whentherearenine's journal

[whentherearenine]

So, where to even begin.

I found OOTS several months ago when a friend of mine recommended I check it out. I made my first introductory post and then never ventured back. Now, months later, I find myself at an entirely different place in my journey, one that I would have not even imagined I would be at when I made my first post back in April of this year.

In my first post, I documented my history of emotional and financial abuse that took place at the hands of my parents. I spoke about how the closure and subsequent criminal investigation of my mother's business left me without any friends and almost entirely without an identity and how my father's work made him unable to be involved in our lives. I also spoke about my parents' history with drug abuse and how they used to offer me and my sister prescription drugs they bought off a friend and how they allowed us to drink and get high with them when we were as young as 13 years old. Looking back, this was already kind of a lot to deal with but in June of this year it everything just got so much worse.

On June 10, I was involved in a car accident. The accident was not my fault, but I had previously had a pretty poor driving record and at the time I had my boss's 15 year old daughter my car, this was the first time she had ever trusted me with that responsibility. Thankfully, everyone was physically okay, my car, on the other hand, was totaled. I was devastated and mortified. I was less than a year from paying this car off and thought I was going to finally be able to my financial situation together, but, clearly, that was not in the cards for me. Following the accident I reached out to my father and, I will admit, I was a complete disaster on the phone but in my defense I had just been involved in an accident and was clearly traumatized. He refused to offer me any support and simply told me I was being "overdramatic." So, I hung up the phone.

Eventually, I called my grandmother and my boss's daughter called her father, my boss's husband, and they both came and helped us out. That night, following the accident, my grandmother dropped me off at my boss's house, we'll call her "J." I had previously told J minor details about my relationship with my parents and she had offered many times to allow me to stay at her house to get away. I had never taken her up on this offer but that night I did. The second I walked in the door she gave me a massive hug and told me that everything was going to be okay. I have never felt that way before, even as I reflect on this moment I'm beginning to tear up. I felt like someone had actually seen me. I felt like someone actually cared. That night, she took me to the store and bought me clothes and toiletries and told me I could stay at her house for as long as I wanted, so I did and I've actually never left.

The night and the subsequent week following, my parents did not reach out to me. They never checked in to see if I was okay, nor did they check in to see if I needed help finding a car. They simply did not care. Meanwhile, at J's house, she and her family had taken me in as one of their own. For the first time I did not feel like I was walking around on eggshells. I was not afraid to be around people. I did not lock myself in my room all day. They didn't yell at each other, to this day I have never seen her fight with her husband. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.

Over the next couple of months, I began going to therapy (again) and while I was upset about how little my parents cared about me, I was beginning to enjoy my new, free life. However, of course that could not last long. In late-August, I received a message from my parents demanding that I drop everything and come over to their house and speak with them. I had no idea what was going on because I had not spoken to them in months but I felt my stomach drop. I had had a feeling that something like this was going to happen for several days, they had been much too quiet for much too long. Subsequent text messages would reveal that my mother had had lunch with her estranged mother (generational trauma is real folks!) and my grandmother had simply mentioned that there might have been a deeper reason as to why I was not staying at their house anymore which of course my mother automatically interpreted to be me being malicious.

For several days we played the same game. They would demand I come over and talk to them, so I would say that I would come over and then they would cancel on me claiming that they had more important things to deal with. For days, I spent my time in a dissociated state literally just staring blankly at my phone waiting for them to call me and tell me to come over, but after about 3 days I cracked. I had cancelled important plans that I had had for them to continue stringing me along and I was mentally exhausted. I finally told them I could not do it any longer and would no longer be going out of my way to accommodate them, which they obviously did not like. For about a month, they continued to send me abusive text messages multiple times a week where they would threaten to box up all the stuff that I had left at their house and then tell me that they had no idea why I was telling people they were kicking me out. Eventually, I blocked their numbers which only worked to enrage them even more and on September 27, this situation escalated to a level that I had not even been able to predict.

At around 7am that day, I received a Facebook message from my father stating: "I truly do not know what the h*** is going on with you or who you are. We are your parents we are not some acquaintances you just happen to meet that can be eliminated from your life in the blink of an eye. There is nothing that could possibly warrant this behavior from you. You have ripped out our hearts and s*** on them!!! You need to grow the f*** up. Maybe if you told us why you have removed us from your life we would be able to digest it. You have done this and given us NO IDEA WHATSOEVER as to why you have done this. Hopefully one day when I'm DEAD you'll reflect on this and have regret. WE DO NOT DESERVE THIS AT ALL!!! Person who helped give you life!!!!"

I received this message during my second day at a job that I have been dreaming of my entire life. I finally had a position where I made decent money and even had a pension, this should have been a good day but instead, I was overwhelmed with such an intense emotional flashback that I literally felt sick. But of course it didn't stop there, I ignored this message and about two hours late I received a message from my younger brother saying "dad told me to send you this" with a photo of my father in front of J's house. He had shown up there and was refusing to leave until I spoke with him. I messaged him pleading with him to leave J and her family alone and also messaged my grandmother begging her to talk some sense into him. After hours of him sending me message after message (none of which I responded to) J's husband threatened to call the police on him and he finally left.

The messages that he sent me haunt me every single day. I can hear his voice in my head every single day telling me how disgusting I am for abandoning my "blood." I can hear him telling me how much shame I have brought on the family and how he does not know who I am anymore. To make it worse, my mother decided to chime in the next day sending me a message in which she reiterated everything my father said and told me that it was my fault that he reacted like that: "We have only gotten this aggressive with you because you refuse to respond to us. You can assume all you want but its on you." I didn't respond and luckily I have not heard from them since.

The damage that this situation has done to my mental health is pretty severe. I have always been on-edge and hypervigilant but now it is so much worse. Every car that I see that looks like his makes my hands start to shake. I am terrified that he is going to show up at J's house again or my work. It truly just made me feel unsafe to an extent that I have never experienced before.

I'm mentioned these things and been working through them with my therapist but progress is slow. I am lucky to have some amazing people around me including J and her family and a friend who lives several states away, lets call her "Jo." Jo is someone who initially started out as a mentor figure to me in a program I participated in, she's several years older than me and someone whom I really look up to as a professional and as a person in general--shes truly just a lovely person all around. Following the completion of the program we kept in touch via social media and eventually became much closer. I knew that Jo had similar experiences with her parents and that she could probably relate but I am not one to reach out to people on my own. She began to notice somethings coming up on social media and spoke to J (they work for the same organization) and would sometimes reach out to me to check in, which I really appreciated. It wasn't until the initial fiasco with my parents back in August that, with a little encouragement from J, I reached out to Jo and asked if she was open to talking. We ended up video chatting and it was very helpful. She told me about some of the things she experienced and since then we have fallen into a mutually supportive friendship that I value very deeply. Last week, I was having a really difficult time dealing with Thanksgiving and I decided to reach out to her. The conversation we had was very validating as I felt like I was not alone for the first time in a long time.

So, I guess this is where I'll end for the day. I'm sure I'll be back to dive in a little deeper at some point. 

[Papa Coco]

Whentherearenine,

My heart absolutely goes out to you. I feel pretty certain that you absolutely do NOT deserve to be treated like this by anyone, especially your own parents.

Hypervigilance is the only reaction you could be having right now.  That's a very, very real response to what those people are doing to you.

Your parents are toxic bullies, and all toxic bullies are exactly the same.

I live by the rule that the one thing that will anger bullies the most is standing up to them. Even escaping them is, in their minds, standing up to them. If you're into reading any books right now, I HIGHLY recommend The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout. It's an easy read, well laid out, and easy to follow. Victims of toxic parents can relate to nearly every page. She describes your parents perfectly, and teaches that they see everyone as a challenger, and they feel the need to win every conversation, as if it is some kind of a competition.

Dr. Stout teaches that if you escape them, they go into a rage because they see that as you having won by escaping them. It sounds so stupid, but that's how the mind of toxic sociopaths works. We all know you didn't escape, you just found a safer place to call home. But to them...you were a possession, and they want to feel like they arrogantly threw you out, they don't want you to escape. Your escape bruises their oddly weak ego and sense of low value.

Your parents sound like the people Dr. Stout wrote her wonderful book about. They are bullies. Toxic bullies, bent on winning every single interaction they have with anyone, even their own children. That disgusting little cat-and-mouse game of inviting you over, then cancelling, then repeating, is so typical of toxic sociopaths just toying with you, trying to wear you down, so they can laugh at what a fool they've turned you into.

The way I see it, treating you like they're better than you is clear proof that they know they are not better than you. Why would they have to prove it if it were true? It sounds to me that they feel they need to "put you in your place". And it is an obssession with them. They believe they have been humiliated in their own broken brains because you "escaped" their abuse.

Whether it's because of drug use, or mental illness doesn't matter--toxic bullies are all the same. Dr. Stout's book is a one-size-fits-all for all types of toxic bullies because all toxic bullies are exactly alike. It doesn't matter why they are bullies...it only matters that they are. And whatever your grandmother said to them, has made them afraid of being exposed to others for being the bullies that they truly are. ALL bullies live by lies and ALL bullies are terrified of the truth. And ALL bullies get mean when they get scared. Now they're coming at you with their claws out because they're scared.

ALL toxic bullies have zero connection to the truth. To them, the truth is whatever they darn well say it is. AND it changes from minute to minute. They change it also because they feel a sick need to keep you guessing at what the truth is at this moment, which gives them a sick feeling of power over you. AND if you do "escape" their bullying, ALL Toxic bullies ALWAYS go after the people around you with lies and false stories of why you are who you are.

Why else would your father use the public forum of Facebook to ask the world what the F*** is wrong with you? He's trying to get public support on his side, so he can surround you, and turn his little war into "the world against you." He's trying to engage you into responding to him so he can trap you into a twisted conversation where he hopes to make you feel stupid and himself feel superior. Since toxic bullies always lie and change up their lies by the minute, you can't win with them. They won't allow you to feel like you're right to feel what you're feeling. The only cure for a sociopath's victim is to NOT ENGAGE at ANY COST. Let him rant. Trust in your friends, J and Jo that they aren't fooled by the bully's lies. All bullies do it. It's a perfect example from the sociopath's handbook. No good parent airs that kind of anger publicly. ONLY toxic sociopaths do that. If they can't reach you directly, they try very hard to poison your social network. They play by the wargame called Divide and Conquer to Isolate their victim, so that you will hopefully feel vulnerable enough to be crushed.

They're sick and they're incurable. Also, they get worse with age. Just watch the news. Scores of political sociopaths are going crazy right now as we speak. They're all sicker today than they were a few years ago. It's very common for their lives to end in total chaos and humiliation because they just keep getting worse and worse and worse until they explode.

My family was huge. But to escape my toxic elder siblings and psycho dad, I had no choice but to go 100% no contact with them, all my siblings, all my cousins, all my aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and old family friends. If I had remained in contact with ANYONE in the family, my toxic bullies would have been able to schmooze them into giving up information about me. Also, if I had stayed in touch with anyone in the family, my toxic bullies would have been able to keep telling lies, in hopes that the relatives would turn against me and humiliate me for them. No contact was, for me, the only way I could escape my own FOO abuse.

Nothing they say is true. It sounds to me like you are aware of that, so that's good, but I know that doesn't stop the pain and fear and sadness and hypervigilance that you must be going through. For that I feel immense compassion for you. It does my heart good to read how J welcomed you into her home with a long, loving hug. THAT is what you deserved. It also sounds like J and Jo are capable of not falling into the toxic lies and gossip they're undoubtedly being hit with.

It sounds like your own toxic parents are the only people in the world who don't know the real you.




I'm very thankful to read about your family with J and your friendship with Jo. Not being alone, while these toxic, TOXIC bullies are trying to appease their own sick need to destroy you is a great gift.

I guess all this that I'm writing is the long version of me just saying that I believe, with all my heart, that all the stress in this is about them. Not about you. THEY are the bullies. THEY are in the wrong. From what you've written I don't see anything you've done to provoke or irritate them, except that your beautiful soul is a mirror that they can see their own drug addiction and flaws in. Parents love their good children, and when they don't, then something is seriously wrong with the parents, not the child.

I estranged completely, total No Contact, with my entire FOO 12.5 years ago, and I've never, ever, ever once regretted it, nor have I ever questioned myself.

I'm sorry Thanksgiving was difficult for you, but, again, very happy to hear you had J's family to be with.

I would like to give you a nice, grandfatherly hug,  and give J a hug  and give Jo a hug  both for being on your side during this toxic storm of your parents' obsession of trying to win a game you're not even playing.

[whentherearenine]

Papa Coco,

Thank you so much for your heartfelt response, I appreciate it so much. Sometimes it is hard to see my parents as bullies as I have been taught for a long time that everything is always my fault, so it is super validating to read that from someone who only knows a little bit of the story. Thank you again for your kind words 

[Armee]

Sending along some hugs and gentle support. I'd be terrified in your shoes too and I am so sorry they continued to terrorize you even after you moved to safety. I'm so glad you have J and I'll keep you in my thoughts as you get from here to a point when you can move to a location your family doesn't know about.

[whentherearenine]

November 29, 2022

Today was relatively uneventful, yet I've still been in some sort of funk that I've been attempting to dig myself out of for the entire day. I'm fairly certain that the trigger might have been a conversation I had last night. I was eating dinner with J and her family--which consists of her son V (who's a year younger than me), her husband T, her daughter F (she's a teenager), and her two young sons. The day before, my twin sister, A, came over to discuss potentially getting an apartment together. We're 25 years old, turning 26 in less than a month, and both finishing up Grad School. In September, I began my career (I work in a Public Administration position) and have been looking for housing for the past two months as I've been staying with J and her family for the past several months and don't want to continue to impose on them. I do pay rent and help out around the house, but I do feel bad that I'm always around and not giving them space to just be around each other as a family.

My sister and I have a complicated relationship. As twins, there is always a certain level of comparison that comes up, especially when you're identical. Growing up, my sister and I were compared in everything we did. We competed against each other in dance competitions and beauty pageants and I was always deemed as the "uglier" twin or as the dumb twin. It turns out I was never actually dumb, I just had severe undiagnosed ADHD until I totaled my fourth car when I was 22 years old and decided to finally take myself to get tested and put on medication. Now, I'm a Grad Student with a 4.0 GPA. But even still, I struggle with never feeling smart enough or pretty enough or just enough in general and I think this definitely stems from growing up like this.

My sister and I have tried to repair our relationship as we've gotten older. We did not go to the same colleges nor did we seek out degrees in the same field so there should be no comparison, but, of course there always is. My mother loves to talk about how pretty my sister is and never bothers to compliment me. As we've grown up, I've noticed our personalities have become more and more different. She's very assertive and can occasionally be very vain and even mean. I'm a people pleaser through and through. I want to make everyone else happy even if that comes at the expense of myself. So, when she came over to J's house to discuss moving in together, I was nervous. She's really the only person from my immediate family whom I have consistent contact with anymore, besides my grandparents, and I want this relationship to last so badly. I also desperately need a roommate--rent is so expensive and there is absolutely no way I can afford it on my own.

Our meeting went about as well as could be expected. She brought up how she wants her boyfriend to move in with us and when I tried to say that that would mean we would split rent and utilities 3 ways, she became defensive, claiming that that is not fair and her and her boyfriend should split HER portion of the rent only. Of course, I caved and agreed. We looked at apartments and she left after about 2 hours because she had a tattoo appointment. The next day at dinner, J's son, V, asked me how my meeting with my sister went and I explained what had happened. J has been trying to get me to be more assertive and develop more boundaries with my family and explained to her son that I had caved, and she's absolutely right, I had caved. J and her husband T pointed out that I was being manipulated and that my sister was taking advantage of me and that made my heart sink because I think they're probably right. My sister has been manipulative before. I've had issues with her lying to me and stealing things from my room back when I lived with my parents but I have always brushed it off because I want this relationship so badly. Having a twin is like having a built-in best friend. Its such a unique opportunity because there is no one else in the world who has had a life almost exactly like mine. We have been together for 25 years and losing that relationship would be devastating to me. It would be like losing a part of myself, like losing a part of my identity.

As I've been reflecting on this situation, I find myself coming to the same question: Why? why should I keep putting up boundaries and losing the only people I've ever known? Is it really worth it? I can't help but think that I am being slightly overdramatic about this entire situation and that everything could be solved if I just decided to reach out to my parents and apologize. I am so tired of losing people. I don't want to stand up for myself because I truly just don't understand the point. Why should I continue to cause conflict among my FOO when I could just deal with it? After all, I dealt with it for 25 years I'm sure I could deal with it for a few more. This has been something that I have struggled with immensely because I am so exhausted. Sometimes, I wish I could hit the rewind button and make things go back to normal, or whatever normal was before everything happened. I wish I could just make all the conflict and hurt go away, but I know I cannot and that is the hardest part.

[milkandhoney11]

whentherearenine,
so many things you have written here deeply resonated with me and I just wanted to say that I understand how exhausting and overwhelming a situation like this might be.
My sister and I are not twins (so I can't really relate to having someone "who has had a life almost exactly like mine") but we are quite close in age and so we have always been compared by our parents, teachers, friends, etc. And, like you, I feel that these comparisons have never been in my favour. I was always deemed to be the shy, broken, ugly one that didn't have any friends and was bullied in school, why my sister was in fact quite popular and was admired by a lot of people. Hearing every day how much inferior I was to my younger sister hurt terribly- especially when it came from my dad who would sometimes ask me "What the heck is wrong with you? I really can't understand you. I wished you were more like your sister!"
So, yes, I can completely understand how comparisons like this would take away your self-esteem and constantly make you feel not good enough.
I think we both know that this is not true, but it's incredibly hard to get all these years and years of negative comments out of your system and start recognising your own worth.
Much like you, I have, therefore, always neglected my own feelings, emotions, and wishes. I did not want to cause anyone any trouble and didn't mind taking on all the blame and guilt when it meant that I could at least keep some kind of peace within the family. But the truth is that I can't keep going on like this because it has been breaking me a little bit more every single day without me even realising quite how much I suffered. I think I was constantly at the edge of a mental breakdown and didn't actually notice it because I busied myself with so much work and simply had no time to pay attention to my own feelings. Yet, since I have recently become unemployed, my perspective on a lot of things changed and I can now see how sick this constant people-pleasing was making me.
So, I am slowly starting to set up more and more boundaries to protect myself and I must admit that it is very hard and painful to do in the first place, but I also know that it is the right thing to do because my heart cannot bear all this suffering anymore.
It's a really tough thing to say, but it sometimes helps me to remind myself that if I am scaring away anyone by setting up boundaries, they probably shouldn't be in my life anyway because they clearly do not respect me or my feelings. And, of course, it is hard to lose family members like this (it still hurts me to be gradually decreasing contact with my parents because they are the only ones in my family who ever cared about me even the slightest bit) but I finally feel like I am not suffocating anymore and can breathe a little bit easier.
So, I hope you can find a way to gain some freedom and be more assertive and I hope that your sister will be kind and understanding enough to accept your boundaries. It's what you deserve.

[Papa Coco]

Whentherearenine

My heart just swells as I read your words. For one thing, you are doing a stellar job of expressing your situation with us here on the forum. I see a heart-felt, young lady who loves her abusers and doesn't know which way to turn to find your place in the world in your own skin. ...Trust me, you can't imagine how similar our symptoms really are. What you and Milkandhoney and so many others on this forum have endured seem to all mostly come from having lived as that child in each family that couldn't measure up to unreasonable people. It hurts. It's confusing. It seems to have no solution.

We are here with you, Whentherarenine. We feel it too. In our own lives, and empathetically in the lives of one another.

In Complex PSTD, (as taught in Complex-PTSD; From Surviving to Thriving, by Dr. Pete Walker), there are 4 trauma responses we have each adopted in varying orders. These responses are Fight or Flight or Freeze or Fawn. My personal order of trauma responses is, when I feel disrespected, threatened, shamed, etc, etc, etc, my first response is to:

     1) Fawn. I draw closer to my abuser, and try to give that person what I think they want. I will paint their house, move them into my spare room, give them money, anything. Fawning (also called Being a Doormat) usually protects me by appeasing their toxic abuse for the time being. Fawning avoids conflict. Fawning avoids me having to "set boundaries" which I am seriously uncomfortable doing. If Fawning doesn't work, I move to

     2) Freeze. I dissociate, sometimes so badly I can't move or talk. I just stand there, mouth closed, staring at the floor, hoping they'll have pity on me and walk away. If Freezing (also called Playing Possum) doesn't work , I slide into

     3) Flight. I leave the party. I tell my boss I'm sick and go home. I tell my wife I'm sick and go to bed where I can hide alone. If Fleeing doesn't stop the abuse, THEN I FINALLY

      4) Fight. Fighting frightens me because my parents used to punish me the hardest if I ever stood up to them. If dear old Mom had said it once, she'd said it a thousand times, "If you ever get angry, you'll die of a stroke."  She burned that into my brain for 50 years and didn't stop until she died an old woman.

Even to this day, I will do anything to avoid becoming angry.  If I get angry, I almost always lose my ability to think or talk. I shake with rampant adrenalin, and nearly go blind as my sight restricts and my ears ring. I don't ever hurt anyone but myself. I punish MYSELF when others hurt me. I rant in gibberish, because I was never, ever, ever allowed to stand up for myself.

What's worse than ears ringing and body shaking is I later feel so ashamed of myself for having stood up for myself that I go back to Response 1) and I fawn over the person I stood up to until I feel like they "like me" again. That's SO non-productive.

I've had MORE than plenty to be angry about in life. For one, I was raped at school when I was 7. At least twice, maybe more. Then, at 10, I was turned on by my 11 y/o best friend when he tried to get sexual with me and I didn't respond how he wanted me to. His punishment was to turn the entire school into a mob, by telling them that I WAS GAY and he wasn't. I was not gay, but in 1970, I didn't know what the word meant, and I didn't know how to prove I wasn't. It was a religious school, so the meanness was far, far more insidious than a secular school would have been. In 1970, to be labeled "Homo" in a Christian school was aaalllmoooossstt a death sentence. The name stuck for the rest of my childhood. I became suicidal at 12. At the point I was ready to act on it, I got so sick from not being able to eat or sleep that good old Mom took me to the doctor, pumped me full of tranquilizers and sent me back to school. My defeat was locked in by then. I was whatever those little demons said I was. I accepted the nickname all the way down into my soul and was the doormat of all doormats for the next two years until I graduated. They'd broken my spirit and now I was who my family and church wanted me to be. I did try once, at 13, to beg my mom to let me go to a better school, and she told me that I was to "ignore the teachers and students who bullied me every day" and stay in that school until I graduated. She told me that I had darn well better not EVER get caught standing up for myself because if she had to get talked to by the principal for me being in a fight, it would be too embarrassing for her to deal with. I was to just take it and not bring my "little schoolyard problems" to her to deal with. THEN, when I graduated that school, Mom took me aside and said, "Your little sister is going to go to public schools with you." I said, "But she still has 3 years before she graduates." Mom said, "Yeah, but she asked if she could leave the school and go to a better school." I did raise my voice that one time (I was 14) when I said, "I asked if I could leave too but you wouldn't let me!" Mom said, "Yeah, but she's a girl so she can leave if she wants."

Like you, I was born with a big heart that wanted everyone to love each other. I never, ever took it out on my sister. I truly loved her. I was glad she got to go with me to a better, non-Christian school, but I really, truly learned, that I was the least of all humans, and I was never, ever allowed to stand up for myself. Ever. So...I'm a Fawn > Freeze > Flee > Fight C-PTSD personality as per Walker's book. And I lived my entire life being CinderFella. Everyone's scapegoat / whipping boy.

Okay, so here's what I worry about with your situation: You say that you and your Identical twin had identical lives. I don't agree. Your twin was praised, and you were bullied. You had a twin who was treated as if she was better than you. She had the opposite. She had a twin that she could blame for all her shortcomings. Your twin was praised for her beauty and accomplishments. She had a twin who was treated as if she was not beautiful and had never made any accomplishments. By reading your post, it sounds like you and your twin had nearly exact opposite lives, and the thing you had in common was your looks and your birthday.  Again, my heart just swells when I write this. I can't imagine how anyone can treat their own child this way. But they do. They did to me too. It seems unfair because it IS unfair.

The second thing I worry about is if you agree to let your sister and her boyfriend lock you into a lease for an apartment you can't afford by yourself, and they use 2/3 of all the electricity, 2/3 of all the space, 2/3 of all the food (actually a boyfriend will probably eat 3 x what a 25 year old woman will...so WAY more than 2/3) and they only have to pay for half, then they are absolutely seeing you as a patsie. Someone they can bully. How much faith do you have in them staying the course? What happens when they break up and he moves out, and you end up being the name on the lease that you can't afford to pay?

Okay, enough about that.

The final thing I can't stop thinking about is: I am 62 and I'm a strong, successful, retired, former standup comedian, former author of multiple novels, grandfather, etc, etc, etc, and I STILL CANNOT HOLD MY BOUNDARIES today any better than I could as a 12-year-old frightened boy with his selfish, unreasonable mommy. In fact, I may be even worse at it now than I was then. Rather than hold boundaries, I flee bad relationships and walk away from people who don't respect me. Believe me when I say this: I am exactly like you, in that I resent being told to make people respect me. Why can't they respect me without me having to fight for it? What is WRONG with this world? So, when I think about what you can do to feel more empowered in your life, the only suggestion I have is to learn more about the actual situation you're in with your family, including your twin. It's more common than you think for people to be just like you and I and all the other awesome, loving people on this forum. What's being done to you has books written about it, and they are accurate. If you're like me, and if you can't force yourself to hold a boundary, then take a different approach. Like I said up above, holding boundaries is not in my toolkit. In my case, if I DO hold a boundary, anxiety begins to build in me, and it continues to build until I finally go back to the person I stood up to and I apologize to them for not taking what THEY did to ME. That just lowers my doormat level deeper into the porch.

What I've done is I've taken on learning about C-PTSD and learning about Sociopathic Toxic Bullies. I can't express it enough, that the books The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout and Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, by Dr. Pete Walker have given me superpowers in the face of my bullies. The more I learn, the more I can see how easy it is to spot a toxic sociopath, the more I feel like I'm safe from them.  I find that my boundaries don't always really need to be held. There's a truth in the fact that bullies target easy targets. Bullies DO have a sixth sense, and that is being able to see "Victim" in the faces of those who believe they deserve to be bullied.

Knowledge is power, and power is terrifying to bullies. THEY will leave you alone if they see knowledge in your eyes. Knowledge that exposes who they really are. They can SEE It in your eyes, and THEY will become afraid of YOU. Bullies don't realize how much of a mirror you are. By not responding to their tricks, your lack of response exposes their true colors to themselves while being caught, red-handed, in the actual act of trying to manipulate a good person. Sort of like training a puppy. If you put him outside WHILE he's peeing, he'll know that peeing in the house is not right. But if you wait an hour and then show him the puddle, then put him outside, he never makes the connection. By being a mirror, you catch them in the act, and they suddenly see their evil with their own eyes. But even more than that, when they look into the eyes of someone who isn't "trickable" anymore, they simply lose interest in you. The well of free stuff has dried up. They no longer want to pretend they love you to get stuff from you and they move on to find someone who is still easy to trick and manipulate. When the well dries up, they go find another well. All they really want is your money and your servanthood. When they see that you can see through their manipulations, they move on to the next willing servant who they think has a little cash or income or a car they can borrow or take without putting up a fight. When this happens, you didn't have to do anything at all except read the books about Sociopaths and Complex PTSD. Because you learn, they learn also.

You'll not only see them in these books, but you'll see yourself in the books too. You go "Ah HA! So that's how this happened." Somehow or another, they sense your new knowledge and they either start to treat you better, or they go find another Patsie to bully. Either way, you're no longer their well of free stuff.

By doing this, you don't ever have to break the relationship with your sister. You just improve your own knowledge, and whatever happens, happens in a way that is acceptable to both of you.

This month's Psychology Today Magazine has an article in it about how if you sacrifice your own needs for the person with whom you are in a relationship, you're basically lighting a fuse that will one day end at an implosion of your relationship. By this reasoning, if you do move in with a manipulative twin who you love deeply, and she and her boyfriend Do treat you how they've always treated you, it could actually be what eventually ends your relationship once and for all. I let my older sister, the middle one, who was 11 years older than me, do this stuff to me all the time. I lived with her whenever she "told me to". Dear old Mom always praised me for "Taking care of" a freaking sociopath who would rather I was dead if I wasn't giving her my money, time, food, car, etc. That sister and I haven't spoken in 13 years, and I STILL want to be farther removed from her. My resentment is 100% locked in permanent, and nothing will ever undo that.

I would hate to see you and your twin go to the end we went to.

Anyway, I know I'm not a professional or anything, but I just wanted to share with you my reactions to your situation. For me, "learning to hold boundaries" was like a fish trying to learn how to fly an airplane. The damage done by 50 years in my toxic family just can't be undone. I envy those who can learn boundaries, but for me, just arming myself with total awareness of what a bully really is, has given me a face that repels bullies now. I don't really need to hold boundaries as often as I used to, because I can smell those toxic monsters coming and I don't feed them what they want, so they leave me alone.

Please don't take my word as if I'm an expert. I only know what worked for me, and what I learned from these two amazing books by Dr. Stout and Dr. Walker (And a few other books that supported with the same information).

I just feel so much heartfelt connection to your situation. I know how confusing it is to love a family that hurts me. So...it can't hurt to at least read the books and see what next steps materialize organically once you start to see that these manipulative people are exactly the same in every family and we C-PTSD victims do tend to be birds of a feather who all fully understand the pain that each is going through.

You're NOT alone. Never think you are. You have a lot of allies. The authors of these books are fierce allies who stand firmly in our corner, showing us the light switch so we can see what's really happening here.

BIG HUGE grandfatherly HUG to you!   

[Armee]

Oh gosh everything Papa Coco said.

I agree with Papa Coco that you and your twin did not really have the same life. Similar, yes and you can relate and reflect on the same people and events but your experience was way different. Im so sorry you were treated so blatantly and consistently in such a devastating and objectified way.

There's hope though for you and your twin to be close if she treats you respectfully. My mom had borderline PD and bipolar disorder. She split me and my sis like it seems your mom does to you and your twin. Except in our family my sister was the one treated as all bad and I was the golden child.

I did not have it good, either. I was only "good" because I was terrified and watched what happened when my sister stood up for herself so I took a different tactic. Even being the "loved" one that was not love at all and it was really hard to watch my sister be abused. So even when one sibling seems to have it better, sometimes it's just different. Of the two of us I've been the more traumatized one because she stood up for her rights and I suppressed every last bit of myself and took all the blame and shame.

She did resent me somewhat and I hated how she stirred the pot and made everything more chaotic. But as adults we've grown extremely close. This happened living in 2 separate states. You can still be close to your twin without living with her and risking your feeling of safety and progress with trauma healing. It may be the better recipe for closeness too in the end.

Feeling safe matters.

[Master of my sea]

Hey Whentherearenine,

I haven't got much more to add to what Papa Coco and Armee has said other than something I read a few weeks ago. No two siblings ever grow up in the same family. Your experiences of life with your FOO are exponentially different to that of your twins and the same vice versa. You did not have the same parents or the same experiences. When I say you didn't have the same parents, I mean on the sense that they parented her differently to you. Even events that happened together, her take on them will be different from yours.
I keep trying to remind myself of this when I feel like you explain in your post. When I keep asking the why questions. Your experiences growing up in your FOO are NOT the same.

Sending you support and care

[whentherearenine]

Wow, I am truly overwhelmed by the amount of support and care you all have given me. It truly means a lot to me. Hearing all of your experiences helps me feel less alone in this and I think that that is one of the most important things for me right now, so thank you all for sharing your thoughts and your experiences.

Regarding my sister, after thinking a little more about our upbringing, I can definitely see how we could have had two much different experiences even while living in the same household. But the interesting thing is that we have always been able to bond over our poor relationship with our mother. I specifically remember a time when we were around 11 years old when we used to talk about how we would never let each other become like her, yet I feel like I kind of let her down in that aspect because sometimes she does act like my mother, but I just don't know how to tell her that without hurting her feelings. Its all very confusing and complicated and I appreciate all of your viewpoints so much!

[whentherearenine]

December 5, 2022

There has been a deep sense of shame that I have been struggling with for a few months at this point, and for the longest time I could not understand why. Tonight, as I'm sitting in one of my Labor and Employment Law courses, I realized where this shame when stemming from.

When I was a child, my mother decided to open up a dance studio. My sister and I were enrolled in dance at a local studio and my mother had taken dance classes when she was young, so, being the "entrepreneur" she is, she decided to open a dance studio, claiming that she did it for me and my sister, but in retrospect, its pretty obvious she did it for herself.

Over the years the studio became relatively successful. It ended up having over a hundred students and we were becoming pretty successful in the local competition circuit. By the time I began high school, my entire life revolved around this studio. All of my friends were people that I danced with. My mother would pull me out of school to rehearse or attend competitions and it was basically understood that my future would be to take over the studio once I graduated high school. At the time, I think part of me wanted that. However, I also think that I would have done anything possible to please my mother and was so blinded by that that I did not even know what I truly wanted.

So, fast forward to my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old, barely passing most of my classes, and had no intention of going to college. By this point my mother had completely lost interest in the dance studio. She stopped showing up and basically delegated all the dance classes to me and some of her employees to teach. The studio was basically falling apart and it was clear that it was just a ticking time bomb, and thats true--it was.

I don't even remember exactly what happened, to be honest. There are so many things that my parents lied to me about when I was growing up that even to this day I have a hard time deciphering what is true and what is not true. What I do know is, that one day, the entire competition team left the studio, as well as all of the teachers. Some how it had come out that my mother had not been paying her employers and that she had been embezzling the money that parents had been paying for competition entry fees. I don't know where that money went or what was done with it, but what I do know is that my mother and my father were both dealing with substance abuse during this time and had stolen money from me before, so this was unfortunately unsurprising. The difference this time, however, was that this time it was not just me and my siblings who were getting hurt, it was innocent people, many of whom were my friends or my friends parents and that makes me feel sick to this day.

Looking back, its been over 8 years and I still feel deeply upset and guilty about everything that happened. Logically, I know that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening, and I know that it was not my fault, but at the same time, I still feel responsible. My parents have never apologized to anyone who was harmed by the studio and to this day my mother still says that she was the victim in this case. I have so much shame and guilt surrounding this situation because I do not understand how people I am related to could cause so much unnecessary pain. I wish they would at least take responsibility for their actions and offer an apology.

Connecting this back to my course that I'm taking, I can't help but sit in these classes and feel like a complete fraud. We're learning about Employment Law and how to defend the rights of workers but I'm related to someone who violated these very laws. I feel like I'm going to be found out, and its not something I'm very proud of.

[Papa Coco]

Wheretherearenine,

Your dance studio story really tugs at my heartstrings. So many times, we see public figures who are the children of "bad" people, who are out in the world devoting their lives to being the opposite of their parents.

I know the worry of feeling like a fraud, but what I see in this story is a loving woman who was as much (or more) a victim of actual fraud as any customer or client was. You paid a higher price than any of your customers did. They lost money. You lost far more than just money.

Of course your parents aren't taking responsibility for their crimes! Of course they aren't! That's because they're sociopaths. That's just what sociopaths do. They wouldn't be who they are if they took responsibility. They'd be alligators acting like kittens. Alligators act like alligators because they're alligators. Sociopaths act like sociopaths because they're sociopaths. Luckily sociopathy, especially sociopathy that's caused by drug abuse, is rarely passed down to children.

You are not like them. You are the good that came from them.

As you are taking classes to learn about responsible employment practices, you are giving yourself the gift of turning away from the bad example given to you by a pair of common, every day, drug addicts.

Actually, you're doing better than turning away from them, you are in a position to use their abuse as a real-life example that proves you know what you're talking about when you talk about the right and wrong way to run a business.

You didn't read about embezzlement, you lived as a real-life victim of it, and now you are an actual, real-life expert on how to NOT treat employees, friends, and customers.

Sometimes I am able to see with clarity that what happens to us really does make us stronger. 

When I was in alcohol rehab myself 8 or 9 years ago, I respected that our addiction councilors were all recovering addicts themselves. I knew, beyond doubt, that I wouldn't trust anything I was being told by someone who had learned how it feels to be an addict in a book.    I don't take financial advice from chronically poor people;     I don't take diet advice from people who have never been fat.    In fact, my Therapist, who has done the most positive work to keep me sane is recovering from a childhood almost as bad as mine was.     So I trust him when he tells me how to recover from it.     

You are someone I would WANT to listen to if you were telling me how it feels to be duped by dishonest employers.  You lost money, respect, friends... You know why it's important to be an honest employer. I would want to work for someone like you.

The greatest helpers in society are those who know the pain of doing things the wrong way, and who are caring and compassionate enough to right the wrongs. Empathy is the single most healing power I know of, and empathy can ONLY happen through shared similar experiences.

[Armee]

Exactly exactly what Papa Coco said. You were even more a victim of their fraud, their bad is not your bad, and your story is incredibly valuable in a class like that. You didn't do anything wrong. Their sins are not your sins.

[Hope67]

I also want to add my support for you whentherearenine.  I echo what Papa Coco and Armee said. 
Hope