Today I had a fuller reaction to the memory of my BPDm coming in my room to be emotionally abusive (either criticizing me or wanting me to comfort her). She used to say, "Knock, knock, knock!" in this cutesy "I'm just pretending to knock because we're so close we don't have boundaries" voice or say my name with this annoying "I need you to do something for me" inflection to it -- it still makes me cringe to think of it. Even though I spent a lot of time alone, I couldn't truly get away from her. I had the physical ability to lock my door but I knew that I had to let her in any time she wanted to talk to me. And it's like I can't ever be alone enough or be far enough away from her.
Being alone is the only time I feel safe to be myself. I spend a lot of time alone and rarely feel lonely; I think I suppress feelings of loneliness so that it's hard to recognize. When I'm around other people, my mind tends to go blank and I semi-freeze. (I don't think I'm hypervigilant, but maybe this is my version of dissociating rather than being vigilant? Does anyone else do this?) If I'm talking with someone (especially party/large group conversations or on the phone) I tend to wait for them to dismiss me when they're done talking to me, as if they're BPDm.
I enjoy being alone. My h travels for his job and although there are times when I wish he didn't travel so much if he is home for an extended amount of time I will find myself wishing he would go out for a few days. We both need our alone time and we've had the conversation that I don't think either one of us could handle a traditional marriage of together every evening every day. I miss him when he's out but I think it makes our time together better.
When I am with people I sometimes have blank outs where I can't think of a single thing to say. It's kind of like a mental freeze. It's gotten better since Ive learned about mental health but I still notice it particularly in larger social settings.
I think it's the nature of the beast known as cptsd.
Yes, that was the worst: never truly being alone. I could close my door, but if I locked it, my mother would demand an explanation. She'd knock before entering, but only once, and so abrupt and loud it often made me jump. She'd barge right in. She was so hideously overworked, she had literally no patience left, no gentleness, no time for chit-chats, so she'd stride in, look down on me, face grim and serious: "Homework done yet? Your room's a mess, tidy it up! Where's that pair of jeans I told you I had to darn?" There were no boundaries, or none that applied to her. Everything was under her control; everything was open to her interrogation. I remember wishing I could just hide between my desk and the wall. The only reason why I didn't was, she'd have certainly hunted me down. She expected me to find me at my post. Making her look for me would have been a crime.
Does that mean my CPTSD now wouldn't be so very bad if only I'd have been allowed to lock the bloody door? :pissed:
Rain, I like this concept of emotional safety. I never thought of it like that, but that's precisely what was lacking. It's what's still lacking. I'm hyper-vigilant in social situations. The first itty-bitty thing goes wrong and that's it, the situation's officially become unsafe. Being alone means being safe. Once there are no people around, then there is no danger around. I can be around people, but it takes energy. We had visitors just yesterday, and I'm still sad and frustrated by how easy it still is for me to get EFs.
There actually ARE people out there capable of LOVING us, and looking at us with caring ...honoring our boundaries. And, we hide from them too..... :sadno:
Yes, I knew that traumatic memories cause PTSD or CPTSD especially and particularly when they're associated with a lack of control. But it's still another thing to connect this to my own life. It's still so easy to think that it wasn't bad. After all, I was never hit.
My mother was hard, that's true. I think she lived all those years as if we were having one long emergency, where it's quite alright to focus only on the most important tasks. It's a pity. She's a good woman. She just can't like me, I think. Love in an abstract sense, yes. If our house ever burnt down, she'd be here in a heartbeat to help. But liking, not so much.
A big eye-opener was reading in Pete Walker's texts how emotional abuse and neglect also means there's no one there to share good news with, no one who welcomes us, no one we can go to if we want to chat about things that interest us. I never realized before how much I'd missed that as a kid.
It's still something I routinely keep to myself. I started purposely sharing some of the sillier, more inconsequential bits of "good news" or things of interest with dh. And what do you know, it does help bring you closer to someone. I never knew. :blink: I'd thought I was doing him a favour by keeping it to myself. It's given me a new appreciation for the fact that dd loves to share Star Wars trivia with me. I have no interest whatsoever in Star Wars, but I have an interest in her, so I'm listening a lot more actively now, asking her questions about it etc. And hey, it's brought us closer together too! Amazing, isn't it, this thing called "relationship" that apparently I didn't get in my FOO.
By chance, do you have German, Scandinavian heritage, cat?
Oooh yes, plenty of Germanic heritage, and therefore plenty of stoicism and emotional constipation. I'm in Central Europe, near the part where cuckoo clocks come from. (There are all kinds of novelty clocks invented in that area about... one or two centuries ago?... One where, on the stroke of the clock, a tiny figurine beheads another tiny figurine - but for some reason those never really caught on.)
I agree about the 4F defense. Sometimes I'm wondering if whole cultures can go into a 4F defence. It's probably safe to say that some cultures or subcultures value one of those coping styles above the others.
No boundaries, no knocks, no locks --- that sums it up for me. Worst memory regarding this problem: When I was doing my A levels, my parents were pre divorce (father overt NPD, mother covert NPD and VERY passive aggressive) and both used me as their confidante. My father was absent from the house as often as he could - and so the b@$tard would come into my room and wake me up at night to talk about his problems - sometimes stark naked! :aaauuugh: YIKES!!!!!! (I was never sexually molested by anyone but this was horrific for me as a teenager and he kept doing it even when I asked him not to).
The first time I ever enjoyed being alone and literally just revelled in 'the sound of silence' was when my DD started pre school. I had made a million plans of what I would do while she was gone - and all I did was sit in my living room, on the couch, and ENJOY the silence... I think it was the first time in my life I was ever consciously 'alone' - in my head as well as physically. Pure bliss!
Nowadays, I enjoy company as well as alone time. Both are necessary to my emotional and physical wellbeing.
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on September 30, 2014, 07:38:05 AM
(There are all kinds of novelty clocks invented in that area about... one or two centuries ago?... One where, on the stroke of the clock, a tiny figurine beheads another tiny figurine - but for some reason those never really caught on.)
;D
Quote from: Rain on September 29, 2014, 10:58:05 PM
Our parents were not loved themselves. It is the only conclusion I have ...their own 4F defense, and it crushed us. On and on it goes.
In fact, mine were not abused and I know for a fact that both my grandmother's had longed for and cherished the children they got. I think my mother might have been subjected to passive agressiveness by her own mother but there was never any physical violence (I checked and checked with various sources in an effort to understand). My father had a brief stint with his birth father when no one knows for sure whether or not verbal or physical abuse occured but apart from that certainly nothing. (The divorce laws were quite complicated at the time and my father seems to have spent a few months living with his father before my grandmother could arrange for having sole custody of both her children.) Quite the contrary: He seems to have used and abused his mother as well as her twin sister even as a teenager/young adult (the stories start when he was 17).
Whatever their own childhoods were like or not like: It can only ever be an explanation, never an excuse for the way they (mis)treated us.
Quote from: Rain on September 29, 2014, 10:58:05 PM
But, it stops with you ...
That's it! The cycle of abuse stops with us!
We can't change our own past or our family legacy, but we can change the present and the future family legacy!
Quote from: keepfighting on June 13, 1970, 10:25:49 AM
That's it! The cycle of abuse stops with us!
:cheer: :yeahthat: :cheer:
Quote from: keepfighting on September 30, 2014, 11:03:07 AM
No boundaries, no knocks, no locks --- that sums it up for me. Worst memory regarding this problem: When I was doing my A levels, my parents were pre divorce (father overt NPD, mother covert NPD and VERY passive aggressive) and both used me as their confidante. My father was absent from the house as often as he could - and so the b@$tard would come into my room and wake me up at night to talk about his problems - sometimes stark naked! :aaauuugh: YIKES!!!!!! (I was never sexually molested by anyone but this was horrific for me as a teenager and he kept doing it even when I asked him not to).
Horrific is an understatement, keepfighting. It is likely emotional incest as he used you do discuss his adult problems ...and, well ...they say when parents expose children to pornography that it IS sexual abuse.
FMV -
My mother also did the verbal knock while simultaneously opening the door. I thought nothing of it until I read your post. :aaauuugh: really she had me that brainwashed. See she went on and on about how she was a great mother because she allowed me to have my door closed, she didn't even have a bedroom door, she said. I discounted how I felt about her barging in, because she over-layed those feelings with her 'you're supposed to be grateful' feelings. Wow. Just wow.
I too love being alone. I've asked my T about this several times, thinking that it might be wrong. She assures me, that as long as I'm happy to be alone, there is nothing wrong with it.
I remember the best times growing up were when I was a teenager, and my parents would finally leave me alone in the house. It's like the whole house exhaled when I surreptitiously watched their car leave though a slit in the curtains (to make sure they really were gone). Then when I heard the car engine on the street, as it slowed to pull into the driveway, all the anxiety came flooding back in.
It's hard to describe what happens to me with groups of people. It's kind of like tunnel vision, but it applies to all my senses. I am hyper aware of my immediate surrounds, but a cyclone could be happening in the next room, and I might not notice. My mind slows down and speeds up at the same time. I can take in tons of clues in my immediate surroundings, but verbal ability is greatly reduced. I think this is what Peter Levine describes as freeze. He says when the amygdala activity goes up, the activity in the Broca(language center) of the brain goes down.
Quote from: Rain on September 30, 2014, 01:13:41 PM
Horrific is an understatement, keepfighting. It is likely emotional incest as he used you do discuss his adult problems ...and, well ...they say when parents expose children to pornography that it IS sexual abuse.
Absolutely. There was definitely a line crossed, and it was crossed twice over after you asked him to stop. Nakedness plus emotional incest - I can't even imagine how hideously unsettling that must have been.
Honestly, with all our stories here... developping a taste for alone-ness was probably simply good sense. A proof that
some of our self-care instincts were alive and well. It's probably rather thin, as far as silver linings go, but still. Here's to us! :waveline:
I just want to say thank you to all of you, I look forward to alone time and crave it but then once I have it ... I'm lost and kinda down. It's no good when you have a family because you save certain chores for these days but chores trigger me because ... Well you all may know what a bpd mother does if your chores aren't done " the right way " . Emotional abuse does things to a person, I now see that I'm highly suggestible easp. When I'm dissociated. Pete talks about inner critic induced flashbacks and I myself call them " shame " attacks. It's like a panic attack but with hopelessness vrs a racing heart. Anyway, it's my day off and I'm going to say outloud " I'm an adult I'm safe, no but me is here and I AM NOT IN TROUBLE!" Lol outloud 100 times if I must!!!
Ps. About Heretage! I just got an awesome bit of info, I love in a heavily PA Dutch place so that's German and something else, I just was in a class for work and they talked about how our little town is very much it's own little world. Shame based culture, very private, go to work and work hard, stick close to the family, don't laugh at yourself, keep your head down, don't be special or stick out...etc. just a lot of inferiority and narrcessit deffensiveness, religious bigotry. You make it we got it lol
Well I found out that pa Dutch originated in a very small town outside of Germany, a town that got wrecked often due to being small with no allies. Apperently in that town if someone came walking through and they where of a different race or looked taller or more muscular just if they where clearly not from around.... Chances are they had an army with them ready to pillage and attack. Really no relevance but I gleaned some insight from it and thought it really painted a picture of all the enmeshment and shame I see in my little towns culture. Plus we have a large Amish population around here wich cannot help matters lol
Also at finding my voice, thank you for sharing, I relate so much to what you say and your voice is herd here on this site for sure! It might be so confusing but your posts are awesome!
Rain, S's Cat , Kizzie abd , Bad memories, I have no clue who any of you are, but things you have said to have made me personally feel more heard now then in a long time. It's so nice to express a feeling and not pay a price, the price now being hours of scattered memory and not being able to get anything done lol you guys really know your * about a lot of stuff. Thank you thank you for all of your responses!
:bighug: to you, Sasha2727. You are heard, and honored. We are all learning from each other. Glad to hear you; glad all our words here help. OOTS is a great support forum, for sure!
My thanks to everyone here, also!!
:party:
I'm in the middle of reading a book on mothers who can't love, and it says that it's actually a very good idea to see who ones parents are and how they got that way. I've recently stumbled upon a book about my parents' generation, and it was VERY eye-opening. It helps me realize that what they taught me is just
their way of seeing the world. It's their reaction to their own trauma. It's not necessarily what the world is really like.
Quote from: Sasha2727 on October 21, 2014, 01:33:06 PM
...I just was in a class for work and they talked about how our little town is very much it's own little world. Shame based culture, very private, go to work and work hard, stick close to the family, don't laugh at yourself, keep your head down, don't be special or stick out...
Well I found out that pa Dutch originated in a very small town outside of Germany, a town that got wrecked often due to being small with no allies.
Wouldn't surprise me. It's a common mindset hereabouts: keep your head down, stick to what you know, play it safe, don't rock the boat, hard work and frugality are best, don't focus on your emotions, always be on the lookout for danger, stick to the tested and tried, no experiments... it's all safety-focussed thinking of the kind one develops after major upheavals.
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on October 21, 2014, 03:08:44 PM
I'm in the middle of reading a book on mothers who can't love, and it says that it's actually a very good idea to see who ones parents are and how they got that way. I've recently stumbled upon a book about my parents' generation, and it was VERY eye-opening. It helps me realize that what they taught me is just their way of seeing the world. It's their reaction to their own trauma. It's not necessarily what the world is really like.
Yes, the trauma legacy and the bigger picture :thumbup: In an odd way knowing there are many FOO in my past (not just my parents, but their parents and their parents .....) who contributed to the legacy has helped me with not feeling so alone. I understand it's a cycle started a long time ago and we all got caught in it (and more importantly that the cycle can be interrupted).
Years ago when I went to ACoA meetings, their catch phrase for alcoholic parents was "Well, they did the best that they could."
Now, I cry *! (sorry) How can they even buy in to that? The BEST that they could do would have been to recognize the damage they were doing to everyone including themselves and getting into recovery. Am I missing something?
I don't know about alcoholic parents at all, so I can't say anything about that. In my mother's case, it was mainly about the impact of being parentalized at age four, growing up poor, the war, things like that. It all influenced how she sees the world, how she relates (or doesn't relate) to people, how much safety she needs, etc. To some extent, she simply handed down to me what she was given.
Even so, she did have some leeway. She could have made life easier for me, but she didn't. Her priorities were different.
What you wrote reminded me of a poem by Philip Larkin, the one with the f-bomb (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178055), so just in case you don't know it already, I thought you might enjoy it. Me, I agree with everything in it except for the last verse.
Thank you for the poem. I understand some traits are inherited or passed down sometimes. I grew up next door to my grandparents and am not sure how my mother turned out the way that she did. They were kind, non-drinkers and well liked from what I saw and provided me a steady keel. (thank goodness!) Mom must have inherited a rogue gene. Perhaps my father drug her astray.
I am always glad when I see that a friend has determinedly made things different for their children vs repeating the pattern.
Quote from: globetrotter on October 24, 2014, 05:23:39 PM
Years ago when I went to ACoA meetings, their catch phrase for alcoholic parents was "Well, they did the best that they could."
Now, I cry BULLs***! (sorry) How can they even buy in to that? The BEST that they could do would have been to recognize the damage they were doing to everyone including themselves and getting into recovery. Am I missing something?
I heard that at ACoA meetings too and it was one of the reasons I left. In hindsight I think it really helped reinforce my image of myself as just an angry, defective person who couldn't forgive my parents which delayed recovery for another decade or so.
Our parents did not do the best they could, that's for certain. What I now understand to some degree though is that mine developed a lot of maladaptive strategies just like I did to survive having both grown up in abusive FOOs themselves (and for a few generations back so the behaviours become somewhat normalized I think), but when all is said and done neither did try and do anything about it.
I did try and get my M to go to Al-Anon not realizing then that she has NPD and can't see that there even was/is a real problem in our FOO, but she would not. As long as we looked OK on the surface she was good. And my F simply did not want to even try getting some help despite the obvious problems it caused in our family. You could not approach him at all or he would rip into you so we just shut up.
I know my GPs had problems and their parents before them so I know it's a long cycle on both sides of my FOO. It's really interesting that yours did not, at least on one side. Did those GPs ever talk to you about your parent's behaviour?
Hey Kizzie...I know my grandmother was frustrated by my mother's drinking. I don't remember conversations between them. I attempted to tell my mother how embarrassing it was to have friends over and I dealt.with vile backlash for my words. As an adult my sis tried to explain that drinking caused the depression when mom.said she.drank because she was depressed...but I think the depression may have been passed down from my great grandmother. Either way in addition to valium addiction she wasn't present much of the time.
I appreciate what you wrote about ACoA and how their message isn't the best band aid.
you guys are all awesome, I have been not doing all that well lately I forget to come check out new stuff on here... then I have a crazy moment and finally make my out of the fog and BAM im here and happy lol
I have never been to a ACOA meeting but I do really love the " Laundry List " also I will say that CPTSD seems to labeled all sorts of things which makes information harder to obtain. I really see what ACOA labels as childhood trauma syndrome the same thing as CPTSD. Also Judeth Herman writes a lot about it but uses a different label. I personally think much of the literature is good. Its hard being raised with the old " black and white thinking " because taking the useful and leaving the rest just seems unnatural.
Funny thing, my mother actually never drank when I was in the home, now much later in life she is with an alcoholic who is passive and seems to have really keyed her down a good bit. They drink all of the time, she gets drunk and blasts Christian music! honestly, I have to say that although im no endorser of self medicating... her fears and godlike opinions seem to now be more directed at people on facebook instead of me so... I guess id rather have her buzzed up and safe with him then, on lose and REFUSING to take any prescribed medication. If you ask her , her only issue is Fibro myalsia. Her body pain is the reason she is depressed and angry.... oh my...
Wow! Major blast from the past. The Laundry List!
Posting it here:
http://www.adultchildren.org/lit/Laundry_List.php
The ACoA meetings I went to were 30 years ago, but a great introduction to finding peers and realizing that I wasn't a freak for feeling the way that I did. Looking over this list again after all of these years was very revealing. Thank you for reminding me! Some traits I've left in the dust, some are hanging on. #8 is still my favorite. At least I choose healthier options now!
The Laundry List! I had forgotten all about it - wow, that is a blast from the past.
Quote from: globetrotter on October 24, 2014, 07:10:45 PM
Thank you for the poem. I understand some traits are inherited or passed down sometimes.
I hope I haven't run into any cross-cultural misunderstanding? The poem wasn't meant as a raised-index-finger didn't-you-know kind of thing, so if it came across like that, sorry. Honestly, I simply found the poem funny because Larkin sound so tetchy. I used to think he was mainly into genteel tristesse.
Not at all, Cat!! Thank you for your concern.
Hi there FindingMyVoice,
I was just browsing and came across your thread.
That stuff, your mum invading your boundaries, not clearly communicating that she wanted something from you...that being your help- which may have been wrong in itself to ask a child-depending, oooh, that sounds really difficult and downright annoying.
That sounds really smothering. Its boundary invading.
Maybe your mind going blank is because you are afraid of others?
Maybe you are sub consciously keeping your guard up in fear of your boundaries being invaded.
Maybe its both being hyper vigilant and also disassociating.
If you are hyper vigilant, maybe you are in the present- maybe too much, or-
maybe you are too back in the past. Maybe you are stuck in fear that maybe you cant feel. And if so that is dissociation, as flashbacks are disasociation- disassociating back to another time, that isn't the present.
But i do think its dissociation. When we are stressed, then mind can go blank.
And also when disassociated. Im sorry i don't know.
But i have this too. I have a blank mind in therapy sessions and i forget what she just said, or what i was talking about.
I also have this in company of others. Sometimes if they are loud and talkative and i have to *get in there* to be heard, i speak quickly and loose track of my thoughts.
But i can have this too in normal quiet conversations.
Its like my brain just shuts off and its noting. All thoughts that i was going to say, just stop.
Im sorry you struggle with this.
I too wait for others to dismiss me. Its the whole thought i have that they don't really want to spend time with me, and that they don't think what i have to say is important- especially if they talk over me, and / or over each other and are loud.
My guess would be, that by your mother doing what she did, she might have thought you that you are not important- that your rights and boundries- (which are rights) don't matter. So maybe you also feel that what you have to say doesn't matter to others.
Just my thoughts. I just wanted to say i relate. ps. my boundaries - well i didn't have any at home, they were none existent, as in - they were invaded, and i was not respected in that way.
Hugs, :hug: