SG backsliding

[BerneseMtnMom]

Hi, I feel for you and the impact that your family is having on you.  I have chosen to remove myself from all contact with my family and everyone that is willing to sympathize with my narcissist sister.  My family, either wittingly, or unwittingly, will assist my sister in hurting me.  I have to put up a very high wall.

But your comment about the "booze-fueled, loved-up time" hit me like a ton of bricks.  Being away from the "booze-fueled" parties has been extremely positive for me and my husband.  I am not judging having a party with alcohol, I am saying we are much healthier by not mixing highly charged emotions with alcohol on a frequent basis.  I haven't blocked my family members from my social media, but I know I will see a pretty photo of a booze-fueled party of my extended family.  What underlies that pretty photo is some very disordered behavior. 

Read a summary of "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Oscar Wilde is pointing to the risks of artificial appearances.   It makes me feel more true to myself and less likely to doubt and judge myself.

[bee well]

Hi Jdmelb,

I've been wanting to write again here for a bit,

I'm really sorry you have been going through this with your FOO.

I hope you are well as can be today.

Pictures can be very powerful, and at times deceiving, because often we only see what is in the frame. My FOO has always liked  to use them as tools to include and exclude, I think even when this is not done consciously all one has to do is see a particular snapshot to bring up a host of complicated emotions.

Photos can bring a lot of pain, and sometimes induce what Dr. Ramani  has called "euphoric recall" (I picked up that term in one of her videos. She, Dr. Les, and Jerry Wise are 3 individuals whose work has helped me to understand what went on in my family, and my place in that.)

When I think my memory might be fading, or at least that I might be over amplifying the good times past, I will read a long list I have written of all the singular incidents of covert and overt abuse. That helps to keep it in perspective.

What you have described here are forms of abuse. I have experienced similar to what you write about and no matter what lens it is seen through, it hurts when we are experiencing it.

We can work on ourselves and how we deal with our reality, so we can grow and heal, but that does not change what "they" do, have done, and will do, if we give them the chance, so as painful as it can be at times, I hope you will remember all of it. (I say all, because there will be genuinely good memories will remain along with the others and they are part of the picture that is your life.)

I can so identify with what your have written here:

"Does anyone else ever feel that they are a mixture of very insightful/intuitive about other people and social dynamics, and on the other hand, prone to fantasies, black and white thinking and paranoia? And even there, I dont know whether that is true about me, or whether that's the scapegoat-induced crazy making causing me to doubt and judge myself. On days like today, I just can't win. Somehow, life goes on."

I can write  and read and  intellectualize, and some days I get it on a visceral level, and then on others I am completely beside myself, and feel like I am slipping.

Not so long ago I got through a hoover relatively unscathed and was feeling empowered by that.

Today I am facing my health issues (some of which I believe are rooted in the abuse)  and am angry, afraid, sad, worried, and feeling duped and foolish, and lots of other things, because I didn't see what was happening to me until I was at a critical point.

So here I am planning my day for tomorrow, reminding myself that whatever happened before, I am not feeling so well today but I am better off now then when they were continually abusing me, and hopefully, there will be even better moments than this in the future. I'm still dealing with the uNs in my life (unfortunately I can't cut them all out and go live under a rock, although sometimes I wish I could! Don't we all?)  but now that I am doing it from an informed place, and with consciously minimized exposure, there is enough room to grow and heal.

I'll close for now, as I feel a ramble coming on but I just wanted to say I totally get where you are coming from, and glad to see the support you have received in the replies. Thanks for sharing your story, (Also thanks to all the other in the forum) I hope you'll keep coming back.

In the meantime, take care of you first. You are your own best friend, but you aren't alone here.

[goodgirl]

We can work on ourselves and how we deal with our reality, so we can grow and heal, but that does not change what "they" do, have done, and will do, if we give them the chance, so as painful as it can be at times, I hope you will remember all of it. (I say all, because there will be genuinely good memories will remain along with the others and they are part of the picture that is your life.)

This right here. I understand the need to avoid black and white thinking, but there is also a danger to empathetic people who get lost in the grey (I'm speaking of myself for sure), especially when we're talking about emotional abuse. It can be easy to find yourself rationalizing bad behavior by looking at the good behavior. 

But imagine if the abuse were physical, and your N relative who bought you the iPad and VR toys also randomly punched you in the face.  Would you feel inclined to rationalize the physical violence the same way we rationalize the emotional violence?  If the answer is no, then remember that emotional violence can be just as harmful as physical violence, or even more so.

[jdmelb]

What do you do when your family act SO relaxed around each other, so at home and like they have a strong sense of family? There's such a sense of: we're all in the gang together, and you are out of it. I've never ever felt relaxed or like I could be myself around my family. Yet it appears to be something they take for granted. They revel in it, and draw such strength from it. Hard sometimes not to fall back on myself and wonder what have I done wrong etc.

My sister told me last year that she will support her siblings to the hilt, no matter what. I'm sitting there thinking how hostile she has been to me over the years, how she has actively driven a wedge between me and my brothers, and me and the broader family. How I told her about sexual abuse I suffered as a child, and how she immediately told everyone she didn't believe me, I'd made it up, and how my lies had hurt my siblings. Not a lot of 'support' there.

Sometimes, that 'we're in the gang' energy really stings my heart. It invalidates the reality of the scapegoating abuse I've suffered (butter wouldn't melt in their mouths), and it reinforces my exclusion. Because for the LIFE of me, I just can't drop my guard and be myself around my family, and it certainly isn't from a lack of trying.

PS thank you to all of the amazing comments on this thread. I have returned to them many times

[Preamble]

That's hard to accept.  I think it is close to the truth.  Someone said, most of what they do is because they don't think of us *at all*. 

But it does make me wonder, today at least, about my own propensity to imagine the worst because at least then I can imagine I'm getting some kind of attention, that I'm being thought of somehow. My therapist is all about this intense notion that we family SGs constantly assume the worst because we can't face the unbearable truth: when we were babies, we were genuinely ignored, forgotten, overlooked, left too long. Anything to stave off the abyss.

[Preamble]

jdmelb I am sorry you had to go through this.  I cannot imagine attending a family event anymore and have been NC for many years. 

I have been emailing my relatives as individuals, and carefully refusing to mention, or respond to talk of, any other relative.   I know I could not have done this without years of NC to "find myself" first.  And it may still become a disaster but it's hard to see what they can do beyond going silent and encouraging others to do the same - that is, if they can even find out who I am talking to.

What I like about it is the feeling of confidence it gives me in dealing with the outside world.  Why, yes, I do have a family, thank you for asking
Before, I felt I couldn't talk to anyone for too long because of the shame of being isolated.  Even I would wonder, if a new acquaintance told me that.  I most definitely am in touch, I email all of them every x often.  and then,  I go and cook myself something Very Nice.

PS The same thing happened with my nieces/nephews as for you.