Hello
I have been part of this board for as long as I can remember...seems like forever...and I feel rather close to most of the people here, so I thank you for that warm feeling.
Along the way, I have read about people's parents and families and I felt it would be good for me to tell ya'll about my upbringing too, so maybe you could understand me and where I'm "coming from" at times, a bit better.
Though I was not raised by N parents, I was raised in a home where appearances to the public were pretty important to my mother and, later after her remarriage, her 2nd husband, my step dad.
I was raised in a religious home, where we all went to church on Sundays and then cussed like sailors during the week, especially exhibiting jealousy at the dinner table right after the church mass (service). I was Catholic, and in my Italian Catholic family, everyone hugs and kisses and cusses and criticizes...everyone tries to "one-up" each other, bragging about the various accomplishments of their children and their children's children, to a point that you know someone is always ahead and better than you...and it's up to you to measure up to whomever is talked about being at the "highest standard" or else you will hear, "why can't you be more like your cousin? D is soooooooooooo beautiful...how about we do your hair like hers? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Pet peeve: This makes me wanna literally SLAP some parent across the mouth for even uttering it...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you don't wanna do thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Climb this smaller tree, you don't wanna fall now, Jilly." HOW THE H*** do THEY know what Jilly WANTS to do? THAT IS A PROJECTION! and it is WRONG and STINKS!
ok back to my back ground ...my mother told me sex was something you have with someone you think you might like to marry. No boundaries about it were ever taught to me. The actual act I had to learn about through a dirty joke about "Mommy's headlights and Daddy's snake in the grass" I was SHOCKED when I realized what the heck sex even was! I can remember toying with my mother's contraceptive foam and wondering about the weird top it had on it...but when I asked, she would say "I"ll explain when you're older!" So OLDER to me became the DRIVE to ACHIEVE in my life...I had to get OLDER cause OLDER people get to "know" about things and have their questions answered right away.
My mother was probably and IS probably one of the most JUDGEMENTAL, CRITICAL people I have ever known, and she taught me how to be the same way, which is what I constantly battle due to having such a choleric temperament where people's ignorance bothers me anyway.
My spiritual Mom has really helped me learn about compassion and mercy in my life toward others.
My mother's choice of discipline was a bar of soap brushed across the teeth, being sent to the bedroom or being shunned and ignored. ( I HATE SHUNNING!)
When my step dad came along, his form of abuse was "the white rag technique" in which every windowsill in the house needed to have no dust on it before my brother and I could play outside...the beatings- I was mouthy and rebellious and resentful of my mother marrying a workaholic, ocd perfectionist...so I'd fight him with my words and later with my fists and feet too. It ended up in my nose being broken when I was slung into a wall by him, me running away, cutting, and finally forgiving my step-father and living with my grandparents.
My step father was abused severely as a child and it damaged his brain big time! He usually was fun, doing magic tricks, telling jokes and giving the strangest types of gifts to people...things packed in cigarette wrappers, used Barbie dolls, Popeye Bubble Gum from 1920 somethin, clothes that didn't fit...he had obvious "issues" that were later diagnosed as schizophrenia, paranoia and ocd and ocpd.
For me, having saturday come and go without being able to play cause chores weren't good enough and took all day, was a normal thing. My brother and I would literally SNEAK out of the house to go run to the playground if my dad was not home (insurance agents are often on the road, selling).
We lived in a house with junk piled super high in the middle of the rooms. My step dad made us work like literal slaves, mocking us if we didn't do a job "right" and punishing us for doing anything he suspected as being wrong. The weird thing I did not notice till years later, was that he expected us to be perfect in chores, yet he was the biggest slob, cause he never threw anything away at all...I mean ANYTHING...gum wrappers, the wrappers inside the wrappers, chewed gum to boot!
I had a very distorted childhood in which fantasy played a big part. I lived as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Charo, whomever...anything to escape the confusion of things I could not understand and nobody could explain to me.
I remember times my mother cried when my step father whacked my brother and knocked the lens of his glasses out towards his eye...she screamed "GOD D***** John, you could have knocked his eye out!" But when I would ask my mother why she stayed with my step father, she would say "Laura, it's all gonna work out. YOu just need to stop talking back to him. YOu know how he gets!" Yeah, I knew, but I also knew that HE was the one PROVOKING me to anger in the first place. Even from a young age, I learned to HATE INJUSTICE, and I do to this very day!
I learned to hate my mother for a long time too, for staying with someone who would not allow me to ever have fun or be a child. In public, at his mother's people saw my depression as a kid...his sisters would comment to him about it, his mother did too...he just brushed it off and told me to help grandma clean the table. I never felt like much of what I had to say was taken seriously
My step father watched horror movies at night...like Friday the 13th and Carrie, etc...which terrified me. IF I wouldnt' sit on the floor at the bottom of his bed though, and watch them, he would mock me, calling me a big baby, telling me it's not real, etc. I felt like I always had to PROVE things to him, so I'd watch the shows and my mom would say "Laura, it's ok you don't have to watch this." I'd say "No, I'm GOING TO" and I'd sit there till the end, watching heads roll, hearing screams and saws and knives, etc till finally I'd run in my room and cry myself to sleep in fear and nightterrors. Again, I kept not understanding why she stayed with this man.
soooooooooooo much happened to me in my childhood, but it was not due to narcissism, it was due to family secrets that were kept, appearances that were faked, abuse that was hidden (not by me though...I always TOLD someone what was happening, yet they would not do anything to stop it) I lived a bunch of years that I don't remember a lot about, other than the key points that so damaged a lot of my future life up to this point.
As time went on, I latched onto teachers, pastors, friends, always seeking to fill a void inside me that was never filled with healthy relationships.
Thankfully, today I can say, after God's deliverance, COdep Anonymous groups, books I read, people I've talked to for hours, and a very strong, determined mind and will to not only help others but to stay healthy myself, I am ReallyME, Laura
***I'd be happy to answer any questions as long as they are asked one at a time, otherwise I feel overwhelmed and not sure where to begin. Is that ok?
Thank you for reading this if you did. I really appreciate that someone wants to understand me, based on where I came from.
