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Wow, what a sad world we live in. Reading these post has made me feel like crap. I too lived with an abusive Dad, then a Molesting Stepdad who was also abusive. I truly believe my younger life is a result of me having massive anxiety/panic in my adult life. And now I am married to a verbal abuser. He didnt start out that way, just as the years went on, he got worse and worse and has the audacity to blame me for the way he verbally abuses me. So now I have to watch everything I say or he freaks and starts yelling at me, and since I was raised in a house where my dad scream and beat everyone, my husbands yelling really gets to me. I have told him that over and over, he doesnt care. He finds a way to blame it on me. I guess maybe I am not strong enough to leave him yet. I try everyday to make things right and be "good" but it just doesnt work.
It is like the hurt and awful words your were called when you were a child stay inbedded in your heart, mind, and soul. They never leave you. My inner child never got to grow up. She hurts a lot of the time. I am 45 and words my dad said to me or names he called me, or never being loved by him, still are there in the background of my mind. I was never daddys little girl, and that really hurt for years. Oh well. I guess it is his loss now more than mine, because he is missing out on ever knowing his 2 grand daughters. I just dont understand how people are so cruel. I really dont get it. I was afraid of being an abuser like my dad, and then on the other hand I wanted to have a family of my own like I never had. Happily I love my girls and they love me. Although, they can treat me badly like their Dad does when it comes to me having an anxiety disorder. But for the most part we have a good relationship. We enjoy being around each other a lot. Do a lot of things together. I never wanted my girls to ever know what it was like being abused. I didnt want them to know the pain of not being loved. They are very happy girls today, I am pleased to say.
I remember always coming to visit my mom and sitting there and listening to her put down every member in the family, and then my calmly saying, "Mom, it make me feel guilty to sit here and listen to you put down my brothers and sisters and inlaws." And all the sudden she blew up and said that I was the one that was doing it. Now that was crazy making. Then my step-dad came home and saw Mom crying and flipping out and so I had to leave. She didn't talk to me for over a year. I had some family members on my side; others on her side. I really never got over her not speaking to me, because I agree, that is the most cruel thing a person or group can ever do to you.
I lived my life trying to get my mom's love and approval. She died at 90 or so, and it actually never happened. In many ways trying is a waste of time. I even stayed away for a while thinking this would change how she treated me, others in the family have done the same. It changed nothing. The ties to family are great though, it isn't like breaking up with a long time friend and then just moving on.
I don't think that believing that your parent or parent is sick is making excuses for them, because in many ways this is true. If they were healthy people they would not be abusive, and if they had learned to really love, they would not want to be abusive.
There are times when I wish that my Mom were still alive, because I often think, Well, maybe I should have tried this method on her. Maybe then she would see the light. But I know that that is just a fantasy. Bascially I just don't dwell anymore on the cruel things that she has said to me over the years. She couldn't have been mentally healthy and have said everything that she did. She was a miserable person, and I only wish that she could have had a happy life, and wherever she is now, I hope that she is happy.
I think the only way to feel better (at least for me) is to recognize that the way these people treated me is not about ME, its about them.
Then I can look objectively and see, they treat everyone this way, its not just me. This is their modus operandi, or just the way they work. Its the only way they know how to cope. I just happened to be in the way at the time.
My family is FAMOUS for lots of yelling, it rattles me to my foundation to the point where I can't cope, I feel like a bird that has flown into a bay window and is laying stunned on the ground. My family is also famous for doing something and then blaming ME for it, I was always the convenient scapegoat. I actually remember the first time I heard that term, I asked my Dad what it meant and my comment back was that is how they treated me. Even as a child I had a very direct and unedited way of speaking, I was 2 x 4 to the head subtle.
Whenever one of them would scream at me because something in their life wasn't going right (of course things that had nothing to do with me), I would appeal to my Mother or my Father to help me, to protect me, then they would turn to me and blame me, tell me to understand, to keep taking it, to just stay out of that persons way. It was ALWAYS OK to bully me, no one stood up for me.
My Grandmother was the only one in the family who saw what went on and the crazy family members hated her for it. She sort of stood on the outside of the insanity, she could speak the name of it honestly. I was mistreated because as a child I gravitated towards her but who can blame a small child for looking for a peaceful loving person in amongst the warfare that was my family life. They found a way to.
Crazymaking is actually a good term to describe what survivors of abuse had to endure...and it does not have to be a generational curse, unless YOU allow it to be..its up to us to either be accountable and be different or to just be lazy and follow suit with the rest of them. Glad everyone is talking.......this is the most healthy thing you can do for youself, by talking you are ridding the effects (mentally and physically) from your body, that negative engery will turn to all sorts of aliments if you stuff it with food, drink or whatever here.
I think the only way to feel better (at least for me) is to recognize that the way these people treated me is not about ME, its about them.
Then I can look objectively and see, they treat everyone this way, its not just me. This is their modus operandi, or just the way they work. Its the only way they know how to cope. I just happened to be in the way at the time.
This is a very important lesson that you have learned Linsey. It is also in agreement with a great book that I read, The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz.
Seaharbour,
I didn't bring up the shunning that my mom did in order to get any thing off my chest or have it be therapy, because I have no feelings about it one way or another any more. It was her problem; not mine. I used to think it was mine, and that is when it hurt me deeply. Anyway, I really wanted to support someone else on here by saying that I understand the emotions that go with shunning, but I am also trying to convey here that we don't have to dwell on the past hurts, because if we do they remain with us and get bigger. I don't feel that I have buried my feelings; instead I feel that I have transcended them by letting them go and not dwelling on them. It transforms them when you come to understand your parents and accept that they are not in the same place as you are, which is, you want to become a better person. It is a shame that they don't, but what is, is. And I think that is something that I have taken to heart after going through the same type fo pain that you have been through. "What is, is". You can only build your life in the now, the present moment. And for this reason I don't wish to rehash old stuff that I worked through years ago. So I really don't believe that talking rids the person of suffering but creates it instead. I have tried both ways, and I have found this to be true for me. If a person, at least to me, understands that their parents or anyone else that is cruel, is suffering deeply, then they can let go of what that person has said or done to them much more easily. If they realize that it isn't their fault but it is the other person's, then again, they can understand and let go. At least that is how it works for me. And some people are even strong enough to be around abusive persons and not be harmed by them. Sometimes I am there; other times not.
Last edited by Mattie Jo; 12-11-2007 at 07:32 AM..
I believe that my mother has (or had) narcissistic personality disorder. She definitely wasn't a normal person, even friends of mine when I was a kid commented on it. The things she used to say to me would make your skin crawl. Not to mention the physical abuse. One time she told me to hold out my hand, then tried to burn me with a cigarette.
Another time, after an ugly fight with my father, who walked out, she came into my room at night (I was 7), and wanted me to go down to the garage with her and commit suicide (by car exhaust). I said no, she left the room. I sat up all night afraid to go to sleep for fear she'd come in and drag me down to the garage and kill me.
I've read various crap over the years that says you should forgive them, they were doing the best that they could. I never believed that, anybody could've done better than those two.
Forgiveness imho is greatly overrated...then again..I do not need to be forgiven by an imaginary god either....Naracisstics are esp cruel and evil...know all bout that sadly enough myself...((((safe hugs to you Ellise)))))
Eh, I've gotten over it now, as much as it is humanly possible to get over such things. I was angry and bitter for quite a few years. I was about 30, believe it or not, before I even realized how badly I'd been abused. This is due in part to being an only child, I suppose, and in part because dear old mom & dad were constantly telling me how lucky I was. Unbelievable.
Yet I've never been a drinker, never done drugs except for dope smoked in high school, never been promiscuous, never been overweight....so I guess I've done OK. I am misanthropic, withdrawn and unsociable, but it's no wonder. Have some problems with anxiety, but no depression. I'm actually, if not deliriously happy with life, quite content. Go figure.
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