A picture's worth a thousand words...

[RavenLady]

So a bunch of these self-help books I'm binging on are telling me to do inner child work and I have been gradually overcoming my resistance to this as it is obviously something worth giving a go. Per one of the exercises, I dug out a photo album uPDm gave me to find photos of myself as a young tyke to use for the exercise.

The most disturbing thing is this: as a gift to me some time ago, uPDm assembled these photos and then plastered them all with scrapbooking stickers about love and kisses and happiness and wonderful idyllic family togetherness...except that most of the family photos themselves show me looking dead inside. Seriously. Dead. Blank. Unsmiling. Already gone. Only the photos with my PD family, though...whereas the ones with friends I look more like a normal kid with the full range of expressions. It's really trippy to see.

When she gave the album to me, I skimmed through it quickly before thanking her for the obviously huge expenditure of time (& money...that commercial scrapbooking stuff isn't cheap) that she put into it, but couldn't really spend time with it without feeling a bit ill. I wasn't sure why until this most recent pass. I think it's the cognitive dissonance of her sunshiny narration of my early childhood vs. the reality depicted in the photos themselves. The reality of the emotional abandonment I lived every day of my childhood as the only kid of two PDs. (Pete Walker describes "the abandonment melange" as "that extremely painful and upsetting amalgam of fear, shame and depression that is at the emotional core of most [complex PTSD emotional] flashbacks."

So now I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. I feel like I should understand by now how she could not notice that I looked miserable, photo after photo. Did I just always look miserable back then and she thought that was the natural shape of my face? She had significant formal training in child psychology and worked with kids. Could she really not notice her own daughter was already emotionally checked out? I mean, it's right there, plain as day for anyone to see.

Any insight, anyone?

To top it all off, the photos of me as an adolescent were heavily narrated with her scornful scrapbooking comments about my brain being gone or going nuts or being off my rocker or whatever, the kind of comments that my family constantly used to refer to the emotional volatility of adolescence. I always just accepted these as true as that's the conventional wisdom about teenagers. But now I'm wondering if it wasn't also part of the emotional abuse, teaching me never to trust myself or take my own emotions seriously because they would always be dismissed, invalidated, or punished.

On a similar note, I'm wondering from you healthy parents out there if it is healthy and okay to punish teenagers for "talking back," and if so, under what circumstances. Because this was ubiquitous in my family, both immediate and extended. Any expression of emotion or opinion that wasn't in perfect alignment with the preferences of the PD parents was subject to sanction ranging from sarcastic, shaming correction to wrathful, shaming tirades. I became an excellent self-censor and learned how to fawn and appease as a result, or simply avoid/collapse/freeze. I realize teaching children to respect their elders and others, and to choose their words advisedly is probably a good and necessary thing, but I'm now wondering if my family was way over the line. There certainly wasn't room for actual self-expression.

I guess there's a lot here but if anyone has insights I'd appreciate your POV. Thanks.

[notrightinthehead]

Ravenlady, I believe we all have our own view of events. It seems that for your mom your childhood was a happy one. For you - not so much. How do your childhood friends see it? Do they confirm your interpretation? Sometimes it can be healing to have your own version confirmed.

[Amadahy]

I'm so sorry!  I found a photo I had not seen before of me and sis as kids just yesterday and it was heartbreaking -- I'm protectively hugging her, smile plastered on (the obedient child who would figure out how to fix Nmom) and there was poor sis, not even two years old with the weight of the world on her droopy little shoulders and the most desolate of expressions -- a combination of despair and hopelessness.  It pierced me to the core and I put away. 

My anger boils when Nmom gives the narrative of her excellent mothering skills. She has beginning dementia, so I don't respond -- not that it would help. I'm finding the anger is hurting me, though, so I'm seeking professional help for the first time in 20 years.

I, too, as a teen was not allowed to question her or have an opinion (very same scenario w dating!). As a mom I was almost giddy when sons would question or talk back (respectfully) because it meant they were not terrified as I had been. 

[Psuedonym]

Hey RavenLady,

This post really spoke to me. My uBPDm does not have a degree in psychology but she did have the insight of other people. She is the self-loathing variety of PD, which of course she dumped all over me. After my dad died a relative told her her memory of me as a child saying that I was 'too ugly to ever get married'. M called to tell me this and say she didn't remember me ever saying that. Not even the question, much less concern. When I was 11 a friends mom told her that I had a massive inferiority complex. How do I know that? Because m turned around and told me and said, 'isn't that ridiculous?' When I was in high school two friends mom's approached her to say they were worried about how depressed I was. (that was also told back to me as ridiculous). How could I have been depressed and self-loathing since I was a kid when I had 'the best mother in the world!'

About six months back she happened to say that she worried about me when I was a kid but she figured that I was like her sister and there wasn't anything she could do about it. The sister in question was an artistic person (as am I) who may have been bipolar, was in and out of mental hospitals, and killed herself either accidentally or on purpose in her 40s. The real mind twister there is that my M blames how she and her sister turned out 100% on her own NPDm, yet somehow I turned out the same but she was great. 

I think its almost 100% predictable that a PD mother will not allow her children to have opinions that differ from hers and that as kids become their own people the shit really hits the fan. Mine remembers me as being 'a real pain in the ass' when I was a teenager. In that vein, I have another book for you to add to your reading list that I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Running-Empty-Overcome-Childhood-Emotional/dp/161448242X/ref=asc_df_161448242X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312674999652&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18182165336921984387&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008473&hvtargid=pla-436607838861&psc=1
The book is about emotional neglect, which the author defines as not having all of your emotions, positive and negative, validated as a child. I will warn you that the book is not about PDs, and the author often says things like 'these parents really loved their kid but just didn't know any better', but I still found it really insightful. She ties emotional neglect to a number of experiences in adult, the most profound of which is a feeling of emptiness or otherness.

Anyway, sorry this response ended up being longer than the original post. To sum up, I think yes, a PD can have overwhelming evidence and choose to disregard that because it doesn't fit their narrative and their view of themselves is threatened.

[RavenLady]

notrightinthehead - Well, two of my small inner circle of childhood companions (one of whom lived with my family for a year) died by their own hands before their mid-20's and a third tells me he was always terrified of my uNPDf. A cousin tells me I was "an old soul" and she was jealous of how seamlessly I seemed to pass between the world of our parents and that of us kids; I remember it as being parentified into performing adult roles to appease my M and D's impossibly high performance standards. And my childhood diary had me scratching out and erasing (poorly) any reference to my parents' treatment of me. I now appreciate I was very shut down emotionally.

In thinking more about this, I'm realizing it fits a pattern of M controlling the narrative for my life (or trying to). She was very invested in having a virtuous image publicly and, while I've been thinking she is more uBPD than uNPD, a T recently encouraged me not to split hairs because there is so much overlap between the two, BPD can have a narcissistic core anyway, and M's behaviors as recalled from a distance are so very cluster B that it might not matter much for my purposes (breaking free of the abuse and healing).

Psuedonym -- Our lives keep paralleling each other. I'm sorry for both of us! LOL. My uPDm describes herself as the 3d generation of women who had abusive relationships with their mothers/daughters; that would make me the 4th. In a visit last year I asked her to list some positives of the women in our family (help me out here, Mom!) and after a great effort she came up with only one, and it was a story about her M kinda sorta being less of a hateful nasty than grandnana...and it was a story that clearly still made my M mad.

So yeah, paddling upstream, here.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I read the blurb and was like, sigh, yeah, that...another one for the list. 

[moglow]

most of the family photos themselves show me looking dead inside. Seriously. Dead. Blank. Unsmiling. Already gone. Only the photos with my PD family, though...whereas the ones with friends I look more like a normal kid with the full range of expressions. It's really trippy to see.
...

To top it all off, the photos of me as an adolescent were heavily narrated with her scornful scrapbooking comments about my brain being gone or going nuts or being off my rocker or whatever, the kind of comments that my family constantly used to refer to the emotional volatility of adolescence.

Wow. Just ...wow. The total lack of tact (for lack of a better word) she shows there is just astounding. A. That you wanted or needed her scrapbook with her thoughts smeared all over it, and B. The sheer level of oblivious in her comments and their affect on you. I mean honestly, you're well aware of her commentary throughout your life as it is. That she felt the need to reinforce it in such a manner. The mind boggles.

Mine has commented about our childhood pictures, that we don't look happy in them and that there just aren't many anyway. You're the parent, picture taking/keeping was kinda your job, but no.

When we left her house in our teens and moved in with Daddy, she pretty much stripped the house of any sign of us. Anything we didn't take with, went to the dump. No pictures were displayed and haven't been since - it's like we never existed, and in a way I guess we didn't. I have seen a variety of other people's children and grandchildren pictures, but not even a question of ours.
Had mother ever presented me with such a scrapbook, I'd probably dismantle the damned thing, keep whatever salvageable photos I wanted to keep and bonfire the rest. I don't *need* reminders of her opinion!

I'd Take that as her opinion and worth exactly that much - it doesn't change who you are or were, RavenLady. Sounds very much like she failed abysmally and good on you for having survived it!

[RavenLady]

Thank you, moglow. I really appreciate your perspective. And how horrible to be erased by your M, though as you point out, she probably never really could see you anyway. 

I was thinking about taking the pictures out and rehoming them in a less fraught album, but then thought that would be petty (the album was intended as a birthday gift from her to me). But maybe not. Maybe it is something I should do for myself. Part of reclaiming my life and my story.

Hell, I could even try scapbooking my OWN narrative...though not sure they sell those kinds of stickers at the cutsey scrapbooking store. 

[moglow]

I like the sounds of that, RL, reclaiming your life and your story. It may have been intended as a gift, but sounds like it wasn't necessarily a happy gift. It's yours to do with as you choose - as is your life. Her commentary isn't needed. 

[Starboard Song]

On a similar note, I'm wondering from you healthy parents out there if it is healthy and okay to punish teenagers for "talking back," and if so, under what circumstances.

For our part, we believe some talking back by our DS16 is natural and should be allowed. Differences of true opinions, such as aesthetics, politics, and faith, are certainly due a respectful deference.

If we ask him to bring his dirty dishes down from his room, ones that have been there for days, he may say "I was going to anyway. I got busy with homework." If we say that an article of clothing is inappropriate, and he needs to change, he may say "It's no different than anything my friends are wearing." If we say we think a particular comedian is a awfully vulgar, he may say "well I think he's really funny."

It seems to us to be not at all necessary for us to do any talking back of our own in such cases. The correct answer, for us, is "I understand. You've been very busy. Thanks for bringing the dishes down." It's "I understand, and it does look good on you, but you need to change to another shirt." And it's "I understand, many of the jokes are very clever."

It is too easy to define "talking back" as the last word the other party had. In the above examples, he was (1) trying to weasle out of acountability for keeping his room clean, (2) argue by appeal to popularity, and (3) forthrightly challenge us. The second two are pretty valid tools used by normal adults. And on the first one, I think it is decent to let a teen slide on small, face-saving gambits like that.

If, though, he persists in a disruptive argument or is disrespectful of us, that behavior requires calling out. I think one major challenge we adults don't like to admit to is that adolescence is a time for becoming an adult, so we have to switch -- gradually -- to treating our older teens with all the deference we give our adult colleagues. It is hard to let go of them as children, but our failure to do so is on us.

That's for me and my wife. But we only have the one. Maybe we were lucky and would have screwed up a second one.

My parenting opinions. Grain of salt. Some assembly required.

[RavenLady]

Thank you, Starboard Song. That was really helpful.

It's almost like you want to MODEL the same gentleness and respect you are TEACHing to your DS. What a concept! 

Your kid sounds really, really lucky. Thanks for sharing your light.

[Penny Lane]

On a similar note, I'm wondering from you healthy parents out there if it is healthy and okay to punish teenagers for "talking back," and if so, under what circumstances. Because this was ubiquitous in my family, both immediate and extended. Any expression of emotion or opinion that wasn't in perfect alignment with the preferences of the PD parents was subject to sanction ranging from sarcastic, shaming correction to wrathful, shaming tirades. I became an excellent self-censor and learned how to fawn and appease as a result, or simply avoid/collapse/freeze. I realize teaching children to respect their elders and others, and to choose their words advisedly is probably a good and necessary thing, but I'm now wondering if my family was way over the line. There certainly wasn't room for actual self-expression.

Hi RavenLady, this is a really good question and one I've been thinking a lot about lately.

For reference I have relatively healthy parents, but I am married to a guy with a uPD ex, and I've been trying to learn as much as possible to be a good stepparent and hopefully mitigate some of BM's issues with the kids.

My own parents I think were pretty well within the reasonable range for not allowing back talking. I'm sure I could be pretty difficult sometimes but my overwhelming feeling when I think back to that part of my teenagerhood is that I was trying to express some emotions and my parents were shutting it down. I'd get more frustrated and probably ruder, and they'd shut it down harder. Etc. It led to lots of fights and lots of hard feelings. I'm hoping to avoid some of that with my stepkids!

So now as my stepson approaches the teenage years () my mantra has been: your feelings are OK but we expect you to express them appropriately. Sometimes DH and I will actually say that to him. Other times it'll be more like, validate the feelings but redirect the behavior. Even sometimes it's as simple as "I see you're frustrated and I want to resolve this but I think you need to take a break before we can be productive." Basically we're trying to teach him how to calm himself down enough to address the underlying issue. A large part of calming himself down is naming those feelings and even expressing things like anger - but not necessarily throwing a tantrum about it.

We also try to be thoughtful about what's allowed and what isn't. We try very hard not to make rules for the sake of making rules or because "that's how it's done." So that means that we can articulate why it is that the kid is not allowed to do something. We also try to articulate an alternative for the kid to express themselves appropriately or otherwise address the issue at hand. That helps it become more of a learning experience and less of a punishment.

I think the most important thing is showing respect for his feelings even as we set guidelines for his actions. It's not a perfect system but so far he seems to be answering with similar respect for us. It's actually been really rewarding to watch both kids get better at healthy expression of their negative feelings!

[RavenLady]

Penny Lane: the way you describe your parents shutting you down and your resulting frustration is SO familiar to me. You articulated it very well.

And...your household sounds like a really marvelous place to be. Where kids get to be kids, and adults guide them gently as needed, and everybody's humanity is warmly embraced. What a beautiful picture.

[Andeza]

Growing up, I was a ridiculously easy kid and teenager. I made life absurdly easy for my parents and my dad has gone so far as to say that to my face. He even told me it was weird that I never went out drinking, never dated around, and wanted to know why. Interesting conversation really. However, that was never the impression I received from my uPDM. She was constantly labeling my every action or comment as "talking back" or "bad attitude" or "being disrespectful" or my personal favorite as she sat there with her latest bout of fakemedicalproblemX "making excuses."

Pictures of me as a small child seem to show a three to five year old that looks at everything with suspicion. Not much has changed I guess. Other pictures, I have that painfully fake smile plastered on my face that practically screams why are we doing this? This is a waste of time! My M usually blamed any bad pictures on me just having a cranky/fussy/moody day. Conveniently she'll leave out the part about the one hour+ lecture prior to the pictures being taken because I was being "uncooperative." Yup. I wasn't allowed to have an opinion unless it mirrored hers. Any time I thought nothing of something, an action lets say like forgetting to wipe down the sink in the bathroom when I cleaned it, was assigned intent. Explaining otherwise was just making an excuse even if I said something to the effect of oh I didn't even think about that.

Now, I don't have a teenage kid yet, for that matter I'm having trouble convincing this one to get out of the oven. He thinks it's comfy in there I guess... Anytime the doctor says... Ugh. But DH and I have discussed this at length. It is perfectly fine for our child to experience emotions, and even to disagree with us, so long as he does so in a calm manner. Screaming and door slamming is another matter entirely, of course, and will have to be handled if it ever arises. That's when we start talking about taking away computers and game consoles and whatnot.

Me? I was in my teens and still being threatened with the belt even though she knew better than to actually try it. Occasionally I was sent to my room, where I would promptly take a nap. That also annoyed her. Or I would snag a book on the way and entertain myself But the lectures... gah. I hated them. Even just the memory is a great source of latent frustration.

Is there something to this whole scrap-booking thing? I ask because my DH's very very classic HPD grandmother (she lives far away  ) is hugely into scrapbooking and gets very excited and even a little pushy (okay a lot!) about it. She tried to drag me in too, but I smiled and said no thanks it's not my kind of thing. Dodged a bullet my poor SIL never saw coming. Yikes! Poor SIL. Now SIL is a FM for GM *sigh*

[Penny Lane]

your household sounds like a really marvelous place to be. Where kids get to be kids, and adults guide them gently as needed, and everybody's humanity is warmly embraced. What a beautiful picture.

Thank you RavenLady! It was very nice to read these things about our parenting. You don't really know if it's working until it's too late to redo it! We try very hard although we don't always live up to the ideals of course. I really hope we do well enough that the kids feel this way about the house when they grow up and look back on their childhood.

[WomanInterrupted]

Hell, I could even try scapbooking my OWN narrative...though not sure they sell those kinds of stickers at the cutsey scrapbooking store. 

RavenLady - the stickers you mention can be found in a calendar  I got on Amazon.  It's called "A F*cking 2019 Calendar" and it's *quite* explicit. 

Each month is labeled with a motto:

January - (Maybe) Swearing will help.

February - Oh, for fuck's sake!

February sentiment:  fucking hearts everywhere.

Note for February 2:  The weatherman is a fucking rodent.

LOTS o' swears - which we have NO problem with!   

But the stickers - there are middle fingers, crossed fingers, and words:  fuck this, holy hell, go to hell, fuck off, fresh bullshit served daily, fix your shit, clean your shit up, suck it up, damn plans, pay your fucking bills, somebody's fucking birthday, etc.

You get a nice big sheet of those stickers, too - and the calendar itself is hilarious. 

It's been discounted to $13  and change, since it's now February, and if you don't like the calendar, you probably know somebody who will get kick out of it - but keep those stickers and put 'em to good use!   

[RavenLady]

Ooooo, WomanInterrupted! Me likey. 

[blacksheep7]

"except that most of the family photos themselves show me looking dead inside. Seriously. Dead. Blank. Unsmiling. Already gone. "   It's sad.

Oh, can I relate to that!  There is one picture in particular when I was 12 or 13  that I looked angry like Hell!   Only my younger gcb would always have a big smile, the mascot.  NF had family pictures taken in the 60's,  they are still proudly displayed.  NM made a collage of her kids and gkids, so important to show "a big happy family"   
It's all about appearances, nothing else.

As for answering back as a teen, I would get hit.   A child must express himself even if the parent does not like it but for a PD it's a personal attack.

[KeepONKeepingON]

RavenLady,

This is a very interesting topic.

In my parents' house there is a framed picture of my sister. She's little, maybe 3 or so and she is wearing a floral dress that my mother made. My sister is holding my mother's potted flowering plant up and you can't really see my sister's face in this photo. Yet, this photo is framed and in a prominent position. There are very few photos of any of my siblings and I in my parents' house. I find it really strange that my mother chose to put up this photo of my sister, as you can't really see her face clearly.

It's like my sister is simply a pot holder for my mother's lovely flowering plant (grown from a cutting by my mother) and a mannequin for the dress made by my mother. Capturing my sister's expression or feelings in that moment do not matter to my mother. 

I find this picture very creepy.

As a teenager, my mother used to enjoy telling me that I did not understand a situation or person and she used to then explain it to me. My feelings were regularly invalidated and I was told not to look or behave in a certain way. I feel that I was never allowed to feel a certain way about things or to express my feelings. She was either very dictatorial about my behavior, sobbed if something bad had happened to me as it was so upsetting for her or ignored me completely.

My kids are still very little, but my husband and I try to talk about their feelings and name the feeling with our children. We try to normalize a feeling by saying that everyone feels a certain way sometimes and that it can be great/ frustrating/ sad when x/y/z happens. Every feeling is allowed and is totally normal. We then hug or comfort or talk about taking deep breathes if a feeling is a bit overwhelming. We talk about strategies for dealing with emotions. If meltdowns happen we stay close so that our kids know that we are close and we can offer a hug if wanted.

This is called emotional coaching and was developed by Dr. John M Gottman - learning those strategies has helped me a lot too.

https://www.gottman.com/blog/an-introduction-to-emotion-coaching/

[RavenLady]

KeepONKeepingON -- The way you describe the creepy (!) picture of your sister is such an apt metaphor for what it's like growing up as the child of a narcissist. Our actual personalities are a terrible inconvenience to them and the more we behave as non-them, the more abhorrent/nonexistent we become to them. On the other hand, if they can dress us up like the fantasy they wish to project to the world (metaphorically or otherwise) then our shells-of-selves will be given a place of honor on the metaphorical mantle.

So we get to choose. Authenticity and their spite, or puppetry and their attention. I sort of assume now that I've chosen (or rather, am trying to choose every day) the former, I am split black and there is no going back. On my good days, I can enjoy the spaciousness of this more than I feel the pain of the loss. It helps that I'm not so good at flower-potting anyway.