Why even flying monkeys are helpful in healing from narcissistic abuse

 Hi friends. Last post I said that I'd explain more about how even unhelpful people (flying monkeys) are helpful in healing from narcissistic abuse. So first, a caveat. They are not  helpful in the beginning when you're still just beginning to understand how someone has abused and manipulated you. Flying monkeys (the people who protect and support the abuser) just make the abuse so much worse, initially with their toxic positivity, gaslighting and toxic shaming of you, the victim. 

But as you get better at self-care, validating yourself, trusting your version, disallowing the narcissistic abuse and cutting ties with the narc, the flying monkeys become helpful. I don't mean that they try to be helpful. Oh no, they're still shielding the perpetrator and making you that bad guy. They still shame  and gaslight you. (It wasn't that bad. She didn't mean it. She hurting too. You should forgive her. You're too sensitive. You know their bullshit.)

And that's helpful in what way, you're wondering?? Let me use and example. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I shared with someone outside the family, who was a former acquaintance of my dad's that he wasn't the easiest person to live with. (which is putting it mildly. He subjected me to his violent anger, enslaved me to his lazy wife, made me raise their kids, shamed me constantly, hit me, didn't give two shits about anything that happened to me, scapegoated and blamed me, yet made me responsible for pretty much everything and abandoned me  several times.) I didn't go into all of that. 

So I wasn't expecting much to begin with because this person is judgey, preachy and has shamed me in the past. I just kind a test-drove my newfound transparency, for shits and giggles. Immediately she went into pooh-pooh mode. Not unexpected, either. When I mentioned one of the more outlandish, and completely indefensible things he'd done, she actually praised him. Completely missing the boat. 

So how did that help me? Well, it confirmed that trusting someone you already don't trust isn't a good idea. That's another part of the weird brain-washy stuff my parents did, which was to scold me for daring to protect myself and actually encouraging me to let hurtful keep hurting me. It also showed that I was making progress in healing. Because in the past I would taken her defense of my dad as a criticism and felt guilty. Now I just consider the source. 

And it taught me something else too. That maybe, I'm hearing criticism where none exists. For one thing, the thing my dad did, is something that under normal circumstances would be a good thing. It's just that my dad did it in a weird, bad way, for the wrong reasons and ended up hurting me. And she didn't approve when I added that part. But my old self would have just heard the initial support of it and shamed myself for faulting my dad. And this time, I was able to hear past that. 

And it further confirmed why I would  have felt ashamed in the first place. Because I had been shamed by self-centered "parents" all my life.  I was taught to believe that, as the narcissist's prayer goes, it's always my fault. I should accept "constructive criticism" humbly and not be "so sensitive." And also never "criticize" them. By which they meant don't even bring it up.  How dare you feel bad when we're making you feel bad? Which is all a bunch of narcissistic contradiction. 

And I learned that even if flying monkeys are faulting me for telling what someone did to hurt me, or for being hurt by it or "not forgiving" it, whatever shamey BS, I don't have to accept it. I don't have to take the shame on myself. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said, "no one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission." And why would I give obviously hurtful people permission to hurt me? 

Because I was taught to. Really. Not only did my parents not protect me from hurtful people, particularly their new spouses, they threw me at them. They made any basic care contingent on serving,  humoring, obeying, parenting, waiting on and letting them hurt me. They lied and said that God expected me to do this. And then took the new spouses part when they lied and said I did all these terrible things which actually the spouses had done themselves. And shamed me for failing to please them. They made me responsible for their new families while they went about doing one destructive thing after another, to me. There was literally no low that was low enough for me. The bar was in the basement. 

This sounds exaggerated, even to me. But that just shows how deceptive and manipulative they were. And tricky. They'd sprinkle in a little random happy experience, just to keep me baited. They made everything so conditional, including love, food, a bed, a home, that I was forever hoping through hoops. And then when I succeeded, they moved the hoops. And then withheld and took things away, just because.  And I never confronted it because it was all lied about and twisted to be my problem. And I certainly didn't need more to feel guilty about. 

I won't ever confront it to them. The ones who have passed went to their graves maintaining that I was their only problem. If they did have consciences they never shared this with me. Another one has been so violent in the past that I won't risk that. And the last one just makes up lies and pretends she can't remember. I think she's convinced herself she can't. 

And if it seems I've strayed from the point of the post, I have but let me just see if I can round it up. What I have learned most about flying monkeys is that by their very nature, they prove that all the bad things I remember happening, happened. Otherwise, why such staunch defense of indefensible behavior Methinks they do protest too much. And they too have been taken in. 

And really, if they can defend parentification, abuse, neglect, abandonment, gaslighting, scapegoating, exploitation, theft, lies, endangerment, manipulation, trauma, then I have no respect for them anyway. So what do I care what they think about me? They can do their worst, and good luck, cause I'm not taking this crap anymore. 

Amen. 

Why I talk about bad stuff from my childhood (and you should too)

 Hi guys. Today's itinerary in my quest to heal my wounded inner child, is to explain why I talk about so much bad stuff from my childhood. And the answer to that is both simple and incredibly complex. Simple answer: I'm talking a lot about the negative stuff now because I never did then (or anytime really, during the last 59 years). And the complicated answer is the same. I never looked at, admitted to, acknowledged or shared how much bad stuff was happening to me. I didn't ask for help because I didn't know I could, because I was gaslit into believing nothing was wrong and if it was, it was my fault and/or I was exaggerating, lying, too sensitive or showing off. Sound familiar? Yeah, that's the narcissist's creed.  

I should, I was taught, just mop up all the crap and keep it to myself. My poor brain is an over-saturated sponge, filthy with all the awful memories, with no room for much of anything else. It leaks out, as sponges do when they're too full, in the constant nightmares of CPTSD. Which are what finally started me really seeking help. Which led me to cease covering up, making excuses for and defending the perpetrators (my two parents and later their partners and children) and discontinue believing their gaslighting. Which led me to start being honest about what actually happened, what was done to me, what I  experienced and was not protected from, how I was exploited and parentified, how my basic needs were neglected and how I was harmed and manipulated. Which led me to admit that I had dealt with all this alone, without help, support or validation. 

And that led to talking and writing about it. Which is what I'm doing now. What you've been reading in the last months is 59 years untalked about stuff. Stories not told, abuse and neglect never reported, love and care not received, shaming, harsh punishment, being hit, kicked out of my bedroom so that my uncle and his girlfriend could have it. Of being made to care for foster care kids so my mom and her boyfriend could play house in the basement. Of being kicked out of the house, by my mom's lazy, chronically unemployed new husband while they lived off my child support. Of being abandoned by my dad then being left with strangers on a remote island by my mom. 

Of used as a servant, being sexually harassed and shamed for telling, of being mocked for my breast size and for sleepwalking, by my mom's boyfriend. Of being screamed at, called names, threatened with violence and finally harmed. Of being made to sleep with babies and little children and care for them as if I was their parent. Of doing without Of being made to do other people's work that they were too lazy to do for themselves. Of being so scapegoated that I began to believe I was the problem and not fit to live. Of being miserable but faking happiness so no one else would feel uncomfortable. 

And so much more. 

And so I'm starting to talk about it. It doesn't fix anything that happened but it at least helps clear my head of some of the lies and brainwashing. But only with trusted people who are few and far between. But even the unhelpful ones, the toxically positive, the minimizers and gaslighters help. I'll blog more about  how in a future post. When one of my inner circle expresses shock I realized my story is shocking. When they show disgust and anger at my family for treating me this way, I learn that it's okay for me to feel disgust and anger too. When they label these things as wrong, it shows me they are. When I hear from them, that they've never heard anything like my experiences, let alone experienced them, it validates just how bad things were. 

Why do I need others to do this for me? Because I'm brain damaged and don't know how to think, let alone feel about my experiences because I was not allowed to. I need healthy examples because I didn't have any. I need, if not permission, at least reminders that I can and should be honest about what happened. And yes, maybe for a time, even permission. Because for all these years, I've never had that. I was scolded and shamed for even asking or mentioning things that happened. And they shut me down so much through my childhood and teen years that they got very good at it. They got so used to ordering me around and shutting me down that they just kept doing it for the rest of my life. Till I decided enough is enough. 

Two tips that help my CPTSD brain know right from narcissistic gaslighting

 Hi friends. You know how I said yesterday that when I have some good news from my CPTSD recovery front, I'll share it? Well, I  just thought of something. Two things, actually, that help my parental abuse-damaged brain know right from narcissistic gaslighting. Backstory, if you're just tuning in. About a year ago, at 59, I began down the path to heal from parental abuse--sexual, emotional, spiritual, physical and medical--(from four parents, two bio, two step), neglect, endangerment, parentification, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, family scapegoating, toxic shaming and a lifetime of gaslighting about it all. 

It took me nearly six decades to start to really look at what had happened. Not just what I was told had happened (gaslighting) by four very narcissistic, histrionic, anti-social (most all the Category B) personality disordered parental figures. I learned basically that right was wrong if  I was doing it and that wrong was right for them. I understood young that they were gods and I was to be categorically obedient to them, even if as so often happened, they contradicted the real God. Whom they ironically proclaimed to serve. 

Well, when I say served, that's a stretch. It was more that they believe themselves to be the mouthpiece of God, to tell others what to do, but are themselves above it all. Rules they shove down others' throats, don't apply to them. All four of them, each with his or her own spin. And I as the only child of my biological parents, was caught in the crosshairs of their mess. I've share some of the nightmares that this colossal arrogance created. 

I was made to parent their kids because apparently this was God's will for me. I was made to do the majority of the work in the family, including dancing attendance on their two pathologically lazy, manipulative new spouses. I didn't have things like a bed, bedroom, proper food or medical care or even a home. I lived with people. I know now this couch surfing is hidden homelessness. 

So I am now a messed up, confused adult, brain damaged by decades of gaslighting and abuse. I don't know where others end and I begin. I'm like an emotional leper with no protective layer to keep me safe. I was taught that self-care was selfish. Even though they all had whatever they wanted. I have been terrified into not listening to myself and letting others push me around. Right and wrong have been so trashed by my family that I struggle to sort it out. I know what's right but old gaslighting has damaged my confidence to assert it. 

But when it comes to my now family, that's another story. I have been everyone's lackey but I'll be damned if mine will. I wanted a different life for them and to the best of my ability, gave it. But I still screwed up soooo much it makes me sick. I did things, like spanking, which I didn't feel right about but because someone said I should, I did. I got in terrible rows with my husband when the shit in my head got the better of me. Would I have been a perfect person without all this trauma? No. But I would have been stronger and happier which would have helped. 

But back to the point of this post. Two tricks that help my CPTSD brain know right from wrong. Or should I say have the confidence to acknowledge right and wrong. Especially wrong. Said simply, I've started considering the source. As Jesus says, "a tree is known by it's fruit." And later, St. Paul, "faith without works is dead." And the old song "they'll know we are Christians by our love." It's not what we  we say but what we do and how we live. Without love, our words are just a lot of hypocritical noise. 

I've been reading these scriptures since I was a child. But my life with people who called themselves my "family" was soooo very different. In my childhood, it was their words, not deeds that ruled. And my deeds, or misdeeds were harshly punished. Very unlike the merciful God whose forgiveness they claimed for themselves. The God I was raised on was inconsistent,  played favorites and gave my parents jurisdiction to make up rules for me as they went along, but were not expected to model or follow them. 

But, you might say, "that was your childhood. You're an adult now.  You should just know better." If you are someone who thinks like this, please, move on. I don't need more gaslighting and shaming. I'd like nothing more than a tabula rosa, in which none of these toxic messages were ever implanted in my brain. I'd love to be that confident woman who knows God and others love her. I'd have given anything not to be the lonely little orphan looking in the window at others' loving families. I'd have given much to have been loved, supported, encouraged, wanted. Most of all, I'd have liked to know that God's love was for me too. 

But it wasn't to be. And what we learn in our youth is what we follow as adult. You can't just magically change how you think and do things, especially if doing that brought such drastic punishment. What I have to do now is to rethink, unlearn, reprogram, fumigate the gas and basically start over. I liken my task to being dropped down on an alien planet, having lost use of faculties and having to learn how to do it not just again, but differently. 

Okay, so I can see this is meandering and if you're still with me, hang in there (thank you). What is helping me to do this big reset is re-reading the scriptures and comparing that to lives of the people who have shamed and gaslit me over the years.  And what I see is uncomfortable. I see very flawed people who made one bad decision after another. Who not only didn't prioritize me, they neglected, abandoned, endangered and exploited me. I can't  recall very many times I felt safe or happy except with grandparents. I do remember being nervous, worried, stressed, having constant bad dreams, being in physical and emotional pain all the time. Of feeling bad, out of place, in the way, foolish, stupid and yet, somehow, responsible for everyone. 

That shit didn't come from nowhere. This isn't some teen angst or period cramp. This was my life, from as far back as I can remember. And it went on being my life with them till I halted it. But it's  not just that. If it was just me, and they were all, other than that, functional caring people, that would be different. But that would never be the case. Because functional healthy people do not exclude, vilify and exploit one family member. Only very dysfunctional people do that. 

And so I'm back to considering the source, or in this case their collective track record. Which is not pretty. All four sponged off other people, me. the government, aid to American indigenous, strangers, family for most of their lives.  They scammed and conned and their only friends were fellow scammers. They have lost foster cares homes, been found guilty of neglect and abuse, filed bankruptcy multiple times, lied stolen, cheated and manipulated situations and people. One tried to claim social security on a deceased husband she divorced 55 years previously. Another two used my child support to fund their new family. Two were prescription drug dependent, (morphine and Vicodin) for decades. One going so far as to write fake prescriptions and sell the Vicodin. They illegally grew, sold and used pot. Yet these chronically unemployed, drug addicted benefits scammers still fault the democrats for stealing from them!  

If trees are known by their fruit, then I fear for these trees. They've made a mockery of God and wantonly broken so many commandments. And worst of all, have expressed no remorse or contrition. But it also makes me stop and think, why am I giving these people free rent in my head? I've only to look at the track record to see that these are not folks whose words I' have much respect for. I don't hate them and in a very arm's length way, love them. But as mentors, no. 

I need to find a way to shut out these false teachings and find my way back to the garden. And although I learned otherwise, I think God will want me back. Because if I read scripture correctly, and not through the gaslit haze, He never left. 

How CPTSD brain damage affects me every moment of every day

 Hello friends. I've been working a lot in the past few months to understand just why I struggle so much with anxiety, fear, toxic shame and nightmares. I've been looking at my experiences as a child and teen and realized that they were not as I'd gaslit myself into believing. I'm starting to be honest about the parental neglect, abuse, endangerment, abandonment, manipulation, exploitation, family scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. This was bad enough when it was just my two parents but when they divorced and remarried, it escalated to all-out narcissistic abuse from all four of them. 

I was brainwashed into thinking that this was all normal, but looking back and talking to others my age, the things I experienced were incredibly abnormal. But the brain damage  that gaslighting caused makes me unable to see or admit that it was. I need a lot of affirmation that what I experienced should not have happened. Feel free to chime in on that in the comments. It's very helpful. 

I find myself constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting blame, criticism and punishment. I'm forever second-guessing myself, hoping I suppose, that one day I'll get it right and parents will finally be pleased. Or at least just okay. I don't just have trouble listening to my own insider wisdom, I'm terrified to. I've been frightened into believing that anything I think couldn't possibly be God's spirit and must be my own selfishness. I was taught this...to listen to others with louder more confident voices, even if they were obviously confidently wrong. Unquestioning acceptance, even of unacceptable things that no one else experienced. Blind obedience even though they were all behaving very disobediently to their own creed. To God. 

Not only can I  not make decisions, I believe I shouldn't because I'll just screw it up. Parenting kids was made so much  more difficult because anytime someone criticized me, I automatically believed that they were right and I was wrong. Consequently I did a lot of things I didn't think were right because someone said they were. No matter how wacky, inconsistent, arrogant, antagonistic, combative or hypocritical the person was. None of these voices, I discovered, had me or my children's best interests at heart. They just wanted to make themselves sound good. 

Not that I knew or  know everything. I don't know very much. But what I find is that most people are in about the same boat. And it would have been nice to bounce ideas off someone who really cared. It would have been helpful to have been able to trust someone not to weaponize my own confidences against me. Like the time I, in desperation, checked myself into Pine Rest mental health center, under my mom's encouragement. Only to find that when I was gone, she said a lot of nasty things to poison my kids against me and try to take custody of them. 

This from the person who left me behind  when I was six, in Alaska, to go to Seattle. Who, along with her boyfriend,  got her foster care home shut down due to abuse. Who kicked me out when I was 16 when I had done nothing wrong and actually helped support the family, to humor her husband. Who stood by while boyfriend humiliated and sexually abused me. And who was a big reason behind me feeling suicidal and checking in to Pine Rest in the first place. I shocked the psychiatrist who saw me, sharing just a few of my experiences. He said, "girl you have way too high a pain tolerance."

So yeah, I second guess. I expect back-stabbing, shame and scapegoating. Trusting anyone does not feel safe. Does that make me paranoid? It sure as hell makes me cautious. I know I should end this with some sort of reassurance that "it gets better, I'm over it, yada yada." Wish that were true and  maybe someday it will be. For now, I'm just in the XI preface stage of the book. 

Thanks for reading and hanging in there. Love you guys and when I have good news  to share, you'll be the first to know. 

How concepts of family, stepparents and half-siblings are weaponized by malignant narcissistic parents

 Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal from malignant narcissistic parental abuse, family scapegoating,  CPTSD and the emotional mess my life is, I'm looking at how words like family, stepparents and half-siblings are twisted by malignant narcissist parents. These concepts are weaponized to excuse abuse (physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual), neglect, parentification, manipulation, exploitation, abandonment and scapegoating of children. And then further distorted to gaslight the kid about what's going on. And sadly, they're just some of the things such parents ruin. 

The general definition of family is a group of people who love, care about, nurture and support each other. It doesn't always go smoothly, for sure. But family should not be a dangerous place. And it should not be manipulated by some family members to exploit another. And worst of all, it shouldn't be trashed and  reinvented by parents, then hung as a burden around a kid's neck. 

What do I mean? Well, when I was a kid, divorce among my peers was very uncommon. My same age husband doesn't  know of anyone in his life with divorced parents. In my extended family it was unheard of. So my mom divorcing my dad put me in an awkward place to begin with. Weirder because it was after moving us to Alaska and running around on him while he went for months without seeing us, on some imaginary mission trip. That's the trashing of the family I spoke of. Although actually we weren't much of one anyway. We did next to nothing, including eating meals, together. I spent the majority of time alone (from age 3-4) or with other people. I can't remember anything about the many places we lived. And this wasn't due to work. It was down to them being uninterested, having other priorities and seeing me as a hinderance. 

The reinventing, and super gaslighting part, came when my single parents began dating others, immediately. My mom and probably my dad too, didn't even wait till the ink dried. I was shoved into one weird situation after another through their various hookups. This was very uncommon in the early 1970s and I got blacklisted because of it. Parents didn't want their kids hanging with kid with no dad and a mom with a different boyfriend every week. At least one was married. His wife came to our house one morning looking for him and knocked my mom down the stairs. 

I was told to go to school and say nothing. So I did. And if that wasn't disturbing enough, on the rare times my dad was around, he, at 34, took me to see his 17-year-old girlfriend. I was 9. She still had dolls on her bed and we played with them. I never talked to anyone about any of this because how could I? It would have made no sense in their world. As you might imagine, I got really good at hearing, seeing and feeling nothing. There's tons of pain, fear, hurt, grief, anger, frustration and shame in this lil ole heart of mine. And none of this has ever been confronted. 

But the worst part of all is when they marry again and their new spouses hit the ground running ordering you around, demanding all kinds of scary and unsafe things of you. And your actual parent doesn't do a damn thing to stop them. In fact, mine encouraged them to exploit, manipulate, overwork, scapegoat, shame, mock, humiliate and use me like a personal servant. 

And they have the gall to call them your parent?? Eff that noise! All this business about marriage being "one man and one woman." What about parenting being one dad and one mom?? A kid has two parents, and they, in my case were more than enough heartbreak and work. The last thing I needed was two more immature, needy, demanding, selfish, lazy, entitled, bossy control freaks in my life. 

Mom's bf was a never employed, sexually, physically and emotionally abusive, vicious deadbeat. He told me sick dirty jokes and mocked my breast size (I was 11). My mother just smiled approvingly.  Never once, after she hooked up with him did she ever take my part or stand up for me to him. She let him do whatever he wanted and he did. Hell, I now see she was egging him on all along. She had me kowtowing to him when they were just living together. And then she decided to open a foster home. And shit got really bad. 

Shacked up was the term then. And boy if that didn't make me even more of an oddball pariah. No kid in my entire school or neighborhood (or any other I knew of) had a single mom with a live-in. Most kids didn't think I had a dad, that's how unavailable he was. And that wasn't because he was working. He just wasn't interested. He thought he was cool running around doing his thing like a frat boy. (It took my husband  to point out that none of my parents have been very good at holding down jobs.) I've just learned at 59 that this is called child abandonment and constitutes abuse. 

But boy did he want me back in his life when he got married. She was as sloppy and lazy as a hound dog. And had zero maternal instincts. Well, my narcissist dad wasn't about to babysit another woman and he certainly wasn't going to raise their kids alone. When I was 12, he decided to dip back into my life. He'd seen how much the other two had gotten out of me and wanted his share. No fair them getting all the unpaid childcare and housework! I owed him! So I was brought in as domestic help/nanny/housekeeper and handmaiden to her majesty. Also scapegoat when anything went wrong. 

And they kept up shit-facade by manipulating words like family, parents and siblings. I was gaslit into thinking that I was actually a member of the family. More fool me. Their new spouses and kids were my parents, brothers and sisters, only when it was convenient for them. I was there to sleep in the same room as the kids, so they didn't wake their parents. I've been made to take care of "my siblings" like I was their parent. To do the heavy, grunt work everyone else was too lazy to do. (bad backs, yanno?) I'm still suffering from the damage to my back, shoulders and hips from this. Or to be the brunt of their anger or jokes. Their kids were taught to exploit me too, big surprise. 

I've been stolen from, cheated, exploited, deprived of a bedroom or even a bed and kicked out of the house (at 16) for the privilege of all this. My toys were taken and sold. Nothing exists from my childhood except what grandparents saved. I've been made to sleep on unheated porches, taken advantage of, left out and kicked to the curb by all of them. I've worked since I was 14, buying  my own shoes since I was 13. My own feminine hygiene products since 15. 

So you'll pardon me for not calling them stepparents and half-siblings anymore. Having family was just a nightmare, literally.  I'm focusing on me and mine from now on. They're my family. 

 

Why I have so many nightmares and bad memories and so few good ones

Hi friends. So by now you might be wondering, um where did the posts about how I lost 100 pounds go and why am I sharing so much negative stuff about my CPTSD, family scapegoating, gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, etc? Well, the answer to that is simple and yet profoundly complicated. The simple answer is because I never could or did. In real time, while the parental abuse was happening, I didn't even know what it was. It's only been recently that I've starting to understand it. 

What got me started down the path was a need to get some peace from a lifetime of bad dreams. And when I say lifetime, I mean the nightmares go waaay back. I can't remember when I didn't have them. And when I say bad, I mean reeeeallllly terrifying, disgusting, horrible dreams. And I can remember them all in shocking clarity. 

I also began to explore why I have so few good memories. I listened to a talk by one of my favorite therapists, Patrick Teahan. He discussed why many people, who experienced childhood trauma can't recall bad memories. I have the opposite problem. Bad memories are pretty much all I have. It's the good ones I can't seem to come up with. 

Oh I thought I had a lot of positive childhood memories, because I was gaslit into believing that the abuse that was happening wasn't wrong. And I was told I was lucky, spoiled, lying about things, too critical, negative, yada yada. And if I had bad experiences, they were my own fault and I brought them on  myself.  A lot of bullshit to smokescreen what was really going on which was ongoing, neglect, endangerment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification. scapegoating, physical, mental and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, shaming and abandonment. By not one parent but all four authority figures, two bio parents and their live-ins and later spouses. 

But when I look back, I see that what I perceived as "happy" times were really just less bad times. or working holidays. Or good times for my family at my expense. Like the one family vacation my dad took me on but only just so I could babysit his and his new wife's kids. When I tell my husband my version of fun memories, he says those are just things most kids took for granted. 

That's because I was told I was so lucky to have things like a bedroom. I didn't. I was allowed to sleep in the baby's room, at both my mom's and my dad's homes. Which of course meant getting up with them when they cried or needed anything. So this explains, in part, why I have so many dreams and can't sleep for more than an hour at a time without drinking a lot of wine. I'm geared to being constantly on-call. I'm in perpetual REM sleep and rarely delta. My sleep studies have proved this. Where most people spend about 40% of their sleep in deep delta, I'm in it for maybe 5 minutes a night. 

I walk and talk in my sleep. I often wake crying or screaming. My mom's live-in boyfriend used to make fun of me when I'd wander down from the bedroom I shared with four foster kids (so my uncle and his girlfriend could shack up in what was my bedroom). He and my mom slept in the basement in a cozy little room as far from the kids as she could get. My dad's second wife ( I don't call her stepmom anymore) put a lot of distance between herself and her babies too. No prizes for guessing who had to sleep with (comfort, get up with, worry about) them? 

So it also explains why I'm so difficult to sleep with or near. And why I was not popular at sleepovers or summer camp. I scared a lot of kids with my nightmares and trauma responses. But not my parents. They didn't give a shit that I was going crazy to the point of suicidal with it all. Hell, they were the ones driving me crazy. 

And d'ya see how I call them my parents' homes? That's because I have never, till I got married, thought of homes as mine. I still have trouble remembering that this is actually my home. I live with other people in their homes and boy howdy, did they rub that in my face. Even when my mom moved her layabout, unemployed boyfriend into our home. It was his, not mine, or so I was told. And when he deemed me unfit to live in "his house" I was kicked out. Literally. I had to go and live with an elderly lady in town. And my  mom let him. Even though they were using my child support freely as their own. And I was (wait for it) sleeping with and getting up with their kids. They really shot themselves in the collective foot that time. Now who was going to care for their kids? 

I learned on Reddit that this type of life has a name and it is hidden homelessness. When a kid couch surfs between parents' homes. And it's hidden because no one acknowledges it. My parents would say I had two homes. In reality, I didn't have any. I had a place of employment at which I slept, badly. 

And I don't have good memories because I don't  have any. At least none with my parents and their new partners. The good ones are with my grandparents. And even there, I've blocked out a lot. Seriously. My cousin tells me that we had fun a family get-togethers when I went with my grandparents. I don't even recall meeting him. Which is really a shame because I could use more happy memories. 

I'm not sure whether I had happier times and can't recall or if there just weren't that many. I know that my response to trauma was freeze and fawn. I just kind of tried to ignore the crazy and placate the crazies. I couldn't take flight or fight it out. That wasn't safe. So I think that what happened is that good memories were iced out with the bad. That in trying to just survive with all the shit that I was living with, I had to just go numb. And in constantly pleasing people and humoring them, while ignoring my own pain, I damaged myself, my ability to think clearly, feel honestly, sleep peacefully and care for myself. 

But where I might have been able to drown out the fear, shame, misery and pain during the day, I couldn't at night. And I think my dreams having been waving red flags and screaming at me to wake up. To quit believing the gaslighting and protecting my persecutors. To start naming the abuse and calling out the abusers. To start dealing honestly with all this suffering because it's killing me. 

My bad brain-damaging experiences with church youth groups and summer camps

Hi friends. Part of healing from parental narcissistic abuse and CPTSD means looking at my various experiences with it, and why and how it occurred. Two side sources for me, beyond but also stemming from what was happening with my four parents, were church youth groups and Christian summer camps. Both of these situations can be (and often are) breeding grounds for child abuse. 

As I write this, I'm hearing voices of former friends, clergy and youth leaders, scolding. "How dare you, Marilisa?! Christian youth groups and summer camps are wonderful experiences for kids and youth leaders are spirit filled people preaching the word of God!!" That's what I was force-fed to believe too. And toxic shame and Christian gaslighting kept me quiet all these years about what really happened. What I see as an adult who has worked in the helping professions, is that summer camps and youth groups are a pedophile's playground and bloody dangerous for kids. This is my story and about damn time I told it. 

To begin with, let's look at the structure of youth groups and summer camps. Generally, they are led by a volunteer (or very low paid) staff of teens and young adults not that much older than the kids they are "ministering" to. And then there are the hangers-on, older teens and young adults who've graduated but just can't seem to make the break from youth. They are just old enough to make the age difference weird. 

Many are incredibly immature themselves, obviously. Most of the ones I knew (ages 19 to 22 or so) (when I was young, but also when my kids were young) didn't have real jobs or at least anything demanding. They weren't in college. They had no social life outside youth group or camp. They didn't fill any function within the group and were in fact more liability than asset. They were allowed to just hang out with kids, welcome to participate in sleepovers and group outings. Most were known to be psychologically disturbed, unstable and even violent. They'd had run-ins with the law. But no one saw anything wrong with this AND THEY WEREN'T MONITORED. 

In a school, they wouldn't not be allowed on the premises without a good reason. I don't like it either, that youth leaders are allowed into public schools to meet with kids. At summer camp where the child is there for a week or more, being around all this, it's just an accident looking for a place to happen. Now you might argue that the leaders were going into youth ministry as a career. Camp is like their student teaching. Ehh, no. Been a student teacher. We were monitored by a supervising teacher and the entire school staff. Camps are just open, poorly structured free-for-alls that allowed adults 24-7 access to children. 

And that doesn't even start to cover the fully-fledged adult ministers, camp directors, and leaders involved. Christian camps and youth groups have a bad habit of deifying these people. Most of the ones I knew didn't do anything except walk around in Jesus sandals and big beards, collecting admirers. I can still hear my personal creeper, Pastor Will (not even sure if he was ordained) singing in his big baritone voice, "There is a balm in Gilead" and all the campers wetting themselves like star-struck groupies. It's nauseating how he got off on that adulation. When I told my older son about my experiences, he said "Mom, you're describing a cult." 

Couldn't have said it better. Trouble is, I didn't understand it at the time. His attention felt icky-groom-y. All the weirdos that latched on to me, made me uncomfortable. At the time, I guess I sort of liked the attention because I didn't get it at home. But no, that's not it. I was TOLD that I liked attention. But what it really was, was my damn empath in charge. I felt sorry for them. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Not even when they tried to paw and kiss me. Blech. And I got in trouble for "making out" on the bus!! 13 year-old me was made to sit in the little exit well of the bus (that's not even legal) while the effing 19-year-old remained in the seat.  

So how about the "youth leaders" actually acting like leaders and putting that perv off the damn bus! And maybe instead of shaming me, they could, I don't know, find out if I was okay??? That's what I'd have done as an adult. But then, I'd not have let a 19-year-old near a 13-year-old. And he wasn't the only one. But no, they just turned a blind eye to all the sick stuff these guys were doing, letting me be the damn sacrificial goat. Probably glad someone else was dealing with them. 

And don't get me started on the shit that can occur at a campfire under cover of darkness. Did it really take "Friday the 13th" to teach us that? It gives "ministry" a whole new meaning. But it's all just  ignored. Hell, even I ignored it. "Boys will be boys" shit. Feeling you up means they like you. Small problem, though. These "boys" were grown-ass adults leching on a vulnerable kid being held hostage by her own sense of compassion and fucking useless "leaders" ignoring it. Pass the marshmallows and lets' all sing another verse of Kumbyah.

And why was I such a target anyway? It wasn't for my incredible good looks. I was just a frizzy-haired, bespectacled teen. In fact, if I had been very hot, they'd have left me alone. Out of their league. Because Christian youth groups are no different than any other. They put wayyyy too much stock in looks and affluence. So was family money or lack thereof the issue?

True I wasn't the richest kid there. Actually the stalkers all came from very wealthy families whom I now believe shunted their adult kids onto church groups to distance from the embarrassment. I laugh now to think of families donating a pew with the proviso that Camp Happy Christian take Randy and Preston and Jim and John and Chuck and other Jim, off their hands. The other wealthier kids (and you'd be surprised at how many really wealthy kids there were) wanted nothing to do with the creeps. So they hung out on the fringe, let to other nobodys like me to deal with. Like goes with like, I guess. 

And who's gonna believe the poor nobody if she were to report them, if she even got up the nerve to? The leaders who were turning a blind eye in the first place? Not bloody likely. The irony was and still is  that the victim of molesting is made to feel like the problem. Look how I was slut-ified and segregated from the precious baby boys on the bus? Not going to risk THAT happening again, ta very  much.  And I know broken record. But regardless of how often you may have heard it, the person experiencing feels like the only one. 

I may have looked "easy" but only because I was trying too hard to be too nice to these guys. Why the devil did no one see that? Why were they so quick to believe and treat me as if I was trash? Cuz now I look back, I was modest, moral and quite innocent. Naive, actually. Which made me an easy target. None of  my four parent knew, let alone cared, where I was or what was happening to me. Unless I was late to do one of my many chores or babysit their kids. And all four had subjected me to super nasty, disturbing sexual exploitation before and pretended that it never happened and if it did, I brought it on myself. So they had me conditioned to feel like the dirty one. 

I never wanted any of this. All I wanted was to be a kid with normal kid experiences. But it was in my parents' self-interests to keep me ashamed and cowed. So needless to say, I never told anyone any of the things that happened. I only just started revisiting the experiences a few years ago. Too ashamed that I'd be faulted and resigned to the fact that nobody gave a shit. Too afraid to find, as so often happened in my nightmares that I was a disgusting, deviated, morally depraved person not fit to live. 

And that's what marked me. Pedos can smell shamed, neglected, abused, gaslit, uncared-about kids like a BBQ. They have an unerring sense about who they can molest, terrify, gaslight and mentally eff up, unchecked. And the narcissistic megalomanic "preachers" are the dead worst.  A 21 year old acting creepy is bad enough. A 45-year-old pastor with a wife and teens of his own, is a menace. It's even worse than pedo priests, which don't get me wrong are sick enough. The minister has family who will suffer and whom empaths like me work like hell to protect. 

If I didn't dare to report a 21-year-old, I wouldn't dream of reporting Pastor Will. Who am I going to tell, his wife? His kids? His many followers who believed he walked on water and raised the dead? Nope. I would and did assume the problem was me. I somehow came on to him, led him astray, etc. I didn't even acknowledge to myself just how really gross he made me feel. And how he made me a pariah among the other camp counselors. (That's the isolation and grooming part of pedophilia).

But that's a story for another post. I'm too drained to write more.