Free at last ! Free at last !!

[alphaomega]

I supposed a potential "caveat" of growing up groomed to never be permitted to individuate, is my exceptional ability to navigate being lonely.

The driving force that propels the narcissisitic need to infantilize their victim, kept me desperate for connection but unable to figure out how to make those connections occur when every friend I made, was already on the outs, before I could ever get to know them.

THERE IS NO ONE ELSE ALLOWED INTO THE INNER SANCTUM OF MIND CONTROL, unless expressly permitted by the sociopath herself.

Keeping the victim broken is a means to their never ending need to feed off the energy of the miserable.

One of the ways they accomplish that is through isolating their prey so that no one else exists but the demon.  THey are hungry ghosts, and they demand to be fed.

At any cost.

One particularly sorrowful isolation moment I recall  (and FFS,  It happened AGAIN in those GD Pink Polyester Pajamas) was a morning that would make me the future target of every neighborhood bully within 5 miles.

I had gone out to play, it was a Saturday morning, (so God only knows what went on the night before). 

One of the boys next door who I normally sought out to play with was acting surly and didnt want to play with me that day.  Called me fat, called my mother a drunk. 
How he knew that at like 8 remains a mystery but I would imagine there were "conversersations" at their dinner tables regarding the weirdos next door...

I was heartbroken, and went back inside crying. 

The Beast was out in full form.  Eyes glowing, just looking for a fight ripe for the pickin'.

I told her the boy next door hurt my feelings and said bad things about me and her and daddy and said he didnt want to be my friend anymore.   

That's all she needed to hear.  Now she had her narc supply and it was off to the races.  As she was storming out of the house I distincly remember thinking "WOW ! My mommy must really love me !! She's gonna fix this for me and make it all better !"

What actually occurred was vastly different...

She stormed outside, walked right up to the boy, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, dragged him to the center of our shared lawn and began shaking him violently.

"Who the F do you think you are you little F-ing punk !!! treating MY kid like that ?!?! I'll tear you limb from limb !! YOU THINK YOUR BETTER THAN ME ???"

I remember feeling like it had gone on forever, and it was never going to stop, and OMG what the hell had *I* JUST DONE ???

When she finally had her fill of terrorizing this kid, (and i mean he was terrified, crying, wimpering, shaking) she went back inside smug and satisfied with "handling it". 

It was a lesson in "love" that would be the precedent for a myriad of other experiences that would begin and end similarily, for the rest of our lives together.

Needless to say, news travels fast, and BAD news ?  Faster.

Now it was the 70's, and parents would have gotten away with that far easier than they would now, but the fallout from that single experience would begin what I believe was the start of my agorophobia and generalized anxiety disorder. 

Amongst other things.

See, I had twisted it in my undeveloped brain, to appear that Mommy really loved me when she did that. 
And that it was gonna be US against the world.
And the only safe place to be, was where people couldnt  "see" you.

So I began spending ALOT of time indoors.  In my closet.  Under blanket forts with my only friends, my dolls. 
I developed a rich and vast imagination as a result of all that isolation.

Only problem was that I'd get under mommys thin, mottled, dehydrated skin. 
So she would boot me out the door and tell me to "GO OUTSIDE ! AND PLAY !!".

Well, I was the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Children are cruel.  They just are. And they pick off the low hanging fruit and gang up against them.  it's sad, but its true.

I was the rotten tomato, that would willingly sacrifice herself to be the one thrown at the cars, just to have some sort of sembelence of "friendship".

In my desire to be accepted and have friends, I became a RAGING cleptomanic. 

I would go to Osco with daddy on Saturday mornings, and fill my pockets with things I thought could ply these children into "liking me".
Makeup, candy, little toys, whatever I could think of to use to bribe them to play with me.

And I had started to procur quite the stash ! 

A whole drawer in my nightstand, just filled to the brim with bribes.

And it worked.

Until it didnt...

Daddy found my bribe stash, and hit the roof.  He knew I couldnt possibly have afforded all these things, so he knew I was stealing.  And he was pissed.

But not so pissed that he didnt understand WHY I was stealing.  He knew my circumstances.  He saw me spend hours alone, up in my tree, covertly watching the other kids play in the yards below me. 

He saw me take off on my bike and not come home for hours. 

He knew, he was just too enmeshed to save me.

I got scolded, but it didnt stop.  It ramped up to the point I got caught by the manager at the store and was brought up into the office, and my parents were called. 
Now it was an addiction, and not the kind that was permitted in the addiction filled house that I lived in.

He took his ire to a whole new level, and chose not to speak to me.  For a week.  We never actually "spoke" about things.  We just passive aggressively handled everything to the extent that none of us had to ever feel the things, we just projected.  Constantly.   

After a week, mommy couldnt handle the tension - or most likely that the familial ATTENTION had shifted from her to me - and "rescued" me.
She had decided that I had had enough, and he had better stop punishing me.

Another triangulation that would keep me tethered and indebted to her as her emotional indentured servant for life.
She SAVED me AGAIN !

The grooming goes deep.  Deeper than I ever even understood until now that I am free of it. 
With no one else to turn to, you only have ONE source of "love".  It was the narrative of my entire life with relationships.

SHE. COMES. F I R S T.

The programming. 
My God, the programming. 
Even the mere thought of possibly extraditing myself from that , even AS AN ADULT, would literally make my body shake.

When I couldnt take it anymore, I stopped driving.  In my 40's.  I stopped allowing myself any freedom as an ADULT, because in doing so, I was violating our unspoken contract.

My panic attacks had become so bad, I havent driven in 10 years. 
But the silver lining to that shit storm cloud ?  It also kept me the hell away from her.

Nope.  Sorry mommy.  I cant. 
Cant drive.  Too anxious.  PANIC PANIC DANGER DANGER.

It was the only way I knew how to get away from her.  To sabotage myself.  To harm myself.  And because I couldnt LIE to her (programming) I just gave up being mobile.

The damage is done.

But the healing has truly begun.

So help me God.  It's truly begun...

XO AO

[Hepatica]

It's like chewing a leg to get out of a leg-hold trap. I have done it too. I have shut myself in, gate locked outside, cut off anyone associated with FOO and turned into a hermit, if it wasn't for my husband.

Ugh.

[Duck]

So many things. Something that jumped out at me was how often you felt like you were either the only one left in charge (like when you knew everyone was incapacitated) or the only one around to make a desperate bid to save things (like when you drank the sherry or consoled dad and watched over him after his parent died).

I have been thinking a lot lately about how upside down this sort of thing is and how wrong. I noticed that I have a core belief. It is this. "The primary reason any person would have a child is they want someone to take care of them."

Lately, I noticed that doesn't sound right. Why do I think that? I have been pondering it.

The truth is that parents are supposed to have their acts together as adults. They are supposed to take care of the children and the children are supposed to have a sense of safety, like ok, I can snuggle on to sleep with my doll bc I am safe and my caregivers are reliable. What a revelation!

I wish so much I could travel back in time like others said and whisk you away somewhere you could feel safe and worry about things like "will it rain tomorrow" and "how will I wait to open my presents until Christmas?" The mean kids might still have been there, but I wish you could have had thoughts like "I can talk to my parents about it. I know they love me."

I had similar feelings at times growing up like "It is up to me to keep harm from this family." That makes no sense, though!

Much love and congrats on being free!

[alphaomega]

As the years went by, and the lonliness and despair prevailed, I continued to try to survive by any means possible.

I had no living grandparents to seek nurturing from, and my mother had all but cut off everyone in both my fathers and her families.
So no aunts, uncles, cousins that really wanted to have anything to do with me either.

I was a casualty of the wars that she adored waging whenever and wherever she went.

One hot summer day, while riding my bike, alone, of course, a landscapers truck filled with disgusting men slowed up next to me on my bike, and began to intimidate me and cat call me. 

Being always in fight (or flight) mode, I had no problem telling them where to go...

I hollered back "You fucking sickos, I'm only 12 years old !!"

They laughed and one yelled back "Hey baby, if you are old enough to bleed, you are old enough to breed !"

And, in that single moment, all of whatever was left of my childhood, was stripped away from me.

I remember feeling nauseous, not really knowing WHAT that meant, but, instinctively, epigenetically, I suppose, I knew.

Shortly thereafter, I had my first kiss with a boy I liked in school.  We were both in 7th grade.  It was a big deal, with all the other girls wanting to know all the details, and
wait a second...
PAYING ATTENTION TO ME ????????

Was I now going to have FRIENDS because I was the first to, ahem, go first ????

And it was then, that I both literally, and figuratively realized, I'm sitting on a goldmine...

That first boyfriend came and went, and left me alone, yet again.  I was FAR to attached, FAR to clingy, FAR to desperate, FAR to needy for any relationship even remotely possible for two children.   

But the promiscuity wheels had been set in motion, and I started to rev all the engines of all the boys within a 10 mile radius.



I began to realize there was a virtual TREASURE TROVE OF ATTENTION AND LOVE OUT THERE !! 
It was  ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE !!
All I had to do was, "the things" !!

Good news travels fast.  And bad news ? Faster.

I got a reputation for being a raging slut.  I was a match made in hormonal heaven as far as the boys were concerned. 

Of course, not a single one of those experiences gave me anything else than immense vapid sadness and even further emptiness.

But the love I thought I was getting, while clinging to the acts of carnal release, would only serve to throw me further and further into addiction...

I would have to be hammered to allow them to use my body, but I began understanding that these were the things "expected" of women.
AND ENCOURAGED...

Society gave boys the permission to notch their belts.
But, while the subliminal messages of beauty and sexuality was always pounded into our feminine brains (think the "Loves Baby Soft" commericals of the 70's)
girls were expected to put out.

Then they were cast out.

The Madonna and The Whore.

Its a zero sum game.

My sissy found out through the grapevine that I was passing out favors like it was my job, and she went and freaking told my parents.

And once again, I was the family scapegoat.

Over a box wine/sherry bond made in hell night, I overheard her telling my mom that I had been having sex with my new boyfriend.

I wanted to die.  Literally die. 

That boy and I made plans to run away together, like the Rod Stewart "Young Hearts" song.

My parents were totally just "beside themselves !" with embarrassment.     They asked the boys parents to come over to have a "talk" about what they were going to do with these unruly children ??

Now, you have to understand the dynamic here.  It almost makes me LOL.

Mommy and Daddy were good Catholics.  They both had "waited" until marriage.  Mommy would tell me stories of her and daddy necking in the car for hours, but, they were devoted to "God" and would never, ever take it any further.
Her favorite story was her proposal....

After 5 years of dating, daddy couldnt take it anymore, and pulled out a calandar and told her to pick a date. 
She clutched her pearls and responded "Why, whatever for my darlin'?"

"Because if I dont have a date I can marry you, I am going to rape you."

So romantic no ?
And I am SO GLAD I was privy to that info mommy THANK YOU ! 

My boyfriends parents were of an entirely different generation, 60's love child, but still very catholic.  When he got drafted for the Vietnam war, they decided to go all the way after dating for a year. 
They conceived a child that night. 

Ironically, in the exact same nieghborhood Motel, that I lost my virginity to their son in.  Talk about weird ?  You have no idea.

This year, that boy and I, have been married 25 years...

[FlowerPot]

I was hugely relieved when mother died, 3 years ago - couldn't quite understand why everyone was being so kind to me and sympathetic etc - realised I had to just go through the motions, do what was expected  and accept their sympathy etc as few of them realised what she was really like. 

Curiously I struggled with anxiety and feeling "off" - started about 6 months afterwards and went on and off for 2 years, am sure some was related to a bizarre grief reaction. Sites like this have helped and all is well.

It seems dreadful to express relief but it is genuinely what I felt.  And like AO, am glad we express it here

[Boat Babe]

Hey alphaomega. Just checking in. How you doing?

[My New Life]

When my enabling step-father was dying, I saw double rainbows all the time, like 6 over a 9 month period!  It felt like a message. In eastern tradition, a double rainbow represents transformation on the material and spiritual dimensions.

When he died, I felt sadness for the man, who had stayed in relationship with my mom, who was hateful and cruel to him.  But at the same time, I felt very free.  Two months later, after I had planned his memorial and executed it, my final gift to him, I went NC with my mother.  I was no longer tethered to this toxic relationship.  I was free.  And what is more, I think my dad was free too.  I think that is why I saw so many double rainbows, when I was on my way to the nursing home.  Sometimes death means freedom, for them and for us.

[alphaomega]

Doing really really good.

With every passing day she is no longer my problem, and the need to constantly be in "brace for impact" mode subsides, I cant believe I was so enmeshed I could not get out.

People still aren't sure how to "approach me" now. and I find it both sad and funny simultaneously.
How do we interact with AO now that she is giddy, and free, and joyful because.....
HER MOTHER D I E D ?!?!!?

Weird how we are so conditioned to immediately go to the "So sorry for your loss".

If we are being honest, people who know me want to HIGH FIVE me for surviving !   

Someone who hadnt seen me for a while yesterday implied that I looked more vibrant. 
Younger, thinner, whatever.

I said the only thing I have lost is being in a perpetual state of misery, woe, guilt, shame, drama, angst, anxiety, depression and fear.

She was taken a bit back and then said, "Honestly, I cant wait until mine is gone either."

We CAN give each other full permission to being allowed to NOT HAVE SORROW AT THE END OF OUR MOTHERS LIVES, if they made our ENTIRE LIVES MISERABLE. 

Every day that I wake up now, instead of feeling ill because I dont know what hoops she will be having me jump through, or what burning embers I will have to sweep up from her horrible actions, I take a deep breath of sweet sweet freedom and not for ONE SINGLE SECOND, have I felt even the slightest bit of GUILT for that.   

XO AO

[SunnyMeadow]

  This is the most joyous and hopeful thing I've read in a long time AO!!! 

Your perspective of NOT HAVING SORROW AT THE END OF OUR MOTHERS LIVES is fantastic. Takes some of the sting out of thinking I'm defective in some way for wanting it. I'm impatiently waiting to hear the good word every single day.

[Boat Babe]

The women in my family enjoy excellent health into their nineties! I'll be so pissed off if my mother outlives me!

[AlisonWonder]

I'm sorry for your loss.  We can accept people's kind words because we *did* lose our mothers, just not when they think.

I feel a steady happiness.  It is as if a whole new world has opened up, even though I was NC.  You are right, you can't say that to people outside this forum.  But I do notice that many women seem to blossom when their mothers die, maybe that is just the PD mothers, I have no way of knowing.

[alphaomega]

More than once, especially throughout the last few years (ok, maybe decades) periodically, when my mind and body literally could not take anther second of being in her total and complete control, I would often snap and refer to myself as feeling like a "caged animal".

A sweet sparrow (thems is some seriously RESILIENT little birdies!  ) with her little wings clipped, thrown in a guilded cage, for my NPDM to be able to show off at will.

She often used my "sensitvity" against me, reminding me that only the strongest (evilest? ) survive.

All of my accomplishments, were demeaned as "less than" as that allowed her to keep me tethered to her hip.  It absolutely didnt help my cause that I also was in a family business with her.  A business I NEVER wanted, or even remotely felt capable of handling.

That all changed when my enabling father died of a widow maker, leaving me with his widow, and his company.

I made it work, somehow, for 20 years.  She was entirely incapable of running it.  Although to hear her brag, she was the Elon Musk of the early 2000's...

She made damn sure I always knew  who the "BOSS" was.  Even though I was putting in 12 hour days, with a toddler at home.

Sometimes I really wonder how my little family unit made it out of that disaster in one piece.

After one particularily grueling day at work, my husband (who also worked in the business) looked at me as said
"Why hasnt she EVER acknowledged, that you and I have been running this place, longer than your father did ?"

That was like a snapback into reality.

We had been so manipulated to think that SHE was the reason for every success we had ever obtained in our lives, that we couldnt even see REALITY...

Any accomplishment I had ever had, if not tied directly to her, she would make damn sure was fraught with the "errors of my ways".

Unless she needed  to one-up someone, and brag, then it would shift to "my brilliant daughter who runs MY company !!"


I try to now only stay present, and looking towards the beautiful life that is my future, but sometimes I am still finding myself looking back.

The thing that I have really come to understand, is that her absolute most favorite thing in the whole wide world, was to watch someone in utter misery.

She LOVED seeing people suffer, especially, ironically, those of us who tried like fucking hell to make her happy....

Watching her behavior over the years towards doctors (we were "dismissed as patients" by several), nurses (one phelbotomist swore she'd quit if she ever had to draw her blood again) waitresses, concierges, housekeepers, care takers, all of us at her disposal to treat and demean in any way possible.

And for that single reason alone, the pure and unadulterated PLEASURE she derived from other peoples pain, makes me choose to never truly forgive her...

I honestly dont care what psychiatrist manuals diagnose her as, nor do I care for the supposed "reasons" aka "excuses" why her behavior was, what it was.
Every single one of us is walking around with some sort of trauma.

Trauma doesnt give you a unfettered pass to step on necks, and laugh, literally LAUGH, when something horrible happens to someone else.

It has been said that "Hurt people, hurt people".
Which may be true in some cases.

But when you were given the best of the best this world has to offer, and you didnt take opportunity after opportunity to heal, then that is on YOU.

Thats just pure evil.

[Sneezy]

Every day that I wake up now, instead of feeling ill because I dont know what hoops she will be having me jump through, or what burning embers I will have to sweep up from her horrible actions, I take a deep breath of sweet sweet freedom and not for ONE SINGLE SECOND, have I felt even the slightest bit of GUILT for that.   

This is one of the happiest and most affirming things I've read.  I'm so glad you are doing well.  Please keep posting here and sharing your wisdom. 

[alphaomega]

I dreamt about her last night.

She had called me from the crypt...

She was going on and on about how bad it was there.   I kept thinking, she doesnt know shes dead ?!?!

I dont know what specifically she was saying, other than alot of the same that she always complained about - people, food, things, everything.
I was pacing around my house on the phone just listening to her.   I was panicked and disordered.

She couldnt hear me when I responded to her, she just kept saying "why are you so quiet. why arent you saying anything ? Hello ?? HELL-O ?"

I finally said "I love you, mom".

She said "I LOVE YOU TOO, BUT WHY ARENT YOU TALKING TO ME ????"

She was only able to hear when I said I love you.  Nothing else.

Indicentally, this past weekend, being Easter, was always a big deal in my family.  I do have some wonderful memories of egg hunts and big Polish easter saturday dinners.
DH said he had woken up Sunday morning, with the very familiar "UGH" that he would feel on holidays because they would have to revolve around her.

Until he shook off the cobwebs, and realized she was gone. 
He breathed a sigh of relief that we no longer had those shackles around our neck.

I did the same.

It was my first holiday without her.  And even in the pandemic, I felt so free.  I cooked my favorites without worrying if it was going to displease her.  There wasn't typically any pleasing her, even if I did everything according to her standards.  I would run myself ragged trying to make everything "just so" in the hopes that I could give her some joy. 

This weekend was absolute bliss.  Gentle, and quiet, minus anxiety and misery.  It was so palpable the difference in the energy. 

I am so looking forward to the rest of my life on this little blue dot floating in space...

XO AO

[alphaomega]

I took a walk outside yesterday after work.  It was a absolutely gorgeous early spring afternoon. 
It was my first jaunt in nature since she died.

Since self-harm was always at the forefront of my mind due to external Dark Triad programming, whether it be through addiction, or just self loathing, any thing that I ever did that would have been considered self care, would have been an immediate violation of our unspoken "contract'. 

I literally could not do ANYTHING outside of working and coming home to chemically escape, that would be permitted in her mind.
And, if I told her I had done anything outside of that, there would be a guilt trip placed so squarely on my shoulders that it simply was not worth it.

"Must be nice to be able to walk ! I cant walk !'
"oooooo you went to dinner ?  I would have really liked to go to dinner"
" Ooooooo you went to the store ?  I needed a bunch of things from the store"

But an especially phantasmagoric guilt trip, that ended in a knock down drag out fight, was when she had thought I had gone to her favorite clothing shop without her.

My husband and daughter who was about 9 at the time, had gone for a walk while we were on vacation.  Of course, we had to bring The Beast.  She went everywhere with us. 
I had grabbed a shopping bag on the way out to hold some water bottles.  When we arrived back, clearly not in the time frame she decided was appropriate, she saw the shopping bag and flipped out.

"Did you go to CHICOS WITHOUT ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  YOU BETTER N O T HAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Welp, that was IT for me.  She had been insufferable the entire trip and I lost it. 

I told her I couldnt take it anymore, that one of us was going to have to leave, so I began packing my stuff, all the while my poor daughter was crying and throwing up in the corner.  It was that bad of a fight.

She tried to tell me I couldnt leave, and I told her to FUCKING WATCH ME.

I didnt leave, but only because of my daughter.  It was bad.  The rest of the trip was tainted.  She tainted everything. 
Like the time we were at Disney and she got upset with me that I had taken DD to quick ride a ride before Xmas dinner.   
Because she had to walk with DH from the hotel to the dinner place, she lashed out at me so hard when we arrived back, I began to sob.
I bandaided that bullet hole, with a parade of martinis that made the next day at Disney just awful.  I stayed in bed, nursing my wounds. 

I think that was when my daughter chose to completely emotionally detach from her.

Yesterday as I was walking, something felt different.  It was so odd to be doing something that she couldnt any longer control.  I felt like a toddler learning how to walk.  All wobbly and bright eyed. Fearless and hopeful.  The scents of spring florals in bloom were everywhere. 

It felt like a dreamscape.  The world looked technicolor.  Like a Monet painting, but with beautiful smells and light breezes and warm sun. 
I felt like a child.  Like a little child, who had just gone outside to play and today, anything was possible.

I popped into a store that her and I would frequent.  I didnt realize it at the time, but when I would have to take her places, I would have a hours long anxiety attack anytime we went anywhere.   It didnt matter where we went, I would be panicking and sweating and dizzy and disoriented the entire time.  I never knew when she would fly off the handle from some perceived slight, be it a waiter, a sales associate, a concierge, anyone she deemed beneath her. 

And everyone was beneath her.


But yesterday, It was such a tangible beautiful shift in my perspective of what is to come for me.   With many days of full and total sobriety now in place, I felt like everything was intoxicating.  My senses had been ignited, no longer dulled from fear and toxins.  I was floating on air.  I wish my legs could have kept up because chance are I would have still been walking

I'm so excited to be alive 






   

[SparkStillLit]

That is so incredibly beautiful and uplifting. I'm so happy you decided on this path. You're amazing!

[doglady]

Your journey is inspiring, alphaomega. I'm so happy for you that the poison is gone and that you can live your life with joy. You thoroughly deserve it.

[alphaomega]

Infantalism and Parentification make for strange bedfellows...

I realized recently, that so long as I allowed her to keep me small, wounded, weak, desperate, and ill (Infantilism) that we could have a "relationship". 
When I was compliant, The Beast got fed her supply and in some sick, twisted, convoluted way, I received a degree of maternal nurturing.

However, when she would  decide she needed me to step up and advocate for her, or fight, or pull strings, or run her fucking company because she had no clue how to, then I would be Parentified, and be expected to be an adult.  And one that was highly functioning.  And if I was mean in the process of doing her bidding ? I'd get extra brownie points for that.  My God, she loved when she thought I was wielding swords for her.

But, the second I would show signs of attempting to individuate from her, thats when things got exceptionally messy.

She hated, with a passion, seeing me with any sense of happiness AT ALL.  My happiness was a direct threat to her.

It was never more apparent to me than one year when I threw Thanksgiving dinner. 

Amassing a fairly large family of choice (remember she had long earlier disposed of any blood relations of mine)  I was joyfully admiring the table of 25 that I was breaking bread with and hosting dinner for.  Love was flowing, and everyone just felt happy to be together and sharing a beautiful moment.  I was receiving so many thank yous, and so much love was being thrown around the room.  Happiness was on tap.

It infuriated her.  Literally infuriated her.

To the extent that she was verbally abusing me and just being totally impossible.

She wanted to sit practically ON TOP OF ME at the table.  She was rude to all my friends and guests.  She judged everyones appearance and let them know it (all while sitting in her diaper with what she called "leggings" on, but were really a step above a thick pair of tights... )
The food was all bad of course, all the people there only used me for a free meal, this one was fat, that one was broken out, how could she wear those tattered clothes, he smelled like dirty hair, he wouldnt stop eating, she wouldnt stop drinking, my in-laws were ignoring her, that guy has too many tatoos, why did I wear my hair like that today of all days, see, she cant walk either, who is going to pick me up, who is going to take me home, go fetch my plate, I want more wine, the turkey is dry, I am in pain, I cant reach the bread, what a motley crew I have for friends... etc. etc. etc....

Time after time, she just made me miserable and embarrased.  But her favorite was to do that in public. 
The Witch would come out in full force when she thought she had a perceived societal caste upperhand.  Evil.  Just damn evil.

Once, a waitress asked me if I needed her to call the police, because NPDM had gotten so infuriated with the location of our table, and my unwillingness to make a big deal out of it, that she physically started to lash out at me.   

Infantilized/Parentified/Infantilized/Parentified/Infantilzed/Parentified.  I was her personal yo-yo.

But her absolute pentultimate most favoritest of favorites was when *I* would get sick.

Then she would get to claim her "MOTHER OF THE YEAR" award.

I swear to God, that woman would send me death and illness energy.  I know it sounds totally cray, but I swear she would sit there and focus and concentrate on my getting sick so that she could swoop in and play nurse.   

Just like some people can pray (nothing more than intention and focus) and that creates a healing, she would "pray" to whatever the hell her "God" was, and I would get violently ill.

There was a giant chunk of time in my life, and her most favorite was to do it while I was on a vacation that she wasnt invited to, I would get sick.

She LOVED when I was sick.  She focused so intently on my health constantly.  I finally caught onto her, and either wouldnt tell her when I was sick, or I would use a fake illness to stay away from her.

Slowly, I had begun to learn her methods and spells.

She would tell a story of when she was young (about 7-8) her mother took her to a old polish psychic that told her mother she had a "gift".  And shortly thereafter, NPDM would "see" a tall, thin, dark cloaked man, standing and just "watching her".   Everywhere she went, this apparition followed her.  He would just stand and watch her. {{{shudder}}}

Her mother died a few years later quickly and rapidly declining,  and her father died a few months after that...

She was orphaned now.

What a perfectly crafted story to now be able to receive a neverending lifetime supply, of narcissitic supply...

{{{{shudder}}}}}}

[MamaDryad]

AlphaOmega, I just read all of this, and I'm crying for the little you that was. I have a four-almost-five year old, and I can't imagine. I come from an alcoholic family too, but I wasn't pulled into it young the way you were, maybe because it would have tarnished my mom's mother of the year delusions. But what you describe about isolation and fear, the no-one-can-see-how-we-live of it all, and about maternal rage as a proxy for love (when really it was an excuse to beat up on someone), and about the combination of parentification and infantilization... those all hit very close to home.

Just wanted to comment and say that I am wishing you all the good things.

[Leonor]

Hi alphaomega,

I'm popping in to say that I relate SO much to this thread and your experiences, from hiding in closets to blacking out drunk to being bullied to picking up randoms at bars, just on and on. It's a miracle that we survived, but we did. We did.

I also wanted you to know that wherever you are in the world, you are not alone. You are not some outer space alien in a world of well-adjusted, sober and non-traumatized people. There are a LOT of us out here ("the people that you meet when you're walking down the street!") and we're here for you.

You are a unique and special soul, whole and intact and worthy of expansion and appreciation. But addiction is physical. It's biochemical. And taking the recovery journey on as a solo hike is like deciding to operate on yourself because it's your body and you know what it's about. In other words, don't. If you isolate right now, you are sabotaging your recovery.

If you truly believe you deserve to be sober and safe, then get your dang self into a program RIGHT NOW TODAY.  Doesn't have to be a fancy rehab center. Doesn't have to be expensive therapy. Can be a drop in AA meeting in a community center basement. Can be online support group. Can be an addiction crisis line.

I know the thirst to go it alone. To not bother anyone with my problems. To wait until I'm more ready. To have to go to the store instead. To think that I can do it on my own with a book or two and a journal. To not feel like a freak or to find out that the other people don't know as much as me about me and be bored or disappointed.

Okay, read this part carefully, ok? That is the Addiction talking to you. That is the trauma. You are at a point where you know that your mom is defective, not you; that your dad failed you, you didn't fail your dad; that the kids who bullied you were jerks, not you; that you drank because it was a parentally-approved escape, not because you are a bad person. Addiction can't get you to keep.feeding it that way.

So Addiction (like your abuser) takes another tack: you're special. You are brilliant. You are strong. You are independent. You are insightful. You're all I need. You don't need to get into a program. You can beat this thing on your own.



The message is the same: stay isolated. Stay disconnected. Stay dissociated.

How long will it take for that message to become "Stay drunk"?

That's the thing, you know? We get so high off of the idea of recovery, it feels like a thrill! Free at last, right? We don't see that it really is a high. And you know what happens after the high.

It is because you are unique, special, insightful, brilliant and strong that you deserve the help. Real, professional, organized, group health, where you recover in community.

It's not a high. Addiction is a roller coaster: high and low, low and high. Recovery is a pain in the ass. It's boring and painful and exhausting and dull. It's maddening. It's like oh crap I have to do this today again? Yes. You do. And tomorrow and the day after that, too.

You cannot do the trauma work if you don't deal with Addiction first. You cannot heal the mother wound if you are cold-turkey, white-knuckling it through Addiction. Because cold-turkey white-knuckling is not sobriety. It's just a phase of Addiction. Sobriety is battle of attrition. You've got to be in it for the long haul.

Why be an alpha or omega anyway? The only omega is death, and you've been on that edge. You don't want to go back there. What about delta instead? The sign of change.