Hi Ami - first did you use the Quote thing? Probably the 'close quote' code is after the end of your text and that is why it is all in the box.
I don't know - there's no to-the-point kind of answer that I can say. It's been a whole life story, you know? I didn't know what my mom's illness was, and even after it had a label I didn't know much about it. I definitely took it completely personally and believed I was somehow evil in a way that I could not do anything about - like hair color or eye color. I was afraid that she somehow knew that I wanted to do bad things that I myself did not know I wanted to do. But on the other hand, my mom was so non-functional as a mother that I had to look out for myself and my sister too, so I had to rely on my own judgment from very early, in direct opposition to her judgment. And a lot of her fears I always felt were stupid - some of my earliest memories are of such incidents. I didn't like it when she talked to me and told me her point of view (in retrospect because it was crazy) and in general I liked to avoid her and do for myself as much as possible. So I guess what I'm saying is - it impacted me hugely and yet there were other things going on inside me that minimized her impact in many ways.
It took a long time to feel healed from the extreme self hatred of feeling evil. Whenever I did act poorly - lashing out, being a jerk, whatever - it seemed to confirm my mom's view of me and I had extreme internal reactions of self loathing.
I was raised catholic and when you are 7 you take first communion. The nun who taught us in Sunday School impressed upon us how important it was to be pure and virtuous when receiving communion. I was convinced I would burst into flame the moment the wafer touched my incredibly evil person. I did make communion but came down with a high fever the same day - I've always thought my internal extreme anxiety probably brought that fever on (and many other illnesses in years to follow). It was such a relief to lay down those ideas she put on me. She put some others on me - she used to tell me I disgusted and repelled her and made her sick when I smiled at her and all sorts of stuff. These are just some examples.
From an early age I tried very hard to be nothing like her. Even in mannerisms or expressions - I would stamp them out in myself if they were like her. For some years I felt a lot of contempt and animosity toward her and that tempered gradually and left in my early 20s.
It doesn't seem fair to bring these things up because these things don't hurt me anymore. But this is how I threw all my faith into my dad, which as it develops turned out to be a really terrible idea, but not quite as terrible as being with my mom with her having parental power over me - a horrible, life endangering situation. But maybe there was no real alternative. I don't know. What I admire so much is when people post that they had a part of themselves able to be detached from their parent and able to assess that the parent was ill and/or troubled and/or evil. I never had that kind of detachment. As much as I tried so hard not to be like my mom, I tried very hard to emulate my dad. That troubles me so much - what a role model! Who knows what N habits need to be rooted out?
So I guess I would say, my mom was obviously ill even though I did not understand the symptoms or have a context. Therefore she had little authority with me after a certain point and I disregarded her words and actions as an authority even though there was still earlier negative stuff she laid on me that had to be overcome (I had to learn how to do so - for a long time it was just there). At an early point I refused her. But my dad carried great authority with me and I had no detachment. Also it was desperate survival. There was no one outside the family who I could go to and no experience of unconditional love at all. My mom's family distanced themselves and my dad's family supported him at the expense of the children (as in 'poor Ndad saddled with pups that would be better drowned'). Books saved me, and my mystical bent (and experiences), an ability to experience unconditional love inside myself - to imagine it in general and maybe temperment. Plus, I love beauty, virtue, goodness, music, art - somehow these things fed me sort of like the sun shines on all things and feeds them. It was enough to go along with, though fact is I was deeply self-hating for my "offenses." But also my dad's grandiosity - which is so tied with being perceived as a wonderful guy, a wonderful parent. He loves/d to be seen to be doing things in the role of 'great dad,' and I believed in him even though it was all hollow at the core and involved such servitude mental, emotional, physical (attentive attendance to his every need/command). So ironic that the pretense of normality may have been enough to live upon. But believing in something false, maybe it is enough to survive for a while, but ultimately it is not enough. But I will say that because he liked the role so well, and I believed in him and it, I actually have a lot of good memories of activities and things we did. They are somewhat soured by the knowledge that he did them because he adored his own image in doing them and he got NS. But in his way my dad actually did more with us than most dads and many another parent of either gender that I knew. We were in indian princesses and did projects and went camping and went to museums, did sports, classes, went out to interesting restaurants. We did so much stuff and it was good. The price was to be a minion.
So I don't know if an N parent is worse. If my Dad had left us, we would probably be dead through some misadventure or other. My mom was completely incapable. She would lock us out of the house and not answer the door - when we were toddlers. I used to take my little sister to play behind the hedge around the building so that we would be inconspicuous and not in the open, vulnerable. My mom would tell me on no account to walk home from school with my friends or else I would be punished and that she would pick me up. Then she would never come and I would wait for hours alone trying to look inconspicuous. The neglect constantly placed me and my sister in danger indirectly and she was sometimes dangerous directly. The house could have burned down. She could have taken that belief in my evil and done me in. Who knows. It was terrifying and yet disgusting and yet pitiful and yet frustrating and tedious. God, so glad it is over!!
But an Nparent is unrelenting slavery mental, emotional - to survive with an N parent you have to believe their reality and reflect it back at them like a fanatic. Or else.
Jeez it all sounds so bad written out like this! But yet I don't know how to describe it but I had a good time a lot of the time as a kid.
I'm sure this ramble makes little sense but I guess it's all been just quite the learning curve. And yet it's something that has no currency. Much of my energy has gone into learning how to be normal enough. I studied other kids like an alien living incognito on planet earth.
And I protected the secrets completely. I was a complete collaborator in the facade. A true believer I guess. Edited to add: you can bet I mentioned none of these family adventures on college application essays or to my classmates. Sometimes I read of the difficulty of young people who won't break the family code of silence but it is also about survival. Certainly I would have to feel very safe in my ability to survive and protect myself before I could break silence on these things. Also I would have to be certain that I would not be rejected, destroyed or hunted for telling the truth.
Uh not so sure this answers any questions, but gee I guess it is the most forthcoming I've ever been on here. So maybe it helped me come forward a little bit.
