A letter of frustration

Dear Self,

I don’t like to yell at you, but apparently you’re very, very (very, very) dense just lately. Maybe the increased volume will get through.

STOP DREAMING! LEARN TO LISTEN TO WHAT I TELL YOU!

I don’t know when you’re going to learn to use the sense the gods gave you and stop putting yourself in situations like the one today.

Now: since when have your parents ever really heard anything you say, without trying to twist it? When have they not thought that your feelings were some kind of condemnation of them and all they stand for? When have they not developed selective amnesia about things you bring up to them (including circumstances, exact placement of the players, and exact words)? When have they not acted like they can’t understand the simplest concepts when you try to tell them how you feel?

Answer: Never.

I’m holding on by my fingernails here. I don’t want to leave you, but you’re making it very hard, girl.

How much longer will you allow yourself and your feelings to be invalidated? Turn off the masochistic vibe, girlfriend; it’s not cute.

Learn from your mistakes. Learn how much to say and who to say it to. Really–learn this lesson, and learn it NOW, or I will pack up and leave. You really don’t want that to happen.

You make me want to tear your hair out, but I love you. You have a good head, plenty of sense, and enough ambition.

Yours very sincerely,

Your Sanity

A list of truths

I have no idea why I’m writing this down. Maybe seeing it in black and white will help.

1. I was emotionally abused for years. Maybe it’s still happening.

2. This is not my fault. None of it is my fault.

3. I am a resource to my parents, a thing to be used and then tossed when no longer useful.

4. They will never see me. I need to accept that and stop living in denial world about it.

5. I am a good person, no matter what they may have said.

6. I have lots to offer.

7. It’s okay to want good things for myself.

 

Things my Mother told me that maybe she was right about

I’ve been thinking about pleasure. Is it wrong to want it, or to feel it?

My mother told me some very uncomplimentary things when I was a little girl, and no matter how she’s tried to make up for them–then or now–I still hear her words echoing in my head.

“No one will ever love you unless you change yourself completely.”

“It’s a good thing you’re smart; at least you’ll have something to offer somebody–if anybody ever decides to take you. “

“Men want girls who are happy and smiling; they don’t want girls who won’t pay attention to them and leave them to their own devices.”

“The only way anybody would even want to put up with you is if you were paying for them somehow. Nobody will ever bother with you otherwise.”

“You’re going to die old and alone, and good thing too; you’re too twisted to treat anybody decently.”

And this, whenever I was doing something that made me feel good: “Why are you doing that? Only weird people like things like that. Do you want people to call you weird? What did I do to land you as my child?”

I still wonder if she was right about it. She’s my mother, right? She says she knows me better than I know myself.

So I wonder, when I take pleasure in something, if somehow I don’t deserve it, or if I’m wrong for feeling it. My mother always implied that I was somehow made wrong for feeling the way I felt  and doing what I did and thinking the things I do; maybe she was right that I shouldn’t expect to feel good about anything. Maybe she was.

 

I hope this post makes sense; it made sense in my head, but it sort of poured out disjointed.

Betwixt and Between

Two! Two! Two posts in one (night)! My brain isn’t ready for sleep just yet, so I might as well unload this here instead of allowing it to whirl in my head and keep me awake.

I’m wondering if there is a word to describe a person who is between the “victim” stage of abuse and the “survivor” stage.

Yes, I guess you could say that I’m still technically a victim, as the abuse is still happening and I’m too lazy or stupid or something to find the way out. I’m still not comfortable with the word “abuse”, though; the word “victim” makes me cringe.

Can you even call yourself a victim when some part of your situation is your own fault? My family is the entity that it is because I didn’t stop it. The family treats me as it does because I didn’t stop it.  People tell me that I shouldn’t blame myself for it, but I do. I’ve got eyes; I’ve got instincts. I should have seen what I was allowing to happen and found a way to stop it. But I didn’t, and now I dare call myself a victim. That’s foolishness.

I don’t quite fit the title “survivor” either, since I’m not out of the situation, and I haven’t reached a place where I can speak comfortably about what happened. Maybe I’m still in denial about it all, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’ve survived anything. In fact, I feel like life is giving me a major beat-down and I’m curled in fetal position on the ground trying to keep from being hurt even more. I haven’t fought life for anything.

And again, can you rightfully say you survived a situation you helped to create? You survive things like tornadoes and other natural disasters. You survive carjackings and other criminal acts. You survive acts of cruelty. But something that you created? No, you don’t survive such a thing.

 

Where does Self-Worth Come From?

Where does a good feeling of self-worth come from? Do parents instill it, or does it come from somewhere inside you?

I asked my mother once and she could only garble something that amounted to “either you’ve got it or you don’t.”

You can teach yourself a lot of things; can you teach yourself self-worth? And if you can, how do you start?

My parents are very self-assured people. Two of their three kids have inherited this. One good thing I can say about my siblings is that both of them know who they are and know their worth.

So where does that come from? Does it come from things you do, or is it intrinsic to the person you are? Is it something you can discover along the way?

I ask myself what I’m worth, and I can’t find an answer. Maybe there isn’t an answer and I’m the one person on earth who isn’t worth anything. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

 

A Ramble about my Mother

I have been noticing something from my mother in the last few months. She is trying really hard to sell me on the idea that she really appreciates me.

Maybe she does at that, but I can’t really believe it. She says she does, and again, maybe she really does. I feel like it’s too little too late.

So the question I’m trying to find the answer to is: why now? Why now, after all these years?

She’s never understood me; she freely admits this. I think she has never really tried, as I don’t think I’m that much of a puzzle. I wish there was guilt driving this sudden push (though I do get something from her that isn’t quite guilt. Chagrin, maybe? I don’t know).  If it were guilt, I could at least understand it better.

She says very cutting, hurtful things to me, saying that hearing these things is “for my own good” and that “I need to hear” them. It would be fine if that was all there was to it, but when she says these things, it’s like she’s slicing me to ribbons. There’s nothing wrong with tough love or dealing out hard truths, but don’t accompany the hard words with malice.

When I have to hand out harsh truths, I try to do it without malice, as there’s no point in trying to hurt someone you want to help.

Maybe she’s not doing it intentionally, and I’m allowing myself to be blinded by my own hurt feelings. Is it childish to even feel this way?

Looking Back

Today I feel yucky. I feel like I have a low grade flu, or like I’m just coming off of a long illness. Nothing really bad; just general malaise. I know what this is, though, and it will pass in a few days.

My emotions also feel teeter-y. I spent some time with my nieces and nephew today and it helped some. They are all 5 years old and under, and they had fun asking me all sorts of questions.

I’m thinking about when I was growing up. People tell me that what happened to me wasn’t my fault, but when I look at it, all I can see is what I didn’t do, what I didn’t say.

I was never really strong. My mother was always telling me that she could read me like a book. I never developed the knack of hiding how I was feeling, and so anybody who sees my face knows exactly what I think. I don’t mind being open, but I don’t like being made fun of because of it.

I keep thinking that if I were a different person, none of this would have happened. If I had tried harder to be my mother’s idea of a good daughter, even if I had been able to stand my ground and say no or stop,  none of this would have happened, and I wouldn’t have to feel like my parents wish I had never been born.

 

On the Brain

I guess I’m on a “this is the reality of abuse–get it through your thick skull!” crusade, because I’m making yet another post about it.

I found this on http://www.lilaclane.com, in the section on emotional abuse:

THE PROCESS OF BRAINWASHING
(MIND CONTROL)

1. The brainwasher keeps the victim unaware of what is going on and what changes are taking place.

Your partner might control your finances, make plans for you, or not tell you what his plans are until the last minute.  He may talk about you to others behind your back, to isolate you from them.

2. The brainwasher controls the victim’s time and physical environment, and works to suppress much of the victim’s old behavior.  The victim is slowly, or abruptly, isolated from all supportive persons except the brainwasher.

Your partner might have insisted that you stop certain social, hobby, or work activities.  You might have gotten moved to a new location, farther away from your family and friends.  Or you may have been asked (or told) to reduce or stop contact with specific supportive people in your life.

3. The brainwasher creates in the victim a sense of powerlessness, fear, and dependency.

Verbal and emotional abuse creates these emotions, and they become stronger and stronger over time.

4. The brainwasher works to instill new behavior and attitudes in the victim.

Your partner trains to you behave in ways that he wants you to behave.  He gradually makes you feel differently about yourself, and erodes your confidence in yourself.

5. The brainwasher puts forth a closed system of logic, and allows no real input or criticism.

In other words — What he says, goes.

The site is mainly talking about emotional abuse in romantic relationships, but this is exactly what it’s like to live in my house.

And I found “Lie Abusers tell their Victims” on http://www.hhhh.org . A lot of them are ones I’ve heard all my life.

A few examples:

You’re too sensitive. I’m sick of you being so hypersensitive all the time!

Why are you so negative?

For a smart person, you sure do some dumb things.

You shouldn’t feel that way. You shouldn’t think that way.

I can’t believe how selfish you are.

You’re self-centered, lazy, and irresponsible.

You shouldn’t let it bother you.

That’s just the way your [abuser] is. You shouldn’t let them bother you.

I know you better than you know yourself.

If you talk about your feelings, you’re just whining. That’s all they do in those support groups, anyway. They just sit around wallowing in self-pity.

Friends can’t be trusted. Your friends are evil.

You’re not sensible. You don’t think things through.

You’re ridiculous. Where did you get that crazy idea?!

Did [random suspect person] put you up to this?!

(that’s rather more than a few, huh?)

I know they’re just words. My rational self tells me that they are just words, but here’s the thing: I hear them all the time.  I hear some version of the above things at least every two or three days.

I feel like I just grabbed a hammer and shattered all the good things I wanted to keep believing about my parents. God, I can hear their voices saying those things right now, this very second.

Moreover, I feel like I just took a hammer and beat myself up with it. All these years they’ve said those things to me and I just let them. I stood there and allowed them to say such hurtful things. I didn’t tell them to stop. I didn’t try to argue with them or change their minds.

I must be severely screwed in the head to have allowed it to stand for so long. Even now I don’t say anything when they start in, so what does that mean? I’m ashamed of myself. I can’t find a way to make it stop, even now.

Abuse: the Breakdown

I’m thinking about abuse again. The dictionary (the online Merriam-Webster) defines abuse five ways:

1: a corrupt practice or custom

2: improper or excessive use or treatment

3 obsolete : a deceitful act

4: language that condemns or vilifies usually unjustly, intemperately, and angrily

5: physical maltreatment

Looking at everything again (and again and again, since my mind can’t seem to leave it be), I would have to say that what’s happening to me falls under definitions 2 and 4.

Definition 2:improper or excessive use or treatment. It’s wrong how I’ve been treated. I don’t know if it’s excessive, but it’s definitely improper. I feel badly for saying it, but I need to start seeing things the way they are.

Nobody should have to carry the well-being of non-disabled, perfectly capable adults on their shoulders. I’m not supposed to carry them through the world like they’re children. I don’t know exactly when it became my job to run the house and their affairs, but it has to stop now.

No duh, right? Seems pretty obvious, I know, something I should have noticed way before now. I didn’t see it, though. It was just my life, just the way things are. I’m still trying to see it. Still trying to understand it, and to decide how I should feel about it.

It’s hard to realize that I’ve been getting used for a lot of years. I keep wondering if I’ve bought it on myself somehow. I’m a grown woman, capable of making my own choices; did I somehow choose this? I believe in karma; did I do something so horrible, so utterly unforgivable that this is what I get in return? And if I did, then what kind of monster person am I? Those questions are always in the back of my mind.

Now to definition 4: language that condemns or vilifies usually unjustly, intemperately, and angrily. I have lovely people in my life who tell me I’m a good, loving person, but I find it very hard to really believe it.

My parents have never been keen on approving things I’ve done, as you can see. I’ve always been told that my thoughts were just that tiny bit off, that nobody wanted or cared for my opinion, that the things I’ve put my heart into were wrong or just plain odd.

I’ve never been able to do anything exactly right. I don’t clean right, I don’t care about the right things, I don’t think right. When I was younger my mother’s favorite remark to make about me was that while I had plenty book smarts, I was lacking in common sense, and so would be hopeless out in the adult world. She said that many times to me, my father and siblings, the extended family, even her friends. She held up my siblings as models of common sense and implied that they’d do better in the world because they had it.

As I got older, the common sense remark evolved into her saying that I was too naive to live by myself. Again, my siblings were held up as prime candidates for living alone—even though none of them has ever lived alone before—and again, it was implied that they’d be better at it than I would.

It’s very hurtful to be told at every turn how lazy I am, or how much I don’t care, or how I’m heartless and have no loyalty to the family. It’s very hurtful to have to hear that I don’t have drive or purpose, or how my sister or brother has so much of X quality and why don’t I have that?

I don’t know if my mother even knows just how far in the toilet my sense of self-worth is. It’s so bad that when people tell me that I’m good or loving or anything, my first thought is that they don’t know just how bad I really am and if they did, they’d not want to be around me anymore. After all, my own parents think I’m bad, and why would they lie about something so basic?

People love me and I have no clue why they do. Oh, my mother says that people have good reason to love me, but I can’t believe her. Why should I?

I know I said in an earlier post that parents make mistakes, but how can anybody do this to their child and not know that it’s hurtful? I know that we are prone to do what our parents did, but where does this stop?

I’m sorry. This post isn’t the tight, well-reasoned thing I wanted it to be. I’m going to bid you goodnight and go try to calm down.

Abuse or Not Abuse, that is the Question

I have been trying to come to terms with the word abuse, and trying to apply it to everything that has happened to me.

Maybe I’m too close to it to see it objectively, or perhaps I’m too afraid to look at it truthfully. My teacher calls it abuse; and I think I would too if I were hearing such stories from someone else.

But I feel like I can’t rightfully call what’s happening to me abuse. I was never beaten or anything horrible like that; the last spanking I got was when I was eight years old. I was never denied proper food or warmth or clothing. I got the things I asked for, within reason.

So to call all of this abuse, it seems wrong. What child has not felt that their parents have no understanding of them? What child has not been yelled at, or told that this or that dream wasn’t a worthy one? Growing up is never easy for anyone. Why call this abuse?

I don’t know one person who has grown up without an emotional scar or two. Parenthood doesn’t come with a manual, and a child doesn’t come with a “how to care for me” list like a houseplant. I know that parenthood is pretty much a learn-on-the-job thing, and that each child is different, so there is no “one size fits all” style of parenting.

So I know that parents make mistakes and sometimes the mistakes leave wounds that might not heal properly. Can I rightfully blame my parents for the mistakes they made with me? And can those mistakes be called abuse?

I feel like I’m missing some important part of this. I’m missing some vital piece of something that would change the way I see all these random incidents and bring me to some kind of conclusion.