all over again. Which was unpleasant but not as scary as I thought it would be. And it served to affirm that A) I was right, these things happened and they were that bad and B) they've been acting this way for years. I just couldn't see it. 

So finally, why did they treat me so badly? My parents don't like not getting their own way. What they want changes without warning as frequently as I change underwear.  They not only expect others keep up and not to question but to applaud every bad, hurtful, stupid thing they do. They expect their version of everything to be accepted. They have lived so long in their narcissistic fantasy that they believe their own lies. And woe to those who they believe to be thwarting them in what they want. Heads will roll.

So despite the fact that I did everything they expected, I was in the wrong for just being there. For surviving. Because they can twist and lie all they want, to others. But they can't lie to God. He knows. Now if they just confessed and admitted, He'd forgive. But they want it both ways, to do wrong things and but not to feel wrong about it. They want God to not only accept their wrongs but to say they are right. It's actually Him they are punishing for not letting them have their way. But Him in the person of me. 

How abuse and parental gaslighting destroyed my ability to understand right and wrong

 Hello my friends. I've been working for the past year or so, to recover from parental abuse, neglect, exploitation, endangerment, abandonment, parentification, scapegoating, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. Well I say recover. But really it's more like just beginning to wrap my mind around it. Today I'm going to explore further how abuse and gaslighting by my four parents (mom, dad and two stepparents) has destroyed my ability to understand right and wrong. 

Notice I didn't say know right from wrong. I "know" what accepted as good vs. bad behavior. I know and understand that I'm supposed to treat others (loving, kind, helpful, etc.) What I don't know or understand is just what loving is supposed to look like or how other people are supposed to treat me. All the toxic shaming and scapegoating and gaslighting I lived with has sabotaged my ability know that I should expect to be treated with common respect and to protect myself from disrespectful, hurtful behavior. 

I've said before that it's like I have emotional leprosy. I  have no protective layer. My life was  characterized by constant boundary smashing, inappropriate expectations, unrealistic demands, Draconian punishments, deprivation of basic resources, exposure to unsafe people and situations, parental exploitation for personal gain, scapegoating, weaponized religion, toxic shaming and then gaslighting about it all. Everything about normal childhood was knocked sidewise and ruined by parents, their spouses and kids. So my normal was very abnormal and unhealthy. 

How my bizarre and traumatic childhood experiences defy explanation

 Hi friends. Hope your Labor Day is what you need it to be. I am working off a hangover. I've been doing that more in the past few years. Drinking too much red wine is the only way I can reduce the CPTSD nightmares and get some semblance of sleep. It's not a solution but it's all I got for now. Today I'm going to try to explain what makes my childhood experiences so bizarre and hence so traumatic. But it's not going to be easy. Because my backstory is so weird and frankly unprecedented, it defies logic, comprehension and pretty much every example of loving parenting. 

First, I know my story is unprecedented because I've been told it is. To me it was just life. Albeit it a miserable one, but my normal. Because I was gaslit by four ridiculously self-centered people who called themselves my parents, into thinking that abuse (physical, emotional, social, sexual, medical, religious and financial), exploitation, manipulation, scapegoating, neglect, constant shaming, abandonment and endangerment, was not only perfectly fine, it was actually kinda cool of them. 

That's a lot to process, I know. You may be wondering how all that could be happening to one child. Or how it could be happening and no one know or care. Believe me, that is part of what kept me quietly confused and why the their gaslighting was so successful. But it's all true. Everything I've shared is what happened. 

And what makes it even more disturbing is how strange it is. I have so little in common with other kids that it's as if I lived on Mars. At every turn, my "parents" behavior defies what parents do. This wasn't, so far as I can see, by accident. They had fairly normal childhoods and I know this because the of the trauma dumping they did to me. All four of them complained on a regular basis about how badly they were treated. They never held back or spared me details. From preschool age, they used me like a toxic waste dump. That's part of the parentification. But when they said what happened that so "traumatic" it was peanuts compared what they put me through. If there had been some really bad things, you can be sure I'd have heard it. But being so empathetic, I felt sorry for them and it distracted me from seeing how egregiously poorly they were treating. Which, I believe, was part of the plan.

And oh yes, it was intentional abuse. The things they did to me were no mistakes. They weren't overworked. If anyone was, it was me. They had to go out of their way, to do the weird things they did. And much of it was so needlessly cruel as to be inhuman. And that's the core of why it is so hard to wrap my mind around.

If they were just doing their best, and making mistakes, I'd have easily understood. Hell, I've defended the crazy and made excuses for them all my life. They didn't need to justify anything. As it they would, anyway. They were above all the rules. So they could make it up as they went along and feed me any amount of bullshit they wanted. There was really no low they wouldn't go to. And telling others about these experiences, I continually second guess and gaslight myself. Because no parent would do these things. 

When I talk to my husband, we can't really comprehend why they have done these things because we, flawed as we are, love our kids. And virtually everyone around us, throughout our lives, does too. They may do things differently but you can tell there's love. And I do not remember ever feeling that. Oh I told myself they loved me. They told me they did. But that was just so much hogwash because their behavior on a steady bases throughout my life as been unloving, uncaring, cold, calculating and hurtful. 

They do have the ability to love kids because their other children weren't treated this way. They were favored, pampered and exalted, even by me. I was made to worship the ground they all walked on. The abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification and gaslighting was only for me. 

My conclusion is (and mind this is just a working hypothesis at this point) is that they did not love, like or care for  me. I was an inconvenience. I was an obstacle in their narcissistic fantasies. My original bio parents had deluded themselves into thinking they could do what they wanted at every moment. They could divorce and just start over with their "real families." I think it was me they were trying to divorce themselves from. Their families were not on board with this and were very much in reality. And because my extended family would not play along and exclude me too, this angered my parents and they took it out on me. 

I believe they were, are and have been jealous and bitter that my grandparents still loved me. They determined to make my life as miserable as possible in revenge for not getting their way. And they encouraged their new spouses and kids to do likewise. If  they had to be saddled with this obstacle that they weren't allowed to erase from their lives, they were damned sure going to get everything they could out of me. And did they ever. It was made perfectly clear that their homes were not mine, my things were theirs, and I was only there on sufferance and had been be grateful and spend the rest of my time, dancing attendance. 

Which in itself further defies explanation because while making it clear I was in the way, they expected and got so much out of me. Which I guess as I write this isn't that odd if you consider their self-centered personalities. I was only good for being exploited and so they did. It was such a black hole of expectation. What makes it bizarre is that this is the antithesis of what parents do.