Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

Hello - need support

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erniec:
Hi. I'm a Canadian and new to the board.  I struggle with 'voicelessness' in a really serious way, and due to living in part of North America where no professional psychologist i've encountered understands this issue, I shut down about it quite some time ago.  All I've ever gotten from professionals in this field on this has been invalidation, judgment, "I don't understand what you are talking about so it must mean there is something wrong with you", rote dismissal, or accusations from a former GP/narc lackey of my father that I was the narcissist.  I am living in a large city in western Canada, and I've just come to accept is that this ultimately is not my problem, it's just a really backward and unevolved place with way too many backwards and unevolved people.   Most of these in positions of power over others. 

So, because I'm new to talking about this subject, I'm just going to say whatever comes out today and whatever resonates with others, please just go with that if you choose to comment. 

I grew up with a not very book smart father who was somehow a remarkably gifted manipulator of people and one of the two most gifted, effective narcissists I've ever encountered, and a doormat / closet narc mother.  She has presented herself as a victim of him as well but part of me doesn't buy her story - part of me doesn't know what to believe of what she says.  She presents as remorseful now but thats after years of me badgering her to acknowledge what went on.  Regardless she is and was a complete doormat and the perfect foil for my father do to whatever the hell he wanted.  He died several years ago (I am happy he is dead, and I don't feel bad about this) and in the period watching him die of cancer it was clear he was child until the day he died. I don't think he matured past the emotional age of an 8 or 9 year old his entire life, despite being quite successful in the business world. I also have one sister who has adopted my father's path, and who ended up marrying a much less messed up version of my mother but still with major doormat tendencies and he lets her walk all over him without compunction.  His own father is an incredibly shallow narcissist himself, who is more shameless and obvious in his narcissism than anything.  It's so obvious, he's a rather buffoonish character and difficult to take seriously. My father, and other narcs in my life, were much more subtle, harder to detect, and remarkably skilled at avoiding detection. 

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was 16, and had no idea why - my family did everything to cover it up - until I learned about how narcissism affects the victims sense of reality.  Narcissists naturally distort reality to fit the world into the conception of it they want to be real, which, to me, makes them profoundly mentally ill to the point that when they are identified, they should be diagnosed with a dissociative identity disorder and locked up.  My only sin was being open / trusting to these people and not knowing they were destructive and that I should not trust them.  I now understand this event as a very understandable psychotic break due to the extreme unreality of my family environment.  Other than chronic depression that has never gone away, I've never had any other psychotic "breaks" like this, for some unknown reason.  I think it's more to do with the main defense mechanisms I used to cope for decades, which was profound denial and disappearance into other realms of life (obsession with collecting a variety of things, zoning out). 

Narcissistic people like the ones I've known in my life are shells of human beings who I half seriously question whether they are even alive and not just some matrix like concoction of some messed up computer program.  These people bring nothing but destruction into the world via their own profound unconsciousness, and the saddest part of all, there is literally no hope for these people.  They are human write-offs.  Too bad some insurance company can't allow us to cash on a policy and give us a real functional human being in return. Sometimes I take a Christian perspective to understanding these people's behaviour towards me and this has helped me a lot come to terms with understanding the gravity of their destruction and setting clear boundaries with them; these people to me are evil, pure and simple. While I do not consider myself Christian (not many Canadians are, one of the many ways we are a lot different than Americans ;-) ) I consider these people to be disciples of Satan, doing his bidding causing pain and destruction on earth. 

My father had a brother who was the same as him, just another willy loman wannabe, who has a daughter who was also diagnosed with schizophrenia as well, but who's diagnosis continually shifted - its like they could never quite nail it down.  It was this, it was that, it was something else as well.  Knowing my family, the piece of the puzzle they are missing is the narcissist piece.  My relationship with her ended several years ago not long after my father died.  I contacted her to see if she was coming to his funeral and she never responded.  I haven't heard from her since (6 years).  I suspect she is lost to the unreality of her family's world.  Her father, in his will, made his a-hole son in law (remarkably successful businessman) the perpetual executor of his estate to her such that she has to ask him for money even if she wants a coffee at Starbucks.  This guy is probably worth $100 million dollars and he makes her do a song and dance for a $5 coffee.  Last I knew, she was on welfare and had not worked in 15 years. 

What I struggle with via my my heart, not my head, is how profoundly the destruction was that these people wrought in my life, and I have literally no one to validate my experiences or provide me any kind of  emotional support.  The most Ive gotten on this issue was from a psychologist during some emdr sessions that helped but didn't go really into this subject at all.  Ive tried to access psychologists around the world who are experts in this subject for help with no success, until Richard graciously allowed me on this page to seek some support here. 

I struggled with a great deal of shame, regret, anger, frustration, hopelessness and fear as a result of a life until my late 30's when everything I'd experienced until then started to come into perspective.  I am 44 now.  Economically the depression that resulted was devastating, I once made $75,000 a year, since then I barely make 20, although I am doing a lot better than I used to.  I had a profoundly destructive situation at work from 2011 - 2014 where I was a whistleblower against a narc boss of mine, the second most destructive narcissist I've ever encountered in my life, and the company destroyed me for standing up against them (I was a social worker for Children's Services.  What happened still blows my mind, the absolute last group of people you'd expect to act so disgustingly, but they did.)  I resigned but what happened was an effective constructive dismissal.  They made my life hell because I was a risk to expose one of their dirtbag employee's behaviour, and they needed to make me go away to make it all better.  I understand in my head this is what large organizations do to people like me, but it's still very hard for me to deal with even now especially as it was for a organization that gets paid to care for and about others for a living.

I attribute my improvement to withdrawing from the world around me and ending all of my relationships (whether work or personal life) that were with narcissistic or otherwise destructive individuals.  It was all of them except two people. The more I learned about it the more I started to see the patterns in my relationships.  These people, through some unconscious process, are drawn to me like a magnet, and due to a problem with being too open and trusting (I believe I was trained as a child by my father to trust unworthy and manipulative individuals unquestioningly) I let them into my life and believed their BS sob stories.  What I see is a pattern, pretty much unbroken, of narcissistic predators in my life.  Ex wife.  ex girlfriends. friends. bosses. their bosses. neighbours.  and certainly family members, immediate and extended.  I've learned these people are literally everywhere.  I know so few healthy people, my girlfriend at present is one, but because I was so conditioned over so many years in these abusive relationships that I mistrust healthy people - they aren't f---ed up, so there's something wrong with them / with the situation.  I know that's the exact problem, but I still really struggle with this.

The predators that still lurk around (my sister, my ex, whom I share a child with, my next door neighbour) treat me with an unfailing, detached politeness now (except my neighbour, who avoids me, which is great). It's almost seems like their way of admitting guilt but I know these people are too shallow for guilt, it's just them knowing they can't feed here anymore. 

Anyways thanks for anyone who is listening or read all the way here (studies show most readers are done halfway thru the second paragraph of long posts like this).  It would be nice to make some friends here who can empathize and share their own stories of how they came to terms with their own situations so that maybe I can pull something from it.  I did thank Richard profusely for his essays, that's how I found this page - I read my experience of life in them.  PS my family is most similar to the one who lied to Richard about his friends funeral time.  Thanks   

Twoapenny:
Welcome, Ernie, it's nice to have you here and so nice to have a new member on the forum :)

I am literally on my way out of the door so haven't time to reply properly now but wanted to say hi and I will read through and reply to your post tomorrow (I skimmed it just now and I noticed bits that definitely resonate with me).

Anyway, for now, welcome, it's good to have you here and look forward to getting to know you :)

Twoapenny (Tupp)

sKePTiKal:
Hiya Ernie!

Nothing wrong with a long post (says the verbose one), especially as an introduction.

It occurred to me to respond to you - that healing begins and ends with boundaries. Yours and other people's. Maybe that's just the lesson I've learned through my journey too. Oh, another thing I learned is that none of what you've suffered through needs to be a permanent "personality disability". Yes, adult children of N's have some knowledge "gaps" that need to get caught up to your chronological age and I think we'll probably struggle with feeling we have the right to protect ourselves from that crap, forever. But it CAN get better, practicing healthier habits. Re-training your brain, and how it interprets emotional information, in other words.

Validation and emotional support are kinda essential external inputs that simulate re-parenting. We need it to come from outside of us... until we start to internalize the process for ourselves and practice it, establishing better boundaries, healthier coping mechanisms, etc.

Sounds like you're already making healthy progress!

Question, if you don't want to answer - that's ok. I realize it's kinda personal. Are you still considered schizophrenic, as in, it's a chronic problem for you? Or have the symptoms abated since starting to heal from the FOO (family of origin) torture chamber?

Hopalong:
Welcome, Ernie.
I am very sorry for all the emotional and mental suffering you've been through.
I hope you'll find many sources of healing...in my experience it's like a cafeteria thing.

It does strike me how heavy and oppressive the feeling that virtually no people can be trusted (with rare exceptions) must be. And...the degree to which you perceive Nism in nearly everyone.

It could be true or it could be also, partly, an opinion formed to protect yourself after great harm.

Whichever it is, you'll sort out over time, and with deep patience and kindness toward yourself. Once you practice that intensively for a long time, the self loathing recedes. Once it does, then you become stronger and gradually can also view others through a less fearful lens.

You're a terrific writer and creating space for that, in a private journal too, seems like a great healing opportunity for you.

Best,
Hopalong (aka Hops)

Twoapenny:
Hello again, Ernie :)

I've read all through your post now and gosh, yes, a lot of what you say resonates with me and is similar to things that I (and many others) have experienced, and perhaps still do to some extent.  The good thing is you have found the forum!  And I can't tell you what a great source of help and support the people on here have been to me over the years - good advice, a listening ear and sometimes just having someone validate you, which I saw you feel doesn't happen much, is a big help and has really helped me to feel better about myself as a person.

I am sorry that the medical help you need isn't available.  We have similar problems here in the UK; it is difficult to find therapists that 'get' your situation and can help you pick your way through it and make sense of it.  But I have found the board is like having a cluster of therapists on hand, which is amazing :)

Your mum and dad, yes, it's a common pattern, one enables the other.  Very difficult to grow up with as obviously what you experience at home is what you grow up considering normal behaviour, and then you start making all your grown up decisions with that blueprint in mind and it often doesn't go well.

The mental health diagnosis is interesting, as I feel that our Western approach to medicine is kind of an unhelpful one at many times.  I think a lot of people have things happen in their lives that affect the way they think and feel.  To me that's a normal part of being human but our approach is usually to find a label and often to medicate to make the feelings go away.  But sometimes I think what we need instead is understanding, help to figure out the mess we've been caught up in and support to start making different choices - healthy parenting, in effect, although to access that in later life you often have to go to a therapist!  It's a funny situation.  I was diagnosed with various things when I was younger - bi-polar, recurrent depression, cyclothymia, cyclothymic personality disorder - and all of my symptoms vanished when I stopped having any contact with my mum.  That was eleven years ago and it was the biggest step towards health that I could have taken so I think you are on the right track with restricting your contact with certain people.

Sadly the story about social services rings true with me and will with others on the board; I have posted on here many times about my dealings with unethical public sector workers.  I think there's a very fine line between care and control, so you get some people who go into that sort of work because they care and they want to help people, and you get others who do it because if gives them power over vulnerable people who often aren't able to stand up for themselves or who might not be believed if they raise a concern.  And yes, whistleblowing, we've had some shocking stories here in the UK about people who've reported abuse or malpractice and they've been hounded out of their jobs so unfortunately it isn't unusual (although it should be!).

I can see what you mean about realising how many people around you aren't the sort of people you want to be around.  One of the things I found hardest about counselling was a growing realisation that I had filled my life with exactly the sort of people I needed to get away from - mostly self centred types who benefited from my lack of boundaries, people pleasing tendencies and inability to say no :)  I have gradually been able to change things in that way, again, largely because of the board - I found a support here that I didn't have in the real world so I've been able to weed out the cumbersome friends and hang on to the good ones, whilst being able to ask questions and rant and rave if necessary on here as well :)  It's been very good :)

In terms of how I came to terms with my situation, well, that is still a work in progress, but again, a lot of it has been because of the support from the forum.  I can come on with anything that's on my mind - small or large, happy or not - put it all down and get other perspectives, suggestions, thoughts on the situation.  And that helps me, I can run things through in my head and see how it makes me feel.  Feelings are a big thing for me now.  I was very numb for many years; a self defence thing, I think.  So all of my decision making went on in my head or was just a kind of blind instinct, a programmed response I suppose.  But these days I am more able to notice how I feel about something and then go more with what feels good.  I think it's a case of little steps (and sometimes it's two forward and three back) but I think all the time someone is thinking that they want life to be different it's possible to find some small way to do that.

It's great to have a new member and do feel free to read through some of the other threads, you'll probably find lots in them that resonates with you :)

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