Storms of Life

"The tragedy of man is not that he dies, but what dies within him while he still lives." – Albert Schweitzer

Life is hard for most people. Even if you come from the most loving family, you will still face hardships. Unemployment, illness, and divorce are just some of the challenges people face in a difficult world.

There are famines, droughts, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other storms in life. There is spousal abuse, employer abuse, child abuse, and the the very difficult and soul killing abuse of a malignant narcissistic psychopathic parent. Some writers have written that they "rape the soul", "have the ability to kill without actually pulling the trigger", "emotional vampires", callous, remorseless, and sadistic. A malignant narcissist is nothing like a narcissist, but has a deeply perverted type of self-love that demands and manipulates everyone into thinking the same. He slowly erodes your personal boundaries until they fit into theirs and then they swoop in for the kill taking away your reasoning, mind, self-will, self-esteem, personality, emotions, your being, your soul, and your life. They are empty of any emotion or conscience. No guilt, no remorse, no lack of sleep for being a despicable and evil human being.

I suffered from the day I was born with the likes of this personality. She was relentless. Mind, body, spirit, soul, and will were all taken from me. Temporarily. Sixty years down the road I can see that. I lived much of my life blinded by the lies my MNM put in front of my eyes. Lie upon lie, upon lie. Unending. They continue to this day but I see through them. I see her for what she is and she is evil. I feel unclean after being with her yet I try to show her love and kindness, she is unable to receive it.

Therapy and counseling have helped to tear down the walls. It is slow and painstaking but one thing that has helped me in my journey was a faith in and a love for God. I believe he loved me and did not want this for me. I wonder why He let it happen but I have no really good answer except that it was my faith and belief in Him that got me through it. I do not believe I would have made it without Him.

My MNM made me doubt my own sanity. For a time she had me believing that God hated me. She made me believe I was worthless. Nothing. That I didn't deserve to live, that I would be better off dead. She humiliated me, shamed me, embarrassed me, lied to me, beat me, tortured me, and made me beg for my life, and one time made me watch her while she died. She said I was a very bad child and because of that she no longer wanted to live. Since I was the reason she did not want to live I could sit on the chair and watch her die after she took the pills that would kill her. I was to think about how bad I was while watching her slip from this life into the next. I was nine years old.

I had heard somewhere, perhaps when I went to a Salvation Army camp that God loved us. He loved us so much that he wanted to save us. In fact, he sent his son. I was so desperate for any kindness, for any love; desperate for anything. I wanted that love. I wanted the love that never ended. The kind of love that would forgive you of anything. Since I was so bad I needed a lot of forgiveness. I believed I was unlovable but God didn't. He loved everyone. I needed him. I needed him to believe in. I needed him to keep me sane. I needed to focus on him or I would not have made it. I prayed to him. I raged at him and got mad. I hated and loved him at the same time, but I never stopped believing in him. He was the only thing that loved me and the only thing I could put my hope in.

God did not save from the torture of my years of abuse. Perhaps I should rephrase that as he did not save me from the acts of the abuse, but he did save me from the effects of the abuse. Many people who have been through abuse suffer enormously. I have been among them. They are angry, bitter, alcoholics, drug addicts, commit crimes and are violent themselves. They wear their abuse like a giant neon badge and blame their abusers for their behaviour. I understand why and my heart breaks for them. God saved me from that life. What he did was change my heart to a heart of compassion and understanding for the broken people of this world. Those that have been hurt in ways that no one else can understand except for one who has been there. I have learned to forgive what most people have said is unforgivable. It was probably one of the hardest things I have done and could not have done it without my faith and trust in God.

I do not know why God allows people like my malignant narcopath mother to exist; nor why he allows children to be abused so terribly. What I do know and what I do understand is for me, a woman of faith; that this world is a war zone. This is a battle ground for where we spend our eternal lives. Am I going to allow the bad things of war change who God created me to be, because I fall for the lies of Satan, or shall I keep my eyes on the truth, that God himself will supply the justice and in the meantime that his grace is sufficient for me.

The injuries caused by MNM are long lasting and severe. By forgiving and moving on I in no way condone or approve of anything she did to me. I suffer enormously and my pain is great. I have every one of the symptoms described in this excellent article which describe the effects of this type of abuse: http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.ca/2012/01/narcissists-cause-ptsd-for-their.html
 
I do not wish the storms of life or to allow my enemies to win or defeat me. I don't want to became bitter and angry and even remotely like my abuser. I want to live in love and to be a beacon of light for those who are still in the dark and suffering. Don't give up. Don't give in to the lies. Do not give up on the good that is in you. Don't let the enemy take it away. Never give up on yourself or on hope. Love everyone the way you wanted to be loved, and still want to be loved.

"We… rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. And HOPE does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Romans 2:2b-5)

Sister Love

My sister was the most important person in my life next to my father. My father was the recipient of my MNM mother's rages or, as they call it; narcissistic injury. Any time a MNM is hurt, uncomfortable, cornered, or caught they suffer a narcisssitic injury and it comes out in rage. I saw my mother throw plates of food at my father and on his car. She took the keys out of his ignition while we were driving down a mountain road and threw them out the window. She stabbed him with a knife. She jumped out of a moving car. She took her children to a hotel room and abandoned them and never told my father where we were. She apparently had an affair with another man and had my brother. I don't know if that is true, but we came home from the orphanage and had a brother that looked nothing like the rest of us. I will call him Truman to protect his identity and because he has always wished to know the truth about his parentage. Rumors cut deep into one's soul. If it was true, my father forgave her and they went on living this precarious balancing act with my out of control MNM always on the verge of violence or coming down from it. We learned to walk on eggshells and to hide. Another child came and then my father caught my MNM with another man, and then another, and yet another. It was always his fault because he could not give her whatever it was that she wanted. He could have given her the moon, but it would not have been enough. He was broken in spirit, and he had no more delusions. One day he put his wedding ring in a coffee cup and left. Quiet and simple. Like the life he had wanted.

My mother picked up life with one of the men and they started a new life together. I wish I could say it was good, but it was a nightmare existence. My stepfather had many strengths, but many weaknesses as well. He was a flying monkey for my MNM. I am still trying to figure it out. How do MNM recruit normal people to do their dastardly, evil deeds. I know that some are fooled, but I don't think he was. He did things which he had to know were wrong. Some do it out of ignorance. Could he have been really ignorant of the fact that level of abuse we were being subjected to was okay? One suggestion is that flying monkeys have weak characters. He didn't seem to, as he did have a strong mind. So it only remains that he did not have the backbone to stand up to my MN as he was afraid of her. What could that fear be? It could have been the fear of losing his two biological children with her.

My MNM told me in a moment of supposed closeness that she only married my stepfather because of the financial security he provided. He was quite a bit older than her, enough to cause eyebrows to be raised up and whispers to follow as they passed you on the street. She told me that she didn't love him. Well, we know that NM do not tell the truth, not ever. Whether there is any truth in that I will never know, but in any event he participated in the abuse and provided two step siblings.

I always wanted a sister. I had four brothers and a sister would be about perfect. I would have someone to talk to on a girl level. Boys didn't always get things. I was 13 when my beautiful sister arrived. So delicate and exquisite. I would take care of her and she would love me because I would be awesome! Little did I know that NM would make sure I did take care of her. I changed her, fed her, walked her, rocked her, washed and folded her diapers, her clothes, babysat, day and night, night and day. I would change and feed her before school, come home on lunch and change and feed her. After school, again, change and feed her then take her for a walk. I walk my sister so much and because I also came home to change her, kids at school thought she was mine. I was ridiculed and teased. I felt ashamed over something I had not done. At night I'd change her, put her in jammies, get her bottle and lie down with her until she went to sleep. She was a fussy baby and would wake up all night long. If NM heard her I would get it. "Can't you do one simple thing I ask you?" she'd rage while pulling at my hair and slapping my face. "I take care of her all day long, and the other 5 of you! All you have to do is keep one baby quiet and YOU can't do it, can you? How are you ever going to be a mother yourself if you can't keep your sister quiet? You are so useless. A waste of space. I should kill you and get you out of my misery." I'd be crying and saying I was sorry and that I would do better. I would be pleading for another chance. I loved my sister so much and just wanted to play with her. I didn't want to be her mother.

When my sister was about 3 years old I finally made my escape and was made a ward of the court. MNM turned my older siblings against me by telling them all kinds of lies. I saw my two youngest sibling very infrequently. I followed them as best as I could with words and news from various friends and family. In later years my older siblings and I reconnect but the connection with my sister seemed broken. I guessed it was because of the age difference when I left home, but I didn't know.

Years later I found out it was because of something that was heard by someone and reported back to her. It was an incomplete sentence they heard and reported but my MNM played it for all it was worth and it really hurt my precious sister. I said "I hated my sister because I had to be her mother when I was 13." They only reported the first 4 words, or MNM only used the first 4 words. In any event this caused a severe wedge in our relationship. My sister thought I hated her and nothing was further from the truth. Triangulation, deception, lies, twisting, manipulating, and plain evil is all what our life was about.

Over the years my sister and I have grown up and matured. Our eyes are not blinded by glaring eyes of our MNM as we have been no contact for a couple decades. Our brains have rested and we have gained so much knowledge and insight into our condition and the condition of our MNM. We just spent hours on the phone being sisters. Laughing, cheering, congratulating, encouraging, and crying. We cry for the years we missed as sisters, yet we are so happy for our closeness now. We always loved each other. Always. It will never be any different. We are happy we made it, yet we have siblings that are not a part of us. Their wounds are different. They have reacted differently. Chose differently. Some of them we weep for. Some we have gone No Contact for they are as dangerous of MNM. Yet they will stay in our hearts, and our prayers. They are family. We know their wounds.

We want vengeance and we want justice for the hurt caused to us. At the same time I have forgiven my MNM. I know she was hurt really, really bad. I can't figure out the right kind of justice so I will have to leave it up to God. After all, we all belong to Him.