I Have Something To Say

When I was thirteen, my father burst into my room while I was doing my homework, and demanded that I follow him outside. He lead me in the dark to the steep, empty hillside behind our house to point out that "some guy" could see right into my bedroom window. He then berated me for half an hour because my shades weren't drawn. Never mind there was nothing back there. Never mind whoever wanted to spy on me would have to jump a fence, climb a hill, and navigate their way through trees and poison oak in the dark. "Somebody" could potentially do it, and I was in trouble for not preventing it from happening. As per usual, I absorbed the blame. It wasn't until a few years later that I realized that the "someone" who would go to all that trouble to watch me through my bedroom window was himself. My father did many sexually inappropriate things to me and around me for as far back as I can remember. He used to walk around the house naked when my teenag...

It's been nearly twelve years since I went no contact with my covert narcissist mother, thirteen for my malignant narcissist father. After a lifetime of trying to reason and cope with the abuse, I made a choice to leave in order to survive them. I am now a voluntary orphan. It's been the hardest and best decision of and for my life. Being human, there is nothing that makes no contact with both biological parents easy. It goes against all of my biological, physiological, and social programming. I am perpetually broken-hearted. I long for connection and understanding from my narcissistic parents, past, present and future. Alas, there was never, is not, and never shall be. I ache for the child in me who missed out on not having loving, safe, supportive parents. I ache for the adolescent and young adult who had no positive parental example, no guidance, no support of any kind. I ache for the grown woman with kids of her own who struggles forward, hoping to carve a better pat...

As I mentioned in Abusers Are Weird About Food, the common denominator of abuse is control. Abusers will use anything within reach to control their victims, so the most common, everyday resources are typically the ones most used. Money is no exception. I can't think of a single case of abuse I know in which money wasn't used against a victim in some form. In my house, my narcissistic father often bragged about how he made three times more than my mother. We lived in a big (empty) house that they couldn't afford. He had lots of toys- a motorhome, ski boat, houseboat, new cars, etc. He surrounded himself with expensive hobbies. He had an expensive pool table in the game room and a dedicated dark room, but he spent much of his time in "his" brown La-Z-Boy watching "his" shows in the "family" room. Every area of the house was his, down to the grass we weren't allowed to walk on in the back yard. In spite of his "very important...

The common denominator of all abuse is control. Of course, it's no wonder that the things that are within our realm of control on a daily basis are also the things abusers want to control for us the most. My mother was a very thin, petite woman. She dutifully put a hot meal in front of my narcissistic father every night. As a covert narcissist, her choices about "healthy" food appeared well within the range of normal to an outsider, but they were far from it. She was fiercely anti-sugar, not out of love and concern for health, but because it was something I liked and enjoyed that she could keep away from me. We rarely ever had dessert, but carob instead of chocolate was the "treat." Or raisins. I actually have always liked and enjoyed natural foods, but her excessive control over my eating anything sweet backfired. As a child, I was obsessed about the opportunity to eat dessert or go trick or treating. I would go to my friend's house and down sugary c...

I was the scapegoat in my family, and my older brother was the golden child. According to my abusive parents, he could do no wrong, and I could do no right. We were often pitted against each other, as narcissists tend to do with their children. My brother beat me up daily after school, and when I told my mom about it, she shrugged and made it my fault. If he complained about me, she immediately took his side and I was punished. My father alternately ignored or raged at both of us, but my mother made it abundantly clear that my brother was the favored one. She fawned over him like she fawned over my narcissistic father. In her world, males were to be enabled and blindly followed, and females, well, were in the way. To them, I was the "annoying" one when I spoke up about things that weren't normal. I was the "over-emotional" one when I reacted to things that were not normal. I was the "rebellious" one when I challenged things that were not normal. ...

I imagine most of my posts this week will be about processing the almost-crash we experienced, here . I've been doing my best to manage things as they come up, and I am realizing just how much extra time and space I need to allow myself right now. The tension, exhaustion, and nightmares are back. I feel like much of the progress I've made in recent months dealing with the realities of complex trauma have vanished and I'm back to where I was when I started. It feels like a setback, but I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to better understand how to better care for myself. In many ways, re-experiencing these symptoms is an indicator of growth, and I know by honoring the process, I will heal. But I also know that a big part of that healing is acknowledging where I'm at. It's not helpful to pretend to be mentally tough and pull myself together. Healing lies in acknowledging that what happened was scary, and allowing myself to feel that. My ego would so much ...

My mother was obsessed with them, but I never figured out who they were. For a while, I thought maybe they were the neighbors, but that didn't make sense. Other than waving hello as we passed by, we weren't really friends with our neighbors. We didn't know each other any more than what was said over appetizers and small talk at the block party. Could their opinion of us matter that much to my mom? What would we miss out on if the neighbors knew? Patty's signature 9x13 dish of seven layer dip? Then I thought, maybe they were our extended family. Most of them lived out of town, and it seemed my mom wasn't really in touch with them, save the annual Christmas letter. The ones nearby we saw two or three times a year on holidays. Like the neighbors, most of the gatherings involved small talk and dip. I would give each relative a hug hello and a hug goodbye, along with the obligatory reminder of what grade I'm in now. Other than that, I don't recall anyone i...

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had panic attacks. I was terrified of having children, for good reason. I was afraid that I would succumb to the cycle of abuse that I grew up in. As much as I had already made many choices that were vastly different from my parents, I feared that abuse would be some inevitable fate. I knew, statistically speaking, about the high risk, and I was worried. On top of that, I already had a traumatic parenting experience, which struck me to my core. When I had just turned twenty-one, the summer I had just graduated from college, I became an instant stepmother to a four year old whose birth mother was a drug addict.  The child's father and I had just moved in together, which is a whole other story. I met the child maybe once or twice before his mother kidnapped him and disappeared out of state. When the DA found them, police in the other state were about to arrest her for aiding and abetting a homicide. He was taken from his mother and f...

One of the most overused platitudes I hear in response to toxic parents is that they must have meant well, or they were only doing the best they could. This is a terrible thing to say to a survivor of child abuse. It's false and damaging to the victim, because it implies a false projection that their toxic parent had good intentions. Some people are not doing the best they can. Some, because of personality disorders, choose to harm and destroy their victims. Some people lack empathy, and have no intention of improving their behavior. They would prefer to make scapegoats out of others than take responsibility for their actions.  I am a mom, and I get why people say it. I too would like to believe that I am always trying to do my best. But here's the thing. Sometimes, I'm not. Sometimes, I can do better. As someone recovering from complex childhood trauma, I can be distracted. I can be upset about things that aren't in my present environment. I can be on edge, and ...

Dear Dad, The young child that you molested and terrorized is no longer afraid of you. She resides within me now, safe from all your treachery. Today, I am a strong and capable woman and you are a sick old man. We both know that you knew exactly what you were doing when you abused me. You stole my innocence. You stole my childhood. Not once did you ever admit wrongdoing or remorse. You are evil and cruel, and you ought to be in jail. You made me bow down to you, but it was never enough. You punished me because I could never give you enough validation. No one could. You'll think this is blasphemy, but children are not created to worship their parents.  It should have never been a requirement, yet I was forced to carry the burden of your own guilt and shame. You did not love me. You didn't even care about me. To you, I wasn't even a person. I was not allowed an individuality. The only worth you saw in me was my usefulness in feeding your ego. When I failed to do so...

We are approaching a milestone in my house, where my oldest daughter is entering her teen years. Growing up, I was taught that teenagers were shifty, sneaky, untrustworthy, terrible, liars, cheaters, drunks, and sluts. In other words, my parents projected all their own bad behavior, along with a heaping dose of shame and judgement, onto the concept of what an adolescent is. When I was a teenager, if I was rebellious, it meant I was "bad." Yet for me, rebelling against my parents' constructs were most likely what saved me. It took a long time for me to deconstruct my normal teenage reactions to abusive people as not being "bad." Because of my parents' projections, I carried a lot of their shame. Yet, from my own experience, and from the experience of observing other teenagers, I knew they were wrong. Teenagers are not shameful people. They are beautiful, challenging, and complex, but not shameful. What's shameful is neglecting their need for love, safe...

After years of dysfunction and abuse, my alcoholic, narcissistic father and my enabling, codependent mother divorced. I was in college at the time. My mother hid behind "staying together for the children," even though we didn't want her to. I suppose she couldn't use that excuse any more when we weren't there. When she left him the first time, my father called me, upset. He didn't see it coming. He insisted it was completely out of the blue and without reason. Ha. During the first time they were separated, I was attending a school that I knew I needed to leave. I made plans to move back to my home state and transfer to an in-state university, though it meant having to move back in with my mom for a short time. I had some hope it might not be too bad since she was finally facing some reality and had left my father. About a week before I was due to arrive, she moved back in with him. It was awful. Worse than when I had left the first time, and I had grad...

I am obsessed with real estate. As a pastime, I scan Zillow for houses in the way that some people pick out wardrobes and party ideas on Pinterest. I know every house on the market in my zip code (and probably yours). I  pick out the prettiest houses in every city, searching hundreds of Victorians, Craftsman, and Spanish Revivals. Or maybe I'll go look for the quintessential rustic vintage mountain cabin. I like to think about what it's like to live there, in those homes, in those cities or countrysides. I go for the colorful and eclectic ones. Pretty homes are my escapist fantasy. They are my Harlequin romance novels. It doesn't take a degree in Psychology to understand why I am interested in finding the ideal home. There is no better analogy for family life. Growing up, I lived in a big, empty, lifeless house. It was a mass of standard grade tract home white walls and sensible dirt brown carpet. My parents were weird about money in the way that they were weird about ...

People who have experienced trauma often get stuck at the emotional age the trauma occurred if they have not dealt with it. It's why people who have been abused become abusers themselves. It's also  why someone who is in denial about their own abuse becomes irrational and defensive. People who have some disproportionate reaction to stimuli are emotionally stunted. My father had the emotional intelligence of a young child. His impulsive, tantrum-like behavior was almost exactly what you'd expect from a toddler, not a grown man. In his teens, he started drinking. He made a comment to me once when he stopped drinking that he felt like a teenager. He meant it as a compliment to himself, but as he was in his fifties at the time, I did not see it the same way.  In many ways, he remained the broken child throughout the rest of his life, wholly self-centered and wholly unable to see the point of view of another. He was obsessed with revenge on anyone who crossed him. I don...

You guys, I found my hate couch. It's the perfect dusty, moldy tweed. A little muted, and still not quite as hideous as the original inspiration, but it'll do, pig. It'll do. I had been watching it on Craigslist. They wanted forty dollars for the damn thing. Then they marked it down to twenty. I got it for free, because, really.  Ironically, the ad said, "Love the 70's? You'll love this couch!"  If they only knew that "loving" this couch was not my intention. I had loaded it up and was just about to sneak away when the lady came out and asked me what I wanted with a 70's couch. Perhaps there was just a little too much twinkle in my eye. I managed a non-committal response and peeled out of her cul-de-sac, fast. Bonus: I picked it up in a suburb that looked like the neighborhood where I grew up. Even more bonus: the name of the street was shockingly similar to the name of the street I lived on. In fact, it was exactly a mash up of the st...

Because I was a good girl, I helped my parents cover their tracks. They were covert. They knew what to do and to say to look like normal people in front of others. I mostly played along with the image they projected out to the public, not because I agreed with it, but because it was the only way to get through it. The physical, emotional, and sexual abuse had become "normal," and I had become so conditioned to cope with it. There wasn't any kind of big, After School Special-type moment to reveal it to anyone. What would I say? My parents are mean? The only thing that seemed to get anyone's attention in the 1980's were bruises, and even then, things like that could be explained away. All of my prior attempts to communicate it to others were shot down, and no one (by design) was close enough to my parents to really see it. Sure, some people clued in to the fact that my parents were "weird," mostly due to their metaphysical beliefs, which I haven't e...

Dear Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you are estranged from your children. I'm sorry that you drove them away after years of blaming them for your own problems. I'm sorry that you only saw them as a extension of yourself, something to mold into your fragile self-image. You missed out on so much. They were strangers to you even when they lived under the same roof. How sad for you that you never got to know who they were. I'm sorry that you felt it was more important to enable an abusive father over protecting your own children. I'm sorry that you chose dysfunction and denial over integrity and truth. I'm sorry that you are estranged from your grandchildren. They are beautiful, shining little people full of heart and spunk. They are deeply loved. They are seen, heard, and protected. They are allowed to say no and to express how they feel. Because of your example, they are being raised to respect their bodies, hearts, and minds. Because of your example...

As I reveal yet another aspect of abuse that I previously kept hidden, my mind and body take a while to recover. Last week, publishing a few details about sexual abuse for the first time, I was in my kitchen making breakfast when I suddenly burst into tears. My whole body shook. The information is not new to me, but it would be new to some others. Most of the people who read my blog don't know me, but when I think of the ones who do, I re-experience the trauma through their eyes. It hurts to reveal something that had been previously pushed aside. When all of the emotion that had been previously denied is now allowed to come to surface to be felt, it can be overwhelming. I think this is why so many people choose to live in denial of abuse for so long. On some level they know how much it will hurt them to acknowledge the depth of those feelings. Another reason people choose not to disclose abuse is a fear of retaliation. For many, retaliation is legitimate concern, and it is n...

One of the most difficult aspects of facing the full impact of child abuse is the conflicting feelings that go along with it. The parent-child connection is hard wired into us, so when the people who literally gave us life become the ones we have to protect ourselves from, it's mentally and emotionally exhausting work. I think this is why people remain in denial about child abuse. Every cell in our bodies want a positive emotional bond with our biological parents, so it becomes extremely difficult to admit the betrayal. Sometimes it's just too much to think that yes, actually, they did mean to hurt you. Most challenging of all is that I still love my parents. It doesn't make what they did excusable or right. Not only is it deeply painful to admit what they did, but also that they were incapable of loving me back. It's a hard line to tow, to choose to love them and release them at the same time. I am continuing to work with the ways I shielded myself from the be...

I have a strong memory. I always have. I remember going to Disneyland when I was two years old. It was December. We were sitting  in the parking lot, in our RV, eating breakfast and looking toward the park as the sun came up. I was anticipating the rides, and whether they would be scary. At the park, the first ride was the Matterhorn, and when the yeti jumped out at me, I was terrified. Later, we rode the Pirates of the Caribbean, where my dad told me the pirates were real. The idea that those drunken pirates could jump down and grab me at any moment was scarier than the Matterhorn. I remember my dad laughing while I panicked. I also remember thinking that I should be grateful for the trip, so I was. It was one of the only memories I have from my childhood where we did something kid-related. In my family, every activity revolved around my dad's interests and hobbies. Even though some scary things happened that day, I filed the memories under "good." It was only later t...