Black is Never White, Up is Never Down

My malignant narcissistic sociopathic mother had ways of doing things to get to you. To teach you, not to do what was right, but to teach you to cater to her needs and moods. Somehow, I was supposed to have a mind connection to her so I would intuitively know what she felt, thought, and needed. If I didn’t, the punishment was swift and severe. Before she died, we had a conversation. She said she wanted to help me deal with my childhood issues. LOL! That should have been a red flag! But I took the bait. I bit in the insane hope that this time she meant it. That this time, she would be honest. That this time we would understand, and heal. How incredibly foolish of me. I was still dancing at the end of the marionette stings she was pulling.

“Mom, do you remember when I was nine, and you made me sit on the chair, with the threat of death if I got off it, and made me watch you die. You know, when you took all those pills?”

                “Yes, I do.”

“Mom, did you stop and wonder what that would do to my 9 year old mind? You made it my fault for some silly infraction I no longer remember. Maybe because I didn’t sweep the floor proper, or I didn’t properly make my bed, or forgot to comb my hair. You told me, that because I disobeyed you, you no longer wanted to live. You told me that if  I loved you, I would have followed your rules. Since I did not follow the rules, that meant I did not love you, and if I did not love you, you did not want to live any longer, and since it was my fault you did not want to live, I could watch you die.”
               
                “Yes, I do. You know what you did.”

“Mom. I was 9. What did I do that was so horrible that I had to go through that? What? Not brushing my teeth? Not picking up my dolls? What merited that kind of punishment?”

“Well, you need to understand what I was going through at that time. You never once stopped to think what I was going through, did you? You never stopped to thing about me once. It was all about you. You didn’t care that my marriage was falling apart, did you. No, you didn’t!!”

“Mom. I was 9. I’m supposed to be playing with my dolls and not worrying about my parents martial problems.”

“Well, then that’s the problem. If you only put yourself in my position then you would know and understand.”

_____

My mom’s marital problems at the time were of her own doing. She was having affairs and my father had left. He later sued for divorce and cited adultery with multiple men. He was granted the divorce AND custody of his children.  I have his divorce papers. My mother insisted the papers were fake. She claims the Catholic Church granted her an annulment due to my father’s desertion. This is after she had 4 children by him. Of course, it is not true.

Another time, I had really annoyed her. She was getting more and more violent, crazy, and impossible to please. The rages were frequent. She claimed that I was incorrigible and had proof that I was taking drugs and was promiscuous and asked for a commitment to a mental hospital. It was granted. I was 17. There are no words to describe the horror of being committed to a mental institution when there was nothing wrong with you. That the truth was you were being abused, mistreated, bullied, humiliated, tortured, shamed, and living in absolute fear!! Well, after all the assessments I was declared sane and a motion was made to make me a ward of the court due to the “psychopathic nature of the mother”. My mother fought it. She claimed the doctors were biased against her and demanded new doctors. The court granted her wishes so I was reassessed by more doctors. Their findings were the same. She fought again, and again. It took seven months before I was legally allowed to be released into a foster home. The court ruling was she had 7 days to comply with signing her parental rights over to the court of be committed herself. She signed. I was legally free of her, but I have never been free emotionally. She is there constantly, denying my reality. She visits my dreams and I wake up screaming. I dream that I am in a court, or in front of accusers showing proof of what she has done. I show pictures, documents, and testimonies and she and they laugh and deny it. Call me delusional. Call me evil. Call me wicked. Say I have a vivid imagination. Say I live in a fantasy world. That black is white. That truth is fiction.

While I was there. Committed against my will as a minor, my mother added shame and humiliation. She told my grandma, aunts and uncles, cousins, and schools that I had been committed due to drug use because I had destroyed my mind with them and was basically a vegetable. She told them that I was not allowed visitors. So, she cut me off from everyone. Imagine my surprise when I found out what she had done. I called my aunt up one day and she said "I am so glad that you are out of the hospital and doing so well now. Your mom said you were even unable to communicate. You aren't going to do drugs again, are you honey?" I was like "What?" I never did drugs. Not ever.

My adrenal glands produce too much adrenaline. It happens in some cases of PTSD. Some cases the adrenaline just spikes in certain situations. Mine stays up constantly. It is damaging my body organs. My doctor says it will take my life eventually unless I find a way to reduce it with meditation or reprogramming. My psychiatrists have said mine is among the worst of abuses they have seen and in cases like mine, it is very difficult, if not impossible to turn off the flow of adrenaline.

My mom made me promise before she died that I would tell our story. She did not want me to tell it while she lived and I wouldn’t have dared to speak a word of it. I lived in fear of her anger. She told me, that after she died, she wouldn’t care and just maybe, she said; it might help someone. That was the first time that I heard my mom consider somebody other than herself. A little glimmer of the possibility that there was a heart in her. That there was a little tiny bit of compassion and made a little understanding. I don’t know. I never could figure out her mind or what her needs were and if I did, the way I addressed them was always wrong.

I spent the last two years of her life being there for her. I bought her things, visited her, stayed with her. I encouraged her, forgave her, loved her. I cooked for her. And just about every time I was there, she would ask about my sister, about my brother, why they wouldn’t come, why they didn’t phone, why, why, why. Not “I’m so glad you are here.” Always, where are they. I was never good enough for her, even at the end when I was the one who was there. She wanted my other siblings. The ones who made her shine for a moment with their fame and talent. She longed for the spotlight to return. I couldn’t give her the fame so I was inconvenient.

I am glad that I worship and follow a God that accepts me.
“Therefore, accept each other in the same way that Christ accepted you. He did this to bring glory to God” (Romans 15:7)

I am also so extremely grateful that I have a God that allowed me to forgive my mom, and that he too forgives my mom. I don’t believe she ever asked for forgiveness because she does not think she did anything wrong, but have prayed and asked God to forgive her. I believe he answers prayer.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)

I believe I will see my mom in Heaven. I believe that all the things that happened here in this fallen world will fall away and we will we see each other as God intended. With Love.

I Have a Right To Tell My Story and to Use any Material that Reinforces the Veracity of My Story

Life, goes by with little markers that seem almost unnoticed. I quit smoking 5 years ago and the day went buy with a mention. In the beginning one day was a huge deal. A week, monumental! A month, well that could be worth a steak dinner. Your children pass their landmarks with cakes, candles, photos, and gifts. We pass the year marking the seasons and special days like birthdays, Easter, Christmas, Holidays, doctor’s visits, another year of life after my husband had his device implanted. Day after day march by in perfect formation and timing.

Another marker went by yesterday that I wish had not. The last time I self-harmed was November. I made close to a year. I made it 9 months. I fought it for 2 days and the succumbed. The emotional pain became like the steam escaping from a pressure cooker. It had to be released by the self-harming or I might have done worse. For me it is a non-event and brings about enormous relief, but does leave me with shame and self-loathing. I don’t hide it anymore but show someone. This time my husband who just put his harms around me and hugged me tight. No blame, condemnation, or accusations. But he can’t understand. How can he when I don’t.

There was a dialogue on a local FB site and they were asking about the use of cursing. I do not believe in cursing, escpecially the F-bomb as they call it. I said as much and attached an article from a Christian book about Profanity and the moral decay of society. I was flamed. Harshly. Told that if I practiced love I would be better. I was told to “get a grip lady”, and other things. It wounded my soul as I know I am a very loving, caring, and extremely compassionate woman. Too much so at times. I started to unravel. Why did I post it?

Well it talks about welfare and people not caring. We lived in small towns where many lived in welfare. I have many cousins whose parents were on welfare. Husbands were drunks. Mothers drank. Their existence was horrible. Many of their homes were hovels. Why would they care? 6 kids in a two room shack with no plumbing. 4 kids in a two room shack. Coal and wood stove. My mother was cruel. Others were cruel too. Some didn’t care and let their kids roam day and night. We were taught to steal. Anything was fair game. Anything you had and we didn’t have was fair game.

Men came day and night, and parties. We saw our mother and aunts in the act of sex. The husband or boyfriend came home and took it where he wanted it. Even if she said no. Even if all the kids where there. A drunken father would bring the bar home and sell his daughters to the drunks that wanted them. Would ask his boys if they wanted a try. Many were sexually active before 12 and married before 16. We saw men jumping out of the windows of my mom’s house and my aunt’s and cousins houses. In my own family there are six kids with the potential of 4 different fathers. I saw aborted babies pulled out of the toilet

Most of the girls were sexually abused by the time they were six years old. They were abused by brothers, sisters, fathers, grandfathers, and strangers. To escape the horror they would get pregnant, run away, take drugs, get drunk, get married. And the cycle would start again, but it would be worse. So much worse. It breaks my heart to know how worse.

And words. It’s a lie that words will never hurt you. It is such a lie. When the F word was said it was always connected to harm and danger. Strangers having sex with woman saying “I’ll F*** you if I want to you f*ing b****!” My mother swinging the conveyor belt and scaring my body with bloody welts say “If you weren’t f****** guilty you wouldn’t be f****** crying .” Only when I quite crying out of exhaustion or because I was at the verge of dying, would she stop. Belt buckles wrapped around the neck and teeth knocked out “You f***** asked for it”.  Always harm. Always anger. Never safe. Never funny. Never just a word.

This article mentions this. It goes on to mention disobedience of god’s laws resulting in crime, murders, car jacking, rapes, theft, homosexuality…..OOPS!  God and sexuality in one sentence. What a religious bigoted hater I am. Sad. I have two brothers who are homosexual. Scott Peck, MD writes in Children of the Lie he writes that the scapegoat son of Malignant Narcissist Psychopath mothers are frequently unable to have relationships with women. When I asked my brother he said he “F***** hates women”.

Hatred? Bigotry? Inability to Love? Are you kidding me? I don’t hate the people who did this to my family. I am not a bigot, I love everyone including the impossible ones. Oh course you must be kidding. I love my brothers with everything I have to love. He knows what happened. I know what happened. My brothers, sisters, cousins, all know what happened. The poor kids in my neighborhood and my mom’s neighborhood know what happened. Gosh, some of the kids took part in the wife swapping parties.

Someone is outraged because I posted hate? You need to be outraged because it is truth and it goes on far more than you know. That is the outrage. Not the mention of God or homosexuality, or the behavior and moral decline. I have looked into the eyes of men and women who have just given up and have no hope. You leave them a bag of oranges and they neither look left nor right nor at you to acknowledge you. Why? Because they know it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow they will be gone, and then what. So many nights I went to be hungry. Many nights a mead was macaroni with just margarine. If we were luck we had macaroni with ketchup.

I escaped. So many don’t but don’t get angry when I speak my truth. It might not be pretty, but I lived it and I have as much right to tell my story as anyone else. Much more right.The words written blamed and accused me for being something I was not. They caused me to panic. In my mind I feel the beatings. I feel the fear. I feel the hatred. I panicked and took down my posting and then was accused that I had done it because I knew they were right. My mother would say that when I stopped crying because I couldn’t cry anymore. I reached out to everyone I knew how encourage me. Then in the middle of the night my mother’s voice came to me “You now, you’d be better off dead. Everyone hates you anyway, and it would be better for you to do it than for me. You will be sorry if I have to do you F**** waste of space.” In the morning I slashed myself. I don’t know how many time. I have a road map to my pain.

My God weeps for the poor and calls me help them.

Psalm 10:14

“But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.”

Psalm 12:5

“‘Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,’ says the LORD. I will protect them from those who malign them.”

Psalm 140:12

“I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”

I hate this, I want it to stop, I don't want to remember, but I have to. I need to get better. I thank God for the people who "get it". The people who create fear in my, well I thank you too. It shows me where I still need to work on myself.

My Mama

My mom was born in 1935. The sixth child and the last of the three children that lived. All three were girls. Their mother was born in an immigrant Ukrainian family that had come to Canada at the turn of the century. My baba's dad came in 1901 and her mom and two brothers came in 1907. The settled in the Lethbridge are and guido supported the family by working in the mines. My baba was the 3 or 4th child born in this country as she was a twin. I don't know if she or her sister was older. Many more children would follow and my great baba would be the mother of 16 children that lived.

Baba was born in 1909. Just two years after her mom has arrived in this country. Life was very difficult. Especially with all those children. My great baba worried about her children and loved them. She wanted the best for them and when my baba was just 16 years old they arranged a marriage to another Ukrainian immigrant. He was good looking, had $150 in the bank and owned a house. Baba did not want to get married and she was so young. She did not like her chosen husband either. What her mom and dad did not know was that the charming husband to be was cruel. He was jealous, controlling, abusive, and an alcoholic. He beat my baba and her children all the time. He injured the back of my mama's eldest sister so she had troubles her entire life. Then one day he just disappeared.

My mama remembers then living in an apartment in a house in or near Lethbridge which was near the ice plant. She recalls being about 3 years old and running over to the ice plant in her bare feet with her sisters, to catch the ice that fell from the trucks and front loaders. She said they would suck on the ice like it was candy. Some pieces were so big and so cold that they had to wrap them in their t-shirts to hold them. It they got caught, they were punished, but the next time the ices was being loaded they ran back to get the ice.

The girls in the summer would get gunny sacks from their baba and walk across the prairie collecting dried cow patties for burning in the stoves in winter. They said it was hard work and hard to find the dried on. They would wander miles and the bag would get heavy as it filled.

My mama was a wonderful singer and every Saturday, her and sister would run to the radio station where mom would get picked to sing live on the radio. For doing so she would get a bag of porridge or cream of wheat. Mom said they would tear a hole in the corner to dip their fingers in and eat it on the way home. It was the dirty thirties after all. Poverty was all around and my mom and her sister were forever changed by that poverty.

Their mom would meet a man that had a house and a farm and they would get married. The problem was a little like like Prince Charles. You see grandpa loved someone else, but she was married. Grandma was second best and every chance he got he was with his first love. In a small town, everyone knows everything and people talked. People knew. My grandma was a proud woman and very beautiful. I think the talk must have broke her heart. I think her firs husband did as well as she could never please him. Something changed in my baba. She started to drink with her husband. She would go to parties, leaving the girls at home. Her and grandpa would bring the party home, and there would be late night drunken parties and fights. My mom would be woken up from her sleep and made to sing requests from the drunks. She would sit on their laps while she sang her beautiful songs and they would molest her. This went on for years.

While grandma and grandpa were gone and partying the girls took care of the farm. The animals, the house and if things were not done correctly, baba punished them very harshly. She was a cruel task masker. In later years baba told me that my mom was always bad. Right from the moment she came screaming out of her belly. Poor mama. She didn't stand a chance, did she?

What I see is a young girl, being raised by her older sister. A girl being molested while singing songs. I see a girl who wanted her mom to notice her, her mom to love her. She wanted her mom to be a mom.

Life was really hard for mom and her siblings. It was the end of the thirties and early forties. Many people were homeless, starving, and barely existing. It is the stuff that songs are made from and Woody Guthrie sang many songs about the era. My baba was forced to sell her mandolin which was a gift from her mama and had come from the old country. My own mama had a cow which was given to her as a calf, but it had to be butchered. They needed to eat. My mama never forgot and is angry still today over the loss of her "Joseph" who had blue eyes. She feels very bitter and says that had they not partied and drank, they wouldn't have had to take her cow. She loved that cow and sang to it all the time.

My mama told me she entered a singing contest in a neighboring town when she was about nine. She bought the certificate and ribbon home to show her mom who was proud at that moment, but then it was never mentioned again. Mom said that as far back as she could remember, she wanted to sing. She sang to flowers, to rocks, to trees, to her dolls, to the farm animals. She sang to the sun and moon and stars. "I only wanted to sing." A young girl with a dream that was ignored, smashed, and broken. In it's place was a broken, empty, and bitter being. Who broke my mama's dreams? My mama's heart?

My mom left her home when she was 16. By 19 she was married and there I was. A child born to parents who were both broken but good people. My dad was very musical and artistically gifted. He wanted to go to Art school more than anything in his life. His parents wouldn't let him and sent his brother to university for something more suitable. My mom only wanted to sing. Now she is married and has a child. Life is going down a different road.

She brings me to visit her mom one day. I am small and she is carrying me in her arms. She goes in baba's house and she hears yelling and screaming from baba's bedroom. She runs to the room and sees my grandpa pointing a rifle at baba's face. She is on the bed and he is straddling her and holding her down. All my mom sees is the gun at her mom's face. She leaves and runs as fast as she can to a neighbouring farm and begs them to come and help and to call the police.

When help arrives my baba and grandpa are having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. They don't understand the fuss.

Gaslighting, something my mother did very well. It looks like she learned it from her parents.

 A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity. The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they're sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they "must be imagining things"when they challenge these changes.

 They blame my mom for lying, having a vivid imagination. When they left, baba got up and walked over to my mama who must be so confused, hurt, and wounded because she loved her mom. Anyway, Grandma walks over to my mom, who is still holding me, and almost spits in her face while saying with venom "Don't you EVER tell ANYONE what goes on in this HOUSE!" With this proclamation, my baba punches my mother and punches her in the face. She broke her nose and gave her a black eye. I can't imagine a mother punching a daughter, let alone a daughter who is holding a child, and a daughter who loved her mother and just tried to save her life.

This was her life, and it became my life. Broken can only create broken. I weep for the girl my mom was. The girl who sang to nature. The girl with a song in her heart. She must have been happy. One day it was punched out of her and there was no going back.


The Bible warns us about provoking our children to anger. I believe there is a reason for it for I saw my grandmother's, my mother's, my mother's siblings, my siblings, and my own children's anger. But I also believe that God forgives us, and can and will heal our wounds.

Ephesians 6:4English Standard Version (ESV)

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.


And then we need to forgive. If we don't forgive the anger festers like a wonder until the pressure builds up and it explodes over innocent people. Forgive them so you have no desire to hurt them like you were. Forgive them so in your anger you don't hurt others. Forgive them, so you can shine love for the world and give the broken hope. Love the unlovable. The world has made them so and a kindness can change their world.


Romans 12:17-19
17 Do not repay any one evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

Hands of Harm, and Hands of Beauty

Hands are the unspoken voice of a life and they leave memories in the recipient’s brain just as words do. Strong words and soft words. Evil words and comforting words.

Hands that touch with the softest feel of a slow exhaled breath. Hands that touch and strike with a fury that was not unlike Katrina. Items flying through the air and striking the body willy-nilly. Big and small objects, let them strike where they may. Hands that they say can squeeze blood from a stone.

Hands with fingers that gently catch a falling tear, then those same hands striking the eye and turning it ugly colors not found in rainbows. How we, the wounded; prayed for rainbows on those stormy days.

Hands that are soft and delicate and can pull a needle through the finest, most delicate lace. A surgeon with hands so gentle and firm that can sew a vein, the size of a hair; back together again.

Hands, hard and weathered, full of callouses after years of hard physical labour. Strong hands. Kind hands.

Old hand, withered and twisted with arthritis, yet still able to express love and gentleness, or bitterness.

All it takes is one finger to come up and point or shake at your direction and no words need to be spoken. I have them memorized.  They all start with “YOU!”

YOU caused this!
YOU did this!
YOU make me mad!
YOU are a waste of space!
YOU are going to get it, pay for it, wish you dead, wish you were never born, wish you had done what I told you.
YOU are no good, worthless, a waste of good air, unlovable, unwanted, a disappointment, a shame, an embarrassment.

The negatives go on ad nauseum. They never stop. OCD with its obsessive thoughts make sure I never forget. They go around and around, day and night, night and day. Never ceasing, never ending.

The hands, that reach out to hold a tiny baby and cradle it with love. Hands that reach out to brush a lock of hair from your face. Hands that reach out in comfort when in pain. Hands that hold yours and keep you safe and unafraid. Hands that tuck you in and take care of you. How I longed for them.

My memories of hands are painful. They struck at me and hurt me. They would fly when my back was turned and knock me across the room. They struck me in the mouth, the face, the head, the stomach, my back, my butt, and my legs. They pulled out my hair and knocked out a tooth. They left bruises and wounds all over my body. But most of all they struck me deep in my heart. My physical wounds healed a long time ago, but the wounds of my heart remain. It is a painful process to heal from a fear center that is on all the time. That part of my primal cortex that should have made connections that told me the world was safe, did not form. Instead, my fear center grew bigger with every assault made on my soul, my heart, and my body. Now I am trying to repair it which is not an easy fear. At 60 years of age I am trying to rewire my brain in the way it should have been done when I came wet and wailing into the world. I’m afraid abuse is not something you “get over”. I don’t dwell on it, and I certainly don’t try to think about it, but the chemicals that flow let me know it exists. It exists and it is taking my life. I want to stop that and reverse that. I want to win this battle. I don’t want to die over something I did not choose to have done to me. I don’t want my mother to win. I don’t want to be destroyed by her.

So hands pull out they tiny crying infant and hands place the old and tired, once tiny child; in the ground when their day is done. What did that child do with their hands?

My hands were uncertain. I was afraid of them. Afraid that they would be like my mom’s. Oh my mom did have some good in her hands. She was great cook, baker, and a great canner. Second to none. Yet I had none of that desire in me. My desire to not be like her included her kitchen skills. Cooking causes emotional flashbacks which are painful and difficult to deal with, so I try not to cook.

Instead, I create beauty. From a life that was so ugly, I wanted beauty. I played the trumpet. Made music, got toes tapping. I taught myself guitar and autoharp. I play badly but it sounds beautiful to me. It calms my heart. It brings peace to my soul. Some have made fun of my singing and playing but they have no idea what it does for me. The majority of people encourage me so I can’t be that bad. The fingers that gently caress the strings which then vibrate in such beautiful harmony transport me to heaven. There are few things more beautiful.

Then I create things. I do needle point, petit point, cross stitch, sew, crochet, and knit. I made things. All kinds of things. For friends and enemies, for people I don’t know. I give it away. It makes them happy and it makes me even happier. I love seeing the intricate doilies or lace patterns coming together. Sometimes they are so yummy looking it’s like looking at chocolate and I want to eat them! Oh, the adorable little hats for the preemie babies. I want to hold and cuddle them all and think I could manage at least a dozen at one time. Love goes in every stitch. The hats I have made for cancer patients. Oh those dear ladies are so brave. Prayers go with every one and I am so happy to see the smiling faces of those that made it.

Yes, I lived with evil and come out the other side. A little battered and bruised but I made it. She did not make me like her. I want to love the world. Did I mess up along the way and make mistakes. You bet I did. How could I not? If it took almost 60 years for the doctors to diagnose me, how could I be expected to know when I had my first child at 19. I knew what I wanted. I just didn’t know how to get there, and the harder I tried, the further away it got. Now I understand. That is exactly the ways c-PTSD, Anxiety, and OCD, along with panic disorder work. I didn’t know what it was to feel good until I felt good.

If you are in a relationship with an MNPD please seek help. Even if they have left, please get help. You need it and you owe it to yourself. They leave seeds of doubt that will grow and flourish and they need to be weeded out and it calls for a professional. You really cannot do it on your own.

Be good to yourselves my fellow world travellers. You are worth it.

“Let us think of the hands of Jesus,” he said, “when he touched the sick and would cure them. … They are the hands of God: They cure us. I can’t imagine God slapping us. I can’t imagine it.”

He added, “Reproaching us, yes, I can imagine, because he does that! But he never, never hurts us. Never. He caresses us.”  - Pope Francis

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-entrust-yourself-to-the-loving-hands-that-formed-you#ixzz3BGUEBpym