Expectations

[Sheppane]

I'll try keep this simple.

I can accept that family dysfunction I'd not my fault. It is something I have no control over.

I can accept I have no control over others ( FOO) views and beliefs about me as a person.

However I have great difficulty in accepting that their disappointment in me ( real or imagined ) , their feelings of abandonment by me ( real or imagined ) , their sense that I don't do enough / care enough for them-- is not my fault.

It is this last point that spirals me into self doubt / self blame/ maybe they are right etc.

How can I undo this knot ?

I realise that accepting I have no control about how others feel about me includes their feelings of abandonment/ disappointment in me, yet it doesn't seem to get me far enough to really believing that it's not my fault / I'm not the cause of those feelings.

I think if I could undo that belief it would be very freeing. 

[Liketheducks]

Feelings aren't facts.   They're swayed by all sorts of input real or imagined.     You CAN change you your feelings on the matter.      That fact that you're here and learning and growing in your understanding of your family situation, is badass.     This is difficult.   These are buttons that they installed.... that they're pushing.    You don't have to help them.

Be kind to yourself.   You aren't responsible for their feelings real or imagined about you.   That is their side of the street.     Your side is to survive, thrive, and recover from FOO dysfunction.

[Leonor]

Somewhere in that question is a very little Sheppane.

She is adorable.

And she is sad.

She thinks she must have done something bad.

And that is why her mommy and daddy ignore her.

It must be her fault.

And maybe if she tries really, really hard, she can fix it.

And mommy and daddy will see how much she loves them


Little Sheppane does not need an explanation.

She does not need a workaround or mental readjustment.

She needs big Sheppane to sit with her, and hold her, and rock her.

Let her sniffle if she needs to.

Or throw a pillow.

And know that no matter what, it is not her fault.

She is a precious little thing.

And she is loved.

[Srcyu]

I imagine they've always blamed you and held you responsible for all the negative aspects of their lives. It could be that you have the personality type that willingly takes on board other people's views to the detriment of your own.

There's a lovely post on the boards right now about how monsters riding on the bus we are driving try to upset us with their terrible behaviour. As the driver we need to accept those monsters and realise that they will get off at some point.
Then we can drive away and leave them behind.

Part of you possibly still wants their approval. They won't give it so you wonder if you are to blame.



milly

[SonofThunder]

My opinion is that PD's are masters at manipulation and creating double-binds (lose/lose).  Being in a PD FOO is similar to living in cult that has a compound. Cult leaders manipulate so that the followers are slowly brainwashed away from the reality of what living is like, outside the walls of the compound.  It breeds a double-bind loyalty for the victim cult follower.

The projection (flipping for deception) of the meaning of the compound walls, is that walls keep out; keep others from coming in; that its protection for the insiders. The reality though, is that the walls actually keep in, and shield those on the inside, from seeing out, making brainwashing so much easier. 

PD FOO train up caretakers inside the protected compound walls of a home to be brainwashed in the double-bind.  Caretake the PD or suffer their disappointment (real or imagined is part of the brainwashing).  Caretaking is exhausting for the non, and the PD feels powerful. Not caretaking the PD and the non is trained to suffer the disappointment, and receive the punishment reaction from the PD for not caretaking (lose/lose). 

Recognizing that my caretaking was the result of masterful emotional manipulation of my good traits, by both my FOO and my stbx, i realized I was in the double-bind PD cult.  When cult members finally escape the compound and find out they have been brainwashed, they are amazed at how talented these manipulators can be.

For cult members who escape the compound, it takes re-training the brain and time.  I want to suggest you retrain the brain, recognizing that your acceptance of their disappointment has been trained into your brain by the cult-of-PD FOO.  Mine certainly was. 

One way to see how much your trained caretaking means to your FOO, is to disconnect from them in whatever way you need to do it completely, and watch their reaction progress over time. I did.  The true motives of my FOO revealed themselves and I realized that when I stop being the host, the parasites find a new host.  Imo, its the same with any PD; once the non gets off the drama 🔺and IDD cycle, and becomes indifferent to the PD, the non doesn't matter (discard). Getting to discard is very difficult and takes determination.  I encourage you to get discarded, so that truth of PD motive becomes evident to you.  My bet is that you will easily see their motives were self-serving and that you don't matter to them as much as your caretaking behavior.  Remember, its all about them, not you, but the projection/deception is to brainwash you to think its about you. 

I believe the key to truly unraveling that knot you describe (not just coping with the knot), is in realizing that you were brainwash-trained to "self doubt / self blame/ maybe they are right etc."

I suggest you detach completely from adults who can truly care for themselves, and over time, in mindfulness, watch their true motives reveal themself.  Be prepared for discard by loving yourself. You are enough. 

SoT

[Jolie40]

Having expectations about people OR anything for that matter leads to disappointment.

We can not expect everyone or anyone for that matter to like us.
What matters is what we think about ourselves.

On any given day, it seems my teen doesn't like me.
That bothers me.
Husband says, "Don't be so sensitive. Grow thicker skin!"

I think we all need to grow thicker skin.

[Happypants]

Sheppane, are you comparing your contribution, level of contact and care to "normal" societal expectations?  The thing is, your parents, if they're anything like mine, may find it convenient to switch back to expecting "normal" attentiveness from you despite completely abnormal dynamics have played out for years and causing pain.  Yes, you may be disappointing them, and yes, they may genuinely feel like you don't try enough.  But try to remember how YOU got to this place.  My guess is that like many of us, you tried for years to be what they wanted and needed in order to still feel genuine belonging and it didn't work. 

Sheppane, it's not your fault. I tried for years to be what they wanted and needed, but to be honest, what they needed was for me to get that wrong (I'm the scapegoat, perhaps your situation is different).  Can I ask, how do you think things would play out if you decided to do all to meet their expectations?  What would it take to make them feel like you care?  What would you need to do to stop them feeling disappointed in you?

[Call Me Cordelia]

When you were dependent on your parents as a child, believing their disappointment etc. was your fault was actually adaptive for you. It kept you from the despair of being stuck in an unresolvable and terrible situation. It allowed you to get through it. Managing their feelings gave you a bit of hope and a much-needed distraction from the reality that they were just awful parents. But that’s no longer serving you.

And yes, Happypants, as the scapegoat I was in that catch-22. I was responsible for keeping them “happy” but they were also dead-set on blaming me for breathing too loud if they couldn’t come up with anything else.

[treesgrowslowly]

Sheppane,

The emotions we feel after we've survived and escaped emotional abuse are complex. But you can unravel them.

Guilt can show up as survivor's guilt. The thoughts that we have can be such as:

"I should have been able to fix this"

"I should have been able to make things easier between us"

"I bet there was something else I could have done to make them accept me / happy with me"

I believe it is very very normal for us to have a period where we think these sorts of thoughts, after distancing ourselves from someone we were bonded to (especially if they are our parents).

Our internal attachment system is not wired for the situation we were in / are in. We have this attachment system and it is like the internal system in a basic little car. It is made for a specific function. To drive through a city. It is not a tank, a tank is made to go through terrain and up hills. A little car can't do that.

Our internal attachment system is more like a car, not a tank. We were not built for pushing through all sorts of muck and driving over small bushes like a tank can do.

In other words, the brain and the mind was wired for attachment to people who 'match' our capabilities - if our family setting had been more like a city - with streets and intersections and people following the rules of the road, we would thrive because we are wired to thrive in said environment.

Instead, we had to try to drive our little car with it's little wheels, up and down rocky, bumpy hills and through muck and bush and rocky terrain, none of which our car (brain) was designed for. We are wired up so that when we express our need for emotional safety, the other person recognizes that, and can respond with behaviour that is emotionally safe.

None of us was built for a situation where we went to a parent with our need for emotional safety, and we got yelled at or blamed or criticized for said need.

Therefore, the result is that we now have confusing, guilt based emotions to unravel.

In my opinion, we do have to recognize what it was that we just went through. Our parents did not have the calm, organized, structured behaviours that we could say were a fit for what we needed. I'm comparing the experience of driving through a city vs. driving through a rocky mucky minefield because to me - that is a good way of comparing a 'good enough' FOO, with a PD FOO.

A city is very well organized and structured with streets and signs and maps and controlled intersections so that we know what to expect from fellow drivers. A PD family is nothing like that. There's no reliable safe structure, no planned route, no map, no helpful information on how to go from A to B....my PD family was like a minefield, not a calm little town one might drive through on a sunny day.

Therefore, when I think about my PD family in those terms, using those different settings - a calm town vs. a minefield, I can better understand why nothing I did could fix them.

MY 'good enough' boundaries, behaviours and communication over the years, did nothing to make those people happy. I wonder if you are pondering the same sorts of things.

Of course they are disappointed with me and upset with me. They have disordered thinking that has never changed.

It wasn't about doing the right thing or the perfect thing to relieve them of their disappointed mental state. The real relationship repair work would come from them. And that would require them to address their disordered thinking. You can't do that for them.

Thankfully, as an adult you're able to repair things for your own need to thrive.

Even if they never ever address their disordered thinking, you'll be able to thrive in your own life.

Maybe it was a 'gift' when I was told, in my teens, that my relatives were disappointed when I was born. Hearing this helped me to see that if I could disappoint them when all I had done that day was arrive on the planet, a newborn who had not 'done' anything to them yet, it eventually helped me to see that these are people who do not understand what their job was as my parents. As soon as they felt disappointed they had to blame someone - it couldn't possibly be a feeling they should go deal with and not project out.

Even if they had to stoop so low as to blame a newborn baby for how they felt inside, they did it. Cause yeah, they have disorders. I share this because it is a great example of how parents with disordered thinking, cause big problems for their children. If a parent is mad at their child for existing, there is nothing that child can do to fix the anger that is in that parent. That parent has to grow up. If the parent doesn't grow up, the child will someday outgrow the relationship. The child gets tired of not being appreciated. The parent does not appreciate their own child, and will instead, blame their adult child for not making them happy yet.

The adult child must learn to see that this parent was never happy, and has yet to appreciate the gift that is / was their child. There are a lot of people who are in their 60's, 70's and 80's, and they still don't appreciate the opportunities they had with their own children. Instead, they are full of anger and resentment. They think they are the victim in all their relationships.

You are not capable of fixing the abandonment issues that reside in your parents. That is for them to do with their own therapists. Those are their issues.

I think you are working through some really really important parts of recovery. Keep going and take good care of yourself at each step.

Trees

[moglow]

As my tagline says - expectations are disappointments under construction. An old friend shared that with me years ago, told me to go slow and think it all the way through. Any time we put our expectations of others out there [or even just in our own minds] we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. That's not their job - any more than it's OUR job to fulfill others. Grasping that concept firmly by the hand, however, is a whole other process.

I have great difficulty in accepting that their disappointment in me ( real or imagined ) , their feelings of abandonment by me ( real or imagined ) , their sense that I don't do enough / care enough for them-- is not my fault.

Going out on a limb here - maybe you feel that way because that's how you were trained to feel. I mean, many of us were taught certain things from a very young age, and all their "shoulds" were ours to provide. We should do this or that OR we shouldn't. And we must somehow know exactly what those ever-changing shoulds are, where they started and where they stopped. When we "failed" all hell broke loose, so we did everything we knew to prevent that. It's a doomed if you do, doomed if you don't existence that didn't stop just because we grew up and left home. [That's how it was with mine, anyway. As her child, I must simply maintain what she'd set up in her mind.]

Reading suggestion for you: The Four Agreements by Don Luis Miguel. I've read and reread, go back whenever I need reinforcement. It helped me instill that space between my stuff and others, what I was responsible for and what I'm most definitely not. The agreements are, concisely: 1: Be Impeccable With Your Word. 2: Don't Take Anything Personally. 3: Don't Make Assumptions. 4: Always Do Your Best. It was very hard for me to grasp because I took EVERYTHING personally and assumed the worst!

The Four Agreements reminds me that we all have stuff - others aren't responsible for mine and I'm not responsible for theirs. I'm all for empathy and compassion, but I'm talking basic responsibility to ourselves first. ALL of us have that basic responsibility, but the personality disordered in particular instead foist that off on others so there's always someone to blame.

[moglow]

Maybe it was a 'gift' when I was told, in my teens, that my relatives were disappointed when I was born. Hearing this helped me to see that if I could disappoint them when all I had done that day was arrive on the planet, a newborn who had not 'done' anything to them yet, it eventually helped me to see that these are people who do not understand what their job was as my parents. As soon as they felt disappointed they had to blame someone - it couldn't possibly be a feeling they should go deal with and not project out.

Even if they had to stoop so low as to blame a newborn baby for how they felt inside, they did it. Cause yeah, they have disorders. I share this because it is a great example of how parents with disordered thinking, cause big problems for their children. If a parent is mad at their child for existing, there is nothing that child can do to fix the anger that is in that parent. That parent has to grow up. If the parent doesn't grow up, the child will someday outgrow the relationship. The child gets tired of not being appreciated. The parent does not appreciate their own child, and will instead, blame their adult child for not making them happy yet.

The adult child must learn to see that this parent was never happy, and has yet to appreciate the gift that is / was their child. There are a lot of people who are in their 60's, 70's and 80's, and they still don't appreciate the opportunities they had with their own children. Instead, they are full of anger and resentment. They think they are the victim in all their relationships.

Gut punch, so true!!

[Psuedonym]

Hey Sheppane!

As the only child of an eternal victim type narcissist, boy I feel you on that one. Here's a great book if you haven't read it about toxic guilt: https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Toxic-Guilt-Proven-Yourself/dp/0071497358/ref=asc_df_0071497358/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312710253827&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5435724104089978309&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9059739&hvtargid=pla-557281225348&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=61681020945&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312710253827&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5435724104089978309&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9059739&hvtargid=pla-557281225348

One of the things that really blew my mind about this book and helped me change the way I thought about things is that toxic guilt is really an issue of control (ON OUR PART!  ) and its a psychological defense mechanism that is created in childhood. You are probably thinking 'why the hell would you choose to feel that way??'  and the answer is... that it's better than the alternative.

The author gives an example of a child feeling guilty about their parents divorce. It's not, like most people including myself believed, because the child mistakenly thinks that they did something wrong...its because they NEED to believe its within their control to fix everything. If they have the power to cause the situation, then they also have the power to fix it. The alternative to this is hopelessness, which is worse. As a child you have zero control over your situation, whether your parents got divorced or had raging personality disorders, etc. But to admit that and be unable to escape the situation is too much, so you end up assuming responsibility for things totally out of your control as a way to believe things aren't hopeless. Guilt is better than hopelessness, who knew?

This becomes such an ingrained part of your thinking that its hard to let go of as an adult, but is also kind of unnerving to face. Because part of that is letting go of a core belief you've been carrying around with you: that you have some sort of super power that allows you to fix other people's unhappiness if you only tried just a little bit harder or put a little more into it. Acknowledging that you never had that magical ability and that someone else's self inflicted misery is totally out of your control is a sad thing, but it is also freeing. Anyway, the book does a much better job of describing all this and if you haven't read it, I encourage you to do so!

[RainbowG]

The author gives an example of a child feeling guilty about their parents divorce. It's not, like most people including myself believed, because the child mistakenly thinks that they did something wrong...its because they NEED to believe its within their control to fix everything. If they have the power to cause the situation, then they also have the power to fix it. The alternative to this is hopelessness, which is worse.

I can appreciate this. We all want to feel like we're in control. Healthy control clearly isn't modeled by PDs, so we have to make it up as we go along.

I've told my elderly PD parents that I wouldn't get involved in their affairs, and all I would do was read their emails and write back. In spite of this, they're constantly asking me to do things and reminding me that they're on death's door to make me feel obligated to do them.

I struggled with feelings of guilt in the beginning. I know that in a normal situation, adult children look after their elderly parents. Although they never said it outright, it's been clear that their children are a disappointment to them. There's a reason why we all live on a different continent! We all know that whatever we do will never be enough.

If I'm honest, knowing this didn't help me. What did help was that each time they asked me to do something for them and I said NO, I also said to myself, All right, I'm a bad person. I accept it and I'll live with it.

What eventually happened was that I started noticing how I behaved with non-PDs and realized that I'm as kind, compassionate, and giving as anyone. I recognized that the guilt stemmed from illusions. The kindness I was showing healthy people was concrete evidence to me that I wasn't, in fact, a bad person.

I think PDs teach us that we can't treat everyone the same, as nice as that would be. Most people understand that healthy interactions involve a balanced give-and-take. When someone smacks you in the face and asks you for more and more no matter what you do for them, the most intelligent choice is to get out of their way and move on.

I know it's hard. But I believe that we need to treat ourselves as kindly as we want to treat everyone so that we keep that kindness energy going. I really believe that being kind to ourselves makes us kinder people. Where else can it come from?

[Cat of the Canals]

Sheppane, are you comparing your contribution, level of contact and care to "normal" societal expectations?  The thing is, your parents, if they're anything like mine, may find it convenient to switch back to expecting "normal" attentiveness from you despite completely abnormal dynamics have played out for years and causing pain.  Yes, you may be disappointing them, and yes, they may genuinely feel like you don't try enough.  But try to remember how YOU got to this place.  My guess is that like many of us, you tried for years to be what they wanted and needed in order to still feel genuine belonging and it didn't work. 

I understand your feelings, Sheppane. I've felt them myself. PDmom is always bemoaning to other people that we aren't closer. And I won't deny that there's a whole lot of my life that I refuse to share with her, and I felt guilty about that for decades. It was only after digging deeper that I realized that this is not my normal state of being. I share quite readily with those I trust. So maybe there's some reason I don't trust her? Turns out it wasn't one reason. It was about 1000 reasons. 1000 times I did try to share, and she belittled me or judged me or ignored me. So she can pretend that it's my fault we aren't closer, and that I'm cold and distant "for no reason," but the reality is that she is the one who created an environment where intimacy can not thrive.

My MIL does the same. She is abrasive, intrusive, and rude. She violates boundaries like it's an Olympic sport. Then she comes around and wants to play "Happy Family." Nope. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

PDs love to create drama and hostility and bad feelings and then flip a switch and say, "Now let's all get along!" Then they pout and act like we're being unreasonable when we say, "No, thank you." Don't fall into the trap of feeling guilty for protecting yourself from your abusers.

[Sheppane]

Thank you all so much - you guys are such a great support. I got a lot from all your replies and it feels really good to be heard on this. I will send a proper reply when I can - so many insights from reading all this.

S

[Sheppane]

Liketheducks - thank you for reminder of what's there side of the street. Such a simple expression but always hits home.

Leonor that really helped this week. It's true. She feels so sad. Adult S keeps trying to " work it all out ". Which does help but little S needs to be taken care of too. I find inner child work difficult but something about how you wrote that really helped me.



Windmill - yes ! That is me. A pattern I have healed a lot but with FOO " willingly taking on other people's views " that reminds me I have a CHOICE here. I think in FOG these patterns are so automated. But I forget part of me is also choosing to believe their beliefs about me and I don't have to. With trauma these responses are so fast I wish I could slow it down and put it through some filter. I find the trigger is so fast sometimes that that horse bolts before I can change its direction.

Part of you possibly still wants their approval. They won't give it so you wonder if you are to blame.


SoT it's so true about brainwashing. I always think the knot itself is my fault but knowing that's the result of manipulation is helpful. Creepy too. I mean when I look at others who do not have the experience of manipulators in their lives they don't seem to carry this burden of guilt and self doubt. I guess that reminds me it's not my fault. Somehow always feels like the gap though is between the " knowing " at a superficial level and actuslly truly 100% believing it to be true. 

I'll reply to other points later,  a lot to take in !