Life as the only child of PD parents

[Boat Babe]

I'd be really interested in other people's experiences of being an only child in our disordered families.

My "onlyness" was compounded by uPDm being a single parent after leaving my very violent father.  Just me and her, from the ages of six till I left at eighteen. Twelve long, long years of parentification, emmeshment and desperate loneliness and confusion. I raised myself emotionally and socially and ran for the hills as soon as I could.

Looking back, I think it was the parentification that was the hardest. I learnt to put my feelings and my truth totally on the back burner to support my mother, who was an emotional  hot mess. One of the things that really did my head in was what I called "lying to her". So, for example, she spent one Christmas sobbing, all day, cos her married boyfriend hadn't sent her a card. I spent the day consoling her and came up with the idea that the card had been "lost in the post". I remember her looking at me as if I had just saved her life and she cheered up immediately. I was 11/12 at the time and clearly more mature than she was but I felt really bad about the "lying". I used to vow to myself to stop lying to my mother, then she'd have some sort of meltdown/crisis and turn to me for comfort (what did I know about adult relationships?).

Anyway, there's loads more but that's what sprang to mind when I started this thread. Over to you!

[SeaBreeze]

I won't say much since I'm not the only child, but I was the first 5 years of my life. I feel it laid the groundwork for the enmeshment with uNPDm that remained after my younger brother was born, and the parentification that followed after my father left when I was 9. So I can relate, somewhat, to being the focus of N mom's attentions. I at least had my brother to confirm I wasn't crazy and that something was definitely wrong with our mother. I am sorry you had to deal with the insanity on your own.

[Boat Babe]

Thank you Seabreeze. I'm sorry you had to carry your mother too. Big burdens on little shoulders.

[Free2Bme]

I was an only, M was 18 when she had me and always felt more like a big sister to me.  More importantly, I think she seriously viewed me as a sibling.  Weird, I know.

M never could muster the courage to leave violent/alcoholic SF, he made our lives very unstable and we walked on eggshells.  SF died in a car accident when I was 14 or 15.  Afterward, M did some things right to provide a stable home but remained emotionally unavailable/immature, didn't teach me much about life, and was sometimes neglectful of my basic needs.  She wasn't manipulative nor did she expect me to be responsible for her in the ways that you describe Boat Babe, but she was not good at caring for herself and so I took on a caretaker role in some ways.  I think it was easy to overlook me because I never really gave her a lot of trouble, and maybe it's easier to ignore an only child(?) 

In addition to a gross lack of parental guidance/direction, M would not step in to protect me or defend me from abusive people.  I fought my battles solo.   She never dealt with her own trauma from being a battered wife, and possibly never saw it as her job to protect me from harm. 

Although M had some dysfunctional stuff, she wasn't PD.  M now has early onset dementia for 10+ years which is effecting her personality/behavior.  She has estranged herself from me for 5 years when I divorced updxh .  He has exploited her, it is loss upon loss and really heartbreaking.  I think M is oblivious to updxh schemes and the mother wound she has inflicted.  I am at a loss as to how to reconcile matters.

[Andeza]

Where to start... It was screwed up from beginning to end, no doubt, but took me a long time to put a name to the behaviors. This may be a bit long, but may also be useful info.

Right, well. I'm an adopted only, so doubly screwed I guess? Because when you're the adopted only you get to hear about how lucky you were to be adopted by normal, loving parents instead of the the horror stories on the news of stuff like kids chained to their beds, etc. But, I wasn't particularly lucky as it turned out. The crap started early. How early exactly I don't know, but pictures of me as a small child reveal a forced smile or even looks of suspicion. I've always been suspicious and never went through a gullible phase. Guess I skipped the innocence of childhood essentially, and what the heck that says I'm not even sure. As I aged, I butted heads more and more frequently with my uBPDm. The lectures became longer and longer, especially as I got too big for corporal punishment. Timeouts were an excuse to take a nap and be away from her, and you can't ground a kid that doesn't go anywhere or have any friends. Not effectively anyway.

So... three to five hour lectures (I freaking timed her because I was bored as heck) about how bad I had been, how disrespectful, how sassy and "bad attitude" etc. The bad attitude was merely from disagreeing, but privately. I learned early not to voice any disagreement because it was all lumped immediately into "talking back." She frequently imagined the bad attitude, reading emotions on my face that I had carefully not allowed to show. She made up what she wanted. She thought whatever she wanted. I just got to suffer through. She was never happy until I was reduced to tears, but what she never figured out was that they were tears of rage. I hated her. I hated every moment that she opened her mouth and stupidity came out like so much vomit.

And despite this ill-treatment, I was expected to parent her, look after her, console her hurt feelings no matter how many decades old they were It was madness. In my early teens, I started getting more backbone. Somewhere right around 14 I became more emotionally mature, and more intellectually mature, than she was or has ever been. She couldn't cope. Her solution was to switch me over to video homeschool instead of parent led homeschool. So, thereafter, I was more or less in charge of getting myself through highschool in what I realize now was actually a very competitive program. Oh but the peace and quiet was amazing! She would start the morning with me, but then eventually putter off, land in front of the TV, and there she would remain for the majority of the day just sitting on her backside. It was not uncommon for me to stay in the other room long after all my classes and homework were done, especially because that's where the computer was. I could transition straight from school into gaming without her even knowing I'd made the switch. Win win.

But through all of it, I held on to a vague hope. College. She was absolutely shocked when I decided to go out of state. Horrified really. We had a college in town why wasn't it good enough? Because it wasn't freaking far enough away! College was a giant culture shock for me. I had to begin changing and do so quickly. The academics weren't particularly difficult, it was social stuff that I had no clue how to navigate. And stupid simple stuff like going to eat dinner alone was monumentally frightening because I'd never really been allowed to do anything alone. But college opened my eyes to some of the dysfunction a little more clearly. Distance gave me perspective, and some really weird crap came out of her mouth from time to time. Like, not being happy with my GPA despite consistently making the Dean's list. Or, protesting that I was seeing someone because she and my dad hadn't discussed how we, yeah WE, would handle dating. I laughed and told her "too late now!" Stunned her into silence on it any further. Married that guy. Still married to him.

After we got married, she and my dad got divorced. He had only stayed for me as it turned out. I can't help but wonder how things would have been different if they had split earlier and he fought for custody. I'll never know. He's a recovering enabler now but it's been a journey for him, too. He was roped into a long marriage with an uBPD woman who suckered him in and then did the old bait and switch after it was legal. Ouch. Then guilted him into staying because of the baby. Me. Double ouch. Despite my NC with M for over a year he still asks if I've heard from her, but it's becoming much, much less frequent as time goes by.

Some of the best standout moments from growing up (these would go nicely in the B@tSh!t crazy thread too), all paraphrased of course. I never direct quote unless it's so generic as to be unusable for identification:

Me: I don't believe in guilt trips.
Her: *shocked* Well, that's not a good thing. You should be able to feel guilt.
Me: It serves no purpose coming from others, so why should I?

Her: You need an attitude check, missy.
Me: *have said absolutely nothing and been completely blank featured for better than an hour*

Her: Nobody loves me!!!! *wailing*
Me: *Over the wailing* Guess I'm chopped liver then. Wonderful.

Her: *Moans that had my dad divorced her earlier in life she could have found someone else and had biological children.*
Me: Gee, thanks Mom, that makes me feel just great.
Her: You know what I mean!
Me: *thinking to myself only* Yeah, you meant exactly what you said. Thanks for confirming that I could NEVER fill the role that a biological child would have filled for you.

There's so much more. But I totally get the run for the hills mentality because I shared it. I also look back and simply despise the way she treated me. I was parentified, infantilized, and more, and well into adulthood as well. Blegh. It sucked.

Well, here's to us We survived and we're healing ourselves the best we can. That's all we can do really. Look after ourselves, heal the old wounds, and try to put some distance between us and the demands of the PD. We didn't cause it, we can't cure it, and we can't control it. That said, it has left me a cynical human being with an extremely dry sense of humor and a wit sharp enough and fast enough that I have to be careful not to let my tongue get ahead of my brain.

[Jade63]

Same here. Only child - dad left when I was 6 - moved out at 19.

Parentified, infantilized (when it suited her), her constant companion (unless a man came into the picture, then I was a burden), scapegoated (I birthed you to keep my marriage together and you failed me...no one wants to marry a Divorcee with a child), disrespected, punished, smeared to friends and family (so no one would believe me if I complained about her treatment).

I tried for 52 years to appease that selfish, immature, passive-aggressive, insatiable woman. It all came to a screeching halt when I received a letter from her after a week-long Thanksgiving visit to my home. The letter stated at the end "if you can't be a better daughter, then don't bother to contact me."  So I haven't. That was 6 years ago.

Meanwhile, about twice a year, she has tried assorted ways to contact me. I knew her 'ultimatum' was a bluff.  I have stayed silent through every attempt at reconnection. Of course, none of those attempts included an acknowledgement of wrongdoing on her part...or even a simple apology.

It has been a long, sad, lonely journey Out of the FOG. I wasted so much time on her.

~Jade63

[Boat Babe]

Sending much love to my fellow "onlies". Thanks for posting as I feel less alone with my experience. My heart goes out to you all.

Another thing I remember is the INTENSITY of the parent child relationship with no breaks in the drama cos it was just the two of us. School was my only escape, and that wasn't great because I was a screwed up little kid with no social skills whatsoever and a tendency to gravitate to the wrong people. The BEST part of my day was between getting home from school and my mum getting home from work two hours later. I loved the peace and quiet. Then it was back to managing her again.

[Fiasco]

Wow Andeza, I kept trying to pick parts of your post to quote and there wasn't a single thing to leave out! I'm also an adopted only, and I know there are more on here but I can't remember exactly which of us. The endless, hours long lectures. She would repeat and repeat until I would get a migraine and then be the "rescuing mommy" and have me lay down and put a cold cloth on my head. The endless bitching about having to be an adoptive mom. Her favorite line is that if they'd had all these fancy fertility treatments in the 70's she would never have had to adopt. And funny how a woman with zero emotional IQ could always tell exactly what nasty things I was thinking from my TONE. Ugh.

Boat Babe what you said about the intensity of the relationship between parent and only child was right on. I obviously adore all my children and had them so they could live their own lives and not to fix mine,  but I can tell you a major factor in having the second one was because I was terrified I would burn the first one with the white hot intensity of my focus on him. I knew it was sooo wrong.

To be clear to anyone and everyone, choosing to have or only being able to have one child is perfectly fine and wonderful and I'm sure provides benefits to parents and child that are unique to that family. I know lots of perfectly functional and happy one child households. Being an only child of a PD was crappy for ME, and only having one wasn't what was best for MINE. I very much do not want anyone to think I'm judging.

[alphaomega]

I wasnt an only child until I was 15.  My 7 years older sister accidentally OD'd after a particularily horrifying fight with my mother.

So, in an instant I became an "only". 

And thats when my own personal hell on earth began...

Before my sister died, I was an afterthought.  All of NPDM focus placed squarely on the brilliant, beautiful, thin, talented, anxiety riddled eldest daughter who was sure to elevate her social status when she became a pharmacist.   

That kinda backfired on her, when she drove her to drink and take the pills she stole from her job at at Walgreens.

Sister accidentally overshot the mark on Darvon (which, even at the time had a notoriously shakey threshold between being "pain-therapeutic and overdose).
Shortly thereafter it was discontinued, because people kept OD'ing....but I digress...

In an instant, I was elevated to ALL THE THINGS.  Golden, scapegoat, caretaker, and I remember vowing to myself that I would live my life in such a way that I could be enough for both of my parents.  I'd do it.  I'd love them enough for both of us.

Welp, that didnt manifest...

Somehow, thanks to the kindness of strangers, I eeeked out of high school with the bare minimum of credits to graduate.  Got a whopping 21 on my ACT (I think you get 18 just signing your name)  

My parents were effectively dead, emotionally, spiritually, and both fell deep, deep into the bottle. 
So did I.
Its how we survived. its just "what we did".

Alcohol was the salve and the panacea that allowed us to NOT HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT.  Nevermind, the constant state of nauseating angst I would feel every fucking time I would have to walk past the room where I found her dead that morning.  I begged my parents to please move out of that house of horror, but they werent having it.  So until I went to college, I kept myself, good and numbed out. 

I can't begin to even think of the amount of times I went to high school hungover...

I fled as fast as my legs would take me to a college I begged to get into.  I wasnt dumb, I was a raging alcoholic whose brain was stunted from ever really getting to develop.
That coupled with the trauma that bordered inexplicable, along with parents who were functioning but barely, I continued on the path I had inherited.  Addiction.

Drunk, all the time.  Like, no, really, ALL THE TIME.

I graduated college, again thanks to the kindness of strangers, and by that point, my "anxiety" (read, "constant hangovers" had become my norm).
Anxiety wasnt really a thing in the 80's like it is now.  So my sister and I, who were encouraged to drink openly and constantly at home, were just living our lives in a perpetual state of "the morning after" . 

Anywho, I got a job in retail (really wasnt qualified for much more) and began the grind.  Twelve hours a day under the guise of ASSISTANT M A N A G E R !!!   
Give a angsty lost soul a special title, and you could effectively work her to the bone.
That lasted like a minute.  Before that pesky old "anxiety" would rear its ugly morning head.  I quit and went on a ahem..."sabbatical".

Twenty three years old, I moved out of the House of Horrors, and into my parent funded apartment, and yep, you guessed it.  I went fucking crazy.

Going to bars every night, picking up randos to try to get some sembelance of attention and perceived "adoration", drinking myself into a firey oblivion, driving not only drunk, but bombed off my mind, its  nothing short of a divinely guided miraclw I didnt kill anyone. 

Thank you God, for small favors...

After about 8 months of that, my father who bought a business after my sister died, decided I needed to do "something" so he encouraged me to start to work full time at the company him and NPDM owned.

Ohhhhh Jebus.   That was an initiation into Dantes inferno...  Those were some horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE days. 

And, if you can even imagine, it was about to get much, much worse.

Walking into a family owned business, as the nepotistic only child of a mother who ran the show and made damn sure everyone knew it, made for me becoming the corporate ENEMY.  Everyone there of course HATED ME.  They saw me a a threat and someone who would be stealing their jobs.  Any they all especially hated her.  And I got the brunt of that hate.  I was so very lonely.  I had no one.  Nothing and no one.  Those we some dark, dark days.

I was like - I'm just here to protect my dad from this beast of a woman he married.

That was the only, ONLY reason I was there.

Intuitively, I knew that +I+ was +HIS+ protector.  Not the other way around.

Every minute there felt like a lifetime.  Panicky mess, I would wait for the clock to strike 5 so I could sweat my way home to my bottle, where peace was found...

Until 7 am.  When the whole damn nightmare started again.

I WAS able to protect him. for 5 years.  Almost died several times during it.  Should have been hospitalized and sent to detox and rehab, but like the good little codependent I was, I persevered.

Then one day, when I was home with my toddler, the phone call came, dad had died of a massive heart attack while at a conference with The Beast. 
He was a VERY very well respected member of this industry, and this industry is a good ole boys club, so they were drinking and having fun before the next mornings meetings started. 

Well, the decades of handles of gin, and an incorrigible wife who knew no limits, had finally caught up with him. 
And just like that, it was just me, and her.

I thought no grief could ever be worse than the pain of losing my beloved sissy. 
I now know that was just bootcamp...

More to come on this later, but for today, thats enough.

Im sober a week today.  And I'm really proud of that.

[Boat Babe]

Your story is just jaw dropping alphaomega, as is your searing honesty. Thank you for sharing.

I wish you great success with your sobriety. Addiction is pure hell as you already know. There are many, many resources out there to help you, including your Out of the FOG family, who totally understand your trauma and who hold you in our hearts.

[Fiasco]

Thank you AlphaOmega for your story. Keep on keeping on!

[alphaomega]

XO AO

[Seven]

I'm not the only (obviously) but DH is the only to two PD parents. Only thing he really remembers about his childhood was that he was at the grandparents up until the age of 10.  FIL working.  He had no clue what MIL was doing. He left home at 16 while he was still in high school. Dad worked 3rd shift, so DH never saw him.  Said he was shocked that he showed up to high school graduation.  Was spousified by MIL because FIL was never home.

As a 50-something he absolutely has had to parent his parents.  And yet they still don't listen, are blameless for everything that goes wrong in their life, etc. They attempted to break up our marriage a few years ago and DH finally shined his spine.  They Threatened disinheritance.  You know the script. There was a decent period of NC.  Then of course stuff got rugswept, nothing was ever resolved.

Things had been going decently well in the last year but then things went to pot the last 2 days over an HVAC episode (long story). DH showed his spine again and boy MIL did not like that at all.  This all went down while I was out grocery shopping.

He told me what happened. A few hours later I could tell he was about to cry.  He out of the blue said "I'm having a hard time with this.  They're giving me anxiety". I was very proud of DH yesterday for admitting they cause him stress and told him so.  It's not something most men will admit to, at least not the men I know. He bends over backwards for these people with absolutely no appreciation whatsoever.  They are some of the most entitled people I have ever met.

How he ended up the total opposite of the ILs is miraculous.

[Boat Babe]

Yeah, that we don't all turn out like our parents is a wonder! I am so grateful for that (fleas, flaws and all!)