Escaping the Forever Scapegoat Role

[some language warnings on this one, I am not perfect]

From a support board, I frequent:

"There are a few different things you might do.
You could show up at the memorial service with a short, blunt speech on a card and read it aloud. Name, blame, and shame. Be prepared for retribution, then and later.
You could show up at the memorial service, speak briefly to your brother, and leave.
You could skip the memorial service--if there even is one--and hold one on your own, calling the saints to witness, praying, lighting candles, and so forth.
You could make a memorial page for her, speaking the truth of her life and death
You could--and frankly I really, really think you should--cut all contact with these poisonous creeps."

I've written about my Aunt Scapegoat dying, and I am on fence about going to memorial service and wrote about that since several narcs would be there, I have been NC with for three years.

 One thing I noticed with this aunt is she was squeezed into labels and molds given to her by narcs years and years ago. She was a woman on dialysis with severe disabilities but was seen as the this life long "rebel" and "black sheep" because she smoked some pot and drank a bit in the early 1970s which was what all her peers were doing at that time. It occurred to me even though she was 60 years old she was never allowed to escape the bad labels put on her and never able to live down how she lived 25-40 years ago. She died at the age of 60 and they twittered on about crap from 40 years ago. They treated her like she wasn't even a human being outside of a couple cousins, with her own dreams, aspirations and more. This is a fate I feared and was one of my main motivations to cut contact and walk.

For example one cousin posted on his Facebook that she was a "rebel". IMO she did not rebel enough and tell the narcs to take a flying leap which is one reason she never left home and ended up under my mother's guardianship. She never ran away. There are times I wish I could just disappear, me and husband and go poof! I hate the narcissists knowing where I live.

My brother told me the day she died that she was a "black sheep". I got mad and cussed him out as I admitted and said, "The entire family treated her like sh**, all you did was buy all the lies."

I actually cussed him out some more, "The family are never going to own or control me like she was"
I feel they are trying to do the same thing to me. They did everything in their power to cut contact between us for years and the depth of their lies have come to full fruition to me. The other day I was crying my eyes out about this but then it should be no surprise to me. The depth of their evil has been fully exposed to me. When they lied to me, about her hating me and probably vice versa, this showed what absolute snakes they are. Maybe the mail was intercepted. Did she ever see my holiday cards with full letters in them during the early 2010s?

I feel like they are trying to shove me into the SAME life-long box, and I realize they SHARE the SAME OPINIONS about ME. She died never breaking away. I broke away but NC has been hard for me. I LOST just about everyone, and now I have on my conscience never seeing or talking to this aunt again but had no other choice for my own sanity and well-being. Even worries about my brother dying before I see him, have cropped up for more feelings of lost and guilt, but then where was he this last 7 years? He was more busy spending thousands on Christmas gifts, then driving up here. He told me on the phone, he was going to see me FIRST for once, but then he got sick. There was plenty of years before that when I asked. Has he ever worried about me dying before seeing me again? Remember how bad my health is.

I'm 40 something years old and they still want to put me in the same damn box, they put her in for 60 years. When I saw the way they talked about her even after she DIED it made me ANGRY. This was on Facebook and on phone with my brother. "Rebel", "black sheep". The same labels foisted on me. My no contact was about walking away from their labels and becoming someone else.

Oh and by the way, she is the first one the rich family are not burying with a full coffin funeral [Catholics against cremation] with a tombstone in the family plot next to her mother, a sister and two brothers, but cremating with no funeral and a nebulous promise of a "memorial service" THREE MONTHS after the fact. My brother claimed to me my mother said, it's because she didn't go to Mass and was an atheist.  I left the Catholic church in 1987, with one and half years back in leaving again.  My grandmother quit going to church in 1987 and was buried in the church graveyard in 2007.

So that crap I noticed.

Outside of one cousin with a conscience and his brother and their children, just about all of them make me sick. With my brother, I told him it's time to piss or get off the pot, either you start seeing what my mother really is and stop being a mind slave to her money or I'm done.

I have realized with horror, my own situation is FAR MORE PRECARIOUS NOW. I hope this makes sense. The family fed off her like vampires. Do you all think I am paranoid to have those thoughts or do you understand.? When one feels "afraid" to be in the same room with people, the book The Gift of Fear would tell you to say the hell away.

It is occurring to me outside of two cousins with consciences and their kids where I have distant Facebook contact, that with the rest they have no interest in any real relationships one on one outside of the family system. I tried to form one on one relationships with others since I went NC with the main narcs, and it has failed.

I hate this feeling of helplessness, and like no matter what I do, it's a lose/lose situation. I realize having feelings is a detriment in being treated like a human being in our sick society and sick families like this.

The sad ending when it comes to my aunt will always stay with me. The spiritual struggle of dealing with evil winning at least in this world, brings me a feeling of inner sadness I'm not sure will ever go away. I'm "losing" too even though I've broken away. I'll be the one sitting alone but then I was always alone when it came to this faux family anyway. I have mourned for years even long ago when I was young, seeing what was happening to her.

Aunt Scapegoat Has Died

                                         picture by me....a sad desolate winter one.

It's sad. I wondered why her?

Aunt Scapegoat

My brother called this morning and told me she died yesterday. The details of her death seem fuzzy. Can I call a hospital and find out how she died? I was told it was a combination of things something to do with a hernia and she had a recent car wreck last month, but I don't know if the car wreck caused the hernia or what happened. Even the relatives who are on Facebook have been mum and no one has posted that she has died.

 I asked my brother if she lived in a nursing home or her trailer and he told me she still lived in her trailer. I was RIGHT about my mother holding power of attorney over her. Remember I had suspected my mother had grabbed guardianship over her.  What happened to her? Can someone advise me in finding out? Well that may be another dead end. I have to wait a day to even ask the cousins because I don't want to be the first one who informs them.  My brother seemed kind of like he only got what my mother told him.

I feel some guilt in that I had gone NC with her though more informally, I never made any formal pronouncements of it to her. Here I feel some huge regrets and was crying earlier, because I had thought of trying to call and contact her again and obviously I waited too late. There's no going back.

I tried for years to reach out to her though before. It was painful and because she was so controlled by my mother, and earlier on my grandmother, I failed multiple times before, and didn't want to go down that track. I had been hurt multiple times and didn't want to keep opening myself up to more pain. That's why I didn't try again. So the last time I saw her was in 2010 or 2011 when she was recovering from a heart valve surgery replacement and was at my mother's house recovering.  My husband reminded me, "You tried with her many times. She was so shut down."

At times it seems this world sucks, it seems the narcs raise their hands in victory while the narcs celebrate. They win, and their victims always lose. I had imagined reconciliation with Aunt Scapegoat, or something changing in the wind, where I could have reached her. Now it will never be. I feel helpless and hopeless. Why couldn't I do more? Why did I always have to be so broke? So empty-handed?

 I feel like the earth will close over someone and she will be forgotten. My brother told me she will be cremated unlike other relatives who got their $12,000 dollar coffin and a place in the family Catholic cemetery. No burials and tombstones for her like the other relatives, her memory will be wiped away. It is interesting to notice the different treatment of her in death then other relatives who got the big affair, even other relatives of limited financial means. I suppose this tells me her "importance" in the scheme of things, and I am creeped out because I said to my husband before, that if she died, they probably would cremate her and not give her a huge funeral like other relatives. {not that I agree with those either but hopefully you'll see what I mean}  My brother told me it's because she rejected Catholicism, in her case as an atheist. He told me they plan a memorial service in the spring. My mother is states away in Florida after all.

I googled her obit, and all that was written about her personally besides other relatives that had died, was this  "******** loved animals including her cats. A memorial service will be held later." It was one of the shortest obits in the history of mankind. I can tell my mother wrote it. That's how she summed up a sister she has had for 60 years. A life summed up in one sentence. She liked cats.

I got into it with my brother and reacted emotionally and told him one reason I went NC with our mother is because of what she said about Aunt Scapegoat. I talked about this in the Queen of Darkness article if you want to read the sordid details.

I cussed more on the phone then I have cussed in five years. I told him "You better take one real look at what your mother really is!" When I told him about what my mother said about Aunt Scapegoat, he was in shock. I don't know if I got his eyes opened or not. He said "Why didn't you tell me this before?" I said, "Because it seems you didn't believe me!" He then said, "But they never say things like that in front of me. I said "Of course not, why would they?" You think they want us allying together knowing what pieces of crap of they are?"

Then I went on and lost it, I'll edit out a few of my worse curse words I said. God forgive me for my language but I got emotional....."They treated this woman like shit her whole life".  They tortured her and treated her like she was nothing. They put her down and we spent our entire childhood to when I got away hearing about what a loser she was and they never let up!" There's a reason why she got sick so young just like me. Don't you get that one reason I walked away was I didn't want to be her, crushed by a pair of sociopaths?" He didn't argue with me on this stuff he saw the same thing.

He wants me to go to the memorial service, supposedly it will be in the spring. I went to see nephews and a few cousins and yes I know it could be a danger zone I have to seriously think about. I don't know....My life has very few trustworthy people in it.

I was very close to Aunt Scapegoat earlier in life. I have a lot of carried pain because of what happened to the relationship I remember. We were very close and could talk about many things and cooked meals together and told jokes. Back then we were a source of support to each other. In my 20s I spent entire weeks visiting with her, and remember talking with her. During those days she had a spark of energy and a spirit that took an interest in many things.  She loved music and I could share art with her. There was even one time she saw my comics and laughed and laughed. She cooked me tasty stir fry and introduced me to the music of the 1970s including Pink Floyd. I will never understand what happened to her. Even my brother admitted, she followed her own drummer. These were the years before they crushed her. He said today, "She was a black sheep too."

In later years as she started to close me out, I couldn't even figure out what happen it took me so by surprise.  She got sick and then got divorced. Her life imploded under severe disabilities, needing dialysis and other pressures. I tried to keep contact even via Chicago years and others and then the time came when she threw my painting in the closet.

They really did do what they could to destroy the relationship. My grandmother told me lies, before I could see out of the fog, "Aunt Scapegoat doesn't want to talk to you" In 1991 I remember driving home and crying wondering what had happened? I tried calling her when I was down there, and knocking on the door and she did not respond.

My mother said the same. I was told by my GC sister, "Aunt Scapegoat doesn't like you. I would see her at family gatherings and then she started to avoid me. One time I got a smile when we exchanged some Christmas gifts but that was a rare moment in time. The time she got mad at me for expressing beliefs in 2005, was a mistake on my part. She called me a "Christer" [angry that I had a Christian viewpoint of the topic--I never was a Republican] and was angry. I think the relationships was forever severed at that point despite my best efforts.

And then there was the last time I saw her sitting on the couch recovering from that surgery and she was so beaten down. Her head down and shamed by my mother as usual after she shouted at her for not being clean enough and when she went upstairs, I said to my mother "Why are you bothering a sick woman about being clean?" but I didn't do enough which shames to me this day. I saw no physical abuse or anything reportable, but I should have said and done more. Here is what I wrote on the Queen Spider article about what transpired that day:

"3. Said of her sister who by the way who is more physically functional then me except for her dialysis who she played martyr around and brought into her home to heal from her heart valve surgery--"She needs to stop getting these surgeries and needs to just go die". During this conversation she acted "put upon" for Aunt Scapegoat's care. I thought to myself, "Why not just leave her be? Why offer care only to play that game?" She complained to me about how much Aunt Scapegoat's colostomy bag smelled right in front of her. "She stinks!" Leave it to a super-sniffer sociopath to torture the world and a severely ill woman for every wayward smell.

I ask myself when my mother told me she wished my aunt would die, why didn't I say more, why didn't I confront? Why did I just say "Everyone wants to live" and something about "God wanting them to live?" I shouted at my brother, "That's the day I knew I was going to walk away it's time for you to get a clue and wake the hell up. It's the day I knew our mother was EVIL."

Why God Why? Doesn't even explain the emotions I am having.

****************************************************

Post Script 2/25/16: I talked to a cousin on Facebook PM last night, this is one of my nice cousins. He told me very recently that he had told my aunt, I thought she was mad at me. She told him she was not and had shared fond memories of me with her. She even showed him a painting that I did for her, I had forgotten about giving her. This was a different one from the flower one my mother told me was put into a closet into a box and was a landscape. I told him I was happy to hear this. One commenter below wrote "I'm sure they told your aunt that you didn't like her just like they told you that your aunt didn't like you." This was exactly what happened. My aunt was very poor and denied a phone, only given phone cards or disposable cell phones that only called out. There were years I was sending her cards and presents, where I didn't even know her phone number or was given phone numbers that just rang and rang or there was no way to respond or leave a message on. My mother held her guardianship and I think she was afraid to reach out to me and of course this was complicated by illness and her own withdrawal from people.

I was told by my mother "She doesn't want to talk to you" and by my sister "She doesn't like you, you bother her, she disagrees with you on things." and by both my grandmother and mother when I was sending her paintings and boxes of books, she loved to read, in the early to mid 2000s, "Don't send her anymore things, she does not want them." I was denied her phone number at various times and my grandmother told me at least twice, during the years I was trying to call about once every two months and there was a number, "Stop bothering your aunt."

The depth of evil of what I have faced here is very severe and has given me a new realization of what has been done to me and others. My cousin lost contact with her for years and only reclaimed it in the last two moving very close to her area. Even he would try to contact her to be turned away but because he lived so close was able to reclaim a relationship with her. It makes me glad there was someone around her who loved her around her during the last months of her life.  It does relieve me to find out how she really felt.

A Little Humanity Would Have Made All the Difference

I wrote this to another ACON blogger...commenting on one of her articles.



It still boggles my mind how there was no humanity shown there.  People will tell us narcissists are "human" too,  and that is technically true but maybe mine were just so extreme. Even the cards full of denial and the cold appearance driven "politeness" nauseated me to the very end. You could tell everything was a calculation. They can't show emotions like other people and everything is about how they "appear".

Long Past The Time To Walk Away

 

A friend posted this on Facebook, I think they were annoyed by their sister being late to a visit. It represented more then that for me though. I think about us ACONs though, especially those of us in the "ignored camp". My mother and sister would drive repeatedly within a mile of my apartment, while on trips to elsewhere. My brother told me, "I told them it wasn't right to do this." but I still wondered with him why he was shocked I walked away then? Why did he still make excuses for their treatment?

I could have gone two years without seeing nieces and nephews and she would not stop by. Rejection is a hard thing, I know it is something I struggle with as an ACON. It can hurt worse when it's relatives but being Aspie it is more complicated.

Our narcissist families would reject us all the time. There was no semblance of unconditional love where you were accepted and given a place. It's never easy. I remember when young I would chase people down, kind of sad and desperate of me. I didn't get stalky or anything like that but would call people and say "What's wrong?" So few would tell you the truth, they would make excuses. It makes me sad, that I did do this. A scapegoat's desperation to be loved can be a swathe of destruction across an entire life. It sets us up for trouble. It is a deep wound not to have a mother or parental figure who loved you. I felt it life-long and even being only four years old and thinking inside, "I am defective and not worthy of anyone's love."

I remember the friend from college who was always so busy and even if I waited a whole year to call her acted like I was bothering her. I ended my friendship or what there was of it, she only contacted me when she wanted medical advice for her or her children, the very month I went no contact with the family, she was added to the list. A "friend" of thirty years duration, I realized was treating me the same as my family, she liked calling me several times a week even though we lived long distance, but I realized as the years progressed she had no interest in ever seeing me again, not even when I got sick. I was held at a distance, like someone she wanted to "slum" with. I ended that friendship after betrayals and disrespect I could not make excuses for. Sometimes in a vacuum people will treat you decently, you talk to them on the phone but you have lived so long distance for so long, you hold no more mutual friends in common and then comes Facebook where there are other people and mutual groups and you realize they are treating you like a worm. You realize, how your family set you up to even keep a relationship like this in your life.

 Right now I am working my way through some of these issues and asking myself what defines the good relationships vs. the ones that went so badly. The good ones, I feel secure in, the people love me, they are loyal and don't reject me if we disagree on something. They are there for me in the ways that count and do not betray me for other people. I count too. The bad ones, well those things don't come so easily.

 When I was young,  I felt like I was begging people to include me in their lives. I don't beg anymore but it makes me sad. It doesn't seem to take much to get rejection, and trust me all of us ACONs went down the long lists over and over about why we angered everyone or what was wrong with us. The narc abuse sets us up, to be too "desperate and needy". Our relationships can become troubled because of this undergirding. Not having a family that loves or accepts you or even a parental figure that does can lead to a lifetime of insecurity. You never have had a place and sadly I think people can pick up on this about us. It is one reason ACONs can be more prone to abuse and for future predators.

With age as an Aspie, I learned that desperation was the soonest way to scare people away. I don't think I was needy when I wanted to see nieces and nephews once in a while who lived far away from me and who I didn't have money to go see. Health wise, I couldn't handle 12-24 hour bus trips even if those would be more affordable and yes it frustrated me.

 Here is a snippet of an email I got from my sister in 2010. I asked her to stop by with her children at my apartment for a few minutes to an hour. Her husband was not on that trip. At the time I had not seen them in a  year and a half. She was driving one mile from my apartment on a major highway that cuts through my state on the way home from my mothers and where I live is the midway point. She had spent an entire week at my mother's house. Notice the comment "We do miss seeing you wished I talked to you more often." Obviously that was a lie.

One thing I always noticed with my mother and sister is that other people always came far higher then priority then me. I once wrote my mother about something health related, and she said, "What about your sister and brother and their health problems?" This was before they hid my sister's cancer. I was always shoved in back of the line. My mother's letters would be detailing visits with her third cousins and great-aunts. One time before I went completely NC, she sent me a card asking to meet for lunch, and I tried to set it up with her and she ignored me for four days not even returning a couple phone calls. My mother is retired and has plenty of time and carries a cell phone on her. In a way I dodged a manipulative bullet and was able to continue to go No Contact knowing that "trying" anymore was a waste of time.

 One lesson for every ACON to learn is go never go begging when people reject you. I am not in take all comers land anymore. People make it obvious when they do not want you in their lives. We have to find independence even of being happy within ourselves.

Not having families that gave us this inner-security at a development point when young is something we ourselves will have to make up for.  With the narcissist families, they will keep you around to keep track of you but you really are not in their lives or part of it.  One life lesson to learn is when people reject you, it's long beyond time to walk away. If you are feeling that insecure feeling and know someone has put you last on the list, pay attention, it may not be a good relationship. It will be the family dynamics repeating themselves. 

Escaping these dynamics is escaping emotional slavery in general.  

They Left Me First

Bad Luck Over and Over or Sabotaged?

[picture source]

Something I have wondered about.

My husband worked his butt off at his jobs for years, newspaper jobs, the evidence for the work is right in front of one's face.

I thought about all the multiple job lay-offs and us being slammed financially to the ground. I used to think it was just a lot of bad breaks, but sometimes you wonder. Most people with his level of education can at least find some type of worthwhile employment.

It always makes me wonder if something happened behind the scenes to ruin his career. I hope no one thinks I am paranoid asking this question.

Queen Spider wanted me under the highway overpass and probably did everything in her power to make it happen. I still remember when he was told he was not being hired for a good government job in 2006 and that he had missed passing the interview, by 1.5 points. He passed the written test.

Sinead O'Connor Attempts Suicide: Was She a Victim of Narcissists Too?

It is very sad to hear that Sinead O' Connor made a suicide attempt. I saw Sinead O'Connor sing in concert in 1990 at her peak. I never had heard such beautiful singing in my entire life and still remember this concert in detail. I have listened to her music for years.

She posted a new message yesterday:

"Her post on Monday was somewhat disjointed however it was clear she wanted to publicly rip her family members. O’Connor’s message implied she was still hospitalized.  

“Jake, Roisin, Jr., frank, Donal, Eimear, I never wanna see you again. You stole my sons from me. Then you had hypocrisy to come to hospital and then not be here when I wake and not pick up phone? I'm s--t to you. You're dead to me. You killed your mother. You stole my sons. You left me alone for twelve weeks! Why did I have to hear it was your hypocritical asses here while I was unconscious?? And now you're Gone and not picking up phone? You are child stealing murderers, I never want to see or hear from any of you again. Why were you here when you're the ones who put me here???? And where the f--k are you now??? Murderers. Liars. Hypocrites. All of you. You caused this.”"

 If you have been a fan of her music, you know something happened with her children where they were taken away.



One song Fire on Babylon speaks of her son being left with her abusive mother.

"She took my father from my life Took my sister and brothers oh I watched her torturing my child"

 This song is pretty obvious in speaking of early abuse.

 Sinead O'Connor for years talked about her "messed up" family. In this Spin article from 1991, she discusses how her family didn't like that she had become famous. Often that is one attribute for the scapegoat, get rich, get famous and you still aren't good enough. That says something scary about them right there.

In this other article where she responds to her brother in 1993 [stick with the cache on this one because a virus has been put on the normal link] she talks about her abusive mother, "My mother was very terrifying" while saying her father was "lovely" but failed to protect her.

Her brother backed her up in another statement in 1993:

"A few weeks later, O'Connor's brother gave a lengthy response, defending his father but echoing her about their mother, who died in 1985, and subjected her children to "extreme and violent abuse, both emotional and physical," he wrote. The next week, the singer responded: "Our family is very messed up. We can't communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I for one am in agony."

 It's been reported for years that Sinead had an abusive and violent mother, she ran away from home so much, that she was put in a Catholic reform school where the nuns gave her a guitar and got her into music.

  "O'Connor's mother – who would die in a car crash when Sinead was 19 – was a troubled, violent woman, and was also, the singer says now, a kleptomaniac herself who required her children to behave similarly. "

What kind of mother would force her own children to steal?

  She was definitely separated from her children.

Sinead O' Connor has been diagnosed with bipolar in the past though she has questioned this herself. The endless marriages including one that lasted only 18 days does point to some serious mental health problems. We know severe mental problems are rife among the famous for various reasons. This is a world most of us can't even imagine.

There definitely have been problems with depression and anxiety in her life and possibly other problems,  despite her world fame. I find myself wondering if the family is narcissistic, despite her mental troubles, there are people who become ill because of what they have faced. Something is really wrong when a world famous musician can't even get any breaks from a family.  Abuse does break people.  As I have written on here multiple times sometimes the soul murderers succeed.  I have seen supportive families even when someone has faced severe mental illness, her family does not seem among their number. What happened with her own children? Her mental problems could have driven them away but what else happened?

 ACONs who were scapegoats who stay relatively mentally intact, are the fortunate ones in the crucible of severe abuse. Sometimes I have said to close friends, "Aspergers saved me and kept my identity intact. It gave me an intellectual refuge so they could not break me down and disintegrate my personality." Even if Aspergers caused me major problems, that was on big positive. Other ACONs may find other places of refuge, including friends and finding someone who loves them outside of their family.

One thing that happens to singers is when they age, their voices can deteriorate. This happened with Sinead and you can hear the changes even 10 years ago as her voice went deeper. She also recently had a hysterectomy. Mid-life for the abused ACON and someone who has faced emotional problems their entire life can be a crisis point. For those of who have escaped and admitted there is no chance of change among our families. I know my own mid-life crisis point of facing my own possible early death from my disabilities and health problems necessitated my breaking away and going no contact. In my case, it had as much to do with saving my emotional life as well as my physical life.

I find myself thinking..."If only someone could tell Sinead about no contact and not investing time in people who have no love to give you".  Her message to her family is even more sad today:

"A distressing post written today says: 'You came to the hospital to see me on life support. You left before I woke and you haven't been back. Please why are you doing these things to me?? I need you. I need your love.'

It goes on: 'Come and tell me why this is all happening. Come and tell me I'm loved. Come and tell me I'm wanted and cherished.

'Been missing you all for weeks. To hear that you were here and left was agony. Now I am utterly alone. Please. Please love me. Please come to the hospital and spend time with me and help Fix all this. Please. I'm. Begging you. Don't leave me so frightened and alone.' 

The singer was found by police on Sunday afternoon after claiming she had taken an overdose."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3340813/Sinead-O-Connor-stable-hospital-unconscious.html#ixzz3t5EELzyZ
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It's sad to me watching her beg her family for love.  It's enough to bring one to tears. Many of us ACONs have been in that boat. I even asked my narcissists before I walked, "Why don't you love me?" and "Why do you hate me so much?" This is a trap an ACON can fall into, seeking love where there is none. It is a trap that almost destroyed me before I escaped. I don't seek the love of the narcissists anymore and don't want it. I realized they are incapable of any love. My own love and wishes for what could be are done.  Just showing up to the hospital when someone is unconscious and not even attempting another visit after they have woken up is pretty cold. I had my own times where no one but my loving husband was there for me in the hospital when I almost died of leg and other infections. So her pain is more then believable.

Many ACONs face having children taken away or influenced by narcissists and others to have nothing to do with them. If there are mental problems in the mix, these definitely can be used for smear campaigns and to teach the children and adult children not to have compassion but only shame and dismissal.

Remember when Sinead O'Connor had her debates with Miley Cyrus, and she told her, how the mentally ill are treated like dirt?  She stated "When you admit to mental illness, you are treated like dirt". This is very true. This is absolutely correct. Her family's reaction to her mental illness seems to be the absolute same as narcissists. Narcissists are cold and cruel when it comes to ALL medical problems and mental problems even more so.

One thing I am reading comments on the articles, and most people don't have sympathy or compassion for her. One commenter even wrote if your whole family has turned it's back on you, it's your fault! They are mocking her displays of emotion instead of having any understanding for what she has gone through. ACONs are more then familiar with how that works too. I do fear for her, I am praying that someone intervenes who knows the truth about narcissism and what the solutions are. Losing her children too had to be horrendous. Why didn't her cold family and exes even allow for supervised contact? We may not know the whole story there, but something is very wrong.

One thing I always respected Sinead O'Connor for is she has spoken out against child abuse. When she shredded the Pope's picture in 1992, she was right about the child sexual abuse that was being hidden at the Vatican. In the song lyrics she changed the word "WAR" to "CHILD ABUSE" and then ripped up the Pope's pictures. When the sex scandals in the Catholic church broke in 2002, it vindicated her warnings. The world didn't want to hear the truth.

They Left Me First!

The above snip is from my no contact letter to my mother.

A close friend of mine, has told me, "Your family left you far before you left them". And it's true. They left me eons ago.  As a child I was left, abandoned and neglected. As an adult, they would have me in the room with them but they were never there for me in any real way.

Sadly so many of us try to have a family but there is really not one there. We have a family in our imaginations that really does not exist.  NC will progress even after a few years into it, as some of these realizations come to light. My last vestiges of guilt over being no contact evaporated with this revelation. When I visited years ago, I was not wanted. Duty, obligation and control are the only reasons I was merely tolerated for the short and sporadic visits that I made to them. It was sad for years I was NOT wanted. Having people ignore you chips away at your soul while you are stuck in the fog of pretending they are a "family" or that they love you.

 

 

This is a snippet of a no-contact letter to an aunt

I think of the many events:

1. "You're Not Invited!" Invitations for me were short in supply which tripled teenage angst when it came to any rejections. Their hatred seeped into my bones. There was one time as a teen when I was lonely, my mother screamed at me she didn't want me going to the bowling alley with her and told me to "get my own friends". Once my mother invited my sister, two aunts, and other cousins, and nieces and nephews to go shopping in Chicago and to lunch. I was left out. There was no idea of renting me a scooter or wheelchair if they were concerned about my mobility. Perhaps I would have still said "No", but the offer was never on the table. They would go out for meals I never heard about until it was too late. Even last year for one family party, which my mother was not going to, one relative told another, "Peep doesn't want to come." without consulting me. We can guess who set that up! I probably didn't have money to go anyhow. There were at least 10 other family events over a series of years where she invited the entire family to dinner or had parties of co-workers and other relatives mixed together where I was no invited or found out about the party from another relative by accident.

 For one party in 2003, I showed up uninvited, there were lavish plates of food laid out on several tables all over and at least 60 people including several of my mothers co-workers and friends I never have met. My mother totally ignored me and did not say one word to me while I was there. Our only contact was when she gave me a vicious look as I stepped over the threshold.  One weird event was meeting this one lady who told me she had been diagnosed with Cushings, and this was during the time I had just been diagnosed with pseudo-Cushings. Isn't it odd my mother befriended other fat people?

This is a snippet of my no contact letter to my sister

2. "Drive By Ignorings" I live one mile off the highway, my mother has to drive 150 more miles to get to my sister's house and vice versa. I could go two years without seeing my nieces and nephews asking my sister to stop by and she would say "No". In fact this happened the week, I went no contact with her for good. It provided the catalyst for me to cut ties and to say why. She told me later in an email, "I was considering the best interests of my children", like she was going to show up to find me raving drunk or smoking a crack pipe. The fact that I was kept away from her children purposefully definitely came to my attention.

My mother who never stays home, drove by my apartment building constantly. I got two visits from my sister in 8 years where she stayed for 10 minutes, nose up in the air, looking around my apartment with a haughty air. I went to go visit my sister for a week in 2003, staying in a hotel which would amount to most of the contact I had with the nieces and nephews for life. Two hadn't been born yet and I am basically a stranger to the twins.

Another snippet of the no contact letter to my other.

It was obvious my GC sister did not want me there. Thank God I was staying in a hotel.  I'd do something like merely touch the counter, and she would bring a cloth immediately to wipe it as if I had cooties to share. The crazed neat freakery scared me, she actually had raised things a notch over my mother and she ordered her children to wipe and dry out the sink in the bathroom after every use.

My mother ignored me too. It occurred to me it was unfair that someone as sick as me who needed home health  and nursing care who was homebound at least 5-6 months of the year, was the one who had to visit her. No one ever came my way. My husband would drive, and bundle me up in the car, do the caretaking and take care of business here but the visits were painful and hard. No one was giving me a place to lie down. I often got leg infections or ill while visiting. The last two times I projectile vomited so hard, it scared me.

I saw her twice at this apartment in 8 years before I went no contact. She was always on the way from somewhere else where my home was "on the way". It was never a visit where visiting me or my husband was the main event. One time it was my birthday and I felt lonely having just moved and still in the fog and begged her to come. She was visiting someone in a town north of me and was driving by anyhow and stayed for an hour. The other time was the Christmas present drop-off where she walked in and dumped presents and walked out, refusing to even stay to talk.

It bothered me for years, that they never would visit. In some ways I was relieved of course, no cleaning and stress but the rejection stood out. It felt weird. Other people saw family members who were further flung. Other people had their families as part of their lives. I wondered what was wrong with me?  For years when I lived in my more remote rural town--they had to drive by a highway 25 miles from my house 100 more miles to get to my mother's out of state relatives, I let them use the excuse of "You are too far out of the way". Moving to a resort town right on the main drag didn't change anything for me.

My mother by the way, would visit Aunt Scapegoat each and every month, to check on her. She never missed a day of hers in the hospital.  Aunt Scapegoat lived double the distance from her.

3. "The Coldest Time of the Year". They choose the annual family gathering to be the third week of December, the week before Christmas which was always too cold, for me to travel or see anyone. This was why I did not see most of these relatives for now what has become a ten year duration. One year I asked if they could hold it earlier, right after Thanksgiving and was turned down flat. No one cared that I wasn't making it to these gatherings. After all I didn't have money for tons of presents to hand out to everyone like my mother. So my mother was picking the date along with Aunt Denial and making sure I was kept well enough away.

In my final NC letter I pointed this out. I was purposefully being kept away. When I lived in my rural town, there was a route one could take close to my town to see the out of state relatives, but I was never offered any rides. I made the mistake once of talking her into it. That was the 2005 visit, the last time I saw the out of state relatives that my mother has seen at least monthly for years.

Response from Aunt, she took 6 months to see my PM. I didn't believe her. Pictures had been posted on a social website repeatedly.

4. "We Are Too Busy" I heard that from many of them all the time. Emails would be ignored for months. Phone calls and phone messages not returned. Some I would approach and be sloughed off immediately. There was very little time given, even long distance.

 There is a level where people are really busy and will talk to you later, I get busy and behind too. But when people tell you over and over, "We are too busy", that means they do not like you and don't really want to talk to you. The me of today, doesn't go where I'm not wanted, and well I was not wanted in the family long, long ago. They threw me away long ago.

It makes me sad today how I scrambled for their crumbs. I was set up to be so needy, lacking love and any care or attention it is a sock in the gut. This is why I was so desperate. There are times we have to face reality and see what IS.  It's so sad, how I tried so hard for years.  One relief for me over these last few years of no contact has been not having to try anymore and putting work into the investment of empty relationships. It is a relief, my energy needs invested in taking care of myself and others who are actually part of my life.

It was true, they had LEFT ME FIRST. I spent years, trying to win love and affection from people who had none for me and who took me for granted and didn't care if I lived or die. I believe when an ACON makes the decision to go no contact, that most often the "no contact" in the way that matters has always been there. They checked out first and lacked true connection. Our going "no contact" just really underlines what has already happened. They left me first! They left you when they didn't love you.

Why is She Wasting Her Time and Stamp?

I have thrown away a lot of cards but every now and then I read one. At least I don't get that feeling of fear anymore when I see a card from her. Thankfully that is gone. All the cards are the SAME. They all basically state "I didn't do anything" in various guises. It's like watching a psychological horror flick. Why waste the time and the stamp? Does she think by repeating herself, that I will erase my own memory banks? If she thinks she can play some guilt games, I'm not wasting guilt on people with no feelings.

Her "mask" always counted more then her own "daughter". It is more of the gaslighting, rewriting history, saying it did not happen. She never has given a real apology in her life. You know the proof is in the pudding with our broken relationship.

 She has no feelings. She has no humility. She never would ask, "What is wrong?" or say "How can I fix things?" Nope I get the same denial I have gotten for years and this is exactly what built the problems to be so huge. She treated me like I was nothing for years and continues this in her "cards". She's wasting the stamp. She always put me last way behind everyone else. I was nothing to her. I didn't get a card from the GC sister, I figure they are swapping "scapegoat duty" since the GC sent me an anniversary card I just threw in the trash and didn't even open and she sent me the birthday card.

 I once had the idea in the early days of my NC to tell her the only way I will come back is if she issues an official letter of apology to the entire family and admits her poor treatment of me, sends copies and reconciles my relationships with them. I know it's never would happen in a million years. It would be fake anyhow.  Funny how we get those fantasies. I always had the fantasy of having a mother with an actual conscience and heart. Same for a sister with the same.

The sentence "came into our lives" is odd. Is this a way someone would write about someone actually BORN to them where they were pregnant with them? Yeah I know I hit a dead end with the adoption search but I found the wording strange. You know I tried to read her "withholding" heiroglyphics for years. You can really get to know someone, they stay a stranger when they never tell the truth and do nothing but rewrite history.

I did have a good birthday, went to go eat some Indian food with my husband, and had some friends visit me.

Did Your Narcissistic Mother Ever "Run Away"?

                                          [picture source]

I was reading raised by narcissists on Reddit and saw someone had posted a like experience, where their NM would run out of the house and leave for hours, supposedly for their "misbehavior".

I hadn't thought about this in years and years, but my mother did this all the time when we were school-aged. She would get angry and pissed off, yelling at my brother or me for something related to housework or some other dispute and tell us she was leaving. She would scream, "I am sick of you kids!" My father usually was not home during these times. She would then go upstairs pack a bag, and get into the car and drive off sometimes for 2 or 3 hours leaving us alone.

We would be crying for hours, and I was scared crapless of my father coming home and finding out we had driven away his wife, and then beating us for it. My brother and sister would be crying and whoever instigated the fight when she left [always me or my brother] would be yelled at by the other two. "Look what you did!"

Talk about forming abandonment issues in your kids. I think of related events how I would not be picked up from school once having to walk 13 miles home from my high school and there is always that nervous pit in my stomach even as an adult waiting for rides from people that I will be forgotten or left. This definitely has to be rooted in childhood.

 Secretly even as my brother and sister cried, there was a few times in my mind where I wished she did not come back. I felt guilty over this but it's true. I didn't want her to come back. I imagined her driving to her freedom and maybe becoming a happier person. Maybe she'd smile once in a while. At the age of ten years old, thoughts like, "Why did my mother ever have children?" came up to my mind. There is part of me that never wanted children, my parents complained about it so much.

She would come back silent and sullen and making dinner. No one would say a word and we'd stay far away from her. I would be thinking, "I wish she had run away for good this time." I was one of those kids who wished my parents WOULD divorce, dealing with tag-teaming narcissists was harder then one at a time. I had years of guilt being told I should love people who did not love me.

She Showed Up At My Door

                                                    [picture source]
                           
My mother showed up at my door yesterday.

I had been sick that morning with the breathing problems I mentioned in a comment. Sometimes if the weather bounces around a lot my COPD goes to town and it did that morning. When my COPD gets bad or my breathing is off, my swelling and pain gets worse. I could breathe after some lung medicine. So I was trying to cook lunch at 3pm after spending too much of the morning in bed.

 I was making stir fry so I was making two meals at once, lunch for yesterday and tommorow, chicken breast pieces lightly breaded with green peppers, onions, carrots, chili sauce and soy sauce to be served over rice. Usually we eat sandwiches and/or  soup but since it was such a late meal I was making it more hearty and made something lighter for dinner.

 My kitchen was trashed and so was my apartment. We keep the trash going out and the dishes done, but my apartment needs serious heavy cleaning it has not been able to get in years. I am frustrated by this. I try to clean up little bits and pieces and filled three trashbags this weekend of papers to be gotten rid of but it's like taking a bucket to the ocean. I'm having a hard time cleaning it and have fantasies about finding someone to give me real help. They wouldn't give me a cleaning aide due to me having a husband.

So it's 3pm and there is a call from our foyer, my husband goes out and I suppose he opened the door and they came in, and he walked in but didnt let them in right away but it was my mother and niece. This is the niece I had email contact with. What did I do and was partially in shock.  I stood there with flour on me, a big pan of the cooking chicken and another pan of stir frying vegetables, in a purple shift, and they are at the door. My husband comes in the door, and says to me, "Your mother and niece are in the hall", and the door is opened part way. I have to make a decision quick. I haven't seen my niece in THREE years.

I tell my husband to tell them, "My niece can come in, but not her." and he goes and tells them and so my niece comes in but not my mother. I don't even let my mother cross the threshhold and ignore her.  My mother stays silent and goes back out to the car. I do not even talk or look at her. She goes back without saying a word which surprises me.

I have a visit with my niece, and it goes well, though she does see my messy apartment and I take a few minutes to put a more decent outfit on and tell my husband to shove the partially cooked chicken and veggies in the oven and to unplug the rice cooker. I am thankful for the hour I get with her, while my mother gets weeks and weeks. She is a very sweet soon to be 15 year old, and likes me and I care deeply about her too.

My niece may have been the one to ask to stop by. She knows where I live. My mother would have been picking her up from my sister's house or a midway point, and my town is right off the way there and back.  I don't know if this is something my mother planned using my niece as a pawn. Trust me when I was in full contact, I would beg to see my nieces and nephews more often so my sister and mother never were forthcoming with my contact with them and as I wrote before my final break came with my sister when I realized she was keeping me away from them.

I wanted to focus on my niece and asked her questions about school, her hobbies and more which is what I did for the majority of the visit, but I am trying to cram what should have been years worth of visits into ONE HOUR. Today I feel like crying dealing with the emotions of being so far away for too long. My sister has children she doesn't even appreciate and doesn't seem connected to whatsoever.  I was denied the opportunity to be a good aunt for so many years outside sending cards and emails and how my own lack of financial means made things even worse. The true cost of poverty isn't the things you can't buy but the people you are cut away from.

 I pray everyday this niece stays a good person with a conscience and that she does not become like them. Of course I worry about the influences two or three weeks at my mother's house will give her. I will be no contact in 5 days for two years, so the whole thing was rather strange. I don't know if seeing her from 15 feet away through a partially open door but saying nothing is "considered" contact. If my mother is reading this blog, her endless coldness and inability to have ever talked anything out before things got to this point stand out. What did she expect?

No contact isn't always easy. I know it gave me less contact with the nieces and nephews. She could be using her as a pawn or simply gave in to her wishes to stop by a mile off the highway. I don't know. I'm glad I saw her. I talked to my mother's husband too, who seemed amendable and told him I had no hard feelings with him.

Totally Evil Comments

I had worried about it being found but made an error where it could have been found by you know who. I just got three very evil comments sent to me. They are so evil, I can't even post them here but have saved them in spam. I got tired of being afraid and don't regret writing what I did on this blog.

If someone else is playing games, then that sucks too. If you are an ACON whose egg donors or sperm donor found your blog, please come talk to me here. She or he called me "Loser Scum" and "delusional" and said very horrible things pertaining to my brother. If it is her, she is just proving what I wrote here. Yes she has. She's proven it. The veil got ripped off for me more times then once and now could be another one of those times. Writing like a hell-bound demon on her estranged daughter's blog if this is her, is not helping to make any case for herself if this is really her.

She's making my case for me.

Gaslighting

source

This is a great cartoon to describe gaslighting. I was thinking of the PERCEIVE quote from the other day, that was direct gaslighting. They have to change history and get you to even doubt your own thoughts to play their games. Everything is about invalidation.  Even having a witness won't dissuade a gaslighter for changing reality.

"I am Narcissist"

Smakintosh showed the horrible attitudes of narcissists well in this video. Many of our world leaders and politicians like both Bush's and Clinton on both sides of the aisle are indeed narcissists and sociopaths. Dr. Phil defended and identified with so many abusers on his show, it made me wonder what he was! One scary thing about mental health organizations is many narcissists are attracted into those areas. Why? Power. Psychotherapy tells us to reconcile often with our abusers. The one with the will says it all. What else do you think makes siblings [the spiritual prostitutes] fall before narcissistic mother and fathers on their knees and simper while throwing others away? The ones who appear nice and kind are the scary ones too, a false picture, as they seem to be loving and giving. Yes our politicians gaslight us, as they start more wars and send the jobs overseas. The homes as museums must be rife among narcissists who want to look perfect!

Perceive, Perceive, Perceive

Were they there?

One wonders if it's just a troll or a narc relative finding the blog?

Hmm:

Definition of perceive:

per·ceive

pərˈsēv/

verb

1. 1.

   become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.

   "his mouth fell open as he perceived the truth"

   synonyms:

   discern, recognize, become aware of, see, distinguish, realize, grasp,understand, take in, make out, find, identify, hit on, comprehend,apprehend, appreciate, sense, divine; More
2. 2.

   interpret or look on (someone or something) in a particular way; regard as.

   "if Guy does not perceive himself as disabled, nobody else should"

   synonyms:

   regard, look on, view, consider, think of, judge, deem, adjudge "she was perceived as too negative"

Did God Choose My Parents?

Smakintosh is right about the Buddhists teach that you are choose to be born to your parents. I also have seen this in the New Age movement. This has to do with "karma" where a soul will suffer for the misdeeds of an "earlier" life in reincarnation. When he speaks of what is born of the physical, I had the thought this is a FALLEN WORLD. I have struggled even thinking about the body I have been born into but our body is not completely "us", there is also all the spirit. I agree the parents had nothing to do with the "spirit you". DNA and biological processes on this planet just create the "flesh". "They give you the body you live in but not the spirit." 

Five Year Old Me Knew

I "rebelled" early on. Imagine drawing a picture like this when you are 5 and 6 years old and knowing you have to hide your sketchbook from "Mommy". I did. I don't think she ever saw this picture because if she did, she would have shredded it and my sketchbook [actually a school notebook I turned into a sketchbook] would have been in the bottom of long ago 1970s trashcan. There are other drawings of my mother in this sketchbook and she is always yelling with a giant oval circle for her mouth and the ever present curly hair. A line across the forehead suggests the anger too.

In my papers, I kept this now 40 year old sketchbook. I had this weird thing where I drew myself as "Lucy" from Peanuts comic strips in this sketchbook.  My ability to read early came from Peanuts comics and they formed kind of an escape hatch for me. Here I drew the Peanuts gang playing baseball.

Maybe it was a way to find an identity of some sort at the time. There are cute pictures in it where I am playing with Charlie Brown who appears in place for my brother. Linus shows up too as another brother "replacement" on some pages.

 There is an especially poignant one with a favorite teacher from that year. Sorry it is so light, but I know that teacher showed me love and care. Teachers can make a difference in young people's lives. This teacher gave me some esteem based in schoolwork and learning. This would be a life long positive thing in my life.  She definitely had to be a good teacher to form a bond with a little Aspie. As you can see both are smiling and no one is yelling.

 I used to show this sketchbook to therapists, it has some disturbing pictures in there especially for a little kid to draw.  It probably has around 30 pages so here I am only showing a few. My work as an art therapist gave me interesting analysis too of this sketchbook years later and I plan to post some other pictures from it. You can see "Lucy" above sticking her tongue out and saying "Your Bad" which is supposed to be "You are bad". I was an art teacher long enough to know most young children will draw "I love mommy" pictures, but then abused ones will draw their own kind of pictures too. Art was my escape very early on.

A Post Secret Every ACON Can Relate To:

Found on Pinterest

Please Pray For Me: Medical Appointment

Today I find out if the kidney lesion is anything worse, then a kidney cyst. Hopefully that is all it is. This is not my first cancer or "you are going to die" scare!

 If I have cancer, I don't believe in chemo--it would be guaranteed to take my little of smidgen of hearing away. Maybe I'll just drink some sour sop tea and hope for the best. Don't take this unless you have cancer and even then investigate it, there are side effects that can be serious. The white coats scare me, hospitals and near death has given me too much PTSD. It's good I get the house call doctors, I feel more safe at home. It seems every spring and fall, when the weather is good outside enough for me to breathe, I am tortured by seeing "the specialists" such as the kidney doctor I'm supposed to see today. I already consider it the bad new's office with the slew of giant kidney stones trying to take me over.

 There is a point where you think, "I have suffered enough". I would skip the appointment because I think it would better not to know if I do have tumors growing inside me.  What will I do about it? My husband is upset and wants me to go and "not give up". He won't hear of me skipping this appointment. I feel bad telling him I feel like I am losing now when it comes to the health. He literally talked me into going. This is the doctor that deals with my kidney stones so it's not like I can ignore this doctor forever.

 If I can't even get an MRI done properly, radiation and other tables aren't going to fit. Hopefully I am worried for nothing. Usually people with autoimmune disorders up the whazoo don't get cancer.

Fake Nice

In my case, not my friends, but neighbors, family friends, etc. She wouldn't be that nice to me either, neutral in front of some which made it less likely for me to be believed. That is one thing with narcissists, if you have parents who CHANGE for company, let that be a red flag!