So hard to move on after abuse

[escapingman]

I have been thinking about this for a while and I am not sure what to make of it. I clearly have lots of wounds and maybe they run deeper than I thought/hoped. As I have mentioned before I have meet some new friends that are very supportive, I am not sure what to make of them, I am not used to people being nice to me so I am constantly scanning for red flags, and there are flags, not red but at least yellow. I don't want to cut off my nose to close to my face so I have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But to what happened. I had asked if they could look after DD for a couple of days, it wasn't strictly necessary and I told them it was for me to have a break from everything. They were fine with that and I went away for two days, not far away but enough to get some distance. Before leaving plans were made with DD, TBH I probably never told them in detail but due to a cancelled train I was coming home slightly later than first thought. That would leave DD home alone for about 10 minutes after school, she normally walks home from school so no big deal. I am also trying to get her more independent and to make her more self-sufficient, other friends in her age can spend entire evenings on their own. Anyway, on my way home I found out that the family she stayed with decided it was not appropriate that DD was going home on her own, and instead collected her from school to get to their house and for me to pick her up. I don't want to be ungrateful, and I didn't want to make a fuss about it. But then they also went on and mentioned about DD's packing of her bags and said I needed to check her packing better. I was a bit taken back here as she is a teenager and should herself be aware of what she needs and if she forgot something it's a lesson for next time. It really isn't that of a biggie, but I feel completely empty after this. Am I a terrible dad? Should I not expect my teenage daughter to pack her own hygiene articles herself? Are they just kind and my wounds are taking over, or should I be concerned? I feel like I would never trust to leave DD with anyone again running the risk of being criticized. There were lots more to it but I don't want to go into details, but some of the "advice" they gave me was completely inappropriate after what DD has gone through and I obviously didn't want to get into the details about the history.

On of the biggest wounds this stirred up was the ones from MIL who always ignored whatever I said completely and always gave unwanted help which later on used to get what she wanted.

I hope this feeling will pass, but I have sat with it for a long time now and it is just sticking. I feel completely empty, I hope I am overreacting, but I just don't know.

[Poison Ivy]

I would be peeved (irritated) if someone made comments like this to me, too, escapingman.

[square]

Yeah, comments about how I need to check what dhe packed would not go over well with me.

And yes, it's normal for a teen to pack her own bag. And if anything is missed, yup, great lesson for next time.

Taking her to their house instead of letting her go home alone would annoy me but I would probably let it go. I can see how an adult might want to see their charge delivered directly to a parent rather than just hoping it all worked out. Though if they took that step I would assume they would handle the dropoff rather than creating a hassle after your return from travelling.

This person sounds kind of annoying and maybe she has some sort of crazy belief about fathers not knowing how to parent.

I don't know if I'd cut her off but I'd stay at arms length and would not count on them for future care. People are disappointing.

[Srcyu]

I think these new friends have become emboldened by the new level of responsibility that was briefly given to them concerning dd.
They seem to now think it's their place to comment on and 'advise' you about the way you raise your dd. Their 'support' has morphed into telling you how things should be done (in their opinion).

The thing about dd and her packing. A quick, 'did you pack everything?' Is as far as many people would go.
It's possible that you overshared with your new friends and that asking them to look after dd was, with hindsight, a premature thing to do in the friendship department and it's backfired.
Our expectations of people can be disappointing.



milly

[escapingman]

Thanks for your replies.

I can't really drop this and my brain is trying to process what happened. It was definitely not premature to ask and in fact they actually asked if DD wanted a sleepover as their daughter is one of DD's best friends. It could just be me reading to much into it having been treated with zero respect all over my life with no one (FOO, STBX, in laws) ever listen to me and always doing whatever behind my back. In some way it made logistic sense for DD to be picked up by them, but I do think they should have contacted me if I was OK with the new plans and not just changed them. The other issues regarding DD's packing and some other stuff, it could be friendly helping as yes I am a man and DD is a girl, some specific girl things are difficult for me, or at least I can see why they think they would be difficult for me.

But the bottom line is, I still have lots of work to do to not get entangled emotionally with other people and to not let other tell me how to live my life. I will make mistakes with DD at times, but I don't need people pointing them out. Does it really matter if she has forgotten to pack a hygiene article that I am sure they could either have lent to her or bought a new? Some of the other stuff I explained, I am a bit miffed they kept going on about it. Do I have the energy to discuss and defend something DD packed incorrect? No, I am way more concerned about her self harming and to keep her emotionally safe. That is what matters, she is getting better, I don't need set backs inflicted by others (that I thought was more supportive). 

[hhaw]

Sorry this weighs so heavily on you, em, but I'm sure you've been flipped into fight or flight, which doesn't help.

Right now, you're likely racing from one upsetting thought to another, getting more upset and that's a biochemical hijack you can't think your way out of.

When that happens, I invite you to notice your thoughts and then drop into your heart......to move your ficus to your heart and away from thinking.  If you notice any relief.....if you can do that.....it helps, ime.

The event, the packing, the advice us in the foreground.  You're in the vacjgriubd, always, noticing and observing what's going on.

When you move into your authentic self, it can feel like returning to your body and being at home, ime.

That's helpful in gaining perspective, how we perceive things and how quickly we recover from deregulation, ime.

All the breathing, cold showers, EMDR, tapping, patting our shoulders and going into nature.....ways to restore feeling present, are leading to this and it comes and goes.

Mindfulness is a practice and the more one practices, the more pathways created and strengthened.

I have the feeling this family was trying to help, even if they're way involved their own ego, fears and damage from imperfect childhoods.

I'm guessing their input us more about them and their history, than about you.  Maybe DD's not having something necessary made them feel unprepared and flawed in some way?

You won't likely know, but you can put together a bag of items for DD to pack in the future, if that hasn't been addressed yet.  Usually mom's, teachers and friends do this.  You might need to jump in?

Not sure, but this is what it is whether you're wringing your hands and fearing into the future or putting it down, doing what you can and going back to what brings you joy.

I hope you feel better, em.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Escapingman,

These people have some 'flags'. From what you describe, I think it *could* be innocent. But whether it was innocent on their part or not, the fact is, their behaviours have stressed you out. And that is completely understandable. I would be stressed out too in your shoes here. We want to be able to trust people especially when their support is helpful to us in a time of need.

I am sorry that they stressed you out. I'm glad you brought it to the board for our thoughts to weigh in. Hopefully our thoughts help you out.

It sounds like they nagged you for DD not having a toothbrush (or some equivalent). They could just have easily said to themselves, "oh DD and EM are going through a lot, it's completely understandable that one of them might forget a toothbrush on the weekend".

ESPECIALLY a TEEN!

EM I am in total agreement with you. Teens can pack their own stuff, and will forget non-essentials. And for a teen, hygiene equipment is not essential! That said, even I have forgotten hygiene items when going on work trips, and I am a full fledged adult!! I cannot imagine someone making a big deal out of my forgetting something. We all forget things when we're packing. It's kinda a flag that they made a big deal out of it.

What I have done when I was in your sort of situation, where I'm not sure if I should trust my gut or if I'm overreacting is this: I think through the other responses available to the person in question. As any good therapist will teach their clients, people had choices. They chose their behaviour.

Like you said already, they could have easily just:

- lent her the needed items
- chose not to say anything to you about it
- not make a mountain out of a molehill by asking you to defend yourself

The fact that they made an issue out of what DD packed for the weekend is a flag to me too.

There are ways for them to talk to you about what DD needs to pack for a weekend, without shaming you.

If the forgotten item was feminine hygiene products, I have additional thoughts (please disregard if this doesn't apply):  As a woman I'm going to say this. The mother should really have known better than to shame anyone for anything regarding menstrual products.

Teen girls (I used to be one) do NOT remember to pack such things, and we are still getting used to that whole aspect of our life (remembering to pack menstrual pads). That mother should have just given your daughter the pads she needed, and encouraged your daughter to borrow some for future use. We women borrow and lend menstrual pads to one another ALL the TIME.

The mother could have also just pulled you aside to tell you to stock your bathroom or put some in DD's room inconspicuously. There was a real opportunity there to just normalize that hey, teens need access to these items and they are still just learning.

Did they know what they were doing? Did they know that criticism and shame are part of the PD abuse you're working to recover from? Did they know that this is going to make you question your self as a father, that they were completely missing the forest for the trees? The odds are that they just have their own fleas, and you got to see some of them.

If they are 'average folk' then they probably don't even think about criticism and shame as it relates to recovery from PD abuse. In my experience, the average person out there still has no clue how NPD abuse works. Which means they have no idea that their criticizing you, can lead to a shame spiral. The average person out there still understands very little about the hard work we do after we escape PD abuse.

Maybe these are fine, kind, non-narcissistic (but somewhat clumsy) people. But they enacted some pretty stressful / questionable behaviours here, and that is what you're now processing / dealing with.

Not everyone who stresses us out is a narc...but a lot of them are!

Sorting out new people into "narcissistic" vs. "not narcissistic" is itself, draining.

The year after we finally get away from our PD abuser, is a year where we really don't have energy for too many stressful situations. We have enough of those thank you very much!

You are not wrong to check in with yourself on this, and reflect on it. Avoiding new narcissists is kinda important for our recovery after PD abuse. 

You'll know over time if these folks are simply friendly kind and uneducated around how to let you parent your own DD, or if they are folks that you need to keep at arm's length because they continually overstep.

Time does tell - over time you can observe people's patterns and they tend to say things that reveal their motives for why they are helping out.

If these are problematic people, you'll see it. I was the daughter of a parent who pulled in people all the time. My narc mother would try to help you out right now, and she would be more and more patronizing towards you over time. That would be her big red flag showing.

I observed her doing this regularly - pull people into her life who 'needed' her to babysit their kids or other help, but because she has NPD, all of it was done so that she had someone in her life to manipulate and use. She always criticized the people she would 'help'. A non-narc doesn't do that. A non-narc will help you out, without criticizing you, especially about something so inconsequential as someone forgetting to pack a small inexpensive hygiene product.

It would have been great if these people could have recognized "geez maybe with everything going on right now, we can just buy DD a toothbrush (or whatever) and leave it at that, and not grill EM about it".

I hope I have not added to your confusion. I do hope for your sake that these are just well meaning people, who didn't handle the situation with much insight.

In terms of them giving her a ride from school, I think that this was another opportunity for them to say to themselves "we should find out what EM is comfortable with, and not just assume he's cool with it just because we would be".

In terms of parenting teens, I think we run into that because every parent has their own comfort zones with what they are ok and not ok with for their child. I might be ok with my teen child walking home alone, whereas another parent may not be. We have to respect each other's decisions as parents because we don't know the full story.

EM you touch on something here - that our experience with being respected as the parent who can make those decisions and rules, stretches all the way back to when our FOO or IL's shamed us for such things. I was criticized for my parenting choices before my child was even born!

So yes, I agree with that as well, that some of what you are feeling, stretches back to when you were criticized, or DD was criticized by a family member who didn't respect your autonomy. It sounds like you had a MIL who didn't respect your autonomy as a parent.

And you are actively building a healthy safe environment for your DD. So all of that speaks to your hard work to break the cycles.

Our work to break those cycles is not well understood by nons. When I run into families who are just la la la living their life and they are not having to do what I'm doing (raising the first generation who gets to grow up with some stability and not constant PD drama), they don't really understand where I'm coming from.

You belong to a 'club' now with all the other parents who stood up to chaos and said "no, my child is not going to grow up in this constant cycle of misery, I'm going to get her out of it, and provide some stability".

You know what your DD has been through - those other people don't. If they can be supportive without overstepping, then hopefully that is what you see over time with them.

I had a very hard time allowing any sort of shaming 'crap' around my child after I escaped my PD FOO.

I was very alert to adults who were good influences on my child and those adults who were into shaming and criticism. I sorted everyone into those 2 categories. Teachers, coaches, neighbours, etc... I had to.

It was because we were a family in recovery from narc abuse, and healthy play and self-expression is really valuable for kids who are / were exposed to shame from their dysfunctional FOO. Having adults who are into the "shame and blame game", stressed me out. And I did have to sort people into those two categories. Looking back now, it is because I didn't have FOO who respected our autonomy. So I couldn't "afford" to have all sorts of people in my life who casually criticized my parenting. So I feel you EM.

We are working hard to help our children who have, unfortunately, had to deal with criticism and shaming from their FOO or IL's.

I second what hhaw shared about where you're at in your process. You are still in the early period where stressful things will stress you quite a bit, as you recover your bearings and get your 'grounding' - which is something we have to do...and then re-do over and over - especially the first year or so after getting out of an abusive relationship.

When we are early in our recovery after getting away from our PD abuser, it is important to remember that it is ok to need more boundaries around us because we are in recovery mode.

If people are stressing us out, it is completely ok to lean away from them while we get our bearings again.

After PD abuse, we have to get our bearings again many many times, and then eventually it becomes less and less of a chore to do so.

Trees

[escapingman]

Thank you so much for your replies, a lot of this is most likely me taking things out of context and making the worst of it. But it's very difficult to try to take someone making a big thing about deodorant being forgotten when I am fighting in trying to get DD to clean herself properly after being to the toilet due to her being traumatised about her mum wanting to inspect AND wipe her bum until she was 10 or even 11. I am going to come with a longer reply to this later, but I don't have time right now. But if DD smell a little bit of sweat, I frankly don't really care, she just flipping forgot the spray at home.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

"Right now, you're likely racing from one upsetting thought to another, getting more upset and that's a biochemical hijack you can't think your way out of."

Trauma response was my thought, too, EM.  Fight, flight.  Or maybe freeze / collapse.  Instead of feeling fear or anger, just kind of a "done in" deadness is how i experience collapse.

As far as the dynamics of the relationship, I once saw a depiction of the elements of abusive vs healthy relationships.  It was a wheel with many characteristics around it and the hub was equality.  I'm not saying these people are abusive.  I think the "fix others" mode is a part of our culture for people who haven't had therapy or other recovery. 

For myself these days, unlike past decades, I only want people who treat me as an equal and understand boundaries as close friends.  I may still have others in my life to some extent.  But I try not to play into the "I (up here) need to advise and fix you (one down)."  Finally, after decades of life and a bit of time NC with my PD ex, I no longer feel I have to or want to tolerate that anymore.  That's just me.  And I'm still learning how to do it.

[escapingman]

Thanks for your replies.

Yes, it's a trauma response. But I just can't get out of it. This took me back months in my recovery. Whatever they meant or didn't it triggered my fear of not being a good enough parent and for losing DD. My entire mindset changed and got back to unhealthy coping strategies. On top of all this, I had to search for some important documents yesterday and it was extremely triggering as STBX is a hoarder of emotional memories and having to see all of them had me almost breaking down in tears. For a second I wished I was back in the FOG and everything was good as those memories tried to fool me to think.

But back to what you all have written, "Equality" yes that is probably spot on. If I can't ask for someone to help without getting some judgement (well meaning or not) I am not going to ask again. I have another one night trip booked, but I am going to cancel it as I am to afraid of asking for anyone to help. I am actually not sure I will ever be able to ask for help again. DD deserve better, I have been a mess since this happened and that is not fair to her.

STBX really killed off my entire support system by not letting me build one, and my FOO is jut the biggest let down you could imagine. Imagine having your adult child going through a massive crisis and not being bothered to go and see him and help? At least I don't need to bother with upsetting FOO anymore, they shown their true colours.

[blunk]

EM, I am so sorry that you had to experience this triggering event. There is definitely no excuse for them giving you a hard time about DD having forgotten something for her sleepover. It happens. I am someone who makes lists and packs systematically, and I even forget things on occasion.

However, my take on them picking her up is a bit different than what others have expressed here. I may be totally off base, so please take it for what it's worth. In your original post you said "due to a cancelled train I was coming home slightly later than first thought". So, if I am understanding correctly, had you not experienced a late train you would have been home when DD arrived home from school. Is it possible that they assumed (rightly or wrongly) that you planned it that way, and wanted to ensure that you were home when DD arrived?

My other thought is (and I'm not trying to put fault on anyone), did you ever tell them that you were ok with DD being home alone for any period of time? There are definitely different schools of thought on when a child can start to do certain things independently. Do they let their own daughter walk home from school, or stay alone? If not, it's possible that they are treating her like one of their own.

Again, I wasn't there and I don't know all of the details of what happened, but those were my thought upon reading your story. I wish you continued progress in healing, for you and your girls.

[escapingman]

Thank you all so much for your support.

The more I think about this I think I just set off something that wasn't there. I have been analysing and tried to remember the words used, I think in relation to the deodorant that they probably thought I didn't know DD was at the age she needed to start with deodorant. Regarding the taking DD after school is most likely exactly as Blunk says, I realise I never told them but just made the arrangement with DD. It is massive differences what parents let their young teens do, I have friends who leave theirs on the own for entire evenings whilst others won't even let them stay on their own whilst nipping down the convenience store for a pint of milk. I am somewhere in the middle between that, and I guess they are closer to the milk people.

[Jolie40]

Anyway, on my way home I found out that the family she stayed with decided it was not appropriate that DD was going home on her own, and instead collected her from school to get to their house and for me to pick her up.

escapingman, I would have done the exact same thing
you left DD in their care & what if something had happened in those 10 min, they would be responsible
until she's back in your care, they're in charge


how old is your teen?
I started gradually giving DD more responsibilty such as going into grocery store by herself but I always parked right outside the door

just this past year, she has been going to library or starbucks & meeting with a friend

[escapingman]

DD is a brand new teenager so as low as you can go for being a teenager. She is walking to and from school on her own, she is also out and about in our suburbs and doing both walking and cycling on her own, she even master the public transport system on her own. She is not allowed out after dark though and she is mainly with friends when out.

I think my reaction was based on that someone changed my plans and I felt criticised as they didn't think my plan was appropriate. But I need to let that go and focus on myself instead, whatever reason they had is up to them.

[escapingman]

Today has been a though day, I am going to have to digest all of it before opening up on most. But I struggled, felt really worn out emotionally, then DD decided she was going to take me on. I took the bull by its horns and asked for some help to look after DD when I am away next. I decided I have to ask and not surrender because of what happened last time. When DD realised she will miss one of her after school activities, once, she hasn't missed it before, she got into a real tantrum and started shouting at me for how selfish I am to make her miss the activity once. She then really acted out and threw things around and in the end took one of my parcel and ran away with it, when I tried to take it back she started shouting at me asking me if I was going to be abusive. All I did was trying to get my parcel and she had by far crossed a line with her behaviour. She then told me she wants to see her mum and wrote a message asking STBX if she wants to see her soon. I don't know if she sent it. But I am really upset that as soon as she doesn't get her way she threatens me that she wants to see her mum. I told her I am not stopping her and if she wants to see her she can do that. But the SW really put power, or imagined power to DD by keep talking to DD as I was the one stopping her and that I didn't want her to see her mum.

I stayed as calm as I could and in the end she came and apologised to me, but she told me was still upset with me. I can accept she is upset for missing one of her favourite activities of the week. But it's once and I just have to have a bit of my own life as well, I can't just live to be there for DD. She is now laughing playing online games with friends, I hope she comes out of there in a good mood cause I can't face more bad behaviour.

[escapingman]

Thanks BW,

I stayed calm, kept away from her and in the end she came back. Now she has been completely OK with what is going on. I know she needs to self regulate as well, it is just very hurtful when she threatens to contact her mum who is the reason we both have gone through this hell. I am proud of myself to not react more than I did, I am proud of DD to come back to normal so fast. The difference for both of us compared to just a few months ago is immense.

I had a particularly emotional day today before this happened so I was already on the down. I am as I said in the previous message going to start a new thread about it.