Groomed not raised

[Vega]

I've always wondered how many young girls experience this once they have hit puberty or even before they hit puberty.  All I can remember is every interaction with my parents being about what type of "woman" I was, since like 11 years old.  I put woman in quotes because obviously I wasn't, but also because of the constant implication that there were so many bad ways to be a woman.  And after all these years, I've yet to understand either of my parents idea of what a "good woman" is.  I don't think my brother experienced this, except one time when my father taught him how to fight a bully.  I guess that was "How to be a man".  But that was one time, many years ago.  The stuff with women lasts a lifetime, through every stage of life. 

Even besides that, it was like any parenting abruptly stopped once they realized that eventually I would grow up and possibly be a type of "woman" they didn't like.  Then everything became some kind of cat and mouse game of projection.  "Who's bad, I know I'm not bad, it must be you!" Mind games.

I'm pretty sure I was a scape goat to cover up: 1) My mother's undiagnosed mental illness 2) My father's drug addition and diagnosed mental illness, then later 3) My mother's boyfriend's alcoholism and 4) my step mother's alcoholism and diagnosed mental illness. 

When I look back I get a little angry because I tried to reach out, school councilors, other family members.  But I always felt that every adult I reached out to, would say the same things back to me.  It didn't have anything to do with them, it was me and who I was or was going to be.  But no guidance was given, and I already knew I was raising myself at that point.  I never felt I could go to anyone and feel protected from what I was dealing with, and it was abuse, I know that now.  Even if I didn't get hit or molested or anything like that.  I know my brother felt the same way, totally alone, but it's like we were alone together because we were treated so differently it alienated us from each other.  I dealt with it by trying to make friends outside the family, my brother was more of a loner but immediately left the family to be on his own (even before he finished his senior year).  My friends were constantly bad mouthed by my parents and by my brother too.

But for some reason, because I was the focus of all the negativity, it paralyzed me somehow.  My brother escaped and I stayed to continue my role as scape goat for many years.  I mistook it for love I guess.  I became so terrified of being abandoned since I felt abandoned as a child, I was put in foster care for a short time.  I stayed and I guess I thought I would reap some reward, but there was nothing.  Now, I just wish I knew better, I wish someone had helped me understand.  Now I am a "woman" and have been for some time, but I really don't know what that even means to me.  45 years old and still trying to figure it out. 

Crazy thing is, at my age, I feel even more pressure by society to be something for everyone else.  I'm getting to an age where I'm probably going to be expected to take care of people who never took care of me, and I just don't have it in me so I don't plan to.  But man, that is one huge societal judgement waiting to happen in my future. 

[Fiasco]

I can definitely relate to everything you wrote. At 44 I feel like I'm still trying to figure out who I'm going to be when I grow up. My kids tease me about it lol. Yet I look at my ten year old daughter and can so clearly see who she already is! Her mannerisms and her personality are so sweetly visible. I guess that's the (enormousl) difference a secure childhood can make.

[Liketheducks]

I'm not inclined to believe that I was intentionally groomed.....BUT, I'm certain that from a very young age I was the only responsible adult in the room.   When I hit puberty, the parenting went from nil to "oh we should do something".   I suddenly had more restrictions and curfews, when I was pretty much a sister, friend, overly dependable emotional crutch prior to.   
I feel very much like I never had a childhood in which mistakes were learning opportunities....or love was unconditional....or where love wasn't also tricky in some way.    I don't have any contact with either parent at this point, and my life is so much more peaceful.    I often wonder how much of that is me isolating or not dealing with proper boundaries with them...because the scripts in my mind are SO negative (the ones they installed).   
I like my peace.   I'm just learning what that feels like.

[GettingOOTF]

I reconnected with an old school friend. We were talking about growing up. I never talk about that time with people. I don't know how and the times I've tried people haven't believed me.

Talking with her it hit me that no adults who were around stepped in. We were children. We grew up in horrific environments and no one wanted to get involved or help. It still makes me angry. It makes me angry that we were considered "bad" kids and instead of helping other adults simply labeled us and wouldn't let us around their kids.

I'm around your age and only now starting to look back and see how messed up everyone was and how I really wasn't raised. It's less that I was groomed and more that I was ignored. I wasn't taught a lot of simple skills that most adults have. It's hard to explain but it's like those things are for other people. I just got on without them.

Our upbringing does lasting damage. It takes a lot of strength for us to look back and truly see it for what it was.  Pete Walker says something along the lines of that those of us who grow up in abusive childhoods and are able to do the work, as many of us here are, are ultimately able to live deeper and richer emotional lives as we do the emotional work people who grew up in "normal" homes don't feel the need to. I've always been skeptical of the view that we should be grateful for the suffering as it makes us stronger and better people, but I'm starting to see there is something to that view.

[Vega]

I sometimes feel isolated from people who did not have these experiences.  The lessons I learned are just so different.  I do really like who I am now, and I have not had much contact with either parent for years.  Unfortunately I have only spoken to my brother a handful of times for the last 25 years.  I guess by groomed I meant that I was set up to be their scape goat.  Told that I was the problem, over and over well into adulthood and well into the time when their issues became more apparent to me and to their doctors.  I'm finally seeing things differently. 

I think it is coming up again now because I feel like I'm supposed to be something for them, a future care taker.  Also, all the retirees who didn't step up while I was in foster care and have never been a part of my life kind of view me a potential stopping place while they are on their permanent vacations.   

[all4peace]

Vega, I'm so sorry for your experience. It must be difficult to truly explain what it was like. There's a thread around here somewhere about the 3 worst things your PD parent did to you, and one comment was profound--we tend to tell about the hitting or screaming or other kinds of abuse because *that* people understand. But what you describe is just so much harder to put a finger on.

I can only try to imagine what it would have been like for you, and you reference some time spent in foster care.

I'm a female, same age, and I also feel anger and a fighting spirit against the pressures that society has put on us.

I wonder if we simply have to live our truth, understanding that many won't see our truth. For me, that is having a very very superficial relationship with my parents in which I exchange a few sentences when I see them in public or at a family gathering. Thankfully, they're still young and healthy. As they age and deteriorate, I have no idea how I will handle that as the geographically closest daughter. It's a little scary to think about. Regardless, know that you're not alone and you have people here who can understand and believe you.

[JustKat]

This is an interesting discussion. I definitely don't feel like my parents raised me. I was probably groomed to be the scapegoat though I can't point to any specifics. All I knew was that I was expected to take their abuse and never question it.

Once I hit puberty I did start to question things, and like you, I went to my high school guidance counselors pleading for help. Big mistake! This was in the '70s and unless a child had physical injuries they were not believed. The counselor said I was making up stories, then called my mother to report it. 

Ironically, once I started to push back against the abuse I started hearing the word "raised" a lot. My mother was constantly yelling "I didn't raise you to be that way." She also told my teachers and guidance counselors that I had been raised to follow a certain course of study and raised go to med school and be and doctor (none of which had ever been discussed with me). Later, when I got married, she disapproved because she had "raised me to marry a doctor" and not the average middle-class guy I was marrying.

So I guess in their minds I was "raised," but it doesn't feel like that to me. It's probably accurate to say I was groomed though I feel more like I was tolerated, like a boxer's punching bag hanging in the middle of the living room, in the way of everything, but worth tolerating for the benefit of having something to beat up on.

[Call Me Cordelia]

I think a parent's role is to facilitate the child becoming more fully themselves. Not to push them in a particular direction academically, to marry a certain "type" of person, whatever. Some things are givens and societal expectations, like I will teach my children to read and observe conventional hygiene practices and pro-social behavior generally. (How many of us had parents who were obsessive about our formal education but taught us NOTHING about how to get along with people? And my NF resented my wish to shower daily as a teen because "hot water and shampoo cost money.")

To a narcissist we exist FOR THEM. It's all about how we make them look to others, not our well-being. They think it makes them look good if we go to Harvard and marry doctors, so that's what they raise us for. Never mind we might be happier as a plumber. That statement would not even compute. We don't exist as people. Merely extensions of themselves.  We can be groomed to be caretakers, trophies, the "problem child" who allows them to play victim/martyr, but not raised to be our own person and thrive.

I also went to guidance counselors for help... I struggled socially, my parents were always putting enormous pressure on me, I was always being made fun of. Occasionally throughout my teenage years I broke down in class and was sent to the counselor for a tissue, to be told it was hormones, and everybody has these emotions. You would have friends if you just stopped being weird. Now back to class.

[JustKat]

I also went to guidance counselors for help... I struggled socially, my parents were always putting enormous pressure on me, I was always being made fun of. Occasionally throughout my teenage years I broke down in class and was sent to the counselor for a tissue, to be told it was hormones, and everybody has these emotions. You would have friends if you just stopped being weird. Now back to class.

This may warrant its own discussion, but it seems like so many of us turned to our guidance counselors only to be dismissed or even betrayed. I was in high school in the 70s and I'm pretty sure the counselors back then had no psychiatric training at all. Mine were more like glorified teachers who were really just there for academic advice. I wonder if this is still the case or if counselors today are better trained to recognize and act on child abuse. I'm still haunted by memories of me crying and pleading with my counselor for help, only to be lectured about teenage emotions and told to get back to class. It added more trauma to an already dire situation.

[Call Me Cordelia]

This was around the turn of the millennium for me. Small private school. The guidance department existed to pad the scholarship numbers. But yes, it certainly served to deeper entrench my belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. My parents, peers, and teachers all said so. I think I might have been suicidal if not for a couple of key people in my life at that time:

[Groundhog Day]

I'm in my mid 50's and also missed not having guidance by parents. I can say I was fed, dressed, had a roof over my head but always seemed to be missing something. I do not remember being rocked, kissed, hugged, guided... I was left mostly raising myself. All four sibblings seemed to be on our own, some seeking affection from other family members but mostly by ourselves. I never discussed this as a child since I thought it was normal. I beleived all 4 children were ignored and left on their own.

I also reconnected with a school friend. I told her about my upbringing as a child and she had no idea. I guess she taught I was lucky as a teenager to do whatever I pleased, no curfew, no discipline, no one to care for me or my sibblings. My adult children told me it's all in the past mom. But deep down, the past still haunts me.

I worked hard to put money aside for a college education. No guidance counselors were interested in a kid that could chose a one year college degree because that was all she could afford since College was 6 hours away from home. No financial help, left again on my own, never a visit from my parents, no encouragement. Then, years later I heard my F bragging to others that he put 3 kids through college. It got me angry. I think this was my wake up call.  How dare you brag and take credit for your educated children. 

It is not easy to let the past go. To forgive but never forget. My past made the strong woman I am today, a caring mother and grand-mother, a supporting and loving wife and a successful carreer woman.

[Adrianna]

I think a parent's role is to facilitate the child becoming more fully themselves. Not to push them in a particular direction academically, to marry a certain "type" of person, whatever. Some things are givens and societal expectations, like I will teach my children to read and observe conventional hygiene practices and pro-social behavior generally. (How many of us had parents who were obsessive about our formal education but taught us NOTHING about how to get along with people? And my NF resented my wish to shower daily as a teen because "hot water and shampoo cost money.")

To a narcissist we exist FOR THEM. It's all about how we make them look to others, not our well-being. They think it makes them look good if we go to Harvard and marry doctors, so that's what they raise us for. Never mind we might be happier as a plumber. That statement would not even compute. We don't exist as people. Merely extensions of themselves.  We can be groomed to be caretakers, trophies, the "problem child" who allows them to play victim/martyr, but not raised to be our own person and thrive.

I also went to guidance counselors for help... I struggled socially, my parents were always putting enormous pressure on me, I was always being made fun of. Occasionally throughout my teenage years I broke down in class and was sent to the counselor for a tissue, to be told it was hormones, and everybody has these emotions. You would have friends if you just stopped being weird. Now back to class.

Agree with all this. I transferred from a fancy school to a smaller less prestigious one. Grandmother and father wanted me to stay at the prestigious college, although I was miserable there. They had zero interest as to why I wanted to leave and was unhappy.. no concern for me as a human being.  It was so hurtful and confusing to me at the time and for many years after. They didn't speak to me for three months when I transferred to a smaller less known school.

Nana also disapproved of my husband and at the time literally said I should marry a lawyer or doctor. Again, it makes them look good. It was never about us as people. They can't see people as separate from themselves. We are here to reflect on them and serve their needs. That's it.

In middle school I used to get terrible anxiety and stomachaches. Spent a lot of time in nurse's office. They were especially bad when this one teacher was on lunch duty. Nothing wrong with him. He just made me anxious.  Looking back what I would have done to have had someone ask me about life at home and how I was doing. I often had wished I could have been moved to foster care to have even a chance at a normal upbringing. I knew even as a child that it wasn't a healthy environment. I wasn't being raised. I was trying to raise myself.