Hoovering and No Contact 101
Remember how I wrote about going NC? [no contact] All newbies to this blog, go to that link, my family is not normal. Ah the very idea of a group of people I am related to "seeing" me and being there for me and "knowing" me sounds like a dream.
Well after three months of total silence they all deluged on me at once, on my birthday. Eight unanswered phone calls screened with caller-ID, a series of cards all within the same day. Can't one ever act independent of the others? A strange letter from my mother, "we all love you" and "want you back in our lives" with comments about how well and busy everyone is. No questions asked about why I walked. No, "we are sorry you feel so bad" but "It saddens me you have chosen not to have any contact with us, but I guess that is your choice."
Her letter had the appearance of a loving letter though one friend pointed out, she wrote "we love you" and not "I love you". It left me cold. Nothing ever personal, just the formality of what a "proper" mother should write an adult daughter. The thing about all this is I never could question anything. I think back to all my ignored questions, "why do you disinvite me from places?, why do you say those bad things about me?, why don't you ever stand up for me, such as the time your sister you visit all the time trashed my painting and threw it in the closet?" That forcing of silence has been the worse, feeling walled off, told only to be go through the motions which is what I did for so so long.
Why tell me everyone is so busy, when one of the problems from the get go was I was invisible. I didn't imagine the 4 years of no one on my doorstep and my mother dumping those presents off in 2 minutes flat and walking out to go spend a week with my sister and her family? Why contact me all? To feel better about themselves? To tell themselves, we tried and she is mean and ignored us? None of the core problems are being addressed. If I crawl back now, it will be more of the same. Take the crumbs we are throwing you and be satisfied with nothing else seems to be the message to me.
Do I want to go back to people who make me feel like dirt and that I am nothing. Who because I became disabled and low income rendered me to the outskirts of social Siberia, long long ago? The answer is NO, but my feelings of grief and guilt as the phone rang off the hook and the cards came in just seemed to grow bigger. One's calling me right now as I write this. Why can't one ask what is wrong instead of just insistence I step back in line and forget all?
I lose either way, hold the course and remain no contact but have absolutely no family or go running back to the same abuse that has tore me down and trust me even if I deal with the overt stuff there is plenty of covert. I always lost with these people. I am sure my younger relatives will cheer for me being gone as they split up any inherited goodies.
The bragging never stops either, why tell me my brother has a new business, I have no idea how someone went from needing money from their mother ever month to pay bills to a sudden new business venture, but how is that supposed to make me feel? Ah he knows the score, you have to be a success to mean anything. Babies, and Eagle Scouts and all those pictures of smiles next to the thin. I felt like I was thrown away first.
Daydreams flitter through my head, if only I won the Lotto, if only I had gotten thin, if only my husband had not lost the job we moved here for that had middle class pay, if only the publishers had been interested in my book from 1999, I tried to publish after my weight gain. Professionally edited, this blog is not, but that book was! No children to display, no nothing. I used to have the family tell me, "You can't blame us for YOUR failures", but then the pain I felt around them never stopped.
My grief and regrets about life are all balled up into a big mess with the negative messages from my family. My birthday by the way went happy enough when I stayed out of the house, but it got hot and I was housebound.
My sister's birthday card was impersonal along with a message on a social website. "Thinking of you" is what they said. That is what I write myself on cards I make for perfect strangers in the hospital for my self help group, but there is a bit more warmth with the art and pictures on those cards. Why does she hate me so much? It would be easier to be told off then the endless fakery for appearances.
I also got a letter from the "godmother" who is a cousin of my mother who I haven't seen in 40 years but feels some religious duty via a religion I long left to write me and tell me how successful each of her children and grandchildren are including the head of a major university art program. She seems to be another German carbon copy of no emotions and putting one's self on display. How on earth does an ex home economic teacher from a very little town have endless money to travel to a new foreign nation every year? Peru acouple years ago, a recent Alaskan cruise, some other places I've never heard of. Those pensions must be wonderful. See the cartoon above, instead of France, it's Alaska, and I got a birth announcement too!
Ah did that make me sound bitter and envious, maybe a little bit. Her lack of introspection troubles me too.
The most recent was hearing about her daughter's art show. What a way to rub it! Is everything with success with these people? I had art shows too, but none of them were around to go to them. What does she want from me? She never was really in my life. I'm tempted to write and ask, why are you bothering? "I never saw you and you were never there for me when I was young." I remember dying for someone to come pay attention to me during those ages and she was never there. She was just another stranger doing her duty.
Not one ally among these people, not one, and it's creepy how there isn't one word for months and they come running on the same day. Didn't they know that ignoring someone who is facing severe health problems and refusing to visit them even as they feared their time was growing short, that person would give up on them? Didn't they think I'd get tired and after having the door slammed shut in my face over and over, finally say "I am done!"
I know some people may think I am being harsh here. This is against my nature to even be like this, but what do I do, I can't take the abuse anymore either.
Here's something I read recently that might interest you: http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/issues/2010/spr/or/132-obesity-problem-solution-or-both.html I feel like there's a few obvious problems with it - like how the researchers were assuming that if someone in the study didn't lose weight they must be lying about what they ate? But the theories they came up with are interesting.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting stuff. Sad they always say people are lying.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with the fasting. How do they keep the weight from coming back when a person eats more normal? The metabolism in many would have dropped necessitating even a lower amount of calories. I had periods of illness when I was too sick to eat and one weird thing I noticed was always being COLD, VERY COLD everytime I did not eat much, and well I was not losing any weight.
Want to answer these...
• It is rare for anyone to be born obese. In 2000 adult obese patients, only one individual was born overweight, at 14 lb (6 kg), to a 550-lb (250-kg) mother, and she was slender throughout childhood and adolescence until age 20, when she married an alcoholic and suddenly began massive weight gains, ultimately matching her mother’s weight. “Born fat” is a defensive concept.
I was born fat, and think that there is something metabolically wrong by birth. I was 10lbs. I knew I did not burn food off like my peers and I was very active and still fat.
ity.
******• Major weight gain is typically abrupt, episodic, and life-event related.**********
This one interested me, could trauma trigger a non-food based weight gain? I have dealt with that issue multiple times. I fell into severe poverty the year before my weight gain really went gangbusters and had other traumas bad enough to be diagnosed with PTSD beyond childhood matters.
********• The age at which weight gain first began is critically important because it allows one to inquire why it began then. Some patients will know and others will not want to know, but this is an essential point not to be dropped because of patient avoidance.*******
Interesting question I think...
*********• Obesity commonly is beneficially protective: sexually, physically, and socially. This is an uncomfortably difficult point for many nonobese individuals to accept.*********
Maybe to an extra 20lbs but I wouldn't give it anymore then that.
***• Major weight loss may present a significant threat, usually to the person involved, but sometimes to others.***
Do they mean others having to caretake you?
***• When large amounts of weight are to be lost, it reduces weight quickly enough to provide positive and supportive feedback.***
Sure but does it last?
I have talked about my hunger levels, and well fasting to me is bad news. You want to see me climbing the walls and passing out? I notice they never address those issues in these programs. Hunger makes me physically ill. I have dry heaved from being too hungry and waiting too long.
****• By removing eating as a major coping device, we expose the underlying issues that are being treated by the psychoactive properties of food.***
They assume psychological issues. There are times, when I actually think, it's meal time already? I feel constantly interrupted by my bodies desire for food and what not.
It's 8:36 and I still haven't made dinner yet though I am going too and have hunger pain right now even.
What I want to know is how do they control people's hunger during this fast? Or do they say just take it?
Yeah, I feel like they're assuming everyone's bodies work the same - which as you've said many times is not the case! I'm a bit bothered by the dismissing of the 'psychoactive properties of food', too. Yes, eating is one of life's basic pleasures! How could they expect people to live normal lives without it?
ReplyDeleteI agree. I have said to doctors before how am I supposed to drop the calories when the hunger is so insane? It's BAD NOW. So thanks for acknowledging that. They dismiss food like anyone can just walk away, shrug their shoulders and feel no pain and or hunger. What I don't get is no one seems to face how THIN people can eat food and maintain their bodies, and they don't seem to have to go to all these DRASTIC MEASURES. Having my doctor tell me to go on a juicing diet was weird too. That should get your weight off! It's like all insanity, starve and you'll be thin! well starving isn't fun especially in a land of plenty.
ReplyDeleteDon't really think starving is any better physiologically for fat people than it is for thin. I've fasted and starved and would have been diagnosed anorexic if not fat at one point. Starving made me feel like shit. Weak, unable to cope with emotion, clumsy at exercise which also became excruciating, unable to think clearly. Life is entirely different now that I eat regularly and to my fill. So much better, night and day truly. Fuck anyone who says starving is good for health.
ReplyDeleteI've been sick enough from kidney stones or in 2001 an infection that almost killed me, that I have gone without eating food, or just enough to keep from passing out from the diabetes--its scary when you are barfing two days in a row and know unless you keep down half a glass of cranberry juice, and you are barfing even up water you drink, that you may pass out. I even resorted to taking a teaspoon of maple syrup during one time, figuring maybe a little would hit. When I was doing the gluten free diet, my sugars actually GOT WORSE A LOT WORSE> Juice diet, theyd be spiking to the 200s fasting. I feel COLD as crazy when I don't eat much and weak. I remember that. Low blood sugar in me creates coldness and wanting to go to sleep. Sometimes it creates a rapid heart beat. To be frank,. I am sick of all the people who want me to go hurt myself to lose weight, they need to find out why I can't lose weight on normal amounts of food instead of giving me stupid answers like go starve yourself or drink only juices. I agree those who think starving is good for health are insane. ALREADY THEY TELL ME I AM LOW ON ENDLESS VITAMINS, what happens when I don't eat anything. Among my food yesterday was blueberries, raspberries, tomatoes, cubananelle peppers, red peppers mixed in with other food, so wipe all that away, what's left?
ReplyDeleteWhy am I just finding your blog now? We are kindered spirits. I have been too depressed to write down the issues with my mean family. Growing up I was the hero! After high school, I went from overweight to obese and depression hit. Well, my family are all emotion-less and as my life has spiraled into the abyss, they have also fled the scene. "Nobody likes fat people" "You did this to yourself" "grow up". I'm 47 and utterly alone. But I must say although it has been heartbreaking in one sense...having been freed from their harsh judgment and shame feels pretty good.
ReplyDeleteHi FunnyBits, hey email me at fivehundredpoundpeep@gmail.com if you would like. I do sometimes get behind on email here but will respond, there is someone else I need to write soon. So you changed positions as you grew up, sorry you had that happen in some ways that can be worse. My family is definitely emotion-less and cold as stone, that's horrible because you cannot talk to them about anything or appeal to any shared emotions or anything. I heard those same things, "grow up", "you did this to yourself". Being fat is the worse whatever the cause and if you are sick and fat there is no mercy out there for you. Even as I grew sick with the kidney problems, none in the family would visit me and they weren't before. It is heartbreaking to have to walk, but I had no other choice, I don't have to worry about the jeering in my ears anymore or told I am not good enough. I faced facts I never was going to become what they wanted, I never was going to be thin and wealthy. I understand being alone, it is very tough!
ReplyDeleteI can glean from reading your insightful and honest blog that you, Peep, are a beautiful, authentic and kind soul. You are also an excellent writer with profound intuitive gifts. I don't care if you are 100 lbs or 1,000, you are the real deal. Your family treated you in such a way because your light-bearing gifts shone too brightly onto their hollow, black hole souls in comparison.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Christian too. Can recall reading a verse in Luke back in high school that still haunts me to this day. I never forgot it, and try to practice it in my life, although not always perhaps. That said, it's about our judgement before Christ, and how some will shout Lord, Lord....we did all these wonderous works in Your name. What did Jesus say? Depart from me, I do not know you. When I was hungry, you did not feed me, in jail, no visits etc. they responded, Lord, when were you hungry, when were you in jail? His response: "What you did unto the least of your brothers, you have done unto me." Your family's treatment of you and your Aunt will not go unnoticed by God. I'm also the least (including the youngest of 7 kids), achievements diminished, smeared, ostracized too for standing up to the psychological and emotional abuses.
There are so many similarities between your life and mine. I strived too for their approval - financial success, own two homes, married for 14 years, two beautiful children, and still in their eyes I'm a "monster!" One brother called me "The Other Sister" as a reference from the movie of a developmentally challenged woman. My sister in the Golden mini-me of my MNPD mother. Today, I'm going on two years no contact. My physical health and PTSD finally forced me to make that very hard but necessary decision. Two years ago, I had to have cardiac ablation for rapid heart beat or SVT. And in August 2013, I was hospitalized with first bout of diverticulitis. I almost perforated. Another infection in October ensued and now the surgeon wants to remove 40 percent of my colon and I'm 39. Living with constant stress, namely adrenalin, wreaked havoc on both my physical and spiritual body.
Don't beat yourself up. It wouldn't matter if you were 100 lbs and rich, they will still tare you apart like the vultures they are. I spent a lot of money on my family for years, always trying to be thoughtful, remembering special days. When I had children last in succession, my daughters have not received one birthday card, gift or acknowledgement. They are still precious toddlers, so full of love and innocence.
Like you, when I left two years ago my whole family including aunts, uncles and cousins when silent. Not surprised. I can SO RELATE to your grief and pain as my mother and sister run the family show. They are masters at manipulation, planting psychological seeds of discoid among family and friends, triangulation, 2-face behavior that made my draw drop quite literally, pathological lying. I realized that I had never, not once, had a sincere conversation. It was all for later manipulation, exploitation, information-gathering for their harvest, mirroring.
My only regret is that I let them push my emotive buttons, especially in set-up scenarios. That is a weakness that I'm working on, and recognize it now. It was all one big game. Going no contact takes us out of the game for good. These freaks have no authentic emotions so they have to either manufacture it (fake them by mirroring and learning from those who are emphatic) or use our emotions against us.
Hi anon, thanks for your very kind and considerate post, and for your compliments too. Thanks for saying I am the real deal. I agree with you about me shedding light on the blackness and as the Bible says some love the darkness instead. Families like this do not like truth-tellers in their midst. One thing I did just mentioned briefly is I am a born again Christian and my family is not happy with that fact. Some of the division I know that has come about is the kind that Jesus warned us about. Often I would share my beliefs only to be mocked and shouted down. I am happy to meet a fellow Christian on here too. :) That verse does ring true, there are many who say they are Christians but really are not. Those are the ones I believe Jesus is talking about. We know narcissists use religion as "cover".
ReplyDeleteI agree God is noticing the treatment. I have also had to turn to God for strength in all this and for so many years. My aunt [the scapegoat aunt] sadly has turned away from God and rejected God [total atheist and even told one family member she does not like me for being a Christian] I am sorry you were treated so badly, yes even if one does achieve, I have read the narcissists will diminish even that. I remember the ignored art shows, the ho-hum response to my college graduation and earlier work in life. ,
I am glad you were able to do things with your life and sorry to hear that did not change things. That oddly helps me because I think well if I had been "normal" or had children, or had "money" maybe I would have been accepted and loved, but the fact of the matter is, that wouldn't have changed things either. Thats horrible they still treated you badly and what your brother said too. We definitely are alike in that nothing was ever good enough and we were always diminished in their eyes. I think even of my more stable years when husband had decent working class jobs in newspapers, not high paying but respectable enough and that really didn't change things either. Status is everything to Narcs but its always by their formula with their status coming first in this world. They always seek out the things that rot and rust contrary to what the Bible says.
continuing...
ReplyDeleteHaving a golden mini-me sister since I have experienced this, I would not wish on anyone else. I am glad that you have been 2 years NC and hope and pray for the best for you. I too had health crises lead me to go no contact. One telling factor for me, is I was getting TOO SICK, to do the prescribed visits...the NM only lives 75 miles away but this is 3 hours in the car, sitting up all day in a very rigid household where going to lay down is not going to happen or where one could be given a bed to rest with a NM with no empathy. My husband would drive. I couldn't do it so easily anymore and my health combined with the PTSD history was getting very badly. I always got a kidney stone moving through the day before I was to go on a visit....[or breathing problems, or a leg infection] and the last visit my husband almost had to take me to the ER but I said take me home and Ill call my doctor. I was expected to visit in all sorts of weather, and called a malingerer by the NM and her husband when I said it was too cold or too hot to travel. If one is having serious heart problems with rate problems that is enough to stay away from the stress of a narcissist. Diverculitis, I can relate to, as when I had the kidney stones, I had severe severe digestive problems which now are only held off by a strong drug lowering uric acid and uric acid kidney stones. That is a tough one and as painful as Chrohns. Both illnesses are worsened by stress. I actually became afraid to deal with any relatives because everytime I went on a visit I was getting some serious illness and two leg infections--serious stuff that used to put me in the hospital but even at home with at home nurses can last for a few weeks was triggered by some of their abuse, lies and ensuing arguments. So trust me I understand. I will pray for your regarding your diverticulitis, and that surgery will not be necessary.
I know stress has hurt me badly. Some years ago I shared one study with a friend that said unrelenting emotional and other childhood abuse set up people to have severe chronic health problems as adults. You are still young to be this sick and I was disabled by the age of 28 with MULTIPLE problems. I realized when I sat down and thought about it, I was always in "fight or flight" mode with mother, in fact in my case the doctors doing adrenal tests years ago found out I had 7 times the amount of adrenaline in my body compared to others including some other hormones. I seriously have wondered about the effect on my system and the traumatic-health angle of it all. Speaking with other acons, it seems autoimmune and chronic illness problems are rampant.
You are right even if I was rich and thin, they still have at me. This is kind of funny but years ago I drew a comic, of my comic character that represents myself and in it, I was stick thin, and rich, driving a mercedes and with children [don't have them in real life] and my mother in this comic, was berating the fantasy daughter for getting "too chunky" so yeah I think in that comic I was suspecting how things would be playing out!
It sounds like you tried to be very nice sending cards and gifts. I think of all the energy I expended going on all the trips, and in my case I made a lot of gifts, but no one ever came to visit me, from their end. So glad you have your children--one thing do protect them from the narcissists, I have seen it happen where when they become teens or young adults especially they use money and gifts to lure them away from their healthy parents and turn them against them.
continuing...
ReplyDeleteYes my family is silent too. The betrayal of the bystanders. My family is so controlled by my mother it's scary. Even the few I have contact with, they are afraid to say anything and I really believe they have not told the narcissist I am in contact with them though she may figure it out on a social website. I am sorry too you have faced the same pain and grief. I've had so many relationships destroyed. Even with the ones I am in contact with--it pretty low and long distance, and still there, I know I have to be careful. One can't freely trust when there are narcissists about.
Yes mine too are masters of manipulation. I lost so many of their chess games, I lost count. How does one even "win" when the other parties have no emotions and could care less about others? Yes they were experts at triangulation. My sister has nothing to do with my brother, because of this.
Nope there were no sincere conversations. In the first months of my NC, I realized with horror, how much I had become a stranger to them all involuntary but then with narcs all you get is "withholding", "manipulation","coldness" and conversations about the weather and necessary words, they do not really come to know you and in a family system where everyone is afraid to talk and have words twisted against them, no one else is talking much either. Try and share emotions, work things out, meet someone half way, its all like talking to a wall, and I tried everything from letters to offers of mutual counseling [a bad idea with narcs but it was turned down anyhow] and all the rest.
I agree about not letting them push your emotive buttons. Emotions are vulnerability to narcs that they will put to use. It hurt me for years even to deal with mother and sister that I had to repress all these emotions around them. I actually taught myself on my visits to mother to display no emotions at all, either good or bad, because they provided an opening. If I was too happy she'd want to punish me, too sad or angry, she'd use it. That is an area I had to work on too so don't worry. No contact for me and going silent took a lot of self control especially with all the hoovering that has happened. It sadly is a game to them. They do not even feel normal human attachement or getting to know and care about another person. It is really tragic. Yes I knew I was "quitting" the game. I actually told myself for my NC, in my head, "It's time to quit, this is not going anywhere good". All the best to you, I will pray for you and please pray for me :)
Thanks, Peep, for your response back. I have a second opinion with another surgeon in NYC soon. The dr's were horrified by my CT scans. One said my colon looks ancient. I know that stress did this to me. I even waited to 36 to start a family b/c of crazyness my mother and sister caused and I allowed. Kept giving them benefit of the doubt b/c for a long time I couldn't put the pieces together. The things they did to me God only knows. The awareness started back in 1996, found out about NPD/Sociopathy in 2006, scapegoating in families led to more and more research and eye-opening. I think in my case their slander had branched out from family and into the community. We have since moved away. The creepiest thing, the hardest to comprehend, is knowing that this was a premeditated strike years in advance. I feel like I was murdered but still alive. I know this statement is a paradox but it's true. I remember attending family events and paries as a teenager, and getting a vibe from relatives that was not normal. Then at my grandmother's party, she started crying as she talked to me , telling me in broken English how my mother is always in tears because I was always in my room. What was wrong with me? This got everyone's attention at the party. It was excruciating. I never saw my mother cry or look concerned at home. I stayed in my room a lot because I didn't feel loved by my parents. I wanted to get as invisible as possible. Both my mother and sister have this 2-face, crazy behavior that defies explanation. How do you explain that it's a lie, that they are sociopaths bent on destroying any sources of support?
ReplyDeletePeep, I will pray for you too. There are a lot of us out there. There are more and more blogs and books on the subject today than even in 2006, when I started my research. I plan on educating my daughters and/or leaving letters for them in case I don't make it thru surgery complications. They need to know how not to get on the radar of N's and sociopaths, I was primed prey and have dealt with the like, ironically mostly females, my whole life. They need to know the warning signs too. These wolves in sheep clothing are everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWow anon, I will pray for you regarding the second opinion, a lot of these health problems come about via autoimmune, the body turning on itself. I have talked about it some here, but I am going deaf and yes it frightens me. I have so many health problems even with the weight, I wonder what happened to me like I am in a daze. I was sick by my 20s, then never able to breathe. With terrible bowel problems, I know that one is difficult, I spent a year in pain from the kidney stones--passed literally dozens if not hundreds and they still do not know why though they were able to stop them and work on melting a giant one. Your colon probably does look like an old person's. I have not aged well and live like a person who is 40 years older-cane, hunched over, hump in back, I just read an article about how stress will age people far faster and depression too--natural depression that comes from all the health problems. I am glad you were able to start a family. I know my family treats me and sees me as a "nothing" too for not having children [in my case infertility from pcos, and the health problems from severe weight prevented it as well as the horrible economic conditions] Do warn your daughters about what they are so they can't play games on them when they are older and try to divide them or mess with them. Hopefully they will keep NC from them. I found out about narcissism only around 3 or 4 years ago and yes it kicked open the door to the truth. I knew something was very wrong with the way I was being treated early one but blamed myself for being fat and being "different", now I know differently. People without emotions or attachement like my mother and sister are the "different" ones.
ReplyDeleteYes the slander is horrific. I know behind the scenes the smear campaigns and subtle stuff was great. I can in fact tell when a relative has recently spoken with my NM, it's like they are afraid to talk to me. Before of course, she told them I was a loser, and deserved to be fat [even though she eats far more fattening food then me] there are a few other scapegoats she puts down but they didn't believe me when I told them. She has the presents and money to buy and see the rest of the family, so I was left out in the cold long ago. I do think I was set up to be sick and set up to fail and the medical neglect I had as a child even for emotional things related to my undiagnosed Aspergers and the early signs of my endocrine problems floors me. I think the years they left me in poverty almost to die in my early 20s in the ghetto also was part of this "set-up". The worse thing everyone thought I had these caring nice parents so I looked insane, trying to tell others what they were doing and saying behind the scenes, no one believed me. There was even this friend of my sister's who called them "mom" and "dad" and thought they were these very nice people. She was a truely nice person but she just didn't know the real score. So they had this way as coloring me as the worse person who ever lived. So you are right it was all set up at the start.
cointinuing...
ReplyDeleteI read a book about child abuse early on that mentioned soul murder, and well when you say I feel like I was murdered but still alive, that term would probably apply. As Christians, God saved our souls so it would be attempted soul murder. These people do hurt many many people. I see my body today as the outcome of the abuse. Hormones out of control with the body on fight or flight throttle and when I had to take care of the violent teens to make a living and live in a dangerous area, it all tipped over for the severe weight gain and endocrine collapse.
I relate to you about getting weird vibes by relatives. I blamed myself for being in the outer stratosphere of fat, but then all the weird treatment started far younger. No one wanted to have anything to do with me or the bare minimum. I found out some lies she told about me, but I am sure there are many more. One of the more recent was I did not want to go to a relatives wedding. One thing I used to be friends with Nsis growing up so that became a tragedy of the highest order to see what she became and her utter rejection of me, and then the scapegoat aunt too, close friends, but she destroyed that as well. So yes here too I understand, parties with weird looks, people looking down, calling you the "failure", no empathy at all even when in my case my husband lost his job and I lost two very close friends to death and another. I heard about the fake tears too, my father who was a narc too, would tell me you made your mother cry writing that letter. I've never seen the woman cry real tears. So I would be in shock. I was labeled the horrible cruel, ungrateful daughter who was a loser and could do nothing right and she made sure to focus on this for years. Given my distance away, no one visiting me, they all believed every word she had to say even the other side of the family. There was nothing wrong with you, she went to town with her smear campaigns. I stayed in my room too and worked long hours at restaurants to stay away from my family.
Yes I am familiar with the two-facedness, the lies, things done for appearances. They want others to turn against you. Really for me the worse thing she ever did to me was the other relationships she destroyed. My father was a narc too but she always came first to him and he wasn't there for me either. I do believe these sociopaths are bent on turning everyone else against the chosen scapegoat. I will pray for you and the outcome of your surgeries. I definitely think young people need warned about personalities like this, and the damage they do. You are breaking the cycle with your daughters which is a very good thing. Yes leave letters for your daughters they can read when they are older. I am mandating in my will {I have no assets but am passing out art works and other items like my stamp collection} that the address of this blog is sent to every relative with some copies of pertinent articles for a few. They can read the real score here for what I went through.
Peep, what is it about us that made us a target in the first place? Is it something we did unknowingly to justify this total wipe out of existence? Yes, we are truth tellers. Yes, we keep talking about the 2,000 lb Elephant in the room who keeps crapping on the floor. We are bothered by injustice, to others as well as to ourselves. I do think ACONS scapegoats are typically the highly sensitive-type. These are the indigo children who are intuitive and smell a load if BS a mile long. Did you ever notice how N's and sociopaths hate animals. Did you ever see one try and pet a dog? It is hilarious. So on some level I think highly emotive, sensitive artistic types are easier prey. You are an artist in every sense of the word. One notable pattern I picked up is repeated treatment from co-workers, neighbors, surface friends. I have not one friend in my life. No exaggeration. It is so hard to go thru life without an ally. I have my husband and children, and cat, and they are home to me. It's an amazing, safe feeling. When your own mother and sister toyed with you and did not show love, plus the stand by enablers, it can be a hard and lonely road. I had 2 girlfriends in my wedding party who were mirror images of my sister and mother to a T. Do you know what's messed up? The day I got married, I wore a new outfit to the church where my wedding dress awaited. Later that night when I went to retrieve my outfit for my honeymoon, it was gone! My mother told me after the honeymoon that she saw my two girlfriends holding my dress and laughing. But now, it's a toss up really as it could have very well been my own mother. These friends also egged my car, one even took off with my car for over 24 hours after she asked to borrow it to go drop off her boyfriend who lived a mile up the road. What's weird is that I didn't observe her treat others the way she treated me - abusive, definite lack of respect. My mother and sister the same. So I beg the question: what are we doing to ask for this abuse?!?!?
ReplyDeleteHI Anon, well I have done reading about who gets picked as the scapegoat, usually it is the more sensitive child or the truth-tellers. The ones with more emotions are seen as more vulnerable. I believe my being an Aspie and the health problems in my case made me the target. I used to be yelled at by the age of 5 for being too smart for my own good and knowing too much, that was always odd, maybe they knew I could "see through them? :/
ReplyDeleteThey don't like the kid that can see through them or asks too many questions or sees outside the lies. I think that is it. Yes injustice bothers me greatly always has and I am sure that is true with you too.
I am not an animal person, its more a sensory aspie thing,but will pet them. I do wish I was not allergic and could try to adapt to a pet though. I always wanted pet turtles and rabbits but apt life doesn't go well with that. Ns usually do not pet dogs, now that I think about it. I don't think they take interest in nature, or birdwatching or even those sort of tihings as well. .
I think if someone is more sensitive, and highly emotive and of the artistic ilk, yes they can be on the chopping block when it comes to Ns. One insult for me growing up was, "you're too sensitive!". They saw empathy as a negative! Did you hear anything like that? My family did not support me becoming an art teacher. I fought for that one, but sadly lost my health, at least I got a few years getting to do it in an alternative school setting. My father would call me the "arty-farty", you probably can guess with that.
One thing since I have studied all this, is if you are a scapegoat, the narc family sets you up to programming for future victimization by other narcs and sociopaths. The world too knows and can pick up on whose out in it alone and who has no-one supporting or helping them. I even remember at a self help group bursting out in tears because these parents were there, [the group allows supporters] wanting to help their adult children, and I thought what would that be like? For me learning to set boundaries has helped, but that has come about from a lot of bad experiences, and the health problems insisting on things.
I am glad you have your husband and children, but sorry you have never had one friend. I have had friendless periods of my life--high school was one of them, but have had some close friends. In my case while I have acouple close neurotypical friends, I often befriend other Aspies too even long distant and on line. It is hard to make friends because often in an ACON family the parents will dissuade you from friends or set up things to isolate you with the smear campaigns and training those around you to disrespect you. I had a rule with friends that their contact with my parents be as minimal as possible. Usually I told the close ones enough of what happened they held back. My mother would befriend my GC sister's friends and associates but this has never happened with me.
Your mother may have taken the outfit then wanting to cause trouble between you and those two past friends. Do you feel they fooled you and then turned on you? I had to learn the concept of frenemy and those two would definitely fit the equation. Sorry that happened to you. We didn't do anything to deserve any abuse. I think all human beings need loving and close kin ties to develop normally, the world can be a harsh place for those who did not have love or supportive ties when young, very harsh. There are lessons that get missed in self protection and in developing relationships within these families, because what the parents are. One lesson for me was the years learning and observing what NORMAL was via churches and other friendships.