Hi friends! I wrote recently about how my path to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse has turned a corner. I've made the decision (drum roll, please) to go super low to no contact with those left of my family of origin. Which might sound overly grand but to me it is. It's been six decades in coming, so yes it's kind of a big deal. But what now? Where do I go from here with the healing? Well here's what going no contact means to me.
It sounds like the old what I did on my summer vacation essay, doesn't it 😁? which in a way it is only in reverse. What am I going to do with the rest of my life, now that the abusive family is out of it? And I'll tell you categorically, I don't know. Yet. I've lived so long with them messing with me, living in my head rent-free and nightmares every night, that this is new territory for me.
So going forward, what will it look like? Well, I suspect it will hurt some. It hurts to see people caring for their aging parents and knowing I'll never be able to do that again because it's been so exploited. But then being with them has always hurt a lot so, less will be better. I have to come to terms with the fact that because rules of family life didn't apply to me, rules of adult interaction won't either. That because normal expectations a kid can have for parents, didn't apply, their expectations on me (and my self-gaslit ones) don't either. Because they gave me no care and only exploited me, I owe them nothing. I think I never did. I certainly have put no expectations on my children.
However, abused and gaslit kids don't know that family relationships are transactional. In that there should be give and take. We didn't know we should expect reciprocity. That parental care isn't an option but a right of childhood. That basic needs aren't met conditionally and then not at all when devious parents future fake and change the conditions. That parents AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE devious and double dealing in the first place, but caring. That kids don't exist to please parents. I didn't know any of that and lived by opposite rules and so now I still have to. My "debt" to them, if there ever was one, was paid in full with interest decades ago. And I can feel free to close the door on that period of my life. I don't want to give help that hurts and I can't care anymore. I'm cared out. Done.
Yes, I realize that may sound cold. And it would if they hadn't shut the door on me first. I've felt guilt about all the ways I've supposedly let them down all my life. But it didn't happen. I never let them down. I met and exceeded their expectations, I have given way more that I should have. I catered to ungrateful, demanding spoiled brats. They got more than enough from me, gave nothing and took what was mine. I gave till it not only hurt but destroyed large parts of me. They exploited and misused me. So I have nothing else for them.
I can't do anything without hearing one of my four parents shaming voices in my head. Second-guessing, criticizing, undermining, attacking, bullying me. That's a hellish way to live. I feel afraid, stupid and foolish all the time. I don't even know right from wrong because everything I did was wrong. And I know that's not what God wants for me. I not only shouldn't and won't give it anymore, I flat out can't. I'm tapped out.
So now I'm going to try something different. I'm going to do what I want and need (whatever that is, I don't know yet). I'm going make decisions the way I see fit and if it doesn't work, oh well. If I fail, I'll take it up with God. I'm taking back my own power. I'm going to find the confidence to try things I've never tried, crazy or not.
I get to make mistakes and even do blatantly wrong things on purpose once in awhile. Goodness know they were done to me often enough. And hypocritically always told me to be perfect. That's an unsustainable double standard. And while two wrongs don't make a right, part of getting healthy means giving myself the power to do stupid or mean things, too. There will be consequences but at least they'll be ones I deserve instead of always suffering the awful consequences of someone else's awful behavior.
Healing means owning my own power to live my life as I choose. It means not being overly good and perfect to compensate for others' wretched choices. I'm basically a pretty kind person so I won't do anything too bad. Certainly not the earth-shattering deal my family made out of anything I did "wrong." Honestly, the way they blew things out of proportion and then minimized their own chaos is just laughable. If it wasn't so hurtful.
Healing means realizing that I don't have the power to make the world come screeching to a halt even if I wanted to. I don't run the show. I'll leave that delusion to the narcissists. I'm just lil 'ole me. I don't have to be the perfect one, the fixer, solver and smoother of feathers. I'm getting down off this damn pedestal of expected perfection. It's a tiny place to perch, no room to stand comfortably and fukkin easy to fall off from. I'm a perSON not a perFECT.
So there's going to be a lot more honesty and a lot less fawning around here. Fewer yes sirs and no ma'ams and more just no I won't. " If it turns out I go overboard on the boundaries, or get more demanding myself, so? I'll figure that out for myself. Or they can say no to me. I don't need anyone bossing me around and scolding me. And I probably won't do that because I never have.
And hear me now. If ANYONE ever screams at me, mocks or humiliates me, cusses me out or verbally abuses me again. Watch out. Because I will not tolerate it anymore. I may retaliate. I may go off half-cocked and burn a lot of bridges. I may just let them have it with all I have, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. There's a lot of long overdue back payments in me.
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