Aiye, exactly. That is the crux of the ACON dilemma: We are born hard-wired to bond with our parents, our primary caretakers. We know from the time we are 2 or 3, without our parents we will die, our dependency on them is that unquestionably total. Not only is our dependence physical, it is very much psychological: They define the world for us and they *help* us define ourselves. They shape our thinking, our beliefs, our views of ourselves and the world globally and profoundly. What a perfect set-up for the despot NP. They reign supreme in a totalitarian system within the confines of our world as children and later, as adults. We desperately seek their unconditional love and approval which will never be forthcoming but we have been trained so well, have been so accustomed to magnifying the slightest crumb or reprieve from their relentless criticisms, denigrations etc. we continue to to believe even into our adult lives that somehow, some way we will *finally* be "Enough." We are so completely socialized into believing that *any* problems within the relationship with them lie within us, and us alone. Those same messages are reinforced within the culture itself in too many ways subtle and otherwise to truly question the patently false assumptions behind this kind of totalitarian system further empowered by society at large. *We* are inherently "defective" in some way. It *must* be us. We learned well the price of speaking out or up against the entirely rigged system in which we were raised because "loyalty" and "keeping secrets" are valued above all within our family systems. That we were provided food, clothing and shelter is enough to shame ACONS into silence. They often view this response from their family members or others with a subdued, "Yeah, My "parents" did provide these..." Doesn't take much to shame an ACON into compliance or just shutting up, period. ;) I've reminded a few other ACONS in response to this assertion, "These same "amenities" are provided in ORPHANAGES. As well as jails and prisons<How fitting is that?" ;) I'll say it again, Peep: That ANY of us ACONS get out at all is nothing short of a miracle, a testament to the inner resources they've always had-but in typical fashion were never acknowledged or nurtured, instead responded to with sure and swift retribution. Acknowledging the lack of love-or even like-from the NPs is a painful step. The morning I sat down and wrote that little (far too polite) 4/5 line "No Contact" note and dropped it in the mail, it felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my young shoulders. I was *not* angry, I did *not* "hate" her (I didn't have enough emotional investment left to get up such a strong feeling-that had long passed) nor did I wish her ill-will. What I DID "want" was simply to be left in peace. That's it. My young still somewhat naive self had not yet fully put the pieces together well enough to comprehend what ever it is you most desire from the CB/MN "Parent" will be thwarted at every turn. The ensuing decades of her Scorched Earth War declared against me in response to that note by my MN "Mother" until her physical death confirmed repeatedly my decision, entrenched my refusal to rescind that which I knew to be TRUE and completely unmasked her Agenda: This was NOT by any means the behavior of a "Parent" seeking Reconciliation, a pitiful, broken-hearted figure of a harmless old "mother." It was the behavior of a tenacious, dangerous, highly intelligent, manipulative, conscienceless Predatory MN hell bent on Retaliation and Retribution.
Congratulations, Peep. The more psychological and practical distance you gain with NC, the more your view will enlarge, crystallize and confirm your decision. Promise: They never disappoint. Ever. TW
I lit matches on my way out and consider this blog some of the flames of the burned bridges I made walking out because I suffer from that fantasy, if I say, do or ever am the right thing, then one day they will turn around and one day they will love me. I even struggle thinking if only I had been thin or lost weight to average, or had a great career, or husband had a good job--{I remember how the treatment changed when he lost a good job here} then maybe my family would have loved, accepted and included me. We are hardwired and then add the NM training to the mess. You are trained to be deferential. I was looking at an old email, and me writing her trying to be so bright, cheery, pleasing and appearing responsible. It was one from 2007 when husband had lost job. I knew the judgments would be coming. She even told me later, "I knew he lose that job, you were stupid to move there with him"
Yes it is a totalitarian system. The SG is especially trained to say Please LOVE ME. It has set me up for other abuses even to this day. I am telling close friends lately, I don't want to impress, I don't want to jump through people's hoops, etc. I am finished with that mode. I suppose that is one gift of NC. I was trained as the "please love me" puppy dog and that set me up big time. I know I begged for their crumbs and one way they keep you coming after them, is a present here or there is tossed, a little bit of help even if they abandoned you for years prior. All to keep you coming. I lived that lie for years thinking one day I would be "enough". I am done with people that demand I be something else or follow their commands like my narc parents. I know I have shredded myself too many years thinking it was my fault I was not loved. My fault I had this body that oh my goodness embarrassed my mother! As if her suffering was to be cared about far more then the physical pain and other horrors that beset me. One of her long time friends and family friends turning to me in 2001, and saying your mother is disgusted with your body. Your weight embarrasses her, and even though I was facing life threatening illnesses, my mother's "suffering" always superceded mine, as I was ignored and shoved aside. The other day I was walking outside, and had the thought, "You were a person with severe disabilities and this was your family? They treated you like absolute crap!" Other disabled people even if their health problems are hard, family members stepped up. I saw a woman when I was out at an appointment, who was as fat as me, having a sister or someone else pushing her in a wheelchair, I knew that wouldn't happen for me from anyone I was related to.
Yes a rigged system, of secrets, false masks and BS. So many double crosses one lost count. I was told in an old email, that I had to keep my brother's divorce from my dying grandmother. Why would she care? She was dying of cancer. My NM may not have the best "image" with a divorced child. That is all she cared about. If you told a secret or slipped up, they'd go crazy and they had so many. I became a stranger as they told me nothing and no one confided in me about anything though I knew more then they thought I did.
Yes I was told look your parents food and clothe you, that is enough. Society helps with parental abuse, telling children they must be unendingly grateful for the necessities. ACONs are told they are spoiled brats and of course form my NM I hear the proverbial line, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
Another thing occurred to me, the other day. My sister had a rare autoimmune disease as a child and they took her to extreme researchers who saved her life. Me I get sick, and two of my conditions are on the "rare" end and I am thrown to the wolves and told to suck it up.
I would have perfered an orphanage free of abuse, most definitely. I agree.
I am in shock I escaped the mind-screw. There was so much of it. I'm this old picking through the endless knots and threads they used to tie me down. I would scream at my parents, "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?
and cry....
and my only response would be "YOU'RE A LIAR and gaslighted to death.
One fight I remember with my father who was totally duped by my mother and never protected me being a narc himself. Was I told him, I knew my mother hated my guts and despised me. He got angry and said, "Your mother loves you very much". I said "If that is love what is hate?" He wouldn't hear of it but then he believed each and everyone of her lies.
I am glad your NC note lifted weight from you and you were able to get away. One can't play with narcissists. I spent too many years fighting and striving against ice sociopathic walls that were incapable of budging. In my case, I still desire some justice but I know rationally it probably will never come in this world. My other feeling is of immense RELIEF,though I know so much of the inside training I am still working through, I still have some vestiges of the undeserved guilt and fear. I have told myself things like there is no other choice but to give up and you must face facts she hates and despises you and in essence nobody is home. It is a useless venture. The soul-less who can't feel aren't going to relate to your tears. I think about my father, his loyalty to her, his existence disappeared from her house within weeks of his death. I had a horrible relationship with my father but this still unsettles me to this very day. So many things I am thinking through and working through now. I think the NC is giving me distance to see things in a new way.
Aiye, exactly. That is the crux of the ACON dilemma: We are born hard-wired to bond with our parents, our primary caretakers. We know from the time we are 2 or 3, without our parents we will die, our dependency on them is that unquestionably total. Not only is our dependence physical, it is very much psychological: They define the world for us and they *help* us define ourselves. They shape our thinking, our beliefs, our views of ourselves and the world globally and profoundly.
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect set-up for the despot NP. They reign supreme in a totalitarian system within the confines of our world as children and later, as adults. We desperately seek their unconditional love and approval which will never be forthcoming but we have been trained so well, have been so accustomed to magnifying the slightest crumb or reprieve from their relentless criticisms, denigrations etc. we continue to to believe even into our adult lives that somehow, some way we will *finally* be "Enough." We are so completely socialized into believing that *any* problems within the relationship with them lie within us, and us alone. Those same messages are reinforced within the culture itself in too many ways subtle and otherwise to truly question the patently false assumptions behind this kind of totalitarian system further empowered by society at large.
*We* are inherently "defective" in some way. It *must* be us. We learned well the price of speaking out or up against the entirely rigged system in which we were raised because "loyalty" and "keeping secrets" are valued above all within our family systems. That we were provided food, clothing and shelter is enough to shame ACONS into silence. They often view this response from their family members or others with a subdued, "Yeah, My "parents" did provide these..." Doesn't take much to shame an ACON into compliance or just shutting up, period. ;)
I've reminded a few other ACONS in response to this assertion, "These same "amenities" are provided in ORPHANAGES. As well as jails and prisons<How fitting is that?" ;)
I'll say it again, Peep: That ANY of us ACONS get out at all is nothing short of a miracle, a testament to the inner resources they've always had-but in typical fashion were never acknowledged or nurtured, instead responded to with sure and swift retribution. Acknowledging the lack of love-or even like-from the NPs is a painful step. The morning I sat down and wrote that little (far too polite) 4/5 line "No Contact" note and dropped it in the mail, it felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my young shoulders. I was *not* angry, I did *not* "hate" her (I didn't have enough emotional investment left to get up such a strong feeling-that had long passed) nor did I wish her ill-will. What I DID "want" was simply to be left in peace. That's it. My young still somewhat naive self had not yet fully put the pieces together well enough to comprehend what ever it is you most desire from the CB/MN "Parent" will be thwarted at every turn. The ensuing decades of her Scorched Earth War declared against me in response to that note by my MN "Mother" until her physical death confirmed repeatedly my decision, entrenched my refusal to rescind that which I knew to be TRUE and completely unmasked her Agenda: This was NOT by any means the behavior of a "Parent" seeking Reconciliation, a pitiful, broken-hearted figure of a harmless old "mother." It was the behavior of a tenacious, dangerous, highly intelligent, manipulative, conscienceless Predatory MN hell bent on Retaliation and Retribution.
Congratulations, Peep. The more psychological and practical distance you gain with NC, the more your view will enlarge, crystallize and confirm your decision. Promise: They never disappoint. Ever.
TW
Hi Trunda Woman.
ReplyDeleteI lit matches on my way out and consider this blog some of the flames of the burned bridges I made walking out because I suffer from that fantasy, if I say, do or ever am the right thing, then one day they will turn around and one day they will love me. I even struggle thinking if only I had been thin or lost weight to average, or had a great career, or husband had a good job--{I remember how the treatment changed when he lost a good job here} then maybe my family would have loved, accepted and included me. We are hardwired and then add the NM training to the mess. You are trained to be deferential. I was looking at an old email, and me writing her trying to be so bright, cheery, pleasing and appearing responsible. It was one from 2007 when husband had lost job. I knew the judgments would be coming. She even told me later, "I knew he lose that job, you were stupid to move there with him"
Yes it is a totalitarian system. The SG is especially trained to say Please LOVE ME. It has set me up for other abuses even to this day. I am telling close friends lately, I don't want to impress, I don't want to jump through people's hoops, etc. I am finished with that mode. I suppose that is one gift of NC. I was trained as the "please love me" puppy dog and that set me up big time. I know I begged for their crumbs and one way they keep you coming after them, is a present here or there is tossed, a little bit of help even if they abandoned you for years prior. All to keep you coming. I lived that lie for years thinking one day I would be "enough". I am done with people that demand I be something else or follow their commands like my narc parents. I know I have shredded myself too many years thinking it was my fault I was not loved. My fault I had this body that oh my goodness embarrassed my mother! As if her suffering was to be cared about far more then the physical pain and other horrors that beset me. One of her long time friends and family friends turning to me in 2001, and saying your mother is disgusted with your body. Your weight embarrasses her, and even though I was facing life threatening illnesses, my mother's "suffering" always superceded mine, as I was ignored and shoved aside. The other day I was walking outside, and had the thought, "You were a person with severe disabilities and this was your family? They treated you like absolute crap!" Other disabled people even if their health problems are hard, family members stepped up. I saw a woman when I was out at an appointment, who was as fat as me, having a sister or someone else pushing her in a wheelchair, I knew that wouldn't happen for me from anyone I was related to.
Yes a rigged system, of secrets, false masks and BS. So many double crosses one lost count. I was told in an old email, that I had to keep my brother's divorce from my dying grandmother. Why would she care? She was dying of cancer. My NM may not have the best "image" with a divorced child. That is all she cared about. If you told a secret or slipped up, they'd go crazy and they had so many. I became a stranger as they told me nothing and no one confided in me about anything though I knew more then they thought I did.
ReplyDeleteYes I was told look your parents food and clothe you, that is enough. Society helps with parental abuse, telling children they must be unendingly grateful for the necessities. ACONs are told they are spoiled brats and of course form my NM I hear the proverbial line, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
Another thing occurred to me, the other day. My sister had a rare autoimmune disease as a child and they took her to extreme researchers who saved her life. Me I get sick, and two of my conditions are on the "rare" end and I am thrown to the wolves and told to suck it up.
I would have perfered an orphanage free of abuse, most definitely. I agree.
I am in shock I escaped the mind-screw. There was so much of it. I'm this old picking through the endless knots and threads they used to tie me down.
I would scream at my parents, "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?
and cry....
and my only response would be "YOU'RE A LIAR and gaslighted to death.
One fight I remember with my father who was totally duped by my mother and never protected me being a narc himself. Was I told him, I knew my mother hated my guts and despised me. He got angry and said, "Your mother loves you very much". I said "If that is love what is hate?" He wouldn't hear of it but then he believed each and everyone of her lies.
I am glad your NC note lifted weight from you and you were able to get away. One can't play with narcissists. I spent too many years fighting and striving against ice sociopathic walls that were incapable of budging. In my case, I still desire some justice but I know rationally it probably will never come in this world. My other feeling is of immense RELIEF,though I know so much of the inside training I am still working through, I still have some vestiges of the undeserved guilt and fear. I have told myself things like there is no other choice but to give up and you must face facts she hates and despises you and in essence nobody is home. It is a useless venture. The soul-less who can't feel aren't going to relate to your tears. I think about my father, his loyalty to her, his existence disappeared from her house within weeks of his death. I had a horrible relationship with my father but this still unsettles me to this very day. So many things I am thinking through and working through now. I think the NC is giving me distance to see things in a new way.
I like the Biblical expression of throwing pearls before swine. We can only try so much! Susanna
ReplyDeleteI agree you can only try so much. It's better to walk away from the rude people.
ReplyDelete