Hi friends. This post is going maybe as deep as I've ever gone. I'm going to share how messed up I am after living in six decades of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, parentification and gaslighting about it all from four narcissistic parents.
It's not just my brain that's damaged by CPTSD. My abilities are crippled. I'm disabled by it. Every thought and feeling is colored by it. I don't understand my needs and wants. I only know what others want and need and how it's my responsibility to provide. And how inept I am at being able to do that. And how that engulfs me with shame. I don't know where they end and I begin or if I even do begin. My identity was stolen by enmeshed parents who saw me as an extension of themselves.
I second (third, 26th) guess everything I think and do. I never make a decision for myself, without endless self-doubt. I never do anything without self recriminations. I never do anything good for me, without feeling immense guilt at the audacity of my own "selfishness." I'm terrified by countless faceless, formless fears. I walk amid shadows. I live in a parallel universe in which I don't fit. I'm as out of place as a turnip in daily life and have about as many coping skills.
To most people, my dysfunction may not show. It does if you look close. I'm bent and walk funny from trying to fit in, to accommodate and to survive in unsafe, healthy situations. My face wears a perpetual grimace which is part clenched teeth and part appeasing smile. I do not relax ever and wouldn't know what that felt like if I did. I sit on the edge of the seat expecting to have to jump up and do something for someone.
What was modeled for me by parents was bizarre, maladaptive, manipulative, histrionic behavior. Odd was normal and normal pretty much didn't exist. They went around in a delusional, center of the universe fantasy in which I was a supporting character. They were constantly needy and attention-seeking. They never sang in the choir. They were prima donna and primo duomo. They didn't work within systems. They rebelled against everything in odd exhibitionist ways. They arrogantly and irresponsibly flouted good common sense and did their own thing just to be different, even when it hurt me.
I saw other families who were more functional, less theatrical, more genuine. And I remember secretly wishing sometimes that I was their kid. You know, how your kids will sometimes say, quite normally, I wish Mrs. S was my mom? And you just smile and say "sometimes I wish she was too (lol)." But being an empath, I didn't want to hurt my own parents. Because they wouldn't have laughed it off as greasy kid stuff. They would have exploded, on me. It wouldn't have been safe to. Even just the normal silly stuff kids do was verboten to me. So I developed some coping skills which if odd and unhealthy, at least helped me juxtapose this cognitive dissonance that was my life with the world outside their little cults.
But these defense mechanisms don't fit real well in society. Throughout my life, I've done and said weird things, which earned me strange looks, censure and estrangement. I'd fawn to the point of emotionally prostituting myself. Sometimes even physically. I was told I was dirty flirty which as you can imagine, raised my shame to self-harming levels. In youth group, I was punished for letting an older guy kiss me. Why there were creepy 20 year-olds hitting on a 13-year-old at church was never addressed.
I didn't realize how odd I was until it was too late. I'd act like I'd been taught to act and people would give me funny looks and back away. Or see it as the weakness it was and capitalize on it. I showed a lot of signs of CPTSD which I see now put a target on my back for the creeps. I'd been groomed to serve others needs and they could smell this a mile away. I couldn't even do over-night events without my nightmares, sleep talking and crying out terrifying others. Some mocked me for it. No one ever reached out to help. And I just felt even more like the idiot oddball.
I cringe when I recall how disturbing my behavior was. But I also feel really sorry for young me. And angry. Why the fuck did no one step in and help? If I was that messed up, why did no one think to look into why? Why did they just punish and ostracize? Like that was going to do any good. Not one of them could punish more than I already did to myself. Hello, suicidal kid here! And ostracize? oh honey, been there, lived that all my life.
And why did they throw me at these icky pedophiles, turn a blind eye while they molested me and then shame me for feeling good that someone liked me? Why did no one see how sad and pathetic this was? But no, they just smiled their happy, normal "Christian" smiles and tsk-tsked scapegoat me. Bad 13 year old Marilisa, leading our precious 23 y/o babies astray (!) Which I see now is just more narcissistic fantasy. Pin all our sins and scarlet letters on the scapegoat girl and send her out of the village in shame so we can pretend we're actually functional good Christians and not screw-ups protecting their pervy sons.
And I see where it might sound paranoid when I say it was just me they did this to. But it really was. Because the other kids had (wait for it) PARENTS WHO GAVE A SHIT! They taught their kids how to navigate and take care of themselves. It wasn't that they were so much holier than me as I always thought. It was because they had enough pride in themselves not to let this happen. They were taught they were worth protecting. They were taught to expect appropriate treatment. And the creeps would never dare to take them on because they had back up and support, not four totally self--absorbed parents who left their daughter to the wolves. Actually, I'd rather have been raised by wolves. At least they care.
Interestingly, history would prove that most of the many churches I've attended, were not as Godly as they'd have liked to believe. Especially the ones with all the pedos. In all the groups I've been in, secular or religious, they had the highest rate of failed relationships, allegations of abuse, multiple marriages and broken kids. Which gives me no pleasure to say. Maybe if the adults had worried less about their Christian image and more about actually behaving like Christians, we could have gotten the help we needed.
So now I muddle through.
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