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)

The First Time

My mother is a malignant narcissistic psychopath. They very seldom get diagnosed as they do not see themselves as needing help. The people they are around end up thinking that something is wrong with them and not the malignant narcopath. In the meantime they leave a long trail of destruction behind them resulting in years of therapy, and sometimes the damage cannot be completely healed. A malignant narcopath, a term with which I will refer to her from now on. A lifetime of counseling and therapy, and deep therapy over the past 5 years. In the past five years I have met regularly with a psychiatrist, cousellors, therapists, pyschologists, sexual abuse counselors, anxiety counselors and workshops, PTSD therapists and will be starting Eye Movement Therapy to unwire the wrong wiring caused by my MNM. A narcissist is mainly consumed with themselves and it becomes malignant when it goes beyond that self-absorption and they start to see others in the world around them as worthless, and having no value. They are a means to gain a purpose. To be used and discarded. This makes them harmful, evil, and extremely dangerous. When you add sociopathy or psychopathy to this combination you have some who is extremely self-absorbed, don't see people as having value or feeling, and now with the psychopathy they themselves do not feel emotion. Physcopath/sociopathic beings are cold-hearted and any emotions and feel no guilt or remorse. They believe the are better than everyone else and deserve more than anyone else. You are not a separate being from them, but are an extension of themselves, so what they feel, you will be damned sure you will feel it. They are among the most evil and most dangerous humans on the planet. There goal is to destroy you.

Despite much advice to go No Contact with my malignant narcopath mother, I have decided otherwise. One of my counselors discussed a mature and healthy way of going about it and gave a me a long list of do's and don't's. I have broken every one. It is very difficult to maintain boundaries with a conniving, skilled, manipulative, unfeeling, mind freak. Psychiatrists themselves are told to have no more than one or two narcopaths as patients as they are so draining and manipulative it would be hard for the psychiatrist to stay balanced and keep his boundaries. They will suck him in, chew him up, and spit him out. I am very aware of what is going on with MNM and meet with one of my professionals at least once a week and more if necessary.

Just recently, my MNM who was attempting to show that she can demonstrate motherly concern asked if I had been sexually molested. What a laugh! At sixty years of age she asks me. Why, because she wants something from me. She wants me to believe she cares as she does not want to die alone. If she shows me that she cares then I won't leave her alone. Yet when I am with her all I here about is how deathly ill she is, how she can't cope, how hard it is for her, and on and on and on. Over and over and over until I just want to scream "SHUT UP!!"

I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to ask, but I did anyway. Our conversation went like this:

Me: "Which time?"
MNM: "You mean there was more than once?"
Me: "Yes."
MNM: "By the same person?"
Me: "No."
MNM: "Who then?"
Me: "Many. The first time I was six. Mother, why did you tell me that there was a man molesting children at the post office. You said if he touched me I was to let you know and if I didn't I would be sorry I hadn't. By the time you told me that he had already been molesting me so by your rules I was already in trouble. You knew there was a child molester at the post office and yet you sent me every day to get the mail."
MNM: "I don't remember."
Me: "Don't remember what?  Why you sent me? That you told me that? What don't you remember?"
MNM: "I just don't remember. So, did he touch you?"
Me: "YES!"
MNM: "How?"
Me: Growing more frustrated "With his hands!"
MNM: "Where?"
Me: Really agitated, "Where do you think?"
MNM: "Did he penetrate you?"
Me: Furious and disgusted by her questions "What on earth does this have to with anything? You sent me to the post office where YOU knew that there was a predator and made it impossible to tell you. You had no right to do that, you should have protected me and not sent me into harm's way."
MNM: "What was wrong with the people in the post office, why weren't they watching?"

See, she made it someone elses problem. It was the fault of the people at the post office. She also never once said she was sorry she did that, or that she was sorry it happened to me. She didn't reach out to comfort or console me. Her line of questions only served to make me remember it in a very disturbing way. I felt dirty all over again.

Me: (I have no idea why I am still talking to her). "The man told me there was a little bird and asked if I would like to see it. It was down the side of the building where the trees and bushes were. That's how he got me and why no one saw. Mother, did you know someone knew what happened. One of the kids from school must have heard or seen it happen because all the boys in school would taunt me. They would as "Can I see your little bird?", "Can I play with your birdie?". Do you know how awful I felt? How ashamed and embarassed?  I was humiliated and you sent me there when you knew!"

MNM: "Well, what can I say? Things happen."

End of conversation. No accountability. No sorrow. No sadness. No empathy, compassion, comfort, love, sorrow, grief, emotion. Nothing. I was left as empty as I had been 54 years earlier. Abandoned. Alone. Wanting her to save me, to comfort me.

I have mourned all my life. First, because I believed the lies my MNM mother told me, and lastly because I know what she is. That she can never tell the truth and that she can never love. I have found comfort for my troubled soul in God. He sustains me and holds me close to heart when I cry.

Matthew 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (NIV)