We're All Lost

I was talking to my MNPD mother on the phone yesterday. Our relationship has had another bump or mountain in our road. I say “our” because we really are on this road together to find a place of healing and love. My mom received the devastating news last week (I think it was) that she has bone mets. She survived a bout of thyroid cancer in the late 1980’s and the doctor’s believe it has metastasized to her bones. The prognosis is not good. She was put on time release morphine which she takes 4 times a day, and 2 days ago they doubled her dose. She sounds pretty loopy when I talk to her, but much calmer. So now I have this difficult mom, who has been dying with her heart problems, and now definitely is dying with this new glitch. Her time is likely short and it will be painful for her. A real contradiction of feelings for me. Part of me is glad she will have pain like she caused us, but the empathetic person in me can’t bear the thought of her suffering. I cannot bear anyone suffering or being in pain. I have had thought such as “Karma is a bitch”. Yeah, it is, but who am I to talk when God’s word clearly states that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory that is Christ Jesus. I am certain that the word “all” includes me. You see, I have sinful, unkind thoughts directed to my mother as I still have unresolved anger.

Perhaps my anger is justified, but what does that mean? By holding on to it, it diminishes me as a person and causes me to feel and sometimes act hateful. I have come to understand my mom a little better and I am sad for her. She holds on to so much bitterness about how things should have been, or as she says “That’s not the way it was supposed to be.” She would say that over and over about anything and everything we talked about. Finally, one day I asked, “Well, how was it supposed to be?” Her answer both surprised me and saddened me. At the age of 79 she was still angry about her first husband and her dreams for their life together. In her words, “We were supposed to be a family. We were supposed to have a house, and celebrate birthdays, and Christmases. We were supposed to have happy memories of vacations together.” My dad and her broke up when I was 10 years old. My mom was 28 years old. So for 50 years she has been angry that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be.

In addition, she is angry at her mom. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Well, she does have every right to be angry at her. Her mother failed her in many ways, just as she failed me and I failed my children. You live what you know and what you have learned. That is why I am smarter now than when I was 20. She is angry that her mom treated her the way she did and failed her. When I ask why the answer is, “because, that’s not way it was supposed to be”. I felt her deep emotional pain and understood what she was saying, but at the same time it was so sad because she has never been able to move from that pain.

I got a little annoyed at hearing her say repeatedly that she wished things had been different because it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be that I reminded her of what my despised stepfather used to say all the time. I used to say, “I wish you weren’t so mad all the time”, “I wish I was better”, “I wish I was perfect”, “I wish I could make you happy”, and the list goes on. His reply was always “If wishes were horses beggars would ride.” That made me so angry. What did beggars have to do with my wishes to not be beaten or abused.

So, I reminded my mother of this, so I could be as kind as my stepfather had been. I was angry and was feeling as sympathetic as she and he had been in my childhood. She sounded wistful and replied “Yes, he did say that didn’t he? He was so cute.”

Cute? Really? I blurted out “Really? I wish the freaking horse would step on his head and crush it! I hated him and I hated him more when he said that!”

Mom, for the first time in my entire lifetime of knowledge of her was very calm. It must have been due to the morphine coursing through her veins. So very calmly she says, “You will not talk about my husband in that way. You will not disrespect him in my presence. He was a good man who provided for you and gave you kids many things you would not have had. You will respect him.”

I sat in stunned disbelief at what I just heard. My MNPD mother, even with her morphine had shown her true colors again. It wasn’t about me. It was about what she wanted in life. She wanted a provider, she wanted a house, she wanted things. She got them through this person, even if it wasn’t the way it was “supposed to be”.  I again felt beaten and humiliated. My mother had just told me to respect a man that molested me. I was nothing. I was lost. She was lost in the ‘supposed to be’; in her dreams that she never realized. My pain was nothing because hers was greater and she was so lost in it.

I retorted, “He molested me! I have a right to be angry at him! You should be angry at him! He touched your daughter. It should not have happened and I will not speak kindly of him. Not ever. How dare you even ask me to respect him. He was a child molester!”

She said, “I know, because you told me, but you should have told me then.”

So it was my fault. A beaten, abused, intimidated, broken child who was threatened almost daily with death was at fault for not telling she was being sexually abused. I know my mother. At that point in time she would not have believed me. She never did. She would have beaten me until I told her the truth she wanted to hear and then she would have made me apologize to him and hug him and kiss like I meant it. I want to be physically ill. I want to scream at the heavens for my justice. Yet I am not sick, and heaven sometimes feels silent.

We are both so incredibly lost in our pain and our suffering. May God reach out and heal us both.

But even though we all have strayed and lost our way at times, we can live in the knowledge that our sins are forgiven.

Isaiah 53:6 (NIV)
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

And he will find all of us who are lost.

Luke 19:10 (ESV)
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Dissociation, a side effect of Malignant Narcissist Psychopaths and other Abusers

Dissociation is a psychological term used to describe people who disconnect from their surroundings. I can be akin to daydreaming while watching TV or reading a book to more severe forms such as amnesia and multiple personality disorders.  It is often brought about by severe childhood trauma such as physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. These children have experienced severe abuse and violence.

I dissociate and I have amnesia. Along with the descriptions of dissociative disorders I experience depersonalization, and psychological numbing. Traumatic abuse which brings about these disorders/symptoms also appear in conjunction with anxiety, PTSD, low self-esteem, somatization, depression, chronic pain, interpersonal dysfunction, substance abuse, self-mutilation and suicidal ideation or actions (Wikipedia).  I have or continue to experience the items in bold.

I dissociate. What does that mean? How did/does it happen? When did it happen? Do I know when it happens? How often does it happen? Am I crazy? So many questions. The mind is very mysterious in the ways it tries to protect itself and preserve the life of the person in who’s body it resides. Yet the way it tries to protect the person also ends up harming them. Strange, isn’t it?

Dissociation is a defense mechanism where people are being severely abused. It often goes undiagnosed, as it did in my case. My problem was I was abused as a child, or had depression, or drank too much, or was unhappy in my job or in my marriage. I went to doctors and counselors and not a single one was able to differentiate between abuse and sever abuse. There was agreement that I had PTSD but no one had any solutions or even seemed to be concerned about it. Get therapy was sometimes the only answer I got. So I got therapy. It never addressed the issues I had. What were the issues? The issues were the damage done to my mind by the relentless evil done by a malignant narcissist psychopath mother. They therapists talked about the abuse, how it was not my fault, about trying to forgive, but never about what it had done to me. How my brain was now wired incorrectly, how my thinking had been altered, that I had anxiety because I lived in a constant state of fear and the radar was running constantly. That I had obsessive thoughts because of the fear. That fear manifested in anxiety and made me sound angry. That I have no self-esteem whatsoever, that I was having anxiety attacks. That I lived a life of co-dependent behaviors that denied my needs. My children might disagree with that statement because I know it appeared different to them. It is much more complicated than appearances. They never told me that my suicide attempts, self-harm, and insomnia were all part of the abuse and gave me pills for depression. They did not clue in to my stomach, heart, and bowel problems that they were related to the abuse. I had to wait until I was almost 60 years old to find the connections and it makes me angry.

Dissociation. Defense. Interesting. What am I defending when I do nothing physically? I am there passively, and not doing anything to defend myself. Well, I guess the mind goes to battle for you by creating ways for you to not be there mentally, or to numb you emotionally from what is happening, and in worse case scenarios it wipes it from your mind or even creates another persona who lives the memory for you. It sounds really crazy, but you have done it yourself when you have been driving, and sort of zone out and then wonder how you got to where you are.

I was beaten physically and emotionally every single day. I was physically beaten with a 4 – 5 inch wide piece of conveyor belt. Bare bottom, over the knee. A predetermined amount of strikes would be decided and if I moved or put my hands over my bottom, the count would start over. The highest number at one time that I can remember was 30. By the time the 30 were given all at once I was hit many times that number. At a point you become exhausted, you cannot feel anymore, you have no more tears. You have nothing. Nothing. Absolute emptiness. It was during one of these times that I dissociated. I left me and went up into the corner of the room and it was like I was watching myself on a movie screen. I wasn’t there. It happened many times after that. It is a strange experience. I don’t know if I really wasn’t there, or just sort of numbed the experience, because I still felt the blows; but it was like it wasn’t happening to me. I was disconnected and like two people.

When I am very afraid or anxious today I still look in the direction of the corner and can still go there. These repressed emotions come manifest in fear and anxiety and can result in self-harming and suicidal thoughts and attempts. I didn't know I dissociated until it was pointed out by my therapist. He raised his voice and two fingers and pointed to his eyes and said, “Stay here! Look here! Focus your eyes on mine.” I tried to relay what I had been saying to him while looking him in the eye, and I was overwhelmed with emotions. Pain. Grief. Sadness. Anger. Rage. I cried. Emotions I had blocked by dissociating had begun to come to the surface. I told him I couldn't talk about it anymore. I’m not so sure that I’m liking this a whole lot. It feels like I don’t connect with my emotions for a reason, but at the same time I’m feeling lighter. Happier and angrier, peaceful and agitated, mad and glad. A seesaw going up and down. Like a boat tossed in the ocean being tossed here and there. A literal roller coaster of gut wrenching emotions that feel that the are simultaneously setting me free and tearing me apart at the same time.

I know I have amnesia over certain events as I can only remember parts of them. Just recently I have discovered that I have amnesia over even more. After a bad time with my MNM I started to see and hear shadowy figures in my mind. They are telling me something but I can’t hear them. I don’t know who there are because I only see dark shadows. It’s important. I feel that. I sense that. They scare me, but I am assured by my professionals that I needn’t be afraid.

I want to know why my MNM wanted to kill me that one particular day. I want to know why she stopped. I need to know. When I try to remember or talk about it hysteria and bile rises up in my throat and such panic and fear rises and I’m on the verge of losing my mind screaming in my head, my insides, out loud, “I can’t remember! I can’t remember, I DON”T REMEMBER!” I am absolutely frozen in terror and I want to know what it is that I can’t remember.

I depersonalize. Sometimes I feel that I’m watching myself like in a movie. I feel disconnected and unable to connect. To people. To myself. To my surroundings. At times I feel invisible. I don’t exist. It’s an alternate reality that I don’t like and I don’t belong there. I want to be connected with the world. It is like there is an invisible wall that prevents me from connecting. I feel numb and I find it difficult to be completely present. I hide in my mind. I close the doors. I zone out. I lose hours and hours of time in my head. I may write more on this later.

The damage from these evil people is so deep that it sometimes cannot be undone. I am so angry. How could I know? People ask me “How could you?” when they look at some of the mistakes I have made in my life. My children ask, “How could you?” when I was angry, or when I tried to commit suicide. My counselors ask me, “How could you not?” People asked me why I drank and my counselor asks, “How could you not.” My family wants to know why I didn’t do better at life than what I did and my counselors ask, “How could you?” I tear at my arms and people ask "How could you?" and the professionals say "Why wouldn't you?" Finally, I thank God that finally, someone gets it. They know what it is like to be me. My God I cry, they get it!

As I learn of the damage done to me I am learning to forgive me. I used to wonder all the time, “How could you?” The voice of my evil, critical MNPM asking me over and over “How could you? You have yourself to thank for this!” and she would swing the strap at me. Many times in the humiliating position of pants down and over her knee, or my stepfathers. Many times, totally naked as she had ripped the clothes off of me. In front of my stepfather who molested me.  In front of my brothers, my sister. “HOW COULD YOU? YOU USELESS PIECE OF S***! YOU’D BE BETTER OFF DEAD! I SHOULD KILL YOU! WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT? NOTHING! OF COURSE NOT, BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN SAY. YOU ARE USELESS. YOU DESERVE THIS. YOU ASKED FOR THIS. I HATE YOU. YOU ARE LUCKY YOU ARE STILL ALIVE! NOW BEND DOWN!”

Shame, guilt, humiliation, and tears were the clothes I wore. How could you? How dare you ask me that. Indeed, how could I have been anything other than what I was. I feel sad for that girl, for that mom, and for me. I tried really hard to be everything that my MNM wasn’t. I was nothing like her, but I still failed. I forgive myself  for not being perfect. I’m told I had to. I was deceived and deeply damaged. The majority of people in the same situation end up dead, or drug addicts, homeless, in jail, living on the street. They are unable to have long term relationships, keep their children, and many end up in psychiatric hospitals and unable to function with any normalcy in society. Looking at the statistics, I did well. If God can forgive me, I can forgive me.

I long for my day of maturity when I will no longer be tossed about by my emotions and I hold tightly to God’s promise:

Ephesians 4:14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

My clothing of shame and guilt have been traded in and my God dresses me as he pleases for His glory.

Isaiah 61: 10 I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, …

The Narcissist Ballet

The narcissist always has a force of flying monkeys at her disposal. They are always ready to do her bidding. Many are willing victims and others are deceived and have no idea the role they play in the narcissist's life. I am dismayed at the knowledge that even I have been a flying monkey. They are artfully and skillfully manipulated by the Narcissist.

If I were a dancer I would create a ballet about this delicate dance of doom. I wanted to dance when I was young. I brought home ballet books and when my MNM was not around I would practice the difficult foot positions and imagine myself dancing for crowds of adoring fans. There was something so pretty and beautiful in this dance. It was the stuff of fairy tales for me. My mother said she sent me to tap dance lessons and I cried and had no talent so she never sent me again. She said if I had wanted to dance I would have danced when I had the opportunity to do so. I guess it never occurred to her that maybe at four year of age I may not have been ready. My sister was the one who got the dancing lessons and she suffered horribly as the favoured daughter. I would not have wanted to dance in her shoes.

My ballet would have me, as the heroine; dressed in white. I would be on the stage, a wisp of being, very ethereal and delicate. I would be running hither and thither trying to escape the flying monkeys and my evil mother. The monkeys would be a dark grey and would have green faces. They would have big scary wings that they would flap at me and I would be scared and run and jump away from them. I would hide my face with my arm to protect myself from their onslaughts. I would look over my shoulder in fear.

My MNM would have a mask. One side would be beautiful and it would be the side that she would show to the flying monkeys. They would love her, pity her, help her, believe her, and adore her. What a beautiful woman she is, and that is how the narcissist gets her victims. I would see the ugly, green, jealous, envious, evil side of her face. The true face. The scapegoat child, me; always sees the truth and becomes the truth teller if they survive. She turns to me in her macabre dance and you can see her mouth moving to spew out words of hate and destruction. Her fingers are pointed in bony accusations towards me. Her dress black and tattered with decay.

She then spins and pirouttes towards her monkeys and swoops with and adoring arms wide open welcome. They dance a celebratory dance in their mutual admiration for one another. I run all over the stage looking for escape as I watch in mute silence, knowing what will happen.

The flying monkeys and my MNM nod and laugh in agreement and move in on my. I am tossed like a ship in the sea, and I flounder trying to get away. My evil MNM is directing them, arms waving madly in the arm, swooping her and there, commanding her army. The monkeys spin faster and faster. Their arms stretched out they knock me from side to side. Their legs come up as they pirouette faster and faster, arms and legs flying.

I dance faster and faster. The fear is in my face and I know my fate. I am caught by the leg of one of the monkeys and fall crashing to the ground still and silent. Crumpled, broken, and dead.

Soul murder. You can only withstand the onslaught of such evil for so long. When you are attacked from all sides and there is no way to escape you will fall. When you are so ripped apart and you have nothing with which to compare the truth, you believe the lies.

"You deserve to die."
"You don't deserve to live."
"Why don't you kill yourself."
"You'd be better off dead."
"You useless piece of s***. You'd be better off if you were out of all our miseries."
"Tell me why I should let you live."
"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you."
"You're a coward and suicide is the cowards way out. Why don't you try it?"
"It would be better that you killed yourself before I do it for you."
"Why do you want to live? You aren't good for anything."
"Do you know how much I hate you and want you dead?"

The first time I can recall trying to take my life I was about 12 years old. I ended up in the hospital for about 2 weeks. I drank almost an entire gallon jug of vinegar. It said pure alcohol on the side and I heard my mother talking about people dying from drinking alcohol. It didn't work. I gave myself a case of pancreatitis which puzzled the doctors. I was too young. I didn't dare tell them why.

When I was about 13 I tried to hang myself. It didn't work. I told my stepfather and he told me not to do that again. No help from the flying monkey. Not even a bit of concern.

When I was thirteen I drove a big rusty nail through my hand hoping to get tetanus and die. We took it in health and I learned about it. I didn't die. Didn't even get infected.

Stupid things. Desperate things. I made more attempts, the most serious when I was 17, and the last one when I was 39. I fight suicidal thoughts all the time.

I will dance a new dance now to my God. The old dance is no longer who I am.

Psalm 30:11  You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will praise you forever.

I am thankful that I now know my worth as well. This is what the Bible tells me I am worth:

Matthew 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Isaiah 13:12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

I Don't Like the Dark

Evil grows in the dark
Where the sun it never shines
Evil grows in cracks and holes
And lives in people's minds
-Poppy Family

I don’t like the dark. I don’t think I am afraid of the dark, I just don’t like the dark. Bad things happen in the dark. My mother’s mind is dark. It is shrowded and covered in the mystery that is her, and nothing will penetrate that darkness. Not even love that conquer even the hardest hearts. She keeps who she is closely guarded and will not let anyone in to see who she is besides evil. She tells this person this much, and that person that much, and much of the much is lies. Dark is evil.

My MNM did bad things in the dark. When I was about 6 years old we moved into a house that had a cellar. A dark, damp, decaying, that smelled like decay and damp earth. I think it would smell like that if you were buried alive. There were big spiders under the stairs and in the corners. There were some wet spots where water dripped and they held salamanders. One little light with a pull chain barely lit this dark place.

Somehow or other, in my MNM’s brain, she decided this was a good way to punish me. To place me in the cellar and drop the trap door on my head and fingers as I tried to claw my way out. I could scream as loud as I could, until I had no more voice; and no one would hear me. I would cry until I had no more tears and no more voice. I even fell asleep sometimes. I don’t know how long I spent down there. Then one day I realized I could turn on the light. I would hear the footsteps across the floor and know when she was coming and turn it off again.  What a small relief! At least I could see where the spiders and salamanders were and keep my eyes on them. It was no less frightening.

One day I was tricked. I guess perhaps I hadn’t been screaming or crying enough so she tiptoed to the cellar door and pulled it open and caught me red-handed. That day the light bulb was removed. I hated the cellar, I hated the dark, I hated the person who put me there, I hated myself for being unlovable, and I hated God for making me. Yet I prayed to him to make me loveable and to make me good.

On this same property we had some outbuildings. One was a coal shed where the coal for our stove was delivered. If you have never experienced coal, well; it is very dusty and it is very black. Dark. The dust is everywhere and the smallest breeze stirs it up. One of my MNM’s gleeful punishments was to place me in the coal shed and tell me to stand there. It was always in the summer and I only remember it being done when I had my white socks and black patent shoes on. Prairie summers can be oppressive and in a coal shed with one closed window, it was sweltering. I would be told to stand there and not get dirty, that if there was any coal on my socks I would be in so much trouble. I would stand there for what felt to be an eternity. I don’t know sometimes if it was 5 minutes or five hours. Little kids fidget. Gosh, adults even fidget if they are hot and have to stand in place. But I couldn’t even shift my feet because of the dust that would come up. Black, dark, dust. I hate coal and the blackness, and the dark.

Bedtimes. Again the dark. I slept in a bed with two brothers. I’d be sent to bed and be told not to make a sound and go to sleep. She’s always hear something. Sometimes she really did, but many times she imagined it. Those times were really hard for my punishment wasn’t justified. I really disliked bedtimes for a number of reasons. This one was plain crazy. I’d have to sleep on the chair. If I didn’t want to sleep in bed I’d have to sleep on the chair. That was the reasoning. You see, if I wanted to sleep in bed, I would have gone to sleep and not talked, therefore I didn’t want to sleep in bed. I would get so cold on the chair as the coal in the stove would burn down. I would itch. Sometimes I fell asleep and then sometimes I fell off when I fell asleep. I’d cry and only get yelled at. “Maybe next time when I say go to sleep you’ll listen. You have yourself to thank for this!” I don’t know how many times my head cracked the floor and it really hurt. I learned not to cry because then she tied me into the chair with a large tea towel. That was horrible because I could move around, or fidget to well, or scratch places that itched. The nights were so very long, and dark. I really don’t like the dark.

So much more happened in the dark and many things happened that we were told to keep in the dark. Don’t talk, don’t tell, don’t remember, don’t bring me shame, don’t embarrass me, don’t make me beat you…..just don’t. Don’ t live, don’t think, don’t care, don’t feel, don’t love, don’t hate….why don’t you just stop existing.

I know that it wasn’t me now, and yet that doesn’t make the damage to my mind and my body go away. I understand, I get it; but it doesn’t make me better. I am angry and I want to cry and cry and cry. I spin in circles and don’t know which way to go or what to do. I want to hurt my MNM and I want to help her. I want her to suffer and I want to save her. I am double minded and tortured. I want to rage, but at who? My MNM doesn’t even get that she has done anything wrong and will make me the crazy person. God? What does he have to do with this except to hold me close to his heart. My life is my gold that God will use to help others. If I let him. Of course I am. Something good must come out of this because I do not want my entire life to be nothing but sadness.

My MNM wants to keep her secrets and she wants me to keep her secrets and others don’t want me to tell my story, but God is compelling me tell it. I heard him very clearly one day tell me that I had buried my gold and I must dig it up and use it. My life is my gold and God and I, with his help; will use it for good.

Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.