The light at the end of the tunnel

[Leonor]

And, no, it's not oncoming traffic!

I wanted to share my experience with all of you dear oofers who have helped me grow, understand, feel heard and understood, create boundaries, stand in my truth, tend to my needs and practice patience, patience, patience.

After decades of intensive therapy to heal from my own abuse history, which led to all kinds of addiction, serious dissociative disorders, CPTSD, talks of in-patient treatment, and eventually the loss of just about everyone I used to know, including my mother, I woke up to the reality that I had married right into the photo negative of my own family. Just as horrific, but covert, waify, and deceptive, and my noble, parentified dh was enmeshed deep into his marrow. Many a midnight I found myself on the sofa where I am now, weeping as I literally cried for help from my beloved oofers, as my dh spent nights in the hospital, days in the sick rooms, running from one financial, psychological or medical arson to the next, leaving me alone in a strange country with young children, yelling st me when I reminded him that "family" included his own wife and children.

Dears, it was so much harder to heal from my toxic inlaws' abuse than it was from the abuse I suffered from my own parents. So if you're struggling to understand how you feel like you've come to terms with your pd mom or dad but cannot interact with the ILS without a nervous breakdown (I call them "breakthroughs"), I get it!

Friends, we have made it through. I can honestly, 100% say that my dh and I are more united than ever. I no longer make sacrifices, not even compromises, when it comes to my marriage or motherhood, and my dh is solidly protecting his family without needing to go NC with his mother. Even better, I know that if for some reason dh would flip out and divorce me and abandon his children to run back to mom (even as I know he won't), I know I will be okay. Sad, angry, humanly grieving, but okay - not the bundled little mess of panic I used to be, a shadow of my little self.

I'll share the past few weeks here as we go along to show just how much your support means to me and how this forum has literally saved my marriage and my sanity, and if you're just realizing how bad it really is with any variety of IL ... There is hope!

[SunnyMeadow]

I'm so happy for you Leonor! What a wonderful post; I'm glad you feel more united than ever with your dh. ♥

[Hilltop]

That's great, I am looking forward to reading your updates, you have a great writing style.

[Sheppane]

Amazing Leonor! What an inspiring post to read !! ❤

[Pepin]

I woke up to the reality that I had married right into the photo negative of my own family. Just as horrific, but covert, waify, and deceptive, and my noble, parentified dh was enmeshed deep into his marrow.

Leonor, thank you for sharing your story and many of us are waiting with our nails gripped to the seat of our chairs hoping to learn more of your light at the end of the tunnel.

I find myself at the moment possibly close to where you are since DPD MIL is nearly no longer with us.  The conversations that have resulted already are staggering and eye opening to say the least - and no doubt will be giving my DH much to think about who his mother really was.  He cannot ignore it as family members start to come out of the woodwork with words they have been unable to bring to the table because it wasn't safe.

I believe I am relatively safe going forward.  This is a relief yet not celebratory yet until I see that DH really gets what is at stake here.  Though it is still fresh, I cannot see how I would have behaved differently than I had.  There was no way to have known what was going to happen and did happen.

My biggest take away to date is that his family is made up of extremely poor communicators.  And the lack of maturity is just astounding.  It is completely freeing to finally move beyond these chains.  I can now speak more easily with DH and have -- and the reign of immaturity from those older than us is just about over with DPD MIL's departure.  She was the last and only one that excuses were being made for.  No more.

Wishing you the best...

[Cat of the Canals]

I'm so glad to hear this Leonor. Hugs to you.

[Leonor]

Hello, all!

First much gratitude to you ...



This has been the most difficult path of my healing journey thus far, and since I'm still breathing, l know there's more twists, turns, cliffs and gorges ahead. So I'm thinking of this as an update and a way to share a healing experience in relationship to me, my foo, my dh, and ILs.

DH and I decided to strap ourselves in for a rollercoaster ride this year. We sold everything and moved to his native and my adopted country.  We put our kids in new schools, moved into a teeny tiny flat, the works. Oh, and two blocks down from ILs, who I am NC with and kids are supervised LC.

When we got here, FIL became gravely ill and passed away within a matter of months. It was a very difficult time emotionally for everyone, me too. I had burned through all of my compassion, patience, explaining, all of it. DH was in terrible pain, visiting once a day to see his dad. Kids were worried about their dear nanno. Mil and sil were MIA, which was fine by me.

After a lot of arguments, pleadings, beggings, talks, I was done. Not mad or upset, although very very sad, but done. I couldn't stay in a marriage that I felt was controlled by external forces that constantly pulled us out of orbit. I wanted to feel like we were moving ahead on a project for us, not returning back to what we used to be. I didn't want to go back, but I didn't want to stay as it was.

So I did my thing. I got my rhythm. I took driving lessons since mine didn't transfer, and I went on walks and applied for jobs and even got some good offers. I started to live my life rather than wait for dh to come back and give me the green light to move forward.

And he did. He knew I wasn't happy, he knew his dad was dying, but he made a choice to make us work. We went on loooong walks. We had loooong talks. We made commitments big and small, about us, not his family. 

His dad eventually passed. Dh was (is) grief stricken. Kids are grieving. They had spent time together beforehand, and I think that fil, crazy as he was, and he was, hung on a little longer just to spend time with dh and kids before letting go. When dh called me to tell me he was gone, I hung up the phone and said a long prayer for him, to him.

Then the rollercoaster really churned me upside down and sideways! I was hanging on to the rails with my teeth at times. That's the next update, and it's nowhere near as nice or pretty, but it certainly brought me to a new place with the ILs. I'll share that later!

[Hilltop]

Wow it sounds like that year was busy and very stressful.  I'm glad you were able to connect with DH during this period.  There is something with reaching that point of feeling 'done' isn't there.  It has momentum, it pushes you on.  I am glad you were able to find time for yourself.

I'm looking forward to the next instalment. 

[bloomie]

Leonor - thank you for sharing these portraits of your journey. Count me in as another one who is championing you on as you continue to move toward health and wholeness, unity and mutual respect in your marriage and family life.

I hope you will continue to offer insights and your experiences as you are able. Your unique journey, choices, and experiences as they are enlightening and helpful to us all. Bravo for fighting through until you claimed your solid place to stand in the middle of your own life no matter the choices of others. That is beautiful to read.

[SunnyMeadow]

I'm happy to read that you and DH are getting back to making commitments to each other, and not his family. I'll bet you were on the rollercoaster of emotions. What an exhausting time for you.

I look forward to reading your next update. I think it's good for us to share the good, bad and ugly parts of dealing with PD people and family dynamics. I know it helps other people to read what could happen in their own lives and how others deal with these things. It's definitely helped me to be here throughout the years.

♥

[Leonor]

Ok, gang, here is the not very enjoyable part of me disconnecting from IL drama.

One thing me and a lot of other exsmokers I know had this weird thing happen: when we were about to quit, we were looking forward to having more time (and money, but mostly time.) No more stopping inside the gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. No more finding someone with a lighter. No more taking breaks that didn't feel like breaks. It helped us ward off the cravings when we were still white-knuckling it through. But then the cravings passed, and we were like, omg what do I do with all this time? I'm going crazy just sitting here with my damn self.

Well, once I unhooked from the drama, I went through the same thing. If I'm not with my ILs or waiting for dh to get home from the ILs or fuming about the ils, what do I do with my damn self?

Ilanya Vanzant has a saying about not being left alone in your head without adult supervision. I freaked the @#$& out. I was in abuse withdrawal. As long as I was being abused, I had an identity. I was the scapegoat, golden child, ugly duckling, survivor, truth teller ... But that only made sense as long as I was being abused, whether in reality or in my head, long after the flashbacks rolled through.

It was like having a stranger in the house, or one of those movies where the person wakes up in another body or life or time period. Terrifying!

And sucky. Will continue later ...

[Hilltop]

That's really interesting.  Even the act of unhooking from the drama is hard.  I didn't even notice what that drama was for so long, I just thought I had to try harder to fix things or understand them better.  For me that was the confusion era. 

It's interesting that you notice that you no longer had an identity.  Looking forward to the next piece. Thanks for writing this and sharing.

[Leonor]

Yeah, let me go there for a bit, because that's where my real problem was. Is.

If I were to sum up the one emotional inheritance I received from the women in my family, it would be fear. Existential, howling fear. Wake up in the night with panic attack fear, tremble walking down the street fear. And there were two ways to cope with the fear: 1. Get married and 2. Get a job. That was your best bet.

Sounds reasonable. But when the goal is driven by terror, you wind up with abusive husbands and toxic workplaces. And two very pernicious addictions to boot, even if you leave the abusive husband or get a "good" job: love and work.

It doesn't sound that bad, though. Like, it's better than heroin addiction. Or sex addiction. It's not as bad as even food addiction, because all it looks like is that you're a romantic gal with a career. Like an 80s movie character. Or a Sex and the City cast member.



The best description of love addiction I've come across is from Sam Vaknin. There is a lot to virulently dislike about Sam Vaknin and I always detox with a kind, healing, meditation after stumbling across one of his videos. My mom is a grandiose narcissist, so I wanted to hear from a grandiose narcissist about what was up with her. I thought I was going to learn about my mom's love life, and instead it was like someone talking about me. It's not romantic, or sad, or sentimental. Love addiction is sick, and it made me so, so sick, and I went to places and did things and offered myself up because of it that I'm surprised, really surprised, that I lived through it. I should be a cautionary tale, or a cold case. I'm not kidding.

Then I found Alanis Morrisette interviews and podcasts about her addictions, including love (which she said was her biggest heartbreak) and work. I identified with work right away. I am on leave, and I've been learning skills and interviewing for jobs, and it's all very positive, except it's not. I'm in a state of mid level anxiety all the time. And I literally made myself paralyzed with fear. I signed up on all these social media sites and professional groups and applied for hundreds of jobs. It was all I could think about. I was avoiding making friends in my new country. I was shutting down from dh and distancing myself from my sons. I was here but my brain was so far gone. I couldn't wait to be alone so I could polish my resume or scan listing boards. I could feel tendonitis in my hands and elbows from tap tap tapping into my phone.

It actually got to the point where I developed crushing sciatica and full back spasms. The pain was so intense I was flashing back to labor. After each spasm my skin was clammy and I was sweating. It wasn't all in my head. But it was, because I had been hunched over my little laptop for hours, holding myself in a tense state of fear, to find a perfect job that would pay a big salary and take care of my family while making sure I was able to be a full time mom and my husband wouldn't even notice I had a job, and I had to love it too. Work addiction.

For 48 hours I couldn't sit, stand or lie down without freezing or busrting into tears. I read that "motion is lotion," so I walked up and down the narrow dark hallway in my teeny tiny apartment for hours, because work addicts hate illness, it's weakness that leaves you vulnerable, until the nerves loosened up. And that was my bottom.

Once I let go of the ILs, and believed myself to be free, and healing, and yes! superior because I had healed more and worked harder and meditated and did therapy and stopped allowing their bad behavior and poor choices to disturb my peace, and let go of trying to pull and drag dh back and away from them and onto my team versus their team, holy crap.

[Hilltop]

Oh my goodness, that sounds like a really painful and hurtful place you were in.  The resilience it would take to go through so many job interviews and be able to keep pushing yourself.  I understand that you say it was work addiction but there was strength there too. 

I am so glad you got through, you did the hard work.  You did the work that your in-laws never did.  That is an achievement and an accomplishment.

[Pepin]

It actually got to the point where I developed crushing sciatica and full back spasms. The pain was so intense I was flashing back to labor. After each spasm my skin was clammy and I was sweating. It wasn't all in my head. But it was, because I had been hunched over my little laptop for hours, holding myself in a tense state of fear, to find a perfect job that would pay a big salary and take care of my family while making sure I was able to be a full time mom and my husband wouldn't even notice I had a job, and I had to love it too. Work addiction.

For 48 hours I couldn't sit, stand or lie down without freezing or busrting into tears. I read that "motion is lotion," so I walked up and down the narrow dark hallway in my teeny tiny apartment for hours, because work addicts hate illness, it's weakness that leaves you vulnerable, until the nerves loosened up. And that was my bottom.

Oh wow....this literally hit a nerve with me as I have had sciatica 2x now.  The first time was an absolute terror like you describe -- and it hit me when I was a newish mom.  I believe that having sciatica at that point was a massive wake up call that I ignored.  I had the power to change the trajectory and instead I licked my wounds and kept going like nothing happened.  And then it hit me again --- not as strong but still bad.  And now I know it can return at any time if I don't keep moving - and by that I mean self care on all levels and blocking out the abuse that DPD CN MIL was trying to throw my way.

What's my addiction then?  Food.  I binge on snacks at least every day.  I work out and the weight never goes away because I replace it with food.  The hollowness inside makes me want to eat....the hollowness from years of filling myself up with thoughts of despair because of the situation I was in.

Leonor, I am terribly appreciative of your sharing your journey with us.  There really is light at the end of the tunnel.

[Leonor]

Hello 🤗

I'm going to write about the ils now and I'll move my personal stuff to another thread so as not to mess up the forums.

Okay, now admittedly this has a lot to do with the fil dying, because one thing dh and I both noticed was, "Wow it's a lot quieter than we thought it would be now that he's gone." I thought that mil was round the clock drama and fil was a hapless helpless codependent, but now it seems that mil is likely a BPD hermit and fil was the more hysterical one. But after so long together it's hard to tell, the disorders just merge.

Now also sil has stepped in to claim her place as mom's ally, which leaves dh more room to step back. Of course, sil isn't doing anything, and dh is organizing the paperwork and finances in the wake of fil's passing; it's a bureaucratic nightmare, but dh is someone who can deal with paper tornadoes much better than with emotional maelstroms.

Meanwhile as I go through my own business, which is a mixture of midlife crisis, career loss, life upending, perimenopause, plus CPTSD healing stage and worldwide COVID weirdness, dh has been pretty solid. He's really here, doing what he needs to do in his personal work and I'm working in my stuff but we're much more open now.
I feel like we're 20 years in, and I can finally relax into my marriage. Phew!

My perspective on the ils has changed a lot. I can see and own and sit in how I came to them with all of my projections and fantasies and black holes. I didn't accept anything I knew and saw and dh told me first hand about them. That didn't fit into my fantasy: that they would be the parents my parents never were. I never really interacted with them. I didn't listen to them. They may as well have been cardboard cutouts. I was just forcing my patterns onto them.

Now this is understandable, but it's not acceptable. It's not caring or compassionate. It was selfish. And when they did what they do, I either threw all my weight behind getting dh to change them, or invite them in to steamroll them, or threw a tantrum. It probably wouldn't have mattered if they weren't as messed up as they were, because I was talking to holograms of my parents projected onto them.

Today I can really take in their whole stories, adult to adult. I don't demand something of them that isn't fair to demand of anyone. It's like getting angry at someone who was a child in WWII for growing up with trauma, because now they're too traumatized to heal my trauma. With no therapy, no compassion, no resources, no stability, no food, at times. That's not a compassionate attitude on my part. It's not kind. Not in a grownup.

So in my grownup place, mil is not my mother. She's my husband's mother. She's a little old lady who has her history, and troubles, and traumas and hurts, and it's not up to me to heal her and it's not my place to ask anything of her, not even to be nice or polite to me. If dh wants to help her with her dead husband's paperwork, that has nothing to do with me. If I would like to spend more time with him, I don't get mad. I don't sulk. I ask. I share, and then I listen. It's hard for me, but it works a whole lot better!

I don't permit mil visits with my kids because I can't guarantee that she will be in a place to relate to them in a way they'll understand, but I always speak of her to them with kindness and I keep the memory of their crazy old dear grandpa warm. If they say they want to see her or have a relationship with her, I will sit them down with dh and we will talk about her, but with kindness in our hearts and respect for her as a woman and human being. With truth, so they understand that her behavior is unpredictable and not about them, but with kindness, because they don't need to hate her or fear her.

Part of coming to forgive them, and I have, has been realizing how much I have to ask forgiveness from them. I have to, then, recognize what role I have played, and really take responsibility for it, and stop blaming and pouting, and look at it and own it, and then forgive me.

[Hilltop]

That's very insightful.  I think I reacted to my MIL in the early days.  I took everything she did so personally rather than seeing it was about her and her own issues.  My MIL grew up in her own trauma with an alcoholic father and losing her own mother young.  I guess it's easier to recognise her for herself and see where her behaviours comes from, that it wasn't about me.  However I am glad I stopped being around her so much so that I didn't have to put up with her behaviour or be subjected to it.

Even though things are nice at the moment they are nice because MIL openly admits that there is no one else.  So to me it shows that she could probably have controlled her behaviour all along, she just didn't feel she needed to. Perhaps maybe time has mellowed her some, I still see toxic behaviours in her however I am able to shake them off and see it for what it is. 

It sounds like you have reached a great place of insight and compassion, that you have let go of your expectations surrounding her.

[Leonor]

Hello all,

DH and I took a long walk and had a lovely talk yesterday.

It was the first time in maybe 20 years in which we could talk about our parents without getting defensive or triggered or upset.

We were able to talk about our parents' life stories with understanding. It was interesting, because normally our convos go like: "My parent does this because of that." Sometimes it's "I'm mad because my mom is a control freak but she grew up in an unstable environment." Other times it's, "my dad is a hypochondriac and it ticks me off but it was the only way he could get attention." And then what happened was, we felt guilty for being upset about the control freakiness or hypochondria or whatever. We skipped over our feelings about it and went to the "oh but they had a bad childhood" excuse. So we still felt upset, but then we felt guilty about it, and then we felt resentful.

Instead this time we reversed the order: "You know, there was never any room for my mom to be anything but perfect. That's why she could not hear me when I said I had been abused. And it makes me sad." It was like, coming from the place of compassion for the child and then understanding that as the explanation for the adult's behavior made the behavior seem logical and clearly not to do with me. I came much later to whatever dysfunction went on. And then there still was space for my feelings later. It clarified the generational nature of abuse. It was no longer an unending cycle, but a sequence of events. It's a lot easier to think of ways to end a sequence then escape a vortex.

The other thing we talked about was how our attempts to create a happy environment probably made them really uncomfortable. We insisted they come over to our place because we think our place is more comfortable, but they're more comfortable in their place. They are all mad as hatters and inflexible and neurotic, yes! But we weren't going to make them more relaxed by hosting a Big Event. That was something we wanted. We were shoe-horning them into our happy family fantasy.

At the end I said, look, I haven't trusted you to spend time with your mom and the kids because I've gotten dumped with the emotional fallout. I'm the one who explains what depression is in kid friendly terms, or gives a hug and say that's just how they talk to each other, or it will be ok, nanno is just a little like that. But if you promise that in the event of silliness that you will be the one to handle any emotional fallout, I am open to considering the possibility of brief supervised visits with your mom. And dh said, I think we should wait a little while to see how things develop. And if we were to visit, it would be brief and outside and occasional and casual. And I was like, okay then.

I can't say this is a Decision that can be just made after watching self-help videos, or a Realization it took me years of therapy to achieve. It's just a process. A process of letting stuff come up and go through the anguish and give permission to feel hurt and drawing and redrawing boundaries. There's no shortcut and no guarantee that I wouldn't have had to leave. There's no argument that we could have skipped or tears that might not have been shed. The therapy gave me someone safe to talk to who wouldn't get triggered by me saying her mom was a witch or rush to shush me when I said my father was good with other people's kids but not his own. And the videos help when I think, "I'm feeling this. Am I the only one who feels this? Does this make sense?"

It's a looooong tunnel. But there is light at the end.

[feralcat]

This is all amazing insightful . And useful. Thank you.
I'm glad you (and your H) were able to hang on in there as you worked your way through your revelations.
It really is a long term piece of work , unfortunately. Life long. Theirs, and yours

Please keep sharing !
You write so well

[Hilltop]

That's great that you found a resolution, that you worked through all those feelings.  It sounds like you have reached a great place to be.

It's great that your DH also recognises what would work for supervised visits.  Especially if your MIL suffers from depression, a visit outside would be great for her, I'm sure she probably wouldn't agree however something casual, out in the sun would be beneficial.  I hope you continue to find peace with your in-laws.