Being scapegoated turned into a blessing and a sanctuary for healing

[FredrickaGoshlox]

I'm just going to share what happened to me and hope it helps somebody else.

I have been in therapy since I was 23 and I'm over 21 a few times now

My dx. have included depression, anxiety, panic disorder, mild OCD and at one time I had depersonalization/derealization. Since I was bullied both at home and in school I had used maladaptive daydreaming to deal with the present, especially in school.

Once my grandma died, the only person in my FOO who loved me unconditionally, it was no holds barred for BPD mom and she dragged my siblings along wit her. I hadn't been abused. *I* had abused. Ok. Yep.An infant and child can be very abusive. I thought I had BPD mostly because I am so hard on myself that, of course, I had to have a diagnosis that was "baaaaaaaaaaaad." Nobody diagnosed me but me. Instead I have been diagnosed with trauma and most recently CPSTD.

My scapegoating FOO basically have all disowned me and I wish they or I had done it at an early age. Without them playing a large role in my life, I have been able to find a great husband and raise wonderful chidlren (this is after one rather verbally abusive and financially abusive marriage that nonetheless lasted seventeen years). In my first  marriage I had no idea that calling me names and belittling me was abnormal. I thought all marriages were like that. Plus first hub had a chronic  illness so I thought I had to be nice to him and not stick up for myself because he was sick. The first time somebody told me he had no right to be mean to me was in a group setting. I got so upset that the group didn[t understand that I HAD to accept everything because he was sick, I left crying. But I learned after joining CODA.

The less my FOO was in my life, the clearer my life became and I now have a loving relationship with a man who can feel and show intimacy. My kids benefited big time from our loving marriage. I still have my FOO's tapes in my head (L"you're bad" "you're stupid" "you're lazy" "you're selfish" etc.), but I can talk back to them more and tell myself, "That's all a lie."

My sister likes to tell everyone I have borderline, diagnosed.

I don't talk to her, read her FB page or know what her life is like now. It was not good the last I checked.

I turned out to be the only one with a loving, peaceful, sane family. I think the less contact one has with people who make you feel two feet tall and like you are worthless, the better off you are the more you can heal.

I'm no doctor so take my two cents with a grain of salt. Even hearing my brother or sister or mother's first names can cause an EF. Their voices cause EFs. I don't like EF and would prefer to have as few as possible so I try to avoid triggers. I think your family is who loves and respects you, not whose DNA you share by accident.

Anyhow, just my two cents. I am still in therapy, still working on me. I probably will always be in therapy. But I'm happy most of the time now. I'm here because I'd never heard about CPSTD before, although many of my therapists asked me if I had experienced trauma, which I used to disavow. I'd say, "Look, I was a horrible kid. My mom was a GREAT mother. It was MY fault." And I believed that too.

Don't give up