As much as I feel the need to spit out and explain for myself what my life has been like, I at the same time feel guilty in advance for the emotional vomit I am preparing to do and also feel ashamed of the fact that I am going to present myself as a victim and marty,r as that is a role I must have chosen for myself in adulthood and it isn't one that I am proud of.
I will start by saying that I am Wrong. I have spent my life hiding my inherent wrongness. Over the past few years I have simply withdrawn from the world of chaos and pain and have stopped trying to go out in the world and be Ok. It is hard to look back at my adult life and see that I set myself up....but I think we tend to set ourselves up in a role that is comfortable and feels familiar to us. If we aren't good at anything else, at least we can be good at our dysfunctional role.
My mothers, mother was probably an N. She probably also had mental illness as a contributing factor. My fathers mother was an N and I knew her well enough to realize that all of her perfection was a way of coping with the world. As for my parents, I think they shared times of being an N and being the co-N. Maybe they had a system worked out whereby they each had parts of their lives where they got to be the N and parts where the other did?
I am a middle child of sorts, the second of four. My older sister is perfect and detached from it all and was detached as only a child. My youngest sister became ill with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder as a teenager and simply has never really returned. My next younger sister was forced to be the Mother extension and I see that her life is simply filled with N people to this day also, but she seems to be coping with it all better than I from an emotional standpoint, it is her body that is breaking. I am the wrong child. The child that would never measure up, the one to be ashamed of, the one that was not ever ok and for a lot of my life, the whole family has bought into that picture of me. I guess I have bought into that picture of me.
I had what I needed. I was fed and I was clothed. I just never had input that was positive. I didn't have discussions, hugs, games, praise. The only real input that I had was negative. My mother said that I was like a little old lady as a child. That I was always in my own little world. I think that I learned to escape early. I am so thankful for books, because I had the ability to grab a book and leave the rest behind.
I don't have memories of family excursions, I don't have many memories at all, but most of them I have are of traumatic experiences. I remember that my grandmother hated me and called me stupid. I remember my mother being sick with something all the time. She had so many surgeries that I can't even list them all. Along with the surgeries, she popped out two babies in a row. One she loved too much and the other she ignored to the point that she almost didn't exist. I felt responsible for helping the second baby exist and also felt anger at the older baby for being the center of my mothers world. I remember her going out early one morning and collecting apples to make mom a pie, so she would feel better and when she woke up, her chasing me around the house beating me for making a mess. I wet the bed. I wet the bed until I was in second grade. I still remember the sinking feeling of waking in that too warm bed. The screaming and humiliation of it. The shame!
I have memories of cringing in a room upstairs with the younger girls as my parents fought physically downstairs-my mother screaming for us to call the police because my father was killing her. At the same time that I worried for her, I hated her for pushing him and pushing him until he blew up. My father was not to be bothered by children. If we entered the room that he was in, we were not to talk. If we wanted to talk, we were to go into the other room. I stayed outside a lot with the younger girls and heaven forbid that anything happened to them out there.
My younger sister was the brunt of all my mothers anger when she was small. She was so used to being talked badly about, that when you said her name at two, she hid. She acted out and beat her head on anything that she could. I was only eight, but knew that she was being abused and unloved, so I felt responsible for loving her. She came in the house one day with a cut on her foot and was beat for getting blood on the floor. My mothers constant refrain was " I get started hitting her and I just can't stop."
I don't remember really being physically beaten much, I just remember trying to be invisible. I don't think I had the will to be beaten-enough spirit to ever be bad enough to be the focus of attention. I just juggled. I juggled mom and avoided Dad.
I remember going to church and being in trouble for having anything to do with "those churchy people." My mother was very threatened by them and I think now was afraid that they would find her lacking, but they were nice to me. They treated me as a human being that had some value. When I wasn't being teased about my "churchy" friends I was being call a slut and a whore. This anger directed at me was mostly because I started to stand up when she hit my younger sister. Not only that, I was getting breasts! Heaven forbid there be another female that got attention in the family. My hair was hacked off into what is called a pixie and from that point on was never grown below my ears. I was twelve and didn't really know what sex was, yet I was the whore. At the same time that I was a whore, I was encouraged to take a job at thirteen where I worked in a pizza parlor from 4pm until 4am and then allowed to walk home on my own. I can't imagine that looking back, but I had always been such a responsible little adult that it happened. There was also the fact that if I bought some of my own clothes and food, it would ease financial pressures I brought to the family by existing. We were always aware of the struggle and always had to worry about how we would buy food.
We had a dog that was my friend. He slept with me and I told him all of my problems. I remember coming home one day to find that my only friend in the world was gone! About this time it was decided that my younger sister, who was the center of all the good in the family was "built" like my mother. From that point on, she got the only positive attention in the family. In effect all the attention that she got was the wrong kind, but we were made to dislike her for being the only one who had any attention at all. She had to belong only to my mother, so problems were created between her and my father. In this way, mom could insure that she had my sister all to herself and also that my father would not be involved with my sister in any way. He had made the mistake of wrestling around with her when he came home from work and that couldn't be allowed.
When I was sixteen I was working and going to school and simply kept loosing weight. I was sick to my stomach all the time. I was finally put in the hospital and the caring doctor came in to talk to me about life. I made a major mistake. I told him the truth when he questioned me about things. The day that my parents came to pick me up from the hospital, my mother was livid. I was sent straight to my room to pack, because I was being turned into social services. She couldnt handle such a disobedient and terrible child. She took me there and while there, my grandfather came storming in to say that I would be coming home with him. So, I spent a year with my grandparents. My loving, sweet, kind grandfather and my N grandmother. She hated me. If anyone was around she "loved" me to death, but always pointed out that I was grandpa's "pick." I am not sure I was grandpa's pick, but I think he saw that I was a child that had no one but him. Because social services was involved they met with me weekly for a while and talked to my mother at the same time. They basically told me that I had become the reason for every problem in my mothers life. That she felt everything that was ever wrong was my fault. She was very resistant to talking to them and they didn't feel they were making headway. They faded away, but did tell me that there was "nothing wrong with me." Yeah right!
During that year I had no contact with my mother. Out of sight, out of mind. She did not even speak to me on the phone. I was living in a little town with none of my friends. I had seen my younger sisters sobbing and clinging to me when I left and I was pretty miserable. Actually, miserable is an understatement. In major crisis is more like it. the feeling that if even your mother can't love you that you must be really, really wrong. I spent the year building a brick wall in my mind that I would keep around me to keep me from being hurt again. I was determined not to let anyone through that wall, but again, I have very little self determination and will of my own. At the end of the year, my mother called to say that her back was out and she needed me to come home to care for the girls. I shouldn't have gone, but I did. I fed her, kept the house that was on the market, babysat four children she normally watched to help ends meet, brought her food and drinks to her bed and helped her to the restroom while she lay in the dining room shouting orders from a bed. The girls had chicken poc's and I quit school to handle it all.
In the midst of this chaos, I met a wonderful man that was much older than I and fell totally into first love. He was very sweet and kind to me. When things calmed down at home he encouraged me to return to school. He said he wanted to marry me. I did return to school in the fall and would probably have stayed there, but came home one day that fall to find my mother and all my sisters on the porch. I knew that something was up. It seems that my first love had died in a truck accident while on a trip to Ohio. I think that was the breaking point. The bit of me that had been fighting for life up to that point just gave up. I quit school again in despair and got a full time job. A year or so later while still in a fog of mourning, another man came along and decided that he HAD to have me. I told him he could have my body, but would never have my heart. I think I went along in a fog, hoping that maybe I could wake up and feel something again. I found out later that he had been married and had a brand new baby when we met, but looking back now I realize that he would never been concerned about the impact of his actions on them as he was-Surprise! an N. A charming, attractive, well spoken N, but an N nontheless. I suppose that he felt pretty comfortable and was broken by his own N parents in a lot of ways, so he took over where my parents left off. My mother was by then driving me crazy just talking to me on the phone every day, so when he suggested he go back in the service, I was more than ready to move 1200 miles from home. I became the super wife and super mom who did everything...I mean everything. I worked, studied for my diploma, got my real estate license, took total care of the kids, shopped, laundered, cooked, did the bills, put gas in the car. Meanwhile he played golf and played around. I had a child that had birth defects and lots of surgeries, while he could not be bothered to hardly visit the hospital. By that time I was twenty one. I had to have a hysterectomy so went home as I knew I couldn't count on him for help. A week later I was bringing two babies and my younger sister back on a three day bus trip to find that I needed to clean the disaster he had created for government inspection. I was just about fed up, but he wanted to get out of the military. Realizing my child needed that medical care, I struck a bargain of sorts and told him that I would stay if he stayed in. It was not much of a bargain.
I got a really good job to provide additional insurance and quickly became a workaholic and super mom. I juggled as fast as I could and totally wore myself out. I hired sitters to be there with my husband until I got home because he couldn't be bothered to feed the kids or insure their safety. I kept juggling as fast as I could, but I was so unhappy and so ignored by him. I almost think it was a game to see just how much I could put up with, or continue to put up with. We finally went to a marriage counselor. I told about everything that was going on with us and she turned to get his side of the story. He simply said that everything I said was true. She said "if all of this is true, what are you doing here?" In other words, you are being so horrible that you cant care a bit about her, so why come? He said, "well, it is the first time that I ever really thought she would leave."
I came home one day soon after to have him offer to get me a cup of coffee. That was so nice and so unexpected. I was ready to fall down at the end of the week anyway. We drank the coffee and the next thing I knew I was falling asleep. I never nap, so remember my last thought being that I must be getting sick. I woke up to find it dark outside and my husband in the recliner. The boys were no where in sight. I couldn't believe I had slept or that he would have put them to bed, so asked what time it was. He said it was after eleven. I realized that I was on a different couch than I had fallen asleep on and wondered how I had gotten there. He said "I have to head to bed for work in the morning." I said "What do you mean." He said "It is eleven SUNDAY night." I had slept from Friday evening until Sunday evening while two young boys ran through the family room and never knew a thing. I was in a fog, but now think that he had put something in that coffee. I can't believe that it didn't enter my head at the time. I think that he was hoping that I wouldn't wake up and just let me continue to sleep. I can only imagine how he must have felt when I started to stir, not realizing that I would be in too much of a fog to question what had happened.
I did become very ill and stayed ill for months. I had constant pain in my neck, was dizzy all the time and couldn't seem to drag myself out of the bed most of the time. I was diagnosed with depression. I was scared to death. I was hospitalized and when I got out I told him he must leave. If the situation could make me this sick, I had to DOOO something. I still don't think it occured to me that he might be helping my sickness along. Maybe he wasn't? Who knows at this point. He had been a policeman at one time, so even with all of the vietnam stuff he dealt with, it would never have occured to me that a policeman would ever do anything like that.
He left, but was never far away. He broke in and took things, he stole my jewelry, he drove passed and pushed the panic button on the burgler alarm all night every night, peed in my perfume, poured poison on the plants in the yard. He would break in while I was working and move the pictures around on the wall, just to let me know that no matter what, he could still get in. Then he took my son and brought him back across country. My attorney said it might take a year to get my son back, so I packed, painted my house, and came to get my son. I was a wreck. The first night home, all the windows were broken out on my car. He told me that if I was ever with another man, he would scar my face so badly that I would think of him forever when I looked at myself in the mirror in the mornings. Now days they would have jailed him for stalking, but in those days it was unheard of.
Guess where I ended up? Back with the parental N's. I also ended up back in the hospital. I think depression and exhaustion, but it made me even more "wrong." I was now the one that was wrong AND the one that couldn't cope.
