Messages

I really liked what you said about the need for certain skills in a therapist.
Also, I've had similar experiences as the family's identified patient/scapegoat. I'm really interested to know how things have gone for you. Have you found peace? I need to change my mindset, also, before it eats me alive.

Thanks you PapaCoco, Kizzie, Blueberry and NarcKiddo for your warm support, and for your jewels of wisdom. I didn't expect such depth of understanding so soon. I appreciate more than I can say.

Oh, I hope I can let go of the distracting dysfunction. Thinking detachment (NC) is crucial for the sake of sanity. More later.

Thanks again.

Papa Coco,

Re: " And BTW: The gaslighting I took was always met with the same comments that I'm "too emotional for my own good." They would say anything they could think of to make me feel certain that I was misinterpreting their meanness. The goal was to make me believe I was crazy. Sadly, it worked more often than not."

Oh the crazy-making.... I'm beyond frustrated because I can name the wrongs done to me, and the attitudes of my siblings and parents, but I'm a little stuck in a pattern of over-explaining why everything had fallen apart WITHOUT sounding exactly as they describe me: emotionally unstable, narcissistic, ruminative. There is no way to stick up for myself without feeding the tiger. So the 'going NC' part is my challenge and possibly some day will be my salvation. Until then: feeling totally crazy, and battling endless OCD about why that is. I hope to be talking to others like you who have been feeling crazy, as well. My heart goes out to you. To us all.

I grew up with an extremely accomplished and well-loved community-activist father who openly and sardonically critcized anyone's ideas that he didn't agree with. This endless negative attitude and critical interaction style happened more with me than with my siblings. It was ever present, like an old carpet that's underfoot, that we walk on every day and is oddly comforting in its familiarity.

I was the oldest and shared some of his "brainy" gifts. When I had an idea that might have held the spark of something interesting, these ideas seemed threatening to him as he would instantly share his disdain for me and my ideas. This attitude of his emerged in my puberty years, when I became a young woman. From then, his critiques were more frequent, more cutting. I read a lot more than I exercised and started to get chubby - which he hated. And told me I had a fat *. When I did poorly in math he called the high school and chewed out the math teacher, who then chewed me out. Then my father told me I was a failure (for getting a "D" in trigonometry). When I objected in as measured a tone as I could manage to his calling me a fat-assed failure, he threw a book at me and slapped me hard across the cheek.

My younger 3 siblings I think joined the party as "flying monkeys", as they're called in narcissism world. I have been the family scapegoat through now, in my early 60s. I did love my father and wanted his attention and affection, naturally. He simply couldn't manage having a relationship where he wasn't one up on me all the time. Siblings and mother acted the same.

My father died 2 years ago. That went horribly. So did everything about his memorial service. I finally cracked when a kind therapist suggested CPTSD, which fit perfectly. But as I've pushed back, just opted not to attend/discuss/debate etc., the CPTSD has almost gotten worse not better. I have aquired OCD I think, where I can't stop thinking about the wrongs done to me and how there is no way out, ever. I feel my sanity slipping away despite continued therapeutic relationship and fantastic husband and 2 daughters. I have been yearning for a support group, and am glad to have found this one. Thanks for having me.

Pisa (like my life, where I tend to not to stand up straight but to lean over to one side, maybe in an endless dissociated state, and where I see the world in a slightly off-center way)