The unmentioned attachment style:- toxic

[Baddaughter]

I know I can't really speak to your childhood experiences but my parents also provided adequate shelter, etc most of the time --  and when I isolate specific incidents of their abuse, it seems petty that I would consider that abuse.  But if you ever FELT like you were kicked in the stomach or FELT the wind go out of your body from the latest betrayal -- it IS ABUSE!  And certainly parents are only human and entitled to lots of mistakes -- but if the entire environment is Toxic for an extended period of time, (decades in my case),  then IT IS ABUSE!  If the people who are supposed to keep you safe and love you cannot or will not do that then it is abuse.  I would have happily forgiven them anything!  They were MY parents and I loved them deeply -- but forgiveness implies contrition and although I felt apologetic about my very existence -- I never experienced one second of genuine contrition from either of them. 
Keep posting!
Love, Biddy

[SilverLining]

I know I can't really speak to your childhood experiences but my parents also provided adequate shelter, etc most of the time --  and when I isolate specific incidents of their abuse, it seems petty that I would consider that abuse.  But if you ever FELT like you were kicked in the stomach or FELT the wind go out of your body from the latest betrayal -- it IS ABUSE!  And certainly parents are only human and entitled to lots of mistakes -- but if the entire environment is Toxic for an extended period of time, (decades in my case),  then IT IS ABUSE!  If the people who are supposed to keep you safe and love you cannot or will not do that then it is abuse.  I would have happily forgiven them anything!  They were MY parents and I loved them deeply -- but forgiveness implies contrition and although I felt apologetic about my very existence -- I never experienced one second of genuine contrition from either of them.  
Keep posting!
Love, Biddy

I agree.  It seems to me we can learn recognize a spectrum of possible abuses and omissions in the FOO environment.  The cumulative effect of the more subtle behavior can be just as devastating as the obvious incidents.  In addition to the toxic effects of the family environment, we have to deal with the lack of understanding from most everybody else.  

I stumbled around for years trying to figure out why my FOO environment was so destructive.  Since there were few incidents of obvious physical violence or neglect,  what did I have to gripe about?  It was only when I started looking at the more subtle behaviors that the patterns became clear.  Maybe the individual incidents were "petty" but they went on constantly, year after year.   And a lot of the problem is what the parents DIDN'T do, such as listen to or provide a voice to the offspring.    

To this day my stomach churns when I even hear my father's voice on the answering machine.  My gut knows better than the mind what is going on.  

[Portia]

It seems to take so long to break free. Analysing my own thoughts over and over and realising that 'want' to have a connection is still there, may always be there, and knowing that it is just me, it has nothing to do with external reality. External reality is horrific. It amazes me over and over how the brain will - oh i don't know. It will try and get to what was the (un)comfortable status quo, it will try and be as it was and I have to fight it all the time. It gets easier. But somehow I have to keep my guard up against my own thoughts - they can tell me the most outrageous things, in passing, and I have to catch them fast and argue with them, remind them of the horrific reality - get the thoughts back on track. You have to be vigilant with your own brain it seems. It's worth it. At least I do have the silver lining of real hard facts to deal with.

[river]

Thanks for all these responses.  I think I've had so much non-response indifference from people over my life, it delights me to get responses in my thread somehow.  Gosh, it sounds sad    It feels also like people are really trying to understand what I'm trying to say, and I dont fully understand it myself, so I so much appreciate it.
 I feel theres something important in distinguishing between frank abuse/ neglect and the kind of stuff that went on in my FOO, but I'm not exaclty clear about it, so this is helping. 

Everything people have said contributes  sense.  Take this, here ~
Silver lining said:

  In addition to the toxic effects of the family environment, we have to deal with the lack of understanding from most everybody else.     

What I've noticed is that its more than that others dont understand, I have found that the dynamics are repeated in various forms in many areas of society, that is where people arent actively aware and seeking to counteract.  Ok, a real N is a more extreme version, but take this example, sorry, thiis'll take a bit to unravel this tale: 
In the institution where Im training (T training), the T. who ran our introducory WE, is who I rang because I had a question about the amount of reading we'd have to do because I'm a very slow reader, and I wanted to see if I was being realistic in applying to train at this level. 
He said "I can hear your anxiety about this"   I said, Im not really anxious, I just need to know.  I had to fight to get the facts out of him and get him to getover his concept about my ...........

   

[river]

.............. 'anxiety'.   Well he never did get over it, in fact, he strongly advised me that at the interview:   That I not  deny that I'm anxious, just tell them the truth that I'm anxious.  By this time I realized, if I want this training - hide, so I went along with his notions, and he was happier, he thought he'd done something, and told me I sounded mroe relaxed or something.   
  This was not a narcisistic man, I could tell there was another disorder enterely in opperation.  He had cooked up such a false self for himself,  no real communication.   This type of thing creates the  perfect medium for all the disorders to continue.  Yet its the principle that is in opperation here, I wasnt damaged, theres no neglect or abuse, but I do believe that what happened came from the same underlying priniples, the 'false self', the compliance with some hierarchy at the cost of genuiness, of realness. 
l
So when one puts the focus on the principles in opperation, ie its about the whole octopus, not the individual tentacles, tho these tentacles appear in such different shapes, sizes and nuances.   All arising out of 'the dynamic'. 
  So, if an N went to see this T. - imagine, if, for example an N who was abusive went to see him for couples counselling, .... and etc.  Then, as he seems to be so out of touch with whats really going on, that whatever may be going on behind closed doors would be perpetuated and perhaps even reinforced, with God knows what consequences, including to children perhaps.   And this T., the trainer, is just so umm he's a really good teacher, but he's kind of bland, blaze, - a kind of 'optical neglect'.  As I see it, its like the dynamic, one disorder in relation to another keeps the system going, and some souls go to the wall meantime. 

Thanks for listenting, I feel Im gettng towards clarity as I share and listen here, well, I hope so. 

[sKePTiKal]

River:

wouldn't it have been nice, if he'd accepted your statement about your own feelings - that you weren't anxious - and simply outlined his expectations of students in the class and explained how the reading fit into that? And then (ok, I'm fantasizing this)... even let you know that he believed if you did x.) - y.) - and z.) that you'd be fine, but to please let him know if he could help along the way?

What you're seeing, I think, is the way people "need" to impose their explanation & definition of the reality around them on others... and even when directly contradicted (since you can't know what others actually feel)... remain convinced of their own opinion. As if they're "always right".

Just ain't so.

[river]

River:

wouldn't it have been nice, if he'd accepted your statement about your own feelings - that you weren't anxious - and simply outlined his expectations of students in the class and explained how the reading fit into that? And then (ok, I'm fantasizing this)... even let you know that he believed if you did x.) - y.) - and z.) that you'd be fine, but to please let him know if he could help along the way?

What you're seeing, I think, is the way people "need" to impose their explanation & definition of the reality around them on others... and even when directly contradicted (since you can't know what others actually feel)... remain convinced of their own opinion. As if they're "always right".

Just ain't so.

: ) wouldnt that have been lovely! 

[SilverLining]

I feel theres something important in distinguishing between frank abuse/ neglect and the kind of stuff that went on in my FOO, but I'm not exaclty clear about it, so this is helping. 

   

Hi River.  In my own exploration, I've spent a lot of time thinking about terminology and maybe you are in similar place.  Words such as traumatic,poisonous, toxic have the advantage of emphasizing OUR experience rather than the actions of someone else.   After many years of being invalidated by others it's a way of owning our pain.  When the behaviors are subtle, it's hard to get others to understand or affirm:  "What do you mean you were abused, you live in the rich neighborhood, have nice clothes....."   If you can't say you were beaten with a stick, others assume abuse didn't happen.   For me this went on for decades.  Only after finding this board did I get some recognition of my experience.  That's been several years now, and I believe I've gained better understanding of the strange behavior in my FOO.  Once I accepted it as "toxic" then a lot of  patterns became clear.  I'm more comfortable now with calling it emotional neglect or chronic covert abuse.   The words aren't perfect but I understand the effect the situation had on me.