Trigger Warning; What if My Abuser Dissociated During Abuse?

[movementforthebetter]

I've been thinking lately that it's possible my M cannot acknowledge she abused me because she may have been in a dissociative state while she was doing it.

Something my SF said once stuck with me. She once tried to give me a bunch of clothes that were way too big and he said something along the lines of "You know she can't see that". There's two or three things I've pulled from that statement over time.

• she is completely blind to and incapable of seeing truth if it dissagrees with her version of reality
• seeing something outside her version of reality would cause her to shatter
• she spends most if not all of her time in this alternate reality as a defense mechanism and it is a permanent limitation meaning she will never change, ever

Given the insights above coupled with the belief I developed through my own journey that she was also sexually abused as a child, I'm having a tough time recconciling my feelings.

On one hand, I despise her and everything she did to me. On the other, assuming my inferences are correct, I feel terribly sorry for her. But it doesn't change the damage she caused and her refusal to acknowledge it has been further abuse in and of itself.

Has anyone come to a similar place in their journey, and if so, how did you move forward once reaching this point?

[Dee]

I understand where you are going with this.  However, I try not to go there.  I have no doubt my father was abused and quite possibly my mother as well.  Yet, there is no excuse, ever.  I can spend time trying to explain why it happened and what may have caused it, but it doesn't matter.  I never abused my children.  I guess my point is I don't go there because it doesn't matter, I just torment myself even more thinking of the possible reasons.

[movementforthebetter]

Thank you for your reply, Dee. You are right.

I still have trouble remembering that abuse is abuse and always wrong sometimes. I was programmed to think of her first, always, and I suppose this is another case of me living out my programming.

[radical]

I know my mother was terribly abused.  (So was my father, but that's another story).

I was once caring for my mother after she had had surgery.  She had had a strange reaction to it.  she was drugged-out and extremely sleep deprived, and in the middle of the night she told me some of the story of life as a child with her father, a man she had adored and had previously mainly spoken of in either glowing, or sympathetic ways.

She was dissociated, out of it.  There was no emotion or linking with her own problems, just some internal pressure to tell.  I doubt she remembers.

I don't think my mother can help or change what or who she is.  She doesn't self-reflect.  I've become more aware that she has a number of different 'personalities' or operating systems and that all my life this has confused me.  In some of these, I'm her mother.  In none of these does she "see" me.  Sometimes I think she has glimpses that I exist and it makes her feel bad to experience, briefly, that she has a child (me) and that she usually doesn't see me.  If she let that come into proper awareness, she wouldn't be able to cope, in part because it would bring her own abuse into awareness.

It's not a choice for me that I love my mother, any more than it's a choice that I also hate her.  I just accept how I feel in the moment, and that in some ways she is a small child that I love in the ways that I needed her to love me.

Most of all I keep a big distance and never put myself in a position in which she can hurt me.  I live a long way away.  I don't tell her anything about my life, I don't expect anything from her.  There will never be any reconciliation, or acknowledgment of her behaviour towards me and how that has affected me.  I don't think I'll see her again, because I expect she will die this year.  All the 'coming to terms' or whatever you want to call it has to be from me to me.  I'm glad that the intergenerational abuse has stopped with me.  The last part is learning to love myself in the absense of having been loved.

[sanmagic7]

in my logical mind, i would say that all abusers have been abused in some way, shape, or form.  from a professional standpoint, then, i can feel compassion and work with them if they want that.

however, in my emotional being, no matter how sick or mistreated someone has been, there is no excuse for abuse.  there are examples all around this forum of people who have had horrific experiences, yet refuse to continue in that loop with the people who are now in their lives.   

i have accepted that it's doubtful that some people will ever change, for whatever reason.  the abusers in my life are just that, and that's how i think of them - i'm sure they've all been abused, but that's their issue to deal with, not mine.  this is a personal sanity stance for me and i work at keeping a hard line with it.  i excused it for way too long, and nearly lost myself by doing so.   

[Dee]

Sanmagic, I am hitting my imaginary like button.  I am also at the point where I am no longer going to excuse other's behavior!!  That is a powerful thing, especially in our lives where power was taken away from us!

[movementforthebetter]

The replies to this post are very powerful and touch on many points of consideration for me. I don't know if I'll be able to articulate a response the way I want to, so I am going to let this sit in my head for the day before I try. Thanks for sharing your perspectives, everyone.

[hurtbeat]

I think that the codependent side of us tries to empathise with the abuser because it was necessary for our survival, kind of how an abused wife exclaims: "He didn't mean to hit me, I upset him!"

But facts are still facts, you were abused, you didn't deserve it and if your mother was incapable of taking care of you then someone should have stepped in.
You have every right to feel upset about the abuse, even if you can't direct your anger at someone specifically you can still feel anger and sadness about how you were allowed to be abused and neglected.