Is this their idea of love? Need feedback

[flower]

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I appreciate your  input on this post more than you will ever know.
This board and the supportive persons on it are a huge
blessing in our family's lives. I found mostly supportive posters
who  are really decent people.

I no longer feel safe having my posts on here to be read
by everyone in the world for years to come though. I deleted what I
could, tried to remain supportive and there is a fragment of my
guest posting that I think was somehow meant to stay on this board.

There are trolls that come here and minimizers and such.--Not the gentle souls that I have grown to love on this board--- The imposters' opinions aren't important. They are actually helpful in flexing our muscles
against narcissistic deception. Thank you all you trolls and liars!

I have thought about deleting posts for some time. I wore my
heart on my sleeve and knew I was doing it all along.

and so my message:

Thanks so much for your insight and support.
 It aided my healing. Too much of my heart
was in this post to let it remain here for posterity on the web.
The post served its purpose and now it is time to
edit it or gently take it down.
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:  Ecclesiates 3:1

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[Portia]

Hiya Flower . Questions, questions, from me to you, for you. I thought lots about what you said above, but I’ll keep it brief, it might help, might not, but here you are:

It is like my mom's fantasy for me was that I was going to develop schizophrenia like my uncle.

Why would you follow your Uncle’s genetics and not your Father’s?
What would your Mother and Father say if you asked them this question?

And (((Flower))) - what a sick, vile thing to do to a child, to take you there. Why didn’t they take your brother and sister? Is there anyone you could talk to about this event? Someone who knew about it happening at the time? Who might have a different perspective? You’re an adult now, you can try to find out whatever is close to the truth, if you wish. And if your parents were simply being sadistic towards you? That’s more wood for your fire of resolve isn’t it?
My feedback Flower, hugs, P

PS. The letter on your other thread – I’d open it and take the consequences of the effect. I hope I can handle my private reactions (I can be as expressive and emotional  as I need to be, in private, without hurting anyone else) and go through them, survive and get stronger. But then I can’t stand secrets! I would read everything and build my immunity by exposure. I’d keep opening and reading until I honestly did not have any curiosity left. Would that be aversion therapy? It’s working for me at the moment. I don’t obsess for minutes any more about what her postcard message means, I’ve started “tsk”ing and chucking it to one side. I find it gets easier. But that’s me.

[Ellie]

Hi flower,
I think this behavior may be common among Ns. If they can't control you, then you must be CRAZY!

Growing up, I was labeled 'hyperactive', 'too emotional', 'too excitable', 'too happy'. My folks must have been a lot like your mom. Mine were negative, sad, mad, angry people. So if anyone acted differently, they were CRAZY! I was and still am active, happy, fun loving, excitable, emotional. I love that part of me. I am ALIVE! They are dead to their emotions except their anger and hatred for me.

Maybe they want to be more like me and can't let themselves so there is actually jealousy going on...?

When I confronted them this summer with the REAL me, my Nmom screamed to my H to "Please COMMIT her in a mental institution - she is CRAZY and is hurting us and can hurt other people. Please have her put away!"

My translation of that outburst: "She is making us very uncomfortable, she is embarrassing us, she is very different from us, she will not let us control her, she must be put down (like a stray dog)."

I really think the Ns perspective on mental illness is "Anyone not like them, who doesn't think like them, doesn't behave like them, doesn't talk like them, etc is CRAZY and must be removed from society."

Going back to a post regarding Hitler, well there it is in a nut shell - he wanted to kill those who were not his breed. I think my Nparents would like to do the same to me - they just don't want to suffer the consequesces of their actions so they make me suffer til I wish I were dead.

[tigerlily]

Hi Flower
I just couldn't let this one go by without responding.  What a cruel, criminal thing to do to someone!!!!!!!  That is beyond evil.  Don't give that bizarre crap one more moment of your time- it's not worth it.  Just the fact that you have been a functioning, responsive person your whole life will tell you that there is no credence to their destructive thoughts on your mental state.  If anyone is crazy, it's them, for even attempting to do this to someone.  When I was a child, my mother tried to do this kind of thing to me too, in an attempt to frighten me into her control.  My father had a younger sister who, at 10, developed a very high fever from a childhood illness, which resulted in some kind of residual brain damage.  She had behavioral problems after that- a hyper-excitability which would probably would have been easily controlled these days by medication.  But in those days their solution was to institutionalize her.  I was taken there to visit her when I was young, and she was a poor, sweet soul who was starved for any kind of love or affection.  Any time I would show any kind of normal anger that children exhibit from time to time my mother would say "Do we have to lock you up too, like they did Aunt Nellie?"  Even at a tender young age I saw right through that ridiculous manipulation, and I totally lost respect for my nmother for trying to use that against me. I can't believe that people can do such things to children.  The only thing it did to me was to make sure I would never ever say anything like that to my children, and to try to treat them with the respect they deserve.

[Anonymous]

Hi Flower,

I think anything an N can't control, they will distance themselves from it in a way they can control.  In other words, if they can't control you, they can control where you go if you separate from them.  At least some of them try.

I found an interesting book about personality types.  It wasn't the fact that it was about personality types but the title that grabbed me: I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just Not You!  It wasn't about mental illness at all, just the perceptions that one P type can have of another.  (But one of those perceptions being revealed in the title...)

The fact that you are so different from the rest of the family really shook up your insecure parents.  Which brings me to another interesting thought: Did you know that the word "character" and its meaning is precisely about differences?  That is, what makes us different is what gives us character   (not in the moral sense but in the interesting sense).

I hope you find some way of giving this bizarre attempt of control back to your mother.  Write a letter to her and tear it up, maybe get a photo of your uncle and honor him (maybe he wasn't crazy either!), make a collage of things representing you and draw a big circle around it with your mom and dad outside it, etc etc.  I hate the fact that they hung this on you.  

[Anonymous]

Oops, that was me, Seeker.  

[BlueTopaz]

Hi Flower,

I’m guessing that the watching for mental illness could probably be a whole mixture of things at the same time.  

It could be a defense mechanism, as others have said, because your mother couldn’t/can’t control you.   If she experiences what she feels is criticism, rejection of  “who she is”, or is not getting the N supply she is seeking, this could easily trigger rampant N-type thoughts and behaviors.

Part of this crazy preoccupation with your mental state could also be a major projection (nobody does it like N's), related to her own mental illness (Nism) and abnormal behavior.

It could also reflect a great inner anxiety she may have of being mentally ill herself.  Not a deep realization (I’m not sure full blown N’s would have them in the way others do), but a very primitive, surface level, fear and rejection of it.   It seems that she made mental illness a major theme in the family (maybe because of your uncle & anxiety it causes her) and placing the "stigma" of it elsewhere, both on uncle and on you  would take the focus off others (including herself!) thinking anything was wrong with her because of the familial link to mental illness.

I'm so sorry for that horrible experience they put you through...  As I child, I was always so terrified of institutional type places...   I can't imagine how horrible that must have been, and to have been hinted that something was wrong with you that could put you there...    Amounts to emotional traumatizaton/abuse to me...

Take good care,

BT

[BlueTopaz]

Did you know that the word "character" and its meaning is precisely about differences? That is, what makes us different is what gives us character  (not in the moral sense but in the interesting sense).

Always love to read your messages Seeker      They are always full of character  

[Anonymous]

flower,

It looks like a classic case of a parent projecting her own fears of mental instability onto one of her children. And her spouse went along with it. This is called a "folie a deux" which means that two people share the same irrational belief, although one of them is the instigator.

Schizophrenia requires the presence of hallucinations. If you didn't have them, I don't see how anyone could conceive of you being schizophrenic.

It was sadistic of your parents to take you to the mental hospital. I suppose your uncle was sanest one of the bunch.

bottom line: they are crazy and afraid of it. Don't take in the projection. Also don't talk to people who tell you that you are crazy.

bunny

[Jenocidal]

Nmother's like to make you feel like you are going insane, it's like some sort of tactic to make you feel inferior.

Often when my Nmother and I would get into a heated battle - over some irrationality on my mother's part - she would yell at me that I was... "you're just like your aunt", or "stop acting like your aunt" - whom she deamed mentally unsound.

My mother also was overly involved with the bowel habits of both my brother and myself.

[Anonymous]

Dear Flower,

I know this might sound crazy, but I thank you for taking the abuse you did as a child.  Your stories really help me and lots of other people, too.  I am learning from you and the others here that I'm NOT the nut in my family!  I'm still seeking my peace, but everyone here helps so much.

Bunny,  I love your calm and reasonable nature.

Hugs and love to all.  Dinny