Someone who Agrees About Tiffany Sedaris

I agree with her opinions about David Sedaris's mother as presented in his writings. I noticed the admiration of his mother too that seemed to be callous as well. Take a listen to the rest, she notices many of the same things I did. She brings up the same article I did, "Now We are Five" and is just as horrified. I took a lot of heat for that article but now I have grown more sure in my views even as I escaped the poisonous dynamics of my own family. She mentions my article and this blog at the 19:00 minute mark. Yes, she is right about how the family dynamics and patterns stand out to ACONS that we see among the Sedaris family.

See: In Defense of Tiffany Sedaris

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.

"You're Crazy!" When the Scapegoat is Labeled Insane

This happened to me. 

To understand this article in context make sure you read: Aunt Confused.

One insidious way a scapegoat is destroyed by a narcissist is their mental health is maligned. This will be another heavy post as this is something I am pondering lately. Many of these soul murderers will actually do things meant to drive someone to insanity and then they can play "rescuer" swoop in or use someone's break down or mental health problems to feed. They want you weakened and want you under their control. When someone is seen as "crazy", the rest of the world automatically devalues you. The entire family will then reject the scapegoat and take nothing they say seriously. You are the "crazy" and "bad" one. You are "insane." 

Many scapegoats have gone through this, where one very horrible thing our abusers do, is tell people we are crazy so they do not believe us or disregard what we have to say about the abuse we are going through. There are many scapegoats and abused people who end up in the mental hospital. Some get ill from the abuse and are driven to severe mental health problems and suicide via the attempted soul murder done to them.  While others are maligned and are deemed "mentally ill" by sociopaths and narcissistic abusers who want to destroy their reputations, fire-bomb their lives and even send them into involuntary commitment situations.

                                                                  [picture source]

 In the past, when someone could end up in the mental hospital for years, put away Frances Farmer style, this would destroy an entire life. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Nightmares out of the pits of hell would break bodies, souls and minds. Don't think for a minute that the instigators of Satan's destruction didn't have people handed over to memory destroyers via shock treatments or being drugged into oblivion. The psychological world has helped many via counseling and even medication for chemical brain problems but there is a lot not to be trusted either. There are some great evils that have been instigated via the psychological world.

Keep in mind, even what happened to the Kennedy's daughter--Rosemary, the one who got a lobotomy and literally had her mind, body and brain destroyed by her wicked parents. When I read this story about Rosemary in People magazine, I burst out in tears. I was horrified. Those who have powerful and connected narcissistic parents are that much more in danger because those parents have the connections to doctors, judges, and lawyers that can readily ruin and destroy a life. Some are part of "good ole boy" networks, and corruption as well. Many of the sociopathic elite "successful" often have a scapegoat or "sacrifice" in the mix. Reading this article about Rosemary's mother hounding her about her weight even after having her brain cut up via doctors at her parent's orders, screams narcissists!

Rosemary, definitely showed signs of cognitive problems which left her more as prey to the narcissists. Even with my Aunt Scapegoat, her learning disabilities and deficients left her as more vulnerable prey to a narcissist family. I had a high enough IQ to take refuge in books and go "inward" and "fight back".  She did not. There definitely was the fat hatred and abuse too in Rosemary's case. There was whole taint of "You'll make the whole family look bad!" when it came to Rosemary's weight. Everyone knows the story of how both Kennedy parents were concerned that she was getting boyfriends, too and one thinks there too, they feared a scandal and wanted to "protect" their "good name".

                                                                                      [picture source]

This is Narcissism 101 garbage, when one considers an evil woman that would complain about the weight of her ruined shell of a daughter who can no longer walk and talk because of a lobotomy. Those cold dead eyes in the picture above sums everything up. This is nausea inducing. That is a narcissist and a sociopath rolled up into one. What a vile family. They give her a lobotomy to "control her" and the mother doesn't even visit her for 20 years.

"She and husband Joseph Kennedy were so obsessed with daughter Rosemary's weight they told her boarding schools she was 'getting too fat'

• Rosemary would apologize in letters home about the pounds she'd gained 
• She underwent a lobotomy in 1941 when she was 23 years old and was left unable to speak or walk properly after the botched procedure
• Her mom was known to call the Catholic institution for the disabled where Rosemary lived as an adult to ask about her daughter's weight 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3225863/Rose-Kennedy-obsessed-daughter-Rosemary-s-weight-lobotomy.html#ixzz3oCPtCVz9
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The article goes on to explain Rosemary's reaction to seeing her mother. It makes sense. After all something inside her had to know what they had done to her, and what she had lost.

"At the sight of her mother, Rosemary, who was being escorted by two nuns, broke into a sprint and lunged at the elderly woman, beating her chest and screaming at her."

Rosemary is one of the most extreme examples but there are other ACONs even nowadays who have been involuntarily committed via their narcissistic parents. Scapegoated Daughter is one of them. 
I have read stories on message boards of narcissistic parents trying to claim their adult children's guardianship even upon entry into the hospital for  non-mental conditions like ulcerative colitis or other disorders. When someone has guardianship over you, this means they control all finances and medical and other decisions. They control where you live and your day to day life. In most states, it takes a court proceeding for someone to claim guardianship over another.

                                                                                      [picture source]

ACONs need to protect themselves. I have protection where my husband would be making the decisions if I was incapacitated but those ACONs who are single and even people in my boat need to make medical power of attorney papers. Make sure you will never end up in the clutches of your narcissistic family should something God forbid happen to your spouse. It can be tough for a scapegoat to find someone they can trust, and this can feel like too great a burden for friends, but we must do what we can to protect ourselves. You do not want the sociopaths sharing your DNA or supposedly sharing it, being the ones who decide to pull the plug or allowing emergency surgery or not.

I highly suspect my mother got guardianship over my Aunt Scapegoat. She let it slip that she was responsible for all her financial decisions. They didn't realize being disabled like I am, I know the ins and outs of Advanced Directives and other matters. I knew these things from a friend who had to claim medical power of attorney over a mother with severe dementia. Those who direct someone's money usually have named someone as incompetent and unable to handle their own affairs.

My golden child sister tried to deny it, and the jig was up.  I also realized my mother played the Aunt Scapegoat is "crazy" game. Today I don't know what to believe and question much of what I was told. There were too many discrepancies. I was told Aunt Scapegoat was mentally ill enough to be hoarding and that she was hoarding her own waste even, but then I came to this, "How on earth was someone that mentally ill able to drive herself to dialysis 12 miles each way, three times a week". Aunt Denial told me she did drugs and stole from them. But how much is truth or lies? Would someone storing their own poop in a bag  and pee in a jars all over their trailer, be responsible enough to keep track of their dialysis days? I don't think so.  It made no sense. Things didn't add up, and as I thought things out, I knew I was being lied to. Where the stories about hoarding and the rest, what she used to get her guardianship? I don't know but I do know I don't trust any of them.

My mother has played the "You're Crazy" game on me and she has labeled me mentally ill to the rest of the family to the point, they have devalued anything I had to say for years. Being an Aspie this was easier for her to do. While my Aspergers went undiagnosed and unnamed, she used aspects of it to label me insane. She did to me what was done to my aunt, just in a different way. I had the IQ to fight back, and realize something was wrong. Sometimes I am in horror, that if I had believed them on what they had to say about me, that I would have become an utterly destroyed person like my Aunt Scapegoat. She told my father I was "crazy" and every other relative.

Some memories have come back to me and things I haven't thought about in years. One of those things was how they tried to drive me crazy with all the gas lighting and tried to push me into severe mental illness and threatened me with commitment. One thing I had going for me, is I got good grades and I was very quiet in school, and today I believe if those two things were not true, both parents could have railroaded me into the institution of their choice.  I would have been destroyed and quite easily too. Perhaps fear of what I would say about them and their abuse, kept them from dragging me to the nearest psych ward, but one aspect of my abuse was being threatened with commitment. These threats peaked as I entered my early teens.

In 1982-83, my father had my Aunt Confused committed once and it could have been twice. He did an involuntary commitment on her. He made a big to do of getting her put in the psych ward and she was there far longer then today's 72 hour watches. He spoke to her with disdain, yelled at her, and told her to shut up. There were whispers of court, paperwork and "getting her help". From my angle, she did abuse pills, and was "hyper" and seemed to be afraid a lot, talking about the mafia coming after her. Since my father's family was from New Jersey, maybe the mafia talk wasn't a delusion. She still seemed afraid to the day I went no contact with her. She was relieved when I went no contact with her to be honest. She always took my phone calls with severe hesitation. She saw me as a "trouble-maker" and "rebel" who was upsetting the apple cart far too much. I hadn't seen her or my father's side of the family since 1997 but she was still in continuous contact with my mother.

I got the message loud and clear she lived with this fear of being "put away" all her life. Even last year, when I still talked to her, it seemed her adult son seemed to have a heavy decision making whether she could go on a trip or not and even over her bank account. I asked her, if her son had guardianship over her and she would not respond but something funny seemed to be going on. I lived too far away so didn't pursue the matter with her. Realizing there are two relatives with some kind of guardianship funny business going on definitely forms a pattern.

In the 80s, she seemed to keep to herself in her trailer, eating hamburgers and reading tabloids so whatever else she was up to along with the drugs, I may have not been privy to. Even though she was supposedly "insane", they dropped me and my brother off all the time to visit with her.

Like Aunt Scapegoat, Aunt Confused was trashed to me night and day. "She is crazy!". They would scream at me that I was just like her every time they got mad at me and tell me they were going to do the papers on me to commit me.  They were going to put me in the same hospital and see if I liked it. "They'll put you in the rubber room with your aunt!" They especially focused on me "turning out like her" and "You two are just alike!" Part of me today thinks I could have been better off if the doctors weren't on my parents side automatically but obviously I was scared to death. My mother would sneer, "We can put you away!" One time I went with my father to visit my Aunt Confused in the big stone walled psych ward and hospital in our town, she came down in a bathrobe to the meeting area but didn't have much to say. She was just quiet. She was cowed. She did not fight my father and did everything he said, and the same applied later with her own grown son.

Around that time I was 13, and 14 years old, and the constant litany of comparisons with my aunt never let up, "You are crazy like Aunt Confused!""You are going to turn out like her.". "We will put you away in the same place and you can join her!"  This was daily not just once in a while at that time. There were times I was scared I was going to go mad, and they helped push this along. This degree of emotional abuse on a young teen was beyond the pale. They would gaslight me. I became petrified of losing my mind as they told me over and over I was crazy and mentally ill and there was no hope for me and my future. I was a young Aspie and told my problems of unpopularity were all my fault. I "kept my nose in books" way too much too. The me of today wonders if they were trying to drive me to total insanity so they could "put me" away. If I had been born 20-30 years earlier, they definitely would have succeeded.

 My reading choices of the time, reflect some of what I was undergoing.  "Will There Ever Be a Morning?" was one favorite book of mine when Frances Farmer gets put into the psych ward by her controlling mother. I read "I never Promised You a Rose Garden" petrified that I would go mad like the girl in the book but remembering thinking at the time, "But you are not having hallucinations like she is."  At time, I wanted to know if I really was crazy like they said I was. 

My untreated PTSD already was giving me problems I did not understand. Back then I didn't know what PTSD or C-PTSD even was, I would learn at the age of 18 buying a book on panic disorders, OCD and anxiety problems, but at that point I did not know. I was scared because I was having feelings of depersonalization.  Depersonalization can come with anxiety disorders. I still remember the first time that happened and being scared to death that I was cracking up, but kept my mouth shut knowing the monsters around me would use it for my destruction.

                                                   [picture source]

One time it happened to me while sitting at the bathroom at the age of 10, the feeling of unrealness and not being me. I would stay lucid and not miss time or anything like that so no one else would know what was happening to me,  even if the feeling came over me in a crowded classroom but it scared me for years. I didn't know what was happening to me. I fortunately escaped having or the effects of personality disorders or Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID], but my anxiety problems brought me trouble at a very early age. Why wouldn't I be troubled being so severely emotionally abused and where I could be hit out of the blue at a seconds notice?

As a young adult, I struggled with anxiety and panic disorder and was diagnosed with PTSD by multiple therapists. My work life was severely affected by panic attacks and anxiety. I would hide it but it took a strong physical toll. There was a lot of time crying in bathrooms and getting myself "together" so no one would know how much I was suffering. Many female Aspies suffer from anxiety and other related problems.  I was someone who needed solace, comfort and loving support and did not get it. What is great about the last couple years is I actually have had some recovery from my anxiety disorders. As I have written before going no contact cut it down almost immediately by 80%. My last actual panic attack--I can still feel anxiety with COPD breathing problems--was two and half years ago. What else happened that long ago? I went no contact.

There was such sheer hatred shown for anyone with mental health problems. Of course if they hated me that much why not just hand me over to be a ward of the state? No they enjoyed the game and the torture. Mentally ill people were just weak to them. No one got any mercy.

Often gaslighting will take the form for scapegoats in telling a scapegoat they are crazy and denying reality to their face. Some ACONs may even feel like reality itself will crack as the lying never lets up and they are told that what they saw, heard and felt was not real.  I was told over and over that what I saw and heard was not real and I was wrong about everything. I have realized my sociopathic mother is doing it now, in her birthday cards, trying to claim she is innocent as the driven snow.  She has gotten the other stupid people around her to believe, that I am the problem and that my emotions and "rejection" of her has arisen out of a vacuum and that my "mental illness" is the reason why I have gone no contact. It pisses me off, to see her write that garbage, "You choose to believe things about me that are not true."  She told my brother, "I don't know what she is so mad about". Everything is about rewriting reality. Learning about gaslighting is definitely a door that opens up wide for a ACON and exposes the evil. Today I see through her garbage but I remember the years and years of being taught to question my own mind, emotions and thoughts. ACONs have to train themselves to listen to their own mind and emotions.

Lately I have contemplated the affect of having my emotions and personhood denied for my whole life. I am facing a big struggle lately that has to do with a lifelong effect of this. I am so upset facing it and how I was so destroyed in the eyes of others. The emotions are almost indescribable. Unlike some ACONs who struggle with an identity, I have one, but it feels like I live in a world that seeks to obliterate it and me. I have faced facts I was a severely physically disabled woman who got not an ounce of sympathy or empathy by a bunch of creeps, and also I was a thoughtful artistic Aspie, who was around a bunch of Neanderthals, no that is too insulting to Neanderthals.

I believe some of the narcissists succeed in destroying people's minds because they teach them to doubt their own reality. I held on to my own reality with a hard grip as they tried to take it away from me. There was once a therapist said something strange to me, she told me, "You have a core of steel". I don't think she meant that I was hard or cold. She meant that inside I had developed a fortress. I remember developing this fortress at a very young age and this may astound some of you but I remember being only ten years old and thinking, "I will not let them in my mind, and they cannot have it." Sometimes I think Aspergers protected me from cracking up, Aspies live in their mind. I turned inward to survive. Some therapists actually would tell me the fortress was a problem. One yelled at me, "You have built up this wall, and no one can get over it!" I said, "The wall is there for a reason." This wall saved me even when I faced some severe spiritual abuse. When I get brave enough I may write about this sometime and how disabled people get abused in the Christian world just for being disabled, without naming names. In the fortress, I was saying, "You know she's full of crap", don't you?" 

I joked once to a friend that the Stasi, could put me under the light bulb, and smack me around and I would not break. This may be the reason I got hired to work with teen sociopaths, rapists and drug dealers. They knew I would not break and yes I had co-workers who did. If two narcissists who told me none of my feelings were valid for years and years and that I was wrong about everything who called me crazy almost every waking day of my childhood life, couldn't do it, how could they? My own body has done such bad things to me even torture would be a run of the mill occurrence. Emotional torture was a given. My panic attacks were relegated to times of relative safety, after the fact.

One time I went to my mother when I was fifteen, and was depressed. I told her I was so depressed I felt like dying. I didn't have any suicide plans or anything like that but was crying and despondent. I was an unpopular teenager with no friends and feelings of understandable depression. She told me, "If you want to go commit suicide, go ahead and do it then!" What kind of mother is that? And how many of these types drive their more vulnerable children to suicide? Other ACONs have attested to the same messages given their teenage angst or depression. I walked away and kept my mouth shut. No feelings were to be shared among those who had none. ACONs basically have no family, we live with these people who hate us, and have no interest in really knowing us.

The abuse where they told me I was "crazy" really got bad during my teenage years. I know they turned other people against me from family friends to extended relatives, sometimes even expressing false concern when they were busy wearing a mask. This never let up. I know these messages continued behind the scenes even during my years as an art teacher and residential counselor and then later when I lived in my last rural town. I went to enough therapists to learn what my actual state of mental health was, so I could get the professional opinion about it all.  This helped rescue me. Whatever mental illness I had was the result of severe emotional and other abuse at the hands of the sociopaths. Aspergers is a neurological condition not a mental illness. It was always funny how my mother when angry would tell me to go see a counselor when she obviously has never darkened the doorstep of a counselor's office.

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths are dangerous to our mental health. Going no contact is imperative even in protecting our own minds.  One reason I had to go no contact, is my physical health was being destroyed and I was almost ending up in the hospital just from dealing with them. They do break people. I see two very broken people they managed to destroy. If they don't morally destroy someone with their poison, they will emotionally and mentally destroy someone. If someone ask me if I loved my mother, I would say no. I cannot love someone who tried to destroy me on every level.

These morally insane people do try to destroy people by calling them crazy and even threatening children and teens with commitments and more. They also set scapegoats and others up more for the predators leaving them unsure of themselves. I believe many poisonous narcissistic mothers and fathers lie about their children and manipulate the "professionals" to label them and put them in programs, some die from being put in Wilderness programs and others are tortured by the system in "Scared Straight" programs. I find myself wondering how many of the Scared Straight kids were abused and beaten at home.

This continues into adulthood was well, where sadly many scapegoats have earned the life-long title of the "crazy" one. This happened to me. The entire family sees me as a nutter. Even the ones I am very low contact with treat me like I am radioactive. I don't have much hope for those contacts either. And can see the day coming where I have no contact with anyone in the family. The narcissists hamstring you then because when you fight back and stand up for yourself, then you are already considered nuts, so your angry and hurt words are just seen as the "mental case" ranting and raving. I was told by the flying monkeys and others I was a "negative" person. I was told by family members my poverty and illness were the result of my bad attitude.  We spend so much time just trying to get some of them to validate us. I wasted years trying to do this. It doesn't go anywhere because they have this view of you in your mind that the narcissists gave them. They successfully make us look crazy.

There's literally been decades where the malignant narcissists have told them, you are off your rocker and "the problem". I ponder for myself too now the nastiness said about other people from my brother's ex wife, to the two mentally broken aunts and others my mother decided were the "enemy". She used the technique effectively that they were all "crazy" too and got dozens of people to sign on. My brother may not be divorced today even if my mother had not sought to destroy his ex-wife at any cost. He never defended her and I believe that is the core besides some of his other bad behaviors why the marriage failed. My mother has this way of making herself appearing as the "reasonable" one, she has the money and the practicality to solve problems and they all buy into her mask.

I realize this is one reason, Aunt Denial and cousins and even my own sister kept their children away from me or limited their contact. It didn't matter I had spent years working with children and very troubled young people with endless security and background checks but they all believed my mother and kept their children away. My relationship ended with my sister the day I realized she was keeping her children away from me on purpose.  They deem you even too "unstable" to have anything to do with their children. You may be a bad "influence". Or Whoops you may let a few family secrets slip.......

I have learned to avoid people who play the "you're crazy" games. I cut them off immediately. The ex-friend, who did not believe me about a narcissist abusing me in my support group, actually tried to tell me I had gone "crazy" from my high blood sugars. What happened with that fake friend was a huge devastation. I had someone just like my mother in the room.  I knew the friendship was over at that point. Once someone disrespects you and tells you that you are "crazy" and they are busy rewriting reality instead of listening with empathy and respect, that is someone you need to get away from. That includes people you are related to. Someone who calls you crazy with the spirit of ripping you to shreds, does not love you.

This narcissistic society operates the same way our parents did, telling anyone who questions the status quo, they are crazy. This is a way to devalue people and silence them. That was the goal of our narcissistic parents. We are not the crazy ones, they are.

Black Sheep: Does Your Family Hate You?

Black Sheep: Does Your Family Hate You?

This will give it to a person direct so all doubt is removed, especially in the way the questions are worded.

"Negatively: No one has any interest in my being at the gathering, thought they talk about me as if I were not there, I am not included in the conversation. Only if I have done something catastrophically good or bad is the only time I am acknowledged and spend the holiday defending myself and viewpoints."

Here was my results:

Shame: The Deep Struggle of Scapegoats and Others

Shame is an emotion I have been struggling with. I think about how shame has been used to hurt me all my life. False shame is something I am seeking to overcome. Silencing the voice that says, "I am not enough and a failure", is something I am working on steadily. The days where this voice is silenced are the happier days, the days where I falter in silencing it, are the sadder days. Not all guilt or shame are bad things, but I am focusing on the false shame unloaded on so many of us to carry as a burden.

Peter 3:16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

Scapegoats especially have come from a legacy of shame, where they were told over and over they were not good enough. When I looked back at old pictures of myself, I was actually a pretty girl but at the time you would have thought I was a monster by how my parents talked to me. Criticism was never ending. Every minute there was a put down. While they boasted of their perfectionism, it was just another vehicle for control and to hammer everyone down that did not meet their demands.

The other day I found this book at a thrift store, and knew I had to read it:

"I Thought It Was Just Me [But it isn't] Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I am Enough" 

Brene' Brown in this book defines shame thusly:

"Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging" [page 5]

Think about how the focus today in our culture are our flaws. They sell clothes, make up, plastic surgeries and many other things to people saying, "You must measure up!", You must keep up!". These are billion dollar industries that work from the center of shame. This is a society now where there are so many things they expect of people. They demand that you must be thin, middle class, employed with a good job and with certain looks to be deemed "acceptable".  The majority of humans probably do not meet the more impossible standards.

If I was to define my biggest source of angst, shame would be one of those emotions.  One considers the life-long effects of being told one is a failure and "not enough" by an entire family net-work and it is painful. Many ACONS are told they are not acceptable and that they do not belong. These messages bring life-long shame to far too many until they break away.

One thing I reminded myself is my standing among the family was just as low when I graduated from college and then was an art teacher. I struggle with the feeling of not belonging anywhere. This may be the worse inheritance a narcissistic parent has to offer. Home is not a safe place. Home is the place where they remind you of your many flaws. Even the comments I suspect my mother of making on this blog, was more of the same. "You are not enough, you are flawed" was inherent in her statements. That was just more of the same I heard all my life. "You have nothing to show for your life!" said over and over to me.

I struggle with false shame. Some definitely have already read aspects of it.
Let me give you some examples. 

1. At the church I left, the women in the church as a whole was invited to a wedding shower. I thought about going to "meet" people since social and fellowship events there were very limited. I could not afford a gift or even think of what to buy. I didn't have 10 dollars on me even for a thrift store gift. This brought me shame..."Why do I have to be so poor?' I didn't go. I was too embarrassed to show up without a gift, after the service I left quickly.

2. One kind lady who I am in a book club with, talked about coming to visit me with her just as nice mother. I don't know if these were real plans, or not but I thought, "They are middle class, they can't see my apartment with it's broken down old thrift furniture, and ripping apart and dirty rug." I nodded and smiled knowing they were very busy sorts who may not get around to it. Inside I had deep dread and more shame.

3. That one ex-friend shamed me constantly especially near the end. She told me I was "too messy" while never offering any real help, and that I was a "slave" to the social security system [my doctors fully and absolutely support me being on disability] and that I didn't do enough charity work even thought I spent several hours a week if not more making cards for a charity project for at least 3 years. Sadly I felt shame over being a bad housekeeper and sometimes after she went home, would start yelling about the housework.

Of course as the friendship broke up, she decided to shame me for my weight. The me of today now asks "Why did I put up with it?". I was lonely and wanted a local friend. This taught me a lesson that no real friendship can exist with someone who constantly shames you.

4. I live in a very affluent community, there is benefits to that in that the resources are far greater, but a deep sense of shame came with that too especially this is the place we moved to where my husband's career imploded. I wouldn't mind being surrounded by wealthy people. I have friends far richer then me, but the stigma of being poor quadrupled when we moved here. We were poor even for our old rural community but there, many people were poorer or in an equal boat. There is a lot of 'saving face' here. Most of the lives with suburban houses, vacations, and new furniture are so beyond my experiences, I don't even know what to say or talk about

There are definitely vast cultural differences between the working class and poor and the wealthier upper middle class. These are cultural differences I seem unable to overcome. One cultural difference that is hard for me to adjust to is conversation was more open among poorer people, while it is more closed off among the upper class.

It wouldn't matter except some seem to have no qualms in reminding me of my lower status as much as possible.  Many do have Tea Party and Republican beliefs that the poor are failed and should be shamed and do not work hard enough. Disabilities are just an "excuse". Being middle-aged among the aspiration class when your aspirations failed [beyond long shot creative ones you still work on] is a nightmare of shame. Mid-life crisis doesn't even begin to cut that one. The worse part of poverty in America at least isn't the "going without" but the stigma. People of lower classes in American society are now dished out endless shame. Even working class and blue collars are told they "failed".

5. Often I have felt shamed for the way I feel. We know narcissists make a hobby of this. People with actual feelings are cannon fodder for them. While some may lack empathy for those who do not have a happy go-lucky attitude towards life, us melancholic sorts do know how being "depressed" or not "hopeful" towards life appears. We already telling ourselves we need to be more happy and less self-pitying. Here some will shout "Victim"! and give you a huge slap on the face. Thousands of depressed people are shamed for their emotions. I believe this has worsened depression challenges for many.

I have good days, like this afternoon when I had good conversation and went out to eat some tasty but cheap chicken tacos with my husband and walked outside to get a cool breeze but I also have bad days too. I am not sad all the time but then I work for the happiness I do get.

What is horrible if someone feels sad or struggles with depression, one can receive a ton of shame and be told they are a "bad person", or that their life has gone badly and it is all their fault. Every depressed person feels in the interior of their gut, this worry that everyone will leave them and or hate them simply for being sad. This is one that narcs use. Narcs due to their lack of empathy, I believe never feel sadness the same way a normal person can. Sadness is a vulnerability where they can get stab someone in the back hard. They shame people for sadness which well, only makes them sadder!

6. For Aspies especially higher functioning ones, the sympathy is low and your real learning disabilities and deficient are not apparent to others so the expectations they have for us match normal neurotypical people. They often get angry and them shame the Aspie for being who they are. This is one aspect of Aspergers that is very difficult. While the world says "Be you and the world will love you for it!" this isn't always true for the Aspie except in the case of fellow understanding Aspies and friends.

 7. I have discussed the extreme SHAME foisted on fat people as an entire population and the shame I received for being in stratosphere weighs. Here fat people are told they are at fault and shamed. I was deeply shamed over being overweight and actually it almost cost me my life as I have illustrated on this blog. Even women with extra 30lbs are shamed in our sick society. I am very fortunate to have understanding doctors who know what Lipedema is today. Shame for obese people is now sadly the norm.

In this book Brown shares many stories of shame that others have shared. Many match my list above and also include weight problems, severe financial ones, substance abuse, depression, mental illness, and health problems and it helped me in reading these to know others too suffer the same way feeling like they are never enough. One considers the giant well of human pain out there, when it comes to shame and the problems in life. In the old days, trouble was an accepted part of life. Trouble was enough trouble without the shame now foisted on people for having trouble in the first place.

One thing I used to always say to my husband referring to my family experiences, "Shaming doesn't teach any resiliency!" In other words, I believe too many people are being raised being told they "will have it all" and not prepared or any mistakes, hardships or "set-backs" which is the normal course of life. If anything I believe because of the pressures of the media and a culture that worships wealthy and the powerful over the ordinary honest person, false shame has grown as an even stronger control mechanism.

Shame is often used as a control mechanism where people basically announce to the shamed person, "You are a lesser, and I am a better" and "you are unworthy!" Narcissists and sociopaths run with it, knowing that in people with feelings they can elicit strong and powerful feelings of shame. They remain shameless while dishing it out. It is one reason in society most people are busy hiding their problems and presenting a false social face. They don't want to be shamed and deemed unworthy. Some "hide-out" to avoid being scapegoated by narcissistic family members and bosses. They fear the many predatory personalities out there ready to take a bite. False shame is destroying our society from within:

"Like the growing epidemic of violence, for many, shame has strangely become both a form of self protection and a popular source of entertainment. Name calling and character assassinations have replaced national discussions about religion, politics and culture. We use shame as a tool to parent, teach and discipline our children. Television shows promising cutthroat alliances, backstabbing, hostile confrontations, exclusion and public humiliation consistently grab the top ratings. And at the same time we use shame to defend and entertain ourselves, we struggle to understand why the world feels so scary, why politics has turned into a blood sport, why children are suffering higher levels of stress and anxiety, why popular culture appears to be sinking to all time lows and why a growing number of us feels alone and disconnected."

Let's be frank false shame is the tool many narcissists use to keep people down. Some of our shame may come from other sources and among well meaning people but certain all this shame serves the wicked in our society. The demands for perfection are not according to God's rules, but even there God knows we are not perfect and offers us grace via Jesus. According to the perfectionists and according to the corporate masters who want the slaves fighting each other and playing a Hunger Games in every personal interaction, no one is ever perfect enough.

Brene' Brown describes shame as a web women get trapped of expectations about "who we should be", "what we should be" and "how we should be". Expectations we do not meet sums this up My family wanted a thin person who made 6 figures and had several children and who had a pedestrian personality. I am not that person, so why eat the shame for not being what they wanted? Go ahead and ask yourself the same question.

One thing I ponder is how depressed many many people are in our society because there is this never ending feeling of NOT BEING ENOUGH. Our consumerist society runs on selling people things to make them "better" people. It demands we measure up to certain expectations. I believe this is one reason our culture is declining and mental illness and stress is rising in American society. Instead of just "being", everything is about competition and running a race mandated from hell itself. False shame is the control mechanism. This book does lead people to question these cultural demands. Movies have stand-ins, magazines have air-brushing, so the perfection presented is often pretend and impossible.

Brene' Brown does go into how shame disconnects us from others. Even in my examples above, I was led to insulate myself fearing judgment from others. I was hiding myself away in at least three examples above. Sadly this is what happens when one is shamed. People already hide themselves away for health problems, poverty and other things that make them feel like they don't fit in. I am housebound often from real breathing problems, but many severely overweight women, who still have a level of stamina and breathing, often start not leaving the house, because of the stigma of obesity.

She talks about how shame insulates people where they feel they must even go into hiding. This is where the disconnection comes in. Our society is becoming disconnected because of the false judgement and shame. People are isolating themselves and becoming less and less social. If every person in your community is "competition" to compare yourself with, when are you going to be able to have a real relationship? To be frank, this is becoming worse in families. If everything is about how much money this one made and that one didn't and one has to be "successful" to be loved by your family, what is the use of having a family at all?

You have to hide your problems in a society like this where so many are ready to use shame and criticism to shrink you down, and or stab you in the back with your problems. She discusses how vulnerability is how true intimacy and friendship happens and how compassion happens away from the shame and blame. There are reminders to be careful of who you put this trust in, but for women especially social connection comes with vulnerability and sharing one's personal self inside.

She sums this point up: "The culture of shame is driven by fear, blame and disconnection, and is often a powerful incubator for issues like perfectionism, stereotyping, gossiping and addiction."

She goes into solutions to beat all this shame and how it shreds people apart. These ideas include reaching out to others, who have been shoved into the "other" and shame category, practicing courage, and developing shame resiliency which means letting go of perfectionism, realizing shame triggers and practicing critical awareness and practicing compassion. This often means questioning societies false message and taking risks in reaching out. She also goes into how stereotypes and assumptions are made about certain groups. Definitely I am more familiar with those unloaded against the poor. I have already practiced a few of these in my life, finding friends who saw through the shame and blame matrix, but she definitely gave me more ideas in coping with shame in day to day life.

One interesting thing she goes into in this book, is the "culture of blame". All the blame means this society's narcissists desire to pick a scapegoat to carry the blame.  Brene' Brown writes:

"The culture of blame permeates our lives. We are constantly blaming and shaming ourselves and others."

I enjoyed this book immensely and loved how she pointed out how more authenticity would bring less shame and more connection with other people. All the shame and blame in this narcissistic society is leading people to shut down. She is right when she says the opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy.  I don't want a life enslaved to the shame of narcissists and sociopaths and their enablers. I question a society where everything is about blaming and shaming, instead of human growth and connection. Empathy brings far more joy to life then false shame.

"Why Scapegoats Become Lifelong Victims"

"Why Scapegoats Become Lifelong Victims"

"Today I’m the black sheep and the “loser” of my family. I’m never included in family functions because of my poverty and the fact I’m “different” than the rest of them. Although they disapprove of me, I really became exactly what they needed me to be. My becoming a “loser” ensured they would always be winners.

Sadly we are set up to be life long victims by narcissist families. This same exact dynamic happened to me as you all know.

"Although as an adult I’m no longer bullied (and am Very Low Contact with my ex), people still try to push me around, treat me like a mental defective, leave me out of conversations, overlook me for promotions or raises at work, or just talk over or look through me as if I’m not there at all. When I say something, people act like they don’t hear me. It’s very hard for me to make friends or fight back when I need to because I was trained from an early age to be so very afraid of everyone. I’m the proverbial shrinking Violet and wallflower–the kind of woman my mother used to mock for being so “insipid.” I seem to have the opposite of charisma."

I relate to Otter here, I was trained to be afraid of people too. This is the worse thing our narcissist parents do setting up us for more abuse by the world.

In Defense of Tiffany Sedaris: David Sedaris's sister

                                          [picture link]


Sister of famous writer David Sedaris commits suicide.

David Sedaris in response writes an essay about of how awful she is.

Is my theory that Tiffany had been the family scapegoat too far out?

I don't think so.

Read the essay here:


Now We Are Five

This is one of the meanest articles about anyone deceased I have seen.

So this wealthy academic writer whose relatives have money to spare and then some writes about a sister's suicide where they don't help her or provide any other support system, and leave her to die in poverty and squalor in a rented room "on the hard side of Somerville Massachusetts" , while he blathers on about the purchase of a family vacation homes and rentals and decides to put her down even in her death? Where was sister Amy Sedaris [of Strangers with Candy fame?]

One commenter here, brings up an interesting point:

"but I found her penniless death juxtaposed with him buying a beach house on a whim just heartbreaking."

After deciding Sedaris is a full blown narcissist--and yes I know I am not a psychologist,  I google "Sedaris and narcissist" and notice others have come to that conclusion as well:

"His reaction is revealingly narcissistic. Instead of wondering why she killed herself, he dotes on the fact that she 'ripped up the family pictures' and that this was 'melodramatic' (pot meet kettle!). Then he wonders how she could have 'left' such wonderful people (including himself!). No wonder she killed herself...it sounds like a family of people with narcissistic personality disorder." 

Going back to his article that basically trashes his sister: His comparisons to his sister dying with nothing comparing her to a toddler are disgusting.

"Compared with most forty-nine-year-olds, or even most forty-nine-month-olds, Tiffany didn’t have much. She did leave a will, though. In it, she decreed that we, her family, could not have her body or attend her memorial service."

Sadly her final wishes weren't respected either. This is an interesting admission:

"Lisa, Gretchen, and I treated the others like servants and did very well for ourselves."

Of course the obituary was written in a way so the family would not be questioned about the conditions they allowed their sister to die in. That stood out to be too. There is no empathy for her being shunted away for YEARS to a reform school [Elan] which was notorious for abuse. What kind of family sends off a daughter for two years? Maybe she talked "at" them because no one ever was interested in actually listening. Where was the kindness and compassion for her?  He admits he really didn't know her well. Well did he try to get to know her? It's as if she got thrown out of her own family, of course they will say she was the one that left, but then how and why did she leave? He makes her out to be a druggie, but a pot leaf drawn on a school folder in the 1970s means very little. He couldn't come up with more then that? He has an argument with her and doesn't talk to her for eight years?

In narcissistic families, material possessions are the measure of all things.

 “Just awful,” my father whispered. “A person’s life reduced to one lousy box.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Actually, there are two of them.” He corrected himself. “Two lousy boxes.”

The "We are so wonderful" message here is sickening:

"How could anyone purposefully leave us, us, of all people? This is how I thought of it, for though I’ve often lost faith in myself, I’ve never lost it in my family, in my certainty that we are fundamentally better than everyone else."

This statement from the parents also is telling:

"We had other kids . . . You think we could let the world stop on account of any one of you?" 

I went and googled about Tiffany, from what I can tell while she had mental health and other struggles, she seemed like a nice person, she was an artist in the community and had friends.

Her art was beautiful. 

Others remember her.

I don't think so much of David Sedaris. Some may find his hipster-esque narcissism charming. I checked out a few books of his from the library and tried to read them. Something bothered me. The smug attitude? The humor at the expense of others?  But now I know why, I did not continue.

"Funny" and even "charming" people with "no heart" don't appeal to me. His sister deserved a lot more then that. 

Perhaps she summed things up regarding her family in this comment from years ago.

"Tiffany is the family black sheep, the one who was sent to reform school, the one who tells the family, early in the story: "Don't you get it? I don't like you people."

Looks like to me, she had reason NOT to like them.

When Scapegoats are Ostracized By an Entire Family

[cite for all pictures-This Charming Charlie]

At every job I used to have pre-disability life, I always managed to find one friend or ally usually in the mix if I was there long enough and it wasn't a temp job. Every organization, club or church I have been a part of, I usually ended up with a couple of friends. And in my case, I don't just have pals though everyone has those but real friends I can talk about anything with.  Sure I'm shy to a few people but my social fortunes were far poorer among those I was related to.

Today I am asking how did I not end up with so few allies in my entire family? Inside there is a painful part, that says, "your whole family hated you and had little to do with you as possible, what's wrong with you?"

From the start, I was treated like an outsider. This was the scapegoating process in the narcissistic world. Sometimes it can be painful to hear people talk about their cousins, aunts, uncles, children, step-children, grand-nieces, and grandparents. I am now without one relative in my life. I never really had no family when it got right down to it.

My mother controls so many of them. Since I went no contact, not one has to tried and contact me except via her direction. No one wrote an email [they have it] and no one tried to write me via a social website.  Only two contacted me via her direction on the exact same day and wrote the words she wanted them to write. It was easy to tell.  Dry one-liners which in my sister's case screamed, "Mom told me to send this!" No whiff of any apologies or concern or anything else. No unscripted messages. It was kind of like dying ahead of time, and you walk into your own funeral or memorial service, and realizing not one relative has shown up. A big part of my going NC, was realizing impeding illness and possible shortage of time here on earth wasn't changing anything. Years ago I made too many excuses for relatives not showing up in hospitals when I was so sick except for my husband. 

Not one of the 16-23 people I walked away from, even though they know I have serious life threatening health conditions asked, "Are you all right?". I have gotten far more care from churches and organizations and clubs I have been a part of then my own supposed "family".

 Yes, they should be ashamed of themselves.  I spent too many years like Charlie here, until I found love via my husband and friends:

How does one function when their own family hated and rejected them? The worse thing my mother ever did to me  was taking other people away from me and destroying my relationships with them because they cared most about keeping her pleased and fearing her.  This happened via the result of smear campaigns, and forcing me into a role, I later rejected. My mother bonds with people by putting others down, and a smear campaign is when things are distorted and manipulated to get people to think badly of you.  The below experience as described by another ACON in her rejecting family,  got extreme for me by the way. Everything was about pleasing the queen while I was chopped liver,  some of the relatives would ask me questions like "Do you think your mother likes me"?

"I, for example, had an “over-active imagination” and while the phrase “drama queen” had yet to be invented, that was the gist of how NM painted me to the family. In a situation in which numerous motives might be at work, NM always selected the worst possible one for me, regardless of what was truly going on in my mind. Over a period of years a picture of me was formed in the minds of family members who rarely saw me and when they did, the reality of me was overshadowed by the picture in their minds.

 When NMs do this, it sets the stage for later predations. If everybody “knows” how bad you are, they have no empathy for you even though you are a small child. They feel bad for your poor mother and admire her courage and bravery in continuing to deal with you and even love you despite your awfulness. Cousins ignore, disdain and/or bully you. It becomes a habit to hate you, a habit to blame you, a habit that becomes entrenched and unquestioned after so many years, and it spreads from one family member to the next like a disease." [link]

 This sums things up. Everything revolved around her. Nothing she said about me was questioned. For me the bad way the family looked at me spread like a disease too. Some relatives would change on a dime once she had a visit with them or saw them more. There was one point I even said to  my siblings, "Can we Have our OWN relationships"? By the way this is not unknown in the narcissistic world, it is known that narcissistic mothers via triangulation and manipulative ways destroy relationships, especially between the chosen scapegoat and others. I think this happened in the extreme with me and it cost me the entire family.

When one thinks about mankind, I wonder if this is the microcosm of toxic families that shows the macrocosm of why in the world, so many sociopathic dictators rule who seek to destroy those who are good, or creative or have another voice or who stand for truth. In other words why do folks like Stalin and Hitler rule the roost, and get others do their evil bidding? If anything in this fallen world, the more evil a leader, the more control they seem to gain. This was true of my mother. Her power was complete.

 I don't know everything my mother told my other relatives about me, but whatever it was it was bad. One thing I did notice was the constant invalidation, that no matter what I did or said, it did not matter. Even if one family member agreed with me or backed me up even for the slightest second and that was rare, she seemed to always make sure that this would end no matter how petty of a matter it was. Any rebellion was quashed and any alliance with me, was to be thwarted.  I have heard her tell people directly, I was not important, and not worth the bother. Imagine people listening to this for years and years?

Before I went NC, I caught some of this stuff in action, she told my brother not to visit me last fall because it would be "too much trouble". I had not seen that brother in 4-5 years. He went to go visit her and followed her directions.  She told a cousin, I was silly and stupid to stand up for my personal beliefs, this was the family gathering where she actually emailed everyone a list of topics no one was allowed to discuss and he went along with her even though at first he had agreed with me. That was yet another betrayal. She has the money, presents and fancy dinners to give them, I do not.

One part of my going NC, was realizing I did not want to be the forever scapegoat, the person that mattered not, where my forever role among these people seemed to be "fat, poor, loser" and nothing else. By the way, they know about the endocrine disorders and the mild Aspergers, it made not one whit of difference. There was no give or take on the health problems and how I was finding travel far more difficult. I haven't even seen friends in my old town 150 miles away due to the limitations of funds and health now to make the trip. Sitting in a car with severe lymphedema is a different matter then the average person. Many were just flat out mean, including one uncle who on a social website, who would insult the poor knowing of my economic struggles.

It was sad to see the growing subservience over the years among the clan. If the Queen didn't like you, then others realized this, and to stay in her good graces they would avoid you, and at least not want to become close to you. This basically sums up, why I ended up where I did. She totally ruled the roost. One way she totally ruled, is she always came first when it came to visits or anything else. The light was shined on her, while I stood to the side in darkness.

Until I found ACON boards and read how this happens with these severe personality disorders, the malignant narcissists have the extreme talent to isolate the scapegoats,  for years I questioned how did this happen? I blamed myself for far too long. At least now I know.

It's scary how I tried so hard over so many years to work on relationships that were a dead end. Trying to write letters to this one aunt, only to be ignored. Sending one aunt a painting I did, and a box of  gifts only to have her throw it into the bottom of the closet and have it get water damaged. By the way she was the scapegoat of the last generation, and I will write about her soon too. She was no ally, she allowed herself to be crushed into nothing by these people and served as a warning.

Trying to call another who never called back. Inviting cousins and others to visit only to be ignored. Visiting people out of state even during years I was at extremely high weights and had breathing issues, timing those visits for non- housebound times, swelling up in the car for hundreds of miles {I was limited to trips that took one day to get there and back with some hours to visit} and never having anyone return the favor. No one calling, the immediate members of the family calling at the level of the bare minimum, the not being invited to weddings, and parties and other family events, or being set up not to show up with others like my sister refusing to share their plans, it all added up. I tried too hard too long. I got the feeling over the years, that duty and appearances were the only things keeping the head matriarch even bothering with me.

What is weird is how much I tried to approach them and tried to take an interest in them as people while they took none in me. I told them, I felt bad about how I lacked the money and finances to visit as much as I wanted--I did push myself body and otherwise to visit as much as I could. Part of this was even informing them, that I haven't even seen one of my favorite places on earth my old small town, in more then two years. I would invite them to visit, and I live in a place that is popular, with plenty to do.  For years when I lived in my remote rural town, I thought that was why no one visited, but really it was more, because when I moved to where I live now, I moved smack dab in the middle of my mother and sister who live 300-400 miles apart and off the highway they use, and that changed NOTHING as they visited each other for years and weeks at a time. My mother would drive thousands of miles to go out of state, hundreds to go visit others. She never misses a family event and is there for everyone to see which limited my role even more as a nobody within the family while she waged her smear campaigns against me. She considered me unimportant and the others at her direction jumped on the bandwagon.

I live 75 miles away and only saw her TWICE at my home in the last 6 years, once for an hour on my birthday when she happened to be on the way home from somewhere else, and for the 2 minute present drop off of last year. Yes, that told me what a low priority I had become among many other things.

The family was a clique and I was not in it. Most of them were 6 figures rich, I am not talking ordinary middle class types but ones who could afford a new car every two years, who owned second homes, who flew to China for business, who had massive weddings, that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Sadly though in my family, only what you DID matter not who you WERE, and all achievements were measured by the dollar signs, not by any other criteria. Volunteer work, community projects, artistic ventures did not count.

There is a divide now in the family between the upper middle class types and the few poor ones that remain. The upper class ones see themselves as extremely superior to the poor ones. They look down from mountain tops. The sad thing? Well most of the poor ones have accepted their place, I supposed they consider me uppity for not doing so and not worshipping them because of their greater money. If you do not become who they want and do not conform, you are called a loser and a failure. I grew up hearing very bad things said about cousins, aunts and uncles who did not acquire a certain income, "that one is a drunk, that one is lazy, that one is no good!" Ironically even some of the ones on their knees before the Queen were maligned all the time, but they never would believe that was happening when I told them!

One thing I read on many psychology websites, was that when Scapegoats "fight back" and are no longer willing receptacles of abuse, they are closed out. Around my 20s, I stood up against the overt abuse enough for this to begin happening. Imagine your mother is the leader of a clique and you're the rejected nerd girl, in the junior high school slam book. Thus was my life with my family. I wasn't getting invited to parties, talked to. None of the relatives ever shared any of their real selves with me, or got deeper then a cashier at a gas station. I hope and pray one day, I find out I am not really related to any of them but if I am, I lost the DNA Lotto on multiple levels.

Yes I had to give up and walk away. This scapegoat quit, and walked away from the doors slammed in her face and those who didn't even "see" her. I pray everyday that my nieces and nephews become different people who stand up for themselves and care about and love people the right way. I pray at least a few "rebel" against the family system and "come out of it". I am growing stronger since going NC, and realizing I am somebody to other people and to God. No more being a nobody to pedestrian people with no emotions who don't really care about anyone else but themselves.

Update: I went no contact with the entire family years ago. I included even cousins who "chose" her and were indoctrinated into her views and narrative. I realized as the years went on, I never really had a family in any way that the word is supposed to mean. All the nieces and nephews joined the family culture and became like them and never took interest. I did try to reach out to them as they became adults, but it was to no avail. I knew not having been able to establish connections when they were young though I attempted to, it was most likely a failed venture.