Where I found the beginning of my answer. Thanks to Dr. Grossman

[isittoolate]

Why Can't Some People Maintain Intimate Relationships

http://www.voicelessness.com/intimacy.html

The person's childhood usually provides clues to the problem.  Sometimes, people tell terrible stories of abuse and neglect: in these cases one can easily understand why intimacy is avoided.   But other times people depict a non-eventful childhood, devoid of conflict or even moments of common unhappiness.   When pressed they remember few specific details positive or negative--and this is the rub.  When their full story is revealed,  it becomes clear the person dulled the abrasive experience of day to day family life by paying little attention.  In doing so, they successfully pushed people away and retreated to the safety of their own inner world and preoccupations.  This unconscious strategy reduced conflict and guaranteed their emotional survival. 

Very often, such a person's parents never entered their world, except in a negative, critical, controlling, or otherwise unempathic way.  Many parents were narcissistic:  they were so intent upon maintaining their "voice", they completely overwhelmed their children's.  As a result, the child retreated to a smaller, safer place where they could maintain agency and find some private satisfaction.  Sheltered in this mini-world, the person experienced little shared pleasure and little disappointment.

[cats paw]

Izzy,

  So glad that you found something that speaks to you and makes sense to you.  Do you plan on sharing this with your t?

Cat

[gratitude28]

You know what Iz,
I found my answer a lot the same way. I was browsing Amazon online and a review for a book popped up (I think it was Toxic Parents) and it asked the question (paraphrased) Do you freak out when you have to deal with your parents? That was the first thing that caught my eye. I used to spend a month depressed, upset and scared before I had to see them at any time during my adult life and never really thought about it. I thought that was normal!!!!
For a month, that was in the back of my mind, but I didn't have time to deal with it and then I decided to do a bit of research... and Voila!!!!

[isittoolate]

Yes CP
The therapist is already aware of this part of me

and Beth,

Now that you mention, I also really disliked having to go, and it was like a summoms, to my parents' place. Our houses were about a 10 minute drive apart. Someone would come to visit them, then I (we-daughter) would be summoned to come visit too.  My chest would get all heavy and I knew what to expect.

Parents behaviour was very pleasant and chatty with visitors and, but never that way with me.

I never understood that, except maybe I was an extension of my mother, for her, and the dutiful daughter?

I was always happy to leave.

Love
Izzy

[gratitude28]

Happy?????????????
That doesn't even describe my feeling of leaving them. I would have lived under a bridge in the cold and been happier.
Again, my parents told me always it was "normal" for kids to hate their parents. So I thought I was just being normal. They deluded themselves and explained away their rotten behavior with those words.
Can you tell I'm feeling pissy this week?

[GAP]

Imagine you have an abusive husband, imagine family members have been on the receiving end of his rants and are well aware of the abuse, imagine your family is aware at how hard you have struggled to keep your marriage together and take care of the 4 kids.  Going to your parent's house to tell them of your plans to file for divorce should not be scary, unless your parents are narcissist.  Why would one ever choose to go to a place where they are judged and ridiculed?

[poetprose]

Sounds almost identical to the description  my physcologist gave me about my childhood..

Most of us were so busy "survviving" we did not have time for anything else.... the voice* that belongs to every child, but goes unheard eventually retreats into a world of safety....... in my case it was my poetry

Kids Like Us
Here's to the kids who missed the dance
For hushed and silenced reasons
never got the chance
Here's to the kids who can not sing
in their ongoing suffering
Here's to the kids who sit alll alone
Even when their parents are home
Here's to the kids who accept the dare
They are the ones who really care
Here's to the kids teased and mocked
as they walked school halls
For it is their cry's that demand justice
shaming the rest one and all

[Margo]

You know what Iz,
I found my answer a lot the same way. I was browsing Amazon online and a review for a book popped up (I think it was Toxic Parents) and it asked the question (paraphrased) Do you freak out when you have to deal with your parents? That was the first thing that caught my eye. I used to spend a month depressed, upset and scared before I had to see them at any time during my adult life and never really thought about it. I thought that was normal!!!!
For a month, that was in the back of my mind, but I didn't have time to deal with it and then I decided to do a bit of research... and Voila!!!!

My BIL says my sister goes completely frantic and depressed, together, when it's a couple months out from a visit here.  I, personally, day dream about leaving the country.   Always have, since I was about 19yo.   My brother limits his exposure but manages to show up a good deal of the time.  My dh has "limited his exposure" and skipped almost all of his family celebrations.... even funerals and his Grandmothers 90th birthday, which I attended. 

He started sending me to everything and I had no idea how toxic they were...... I spent a few months in denial while listening to dh's version of how things would be.  It soon became apparent that they aren't  REALLY the WALTONS.   I noticed right off that no one ever hugged at his events. We hug in my family. His mother was all about taunting me and jabbing me with little barbs about how unheroic my dh is.... how he only married me bc I was blonde..... my diamond was bigger than hers so she'd have to get a bigger one now.....it goes on and on.  Very sick crazy making stuff and on a trip with my girls, they were very little at the time, his mother.... she displayed no parenting skills outside of shaming and taunting.  It was awful but I get an idea of how things came about.  Margo 

[Overcomer]

That is IT!  I DULLED THE PAIN!  For years I lived in denial.  Why would a person who was raised in a Christian home become a drunk and promiscuous?  The Cleaver's Daughter would not do that-So what does that mean?  We were NOT the Cleavers.  ThIs whole appearance management thing-if it appears normal it is, right?  But to a kid that does not know any better it is normal.

[isittoolate]

Yes tt

What a wonderful post.

These words "I knew something was wrong with me but didn't know what it was".

I'm sure there are many others who could say the same thing, but coming to that conclusion means we want an answer.

I didn't have the resources that we have now, when I realized this about me. It was back in the mid '50s, then saw my first psychiatrist in the late '50s. I was working, $45.00 a week, and it was okay salary for office workers back then when a carton of cigarettes was $2.99, yet a psychiatrist made more per hour. I had only one visit.

I've been in and out of therapy all my life, yet not one picked up on what my problem was, but then I didn't know either so couldn't help them to help me.

I saw other people that radiated happiness, sincerity, and other families that behaved differently from my home so I knew it was family-related,

I have only just put it all together AFTER the N and using Search engines to find certain phrases that fit me. I made some false conclusions, but close and then BINGO! voicelessness. That's where it all came together.

This is my First Therapist to whom I could tell what I believed my problem to be and her first conclusion was that I was the worst case of being emtionally disconnected from self that she had ever seen. --my words.

My 67 years of hurt and pain and confusion made for feeling like I lived a 'false self' life. However I don't feel it was phony or hypocritical in a mean sense----I was just flying by the seat of my pants.

Love
Izzy

[DivineSunshine]

Izzy,

I totally get what you are saying about never wanting to visit your parents.  I told my N this last year---that NEVER once have I ever been glad to see my parents in my life and I did not understand why!

He didn't get it.  Most people don't.  He was raised in a very overtly disfunctional family--so he thinks he has the right to be upset with HIS family and he is proud of himself for still putting up with the dysfunction to this very day.  Literally--I had to pull him out of a depression triggered by his manipulative mother just this morning.  I do it constantly, BUT he calls me the callous one for finally seeing the problem between me and my FOO and how it has affected me, trying to fix myself, and having to isolate myself from them to do it.  Seems natural to me---as I find I did isolate myself completely growing up exactly as decribed above.

I see GAP's situation as well.  Don't want to be judged by having to get away from the N they drove me into the arms of.

Totally weird, weird, weird.  But, WE are all here trying to get better.  You are Izzy.  You are trying to understand and I have to give you credit for that.  Sounds like you have been for quite a while, trying to see things better.  Understand yourself and others.  I have to give you credit for that.  A lot of credit ---and I think you should too.  What I wouldn't give to know that my mother cared and saw enough about the situation and me and herself to give a dam*.  Whether she fixed it by me or not, at least I would know she "got it."  Got that she was not perfect, that perhaps she needed help to understand her life (past) and how it affected her.  To me she is a mystery with 50 foot walls around her.  A wall no one will ever be allowed access in to.  Even herself, I think.

I have to give everyone here credit for searching for answers in order to help themselves--not to fix others, and that is where it is making a lot of difference for us.  We are just trying to understand and heal. 

I love Dr. G.'s writing.  I was drawn in in the same way Izzy described and loved the writings and went from there.  So glad I found ya'll.

Peace,

Sunny

[isittoolate]

Hi Sunny,

Yes! Most people don't get it! If they haven't had it, they cannot comprehend.

Same with N-ism....try to explain that to someone with no experience....... and you might as well try to differentiate colours to a person blind from birth.

When  my brother and sister come, I don't want to have to talk about this because, by default, they were part of the ridiculing and taunting that happened to me when I was little. They were egged on by the sister who I think is an N, but basically everyone picked on me. I was the scapegoat. (whine whine)

I don't want to put them in an uncomfortable position of maybe apologizing for things they might not remember from just following the crowd. They are the youngest. It is so late in our lives and we live 2000 miles apart. I won't have many visits, I'm sure. Maybe no more.

I haven't mentioned this before, but I was surprised with this vist being mentioned and with the way I think, it is like they are taking this extra lap on their journey to see if I am "all right" --mentally---or maybe try to get me to move back to Ontario. NO WAY!

Thanks for the 'credit'. It's been a long search

That is weird that your husband enjoys his being able to deal with dysfunction. Obviously he cannot or he wouldn't become depressed. What we have to do is keep toxic people out of our lives!!

........and I remember all the times I tried to have conversations with the sblings and now I realize I really don't want to see them anymore either. The conversations were unsuccessful and I would leave, believing I had just made a pest of myself.

Love
Izzy