New so brief story (possible triggers)

[sweetsixty]

Hi all,

So sorry about the possible triggers in this but impossible to introduce your story without some really. 

I have used this same intro on the out of the fog forum so those I met over there will know me but it has been a while. I have been working with my T on some very difficult stuff in recent months and that caused me to sort of hide away again which was not the result I expected but apparently quite normal for what we were doing. This is a fab new resource and it's going to take me days to get through all the wonderful info.

I am always concerned about how to summarise my story quickly as so many of you will have done, especially when it is long and complex. I am 59 and to everyone outside have had a really good life especially in recent years but very briefly this is the story as to why I am now in healing from Complex PTSD and struggling with an ageing uNPDM and enablingF.

I really had no idea that my parents even had a PD until last year. I was so embroiled in CPTSD that I just took all the blame on board myself. I thought that my problem had started when I was 15 and I got pregnant and although my baby died at birth, my parents made me marry the father (who was 21 years old) just 6 weeks after the birth. They made me feel so ashamed and told me that no one else would ever look at me let alone marry me so I had no choice.

There began a very abusive relationship to a psychopath which lasted 11 years. I finally left when I didn't care if he did kill me! It turned out my fears were justified when his next 'victim' was actually murdered by him a few years after I left. 3 days later he killed himself rather than face authority and own up to what he had done. He tried to cover up his crime by faking a double suicide, but the court returned a verdict of 'unlawful killing' by him. Apparently you cannot be labelled a murderer if you are dead.

I was lucky as I met and married a wonderful man who is still with me 30 years later. I have 4 children 2 from my first marriage and 2 with my new hubbie, I returned to Higher education at 37 and completed a degree and worked 20 years as a University lecturer and in that time was very successful even completing a. PhD.

End of story it may seem - well not quite! I spent those 30 years burying my feelings about what had happened by developing very unhelpful schemas of perfectionism, unrelenting standards, doormat syndrome, subjugation, etc.  All very destructive schemas but they were my coping mechanisms. Then bang I am diagnosed with MS and the world I had fought to build came tumbling down around my ears. No longer able to do everything for everyone and keep the professional status I had attained to prove I was okay (dependent on outside validation), my CPTSD symptoms took on a stranglehold. I was lucky that a therapist in the neurology team recognised it from her work with war veterans.

Then another shock when 6 months into the therapy the realisation came that my parents paved the way for my ex by preparing me to be a victim all my life!  You guys know how soul destroying it is to know the life you thought you had was not! I am now trying very hard to cope from this new information and heal from the CPTSD.  I have also recently had some more really nasty knocks and confrontations with my parents, it seems that ageing does not heal PDs.

Thank you to all of you for being here and for listening, I'm looking forward to meeting some of you. Just bear in mind I am based in the UK so there may me a time lag in my replies and doing some pretty radical therapy too at the moment which often knocks me sideways!

Thanks for listening x

[schrödinger's cat]

Hello sweetsixty, and welcome to the forum. I hope you'll find it helpful.

You had a really hard life. Wow. I'm impressed by how you rebuilt your life after leaving your ex. That can't have been at all easy. And I'm sorry to hear about your MS.

Did you come across Out of the Fog yet? It's a forum much like this one, for friends and families of people with a personality disorder. Let me see if I can find the link... ah yes: here. They have information about narcissism here.

There are several people on this forum, too, whose parents are narcissists, so you're certainly not alone.

I'm from Central Europe (the bit with forests and cuckoo clocks and the obscure dialects), so I'm glad to find another European here. Hi! Mind if I ask you what part of Britain you're from? You don't have to answer, I'm simply just curious.

Anyway, I'm hoping you'll find something helpful here. All the best!

[sweetsixty]

Thanks Schrödinger's cat, I really appreciate your reply if you look at my first paragraph above  you will see that I used the same intro on. Out of the Fog forum. I have posted a few things over there and had some useful replies and met some great folk.

I may have PD parents but my suffering is very much CPTSD and whilst I am working through this with my T this forum seems to be the place to help that? It's not the PD that I am struggling with,  in fact knowing that is what is is has helped a little, but it's the aftermath and spending nearly 60 years of my life not knowing that I was brainwashed and groomed and with an inner critic that is crucifying me! So working on all these things at the moment including re scripting imagery with my T.

Rebuilding my life does look impressive but seriously it nearly killed me and was due to my learned schemas of perfectionism and unrelenting standards as I needed so much outside validation. Even gaining a PhD did not make me good enough - but you guys know about that.

It's great to meet you to, I live in the central part of England's in the county of Shropshire, whereabout in Europe are you?

Best wishes x

[keepfighting]

Hi, sweetsixty,

nice to meet you!

Wow - quite a life story. I sure am glad you're in a safe situation now and able to work on your recovery.

Looking forward to reading your posts.

kf

[Rain]

Welcome, sweetsixty.

Oh, you are sooooo not alone.   I see parts of your story in everyone here.   I am sorry you've gone through this and I very much admire your candidness on the your life schemas to cope.   I hope you can move up and out of them to freedom, yes, at the same time you have the MS starting.

True freedom of the heart.

I shake my head at your parents.   I wish I could remember which book I read this in, but your first teenage story is nearly identical with the one a book author told pointing out that a woman (like you) was drawn to the very man her parents groomed her for as a teenager...a psychopath.    What is stunning is how the past is not what we were forced to believe it was.   Lot of false beliefs forced on us.

May you find the step stones to freedom, with some being here at OOTS.   I am glad you are here.

Love in your Healing Journey.

[schrödinger's cat]

Thanks Schrödinger's cat, I really appreciate your reply if you look at my first paragraph above  you will see that I used the same intro on. Out of the Fog forum. I have posted a few things over there and had some useful replies and met some great folk.

I may have PD parents but my suffering is very much CPTSD and whilst I am working through this with my T this forum seems to be the place to help that?

Eeek! I wasn't chasing you away, honest! Did I put things the wrong way? I must have. Sorry. It's just that several people here mentioned how helpful OOTF is for them, so I thought I'd mention it. From what they mentioned, I got the impression that what PD parents put you through can be so outlandish that it's a relief to find people who can relate.

I'm in Germany, roughly near Heidelberg, and my native language is a very obscure dialect. I haven't been to Shropshire, but I looked it up just now on google, and the pictures look truly beautiful.

[sweetsixty]

Thanks to all of you, you guys are so welcoming. I admit I am candid now on forums but this has been very recent and I still can't talk to friends and family about any of this.

After some very difficult situations last year when my uNPDM told me that she also had been pregnant when she married - yes after forcing me into my first marriage! And that she was 23 at the time and they had got pregnant on purpose so that they could marry. They then go on to -
1. Tell me that they would be telling my siblings about their lies -  lie number one they never did, just me the one they could hurt.
2. Invite all of us to a celebration of their 60th anniversary bearing in mind that it this was then out of sync with their 25th, 30th, 40th and 50th which had all ben celebrated a year before due as they had lied to us all their entire life.

So I refused to go, this was so terribly triggering for me I had a real hard time, I wasn't going to celebrate - but that led to all sorts of problems and I am currently trying to go no contact but still live in fear of them trying to get in touch. Plus their both 82 and live in the same small town!

I am also using re scripting imagery with my T and looking for others who have used this as it is very dramatic.

BTW Schrödinger's cat, I'm sorry if it sounded like that I really didn't mean it to, I just wanted you to know I was familiar with OOTF forum too :-). Your part of the world is beautiful too.

Again thanks all hope to speak to you all again soon.

[schrödinger's cat]

Phew. Sorry, I startle easily sometimes.

I looked up rescripting imagery, and I might have done that once? It was accidentally, as bizarre as this sounds.

I had read up on the method, and thought "bah humbug", because it just seemed too easy - imagining my way to a less troubled past? If only. No, I was very certain that this wouldn't ever work. A few days later, a kind of daydream popped up in my mind. It was all nice and easy, nothing forced. It was simply a series of scenes from my past - I was bullied at school and very lonely, and in my daydream, it was just like that, only now I had a friend. The daydream felt very very realistic. It wasn't just some polly-anna wish fullfillment, it really felt like something that might have happened. It made a very real difference. Before, I was hardly able to even remember my time at school without feeling overwhelmed with fear and shame and guilt and all those lovely, lovely CPTSD feelings. Ever since, it's died down. I still find school BLEARGH, but the feelings are a LOT milder.

And it's like I said, it kind of happened by itself, almost in spite of me. Funny, when you think of it. Even funnier that I never really used that technique again, coming to think of it. I think I should.

No, wait, I did use it, only not for myself. I remember it now. I used it when my kids had bad dreams, or when they told me of bad experiences at school. After listening to them, comforting them, talking things through, they're usually calmer, but still visibly upset. So then I sometimes make a story out of it - for example, when one of them was very little, she had a nightmare of a shark swimming into our flat (seriously). So I span the story out so we all had heavy frying pans that we whacked the shark over the head with, and then we made shark stew. It's honestly often the ONLY thing that works. I can still see it in my mind's eye - she asked: "...but what if another shark comes?", so I mimicked hefting a frying pan and said: "Weeell, what do you think would happen?" And she was grinning so hard and yelling: "SHARK STEW!" - And I always asked myself where on earth I had that idea from. So now I know. One less nightmare-plagued toddler, thanks to Mervin Smucker.

[sweetsixty]

That sounds like a fun way to help the kids but I have a funny feelin that approach wouldn't quite work on some of my stuff.  This is the paper on imagery rescripting that my T gave me to introduce it.

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emily_Holmes/publication/5812956_Imagery_rescripting_in_cognitive_behaviour_therapy_images_treatment_techniques_and_outcomes/links/0fcfd50ab4cc24742c000000

It does sound simple but it's not that easy and you cannot do it to yourself as it's not as simple as daydreaming. It is guided imagery and someone else needs to guide you through the process whilst all the time keeping you grounded in the present and with compassionate support. It also can't be done in one session as each time it's fine there is 'fallout' to deal with.

In my experience it has been very, very powerful as it's not meant to change a flashback but to take the 'sting' out of it and make it a little easier to live with. It doesn't change anything and in fact it has been painful, difficult and at times traumatic. But my T is very careful not to retraumatise and has often followed up my session with phone calls of support and to check  I am coping, which is amazing. I am truly blessed to have such a good T.

[schrödinger's cat]

Then I was thinking of another method - but it was something I read somewhere, I remember that. Of course the shark stew method is rather silly, and works for toddler-sized problems only. What surprised me about both my experience and my kids' was that those methods (simple though they were) worked at all - that our imagination has some way of influencing the impact of painful-to-traumatic memories.

Your T sounds good. Can you clone her?

[sweetsixty]

Would love to clone her we all deserves someone like that lol.  And yes our imagination is amazing you only have to look at how well hypnotherapy works to understand the power of suggestion.

But in the case of traumatic memories it allows us to really see as an adult and a bystander that what happened was not our fault and is not our shame, that in itself is powerful.

Thanks Cat, really appreciate the feedback x

[keepfighting]

So I refused to go, this was so terribly triggering for me I had a real hard time, I wasn't going to celebrate - but that led to all sorts of problems and I am currently trying to go no contact but still live in fear of them trying to get in touch. Plus their both 82 and live in the same small town!

I can only imagine that it must have been hard on you. Not going, not celebrating, being true to yourself and your own judgment knowing it will leave you open to all kinds of criticism....

When my uNPDm turned 50, she pulled a stunt like that on me (forgot what it was exactly). She lives in a different European country and we were all packed and ready to leave for a long weekend of celebrating (baby and all) but I refused to go. Then of course in came all the flying monkeys; pleading with me to forgive her because, after all, it was her special day and she was turning 50 today. I remember distinctly that I answered: "Well, then she should be old enough to know that you can't behave like that." I wasn't bothered any more after that but sat at home crying my heart out yet also feeling that I had done the right thing in not betraying myself in order to please her.

This summer, my PDsis pulled the same stunt on me on the occasion of her 40th birthday. Sheesh, I wonder where she learned to behave like that  . Again, terrible EFs, but I didn't go. She lives in yet another European country. We rescheduled our Summer vacation entirely and booked a nice last minute into the sun instead. I told my enabling sister (who was acting as PDsis' flying monkey) that we'd still go on the original trip. That was just me being mean, I have to admit: I knew it would bother my PDsis no end knowing that I am close and she can't control me. 

About trying to go NC with your parents in a small town:  Tough one!

[sweetsixty]

Thanks keepfighting, I know how tough that must have been for you. As you say staying true to you is a really hard one. I have not had any flying monkeys this time - I have not been able to analysis my siblings position in the family as I don't know them well. I was 16 when I left home and my brothers were 14, 6 and 4. My sister was born when I was 18 so I didn't really live with them long. The brother who was 14 and the one who was 6 (golden child) have supported me this time whereas last time I was scapegoat they all deserted me but they are now advising me to keep away from our parents but they will still stay in touch and support me. In fact golden child bro was the one who told my parents to abandon the celebration completely as we couldn't all attend!!  To me that means that they have had their eyes open too?

But I knew I had made the right decision when my enablingF rang to plead with me on my uNPDMs behalf and I found myself visibly shaking.  He told me half way through my refusal that I was on speaker phone and she could hear everything I was saying! That's a dodgy thing to do in the first place. He then went on to say it was 'soul destroying' to have me refuse as they had always supported me in everything I do. My T was even blown away by the amount of denial in that.

It took me several days to stop crying and shaking but I had such validation from my OH and my daughter, even though my daughter does not know the full background. So I have stuck to my decision but it's never easy. It was at that point I realised that I was actually very scared of them and that refusing made me feel ashamed not guilty! That's the point when you realise what they did to you emotionally.

Take care x

[keepfighting]

In fact golden child bro was the one who told my parents to abandon the celebration completely as we couldn't all attend!!  To me that means that they have had their eyes open too?

That would be lovely! 

In my FOO, that would just be the first move towards guilting me into coming to the next celebration 'because they went to such lengths to accomodate you'. Put on the guilt and obligation...  But even should your parents reschedule, you still would be under no obligation to actually attend if you don't want to - since you didn't ask for it, it can't be used as an argument to guilt you into attending...

But I knew I had made the right decision when my enablingF rang to plead with me on my uNPDMs behalf and I found myself visibly shaking.  He told me half way through my refusal that I was on speaker phone and she could hear everything I was saying! That's a dodgy thing to do in the first place. He then went on to say it was 'soul destroying' to have me refuse as they had always supported me in everything I do. My T was even blown away by the amount of denial in that.

OMG - ? You've definitely made the right decision! That's such a betrayal of trust! Is your father an enabler or do you suspect him af having a PD himself?

My enabling sis used to play that trick on me - putting me on speaker phone when my mother was visiting her without telling me (I've been NC with my m since 2000). My little niece unwittingly put me in the picture once and since then I go NC with my enabling sis for at least 2 weeks before and after my m visits her. 

[sweetsixty]

  Dear keepfighting,  thanks so much for that reply, I don't know how you do it either! As to your question. I don't know if my F has a. PD too but he is definitely an enabler so maybe it's both? Is that possible? I do t know enough about it.

I have spent nearly 60 years just thinking it was all my fault,  I only just discovered all this around Christmas last year. Although I suspected as much last year.

Be well xx