I've been staying away from my blog for a while. Q did a post about the same thing, how it's the opposite of FUN for us to dig into our psyches and present you with the mélange of flavors of abuse from our childhoods.
It's actually exhausting and ugly and we (none of us) like it. We just have to lance the boil every once in a while, let off the pressure. I just wanted a break.
The next portion of the story was already written, anyway - here, at this link for The Scapegoat at 13. I need to insert the SILVER TOOTH incident, but essentially the story is complete so far.
What people don't understand - and you know, I am GLAD people don't understand. That means they didn't live with the abuse - they have no idea, and really, GOOD. I'm glad there are families who don't/didn't participate in this bullshit.
But what you don't understand is that what we suffered under was a huge, heave dose of mind control. The military couldn't have done it better. Look up the experiments conducted under the name MK Ultra - that's what we got. We got our brains shattered with fear and uncertainty, and then up turned down and day turned into night and we had to believe in order to survive. We had to create our own reality to survive. With the broken mind of a child. welcome to hell.
We had to de-program ourselves. It took/takes a lifetime. Do not think for one minute we are whining and puling about not getting the right gift at Christmas. We are talking about (for example) seeing a gift. getting handed the present! eyes light up, heart pounds, it's CHRISTMAS! Then we are *slammed* in the face with that gift. While the Nat King Cole record continues to play, the lights twinkling softly in the background, we are getting slapped and slammed with the present. Then the present is shredded and destroyed in front of our sobbing self, and we are told it was our own fault since our hair wasn't brushed to the correct side of our heads. The rest of the family goes on with presents and laughing and happy day, while we are left stunned, broken, freaked out, with a destroyed present in front of us. IT WAS OUR FAULT, we believe it! but, we don't believe it, because *huh*? but they said it was, it must be. Evidently hair brushing is an offense up there with rape and arson.
Happy Fucking Christmas, assholes. YES. we are whining about not getting the right gift. your understanding of the problem is spot on, as usual.
go away.
I too am glad they don't understand. They don't know what they don't know. I wouldn't fob my upbringing off on my ex wife who capitalized on my misfortune. But for normal people to think they are perceptive enough to absorb it through some kind of osmosis and pass judgement on me makes me furious.
ReplyDeleteMy old man ruined EVERY SINGLE XMAS...EVER!!! He once went into a rage because I handed him his drink at 4:55 instead of on the dot of 5:00 as required! When he started doing the same shit to my kid, my husband and I refused to share any more "special occasion" my parents.
ReplyDeleteNF's favourite trick was, with a sneer or nasty remark, rejecting a gift that you had poured your heart into finding, nor to mention your hard earned baby sitting money!
The people that piss me off are the ones that figure if it didn't happen to them, it didn't happen!
With a reality or world out there our parents couldn't affect it means there was a limit to their bullshit,they were not omnipotent like they thought. The world has an order to it based on thousands of years of culture and societies not impressed by our parents' egos. I knew that when I went to school and saw that that world wasn't like the chaos we had at home. Our parents were little tiny ants who thought they ruled the world just because they were dictators in their ant nest. The world is bigger than them and they were mortal. Even Napoleon has a tomb, I saw it, LOL.
ReplyDeleteQ's Sis
Gladys, Good to hear from you out there.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry we all know all too well about this shit. I'm sorry we had to struggle.
I intensely dislike getting gifts. If on the off chance my mother didn't get me something insulting or hurtful, the gift came with HUGE strings attached.
ReplyDeleteWeirdly, I love finding great gifts for people I care about. I'd rather give them at non-holidays. I like surprising then with how closely I pay attention to their preferences and letting then know I am thinking fondly of them.
Which is all I ever wanted from my mother.
VR I so get it. On Christmas morning I sit off to one side and watch everybody else open their presents. Only in the end and when there are no more presents left but mine will I reluctantly begin the process of joining in on the fun. I don't know if I am avoiding the pitfalls of gifts that are really barbs filled with innuendo or if I want to milk it down to the last second of innocent childlike fun. We'll be here listening when you have something to say Glady's
ReplyDeleteNsis and Psychob perfected the art of the "Fuck YOU, TW" gift. I learned to never ask for what I needed or wanted from my earliest memories-and you can be sure, it was never anything huge, expensive or elaborate. It's cruel beyond belief to continue to insist your child tell you what they want or need just to ensure they'd never get it and then INSIST the child/AC "oohh! and ahhh" all over some nasty/broken/absolutely unsuitable "gift" while the NP/Nsib looks on with their trade mark smirk. It's the classic double-bind while you try to hide the tears/disbelief least you get raged at again. (And, of course there are always strings attached to the POS "gift.")
ReplyDelete"It takes a lifetime.." Yes, it does, Gladys. And it's a painful, exhausting endeavor just trying to explain the experience of growing up under a NP Regime and the residual effects in our adult lives.
I'm so thankful for you and the other AC Bloggers. By telling your Truth and Reality there's hope there will be one less AC struggling alone in the dark believing somehow it's all their "fault." Or if they just try this or that, they can "fix it." There's some powerful lessons in Powerlessness, in dropping that rope and walking away-forever.
Have I said "Thanks" lately? No? THANK YOU Gladys (and all the AC Bloggers.) I firmly believe you're changing other's lives when you change your own-and share it, in all it's nastiness as well as triumphs.
TW