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No Contact Really Works

Wow.  It’s been about 4 months since my birthday in April, when I finally finished the act of going NC with my FOO.

A lot of positive things have happened in just these 4 months.  In June, there was the discovery of what a moral injury is.  In July, what traumatic bonding is.  Huge leaps in understanding what happened to me, and huge validation for what I’ve done and continue to do to heal.

I would not have believed it if you told me it would happen, but I haven’t cried one damned time about any of this since April.  Not just that I haven’t cried — I haven’t WANTED to cry.

Last week we went to a show that reminded me forcefully of two of my brothers.  I remembered the old connections, but I also had a new connection — a friend I made at the previous show — and I wasn’t upset or sad or nostalgic at all.  OK, maybe slightly nostalgic.  (And annoyed as shit that the tour t-shirt actually has my home town listed.  I’ve blacked it out with a Sharpie though.)

In fact, I’ve made several new connections lately.  Last weekend, we were doing the “stair hike” downtown and we met a lovely woman — roughly my sister’s age, and probably also income bracket — after we stopped to admire her landscaping.  We talked with her for almost an hour, exchanged emails, and she thinks I’m “adorable”.

Then on the way back to the car, we stopped for a couple of beers and met another pair of people and we talked with THEM for another hour.

This woman was younger, mixed-race maybe, and she used exactly the same word about me.  “Adorable”.  What an afternoon.  Maybe it’s not me that’s the problem, huh?  Maybe it’s other people and their baggage and their histories.

Maybe things are going to be pretty damned good from here on out.

I still think about the FOO, and what they’ve done — but not as often, and with much less anger, much more philosophically.  Oh well.  That happened.  I’ve got other, better things to do.

Like the fact that I seem to be writing a book now!

And the huge half-the-house remodeling project is going to get started — after well over a year of architects, drawings, planning — the first contractor is scheduled.  This time next year I will have my new studio, built for me by my Dad.  Or at least, by his money.  A fitting legacy.

Because I’m just about ready to let go of his car, too.  It has served me well for 16 years but it’s getting to be time for something new.  Also very fitting.

Another new connection from just this past weekend — a man who is an executive coach — remarked on my knitting as a metaphor.  We talked about the idea that a life is made up of individual days, moments, events and decisions, like a sweater is made up of individual stitches.  And I half-joked, “And sometimes you just have to rip it all out and start over.”

And then I realized that the metaphor goes even further:

You CAN rip it all out and start over.  It’s painful to do it, and you have to go back to before the part where the mistake is, even if the mistake was in the very beginning and is fundamental to the piece.  But you CAN do it.

And, when you do that, it doesn’t ruin the yarn.  You can still re-use the yarn, and re-knit it into something better.

That’s interesting because it is exactly what I’m doing with two of the first test sweaters for this book.  I had two old sweaters that I wasn’t happy with any more.  I tore them out, and am re-knitting with the yarn, using my new method.  And they are working out great.

One of the old sweaters was one I didn’t get rid of because it had a connection to my Dad.  I had been knitting that sweater on a visit home, and he talked about how much he liked to sit and watch me knit.  It reminded him of his own mother and her crocheting.  The sweater itself was oversized and dated, but I can re-use the yarn, and keep that connection, while at the same time making the old, dated piece into something new and useful.  Something that fits, in fact.

In writing the “Acknowledgements” section of the book, I ended up working my way backwards chronologically, starting from all the students I have had who told me, “You should write a book!”

And I realized that the first three acknowledgements, in order, have to be:  my sister, my mother, and my mother-in-law.

Kind of a pisser.

But also the truth.  So it’s standing.

And it’s OK.  I’ve ripped out the old mistakes, and I’m turning the old yarn into new shapes — knitting new and beautiful things that fit me.

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“Don’t Bug People”

“Don’t Bug People”

This came into my head today after a kind of weird day with a new-ish friend, in which I ended up feeling all wrong-footed and even though we apologized and talked it out, I still feel uncomfortable.

We text each other more-or-less daily, although if there is a pattern to who “starts” I don’t know what it is.  So today I was kind of on the bubble as to whether I should text her.

This came into my head:  “Don’t bug people.”  The underlying idea was that if I texted her, or maybe texted her the wrong thing, she might get annoyed.

I tossed this around for a while and then settled on texting her about something “safe”:  her mom had some medical testing done the day before, so I sent the message that I hoped everything was OK.  That seems to have been acceptable, because I got a text back saying thanks for the concern.

I’m not convinced everything is OK yet, but in my gut I’m not intending to push my luck and text her anything else, probably until I hear more from her.

I am pretty sure this self-effacing concept of self is rooted in a mother who was basically uninterested in being a mom, at least by the time she got to me.

Mom didn’t have time for me.  I was not important to her.

There is a theory that Mom had me in order to “fix” the marriage, which is offered as kind of an excuse or explanation — although as an explanation for what, exactly, was not made clear — but, I suspect it is for the obvious-but-not-to-be-acknowledged disinterest in me from Mom.

It’s also a tacit admission that a sixth baby was not really something anyone wanted just as a person, as another welcomed member of the family — but rather that baby #6 was viewed from the very beginning as a thing, not as a person — her conception was intended as a tool to be used as a means to an end, and her very existence depended on what that existence could potentially do for someone else.

In reality of course it is a fucking stupid idea, not to say manipulative — having more kids so the man will be forced to stay and provide.  What a great plan.

I was supposed to buy her time, not take it up.  And of course if I didn’t “do my job” — if in fact the idea backfired, and saving me from her became Dad’s reason for The Divorce — well, of course someone who comes up with that as a plan will have no problem holding that failure against me when the stupid idea doesn’t work.

When I got glasses in kindergarten, she would wash them every morning and dry the lenses, but then hand them to me with the earpieces still wet.  I hated that.  It is probably part of the reason I still hate wearing glasses.  I remember I asked her to dry them off too, and she wouldn’t bother.  I had to put up with wet earpieces until I became old enough to dry them off myself.

That’s not normal maternal love.  That’s a person who doesn’t want to take care of you and make you happy.  Who can’t even take an extra five seconds to at least not make you unhappy.

Actually, at 5 I was probably physically capable of drying them myself.  What I eventually learned was more subtle and more important:  I figured out that I could dry them off for myself.  I didn’t have to put up with what she handed me — I could do something about it.  I didn’t internalize completely the message she was sending, that I was entirely not worth caring about.  I could care about myself.

Lesson learned.  Take care of yourself, that’s the only person you can depend on.  But you also don’t have to put up with someone else’s shitty, uncaring treatment.  It’s a poor substitute for a mother’s love, but it’s something.

I have zero memories of us doing anything fun together in my childhood.  There were very few hugs, hardly any physical affection from mother to daughter.  In fact, she used to get me to brush her hair, because she enjoyed it — but I can’t remember a single time when she brushed mine for my pleasure.

So.  Put that together with another thing my mother used to tell me regularly, which is this:

“You have a lot of advantages:  you’re smart, you’re thin, you’re pretty, your family is well-off, and because of that, people aren’t going to like you and you’re going to have to be twice as nice to them to make up for it.”

Well.  Apparently just existing as I am is enough to bug some people by making them jealous (obviously my mom is one of them).

So I guess I just shouldn’t be me?  Shouldn’t be as good as I can be?

This is not an uncommon outcome for those who are victims of narcissism.

Another underlying message here is that having people like you is IMPORTANT.  Everyone.  As many as possible.  Quantity counts, not quality.

And it becomes your job to placate them, to take on the responsibility for their feelings about you.  Um.  Scapegoating, in a word.  If you “make” someone else feel bad about themselves — jealous or guilty or ashamed or angry — they dump that onto you, and then of course they have to keep you at a distance.  Awesome.

“Don’t bug people” becomes “Don’t bug ME”.  “Don’t bug US”, specifically.  Don’t be so needy.  Don’t be needy AT ALL.

Don’t ask for anything, because that would be bugging us because we won’t want to do it because we don’t care about you, we don’t love you.

But we will feel guilty and shameful about that, because family is supposed to be a certain way and we aren’t, so just don’t ask — don’t you dare make us feel guilty, it will be your fault for asking and making us either say yes and be angry, or say no and feel guilty or ashamed, so just don’t even ask.  We will blame you for our bad feelings if you ask.

Sometimes you don’t even have to ask for anything.  It happened with the very fact of my existence.  My mother was so embarrassed at how old she was when she had me, that for years she would not put her birth date on my school registration card.  For years I did not know how old she was, in case I told someone.  Every year they would ask me about it, and every year I would have to tell them I didn’t know.

This is how scapegoating works.

She was embarrassed about the results of HER OWN ACTIONS.  I certainly had fuck all to do with how or why she ended up having a child at 48, or how she felt about it.  That was a result of her own choices, her own actions, for good or ill.

And the feelings of shame originated with her — they didn’t come from me.  But she associated them with me.  And instead of dealing with those feelings of shame by herself, working through them on her own, considering her own actions and her own responsibility and, just possibly, learning from it — she simply decided that *I* was the cause of those bad feelings.

After all, if I didn’t exist, she wouldn’t have those bad feelings, right?  Must be my fault.

You certainly don’t have to follow the train of thought any further than that — it’s a comfortable place to stop.  Much more comfortable than continuing on to the part where my existence — and therefore those bad feelings — is still her responsibility.

After reaching that easy first conclusion, all you have to do is keep the scapegoat away, or somehow contained, distant, separated — pretend they don’t exist — so you don’t have to deal with those bad feelings.  Problem solved.  Relationship fucked, but hey.  As long as the narcissist is OK, that’s a win.

I suspect something much like this is what my MIL and my sister did to me, too.

My MIL had an alcoholic mother, and I don’t know much more than that.  So while I can understand why she had her own bullshit to deal with, I am angry with her for not having dealt with it herself.

Then again, she was of a generation that just buttoned that shit up and put it away.  And she was young when it happened.  But she still prevented or affected 3 relationships by her refusal to face up to her own shit.

And my sister, too, was only 17, so I don’t hold the initial choice against her.  After all, she had a bad example right in front of her, teaching her to blame the baby, to put those bad feelings there.  She made the best decisions she could make at that age, with all that was going on, and the example that she had to follow.

As with my MIL, I do hold it against her that she refuses to revisit those decisions as an adult, refuses to talk or listen to me, or let anyone else talk or listen to me.  Way to be a grown-up, Sis.  Way to ruin a bunch of relationships.  But I guess if you’re OK, that’s all that matters.  Stay selfish and true to Mom, because that’s the important shit.  And it’s easy.

Mom went away when I was just a baby, twice, once around 8 months and then again around 12 months.  She came back physically, but whether she never cared about me, or whether what happened in hospital changed her, she never really came back.

Then my other caretakers, my older siblings, went away to college — but I didn’t understand that.  The first was the one I depended on most, my sister, who went away when I was about 18 months old.  Then my two older brothers.

Dad went away when he died, when I was barely 30.  My best caretaker was gone forever.

I was immediately attacked for asking for something, from people who were supposed to be my family and my support, at the worst moment of my life.  And when I needed protection from that attack, everyone I had known my whole life abandoned me.

Eventually the whole bullshit edifice that is “our family history” began to unravel, because someone had finally gone too far.

Treat me like a second-class citizen up to that point, I guess that was fine.  At least, it was expected and accepted.  Because I was young, I guess, I accepted it.

But Susan tried to fuck with me and Dad, and put herself ahead of me when it came to my dad — and that was going too fucking far.

In a way, that was the last gift that Dad had to give me:  the ability to stand up for myself on this one thing at least, and start down the long, sorry road of recovering from a lifetime of being the one at fault.

I started asking questions and pulling on the loose ends.  And the more truth I found, the more sense my alternate viewpoint made.  And that is very threatening to certain people — the sister who is so angry she won’t even read what I write, and won’t let anyone else talk to me any more.  Or the brother who does read it, and then insists that what I write isn’t true.

Because when the scapegoat starts asking why everything is her fault, why she doesn’t get fair and equal treatment in her own “family” — that’s a problem.  It’s a HUGE problem for the people who hate the idea of having to treat her decently — especially when that comes at the expense of dealing with Susan, who will throw a holy fucking fit about being held accountable for her actions.

And of course, they rationalize that it’s the SCAPEGOAT who is “the problem”. Not them and the mountain of bullshit they hide behind.

Over and over I read that “no contact” is the only thing for me to do, to save myself and heal.  It’s what Dad did, too, for himself and for me, to the best of his ability.

I am sure they say, and believe, that I have rejected them.  That is how they would be forced to frame it, to make it fit into their fucked-up infrastructure.  To say otherwise is like pushing over the first domino.  To say that I might be right about anything is to admit that they might be wrong about something — and that opens the door to that whole mountain of bullshit falling on you like a ton of bricks.

Instead of accepting the testimony of experts, professionals, and myself — instead of being glad that I am doing what’s best for me — instead of offering loving acceptance if I should ever choose to return.  Which of course, would be the loving, decent thing to do for me.  And of which they are not capable, when it comes to me.

Fortunately, it is working.  It doesn’t hurt much any more.  Time and distance really do work.

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Traumatic Bonding

One question my husband has that I could never really answer is,

So why do these people matter so much to you?  You have nothing in common, you rarely see them, you never talk to them — why do they matter?

The answer, I think, is traumatic bonding.

For me, a milder form than what you’ll find if you google the term.  It usually refers to the reason why abused or battered women stay with their abuser.  But its definition is “Trauma bonding is loyalty to a person [for me, persons] who is destructive.”

I think it probably has its roots in the fact that my primary caregiver, my mother, completely disappeared twice during the first year of my life, for a month each time.

Each time I was abandoned by the one person that I was supposedly bonding to, the person who was supposed to care for me and keep me safe (although I have no idea, and no way to find out, how much of that she was actually doing — given that she was hospitalized for some unknown combination of mental illness, severe depression, and probably a psychotic break to start it all off).

Each time, that care was then provided by other people in my family:  namely, my father and three oldest siblings.

So on some level, I learned very early and very deep down that siblings (and my father) were very important.  They were who you had to rely on to take care of you when you were abandoned.

On some level also, I believe I learned in my early years that you had better not ask them, or my mother, for too much:  you better not bug them or they might get mad and stop taking care of you.

But, they were my family, and they were important to my survival.  And because they more-or-less took care of me, I thought they loved me and would always do so.

When my father died — the ultimate abandonment — and my siblings acted otherwise, that very deep belief was hugely betrayed, and became a moral injury.

Some other features of a traumatic bond:

You seem unable to detach from someone even though you can’t trust them or really don’t even like them.

There is a constant pattern of nonperformance, yet you continue to believe promises to the contrary…  Victims stay because they are holding on to that elusive “promise”…or hope for fulfillment of some deeply personal need within the victim…

You keep trying to do more and more to please [them], but nothing you do is ever good enough or acknowledged.

I believed in my younger days that if I wrote more letters, made regular phone calls, tried harder, got older — one day I’d finally do or be whatever it was I had to do to be “in the club”.

The promise here wasn’t a spoken one, but I saw the bonds that my older siblings had, and I was a sibling too, right?  So I’m supposed to be part of the family, right?  That’s automatic when you are born, right?

I still remember one trip my oldest brother made out here, when he and his wife brought her elderly parents out to see an uncle, I think it was, for what was obviously going to be a final visit.  The plane was horribly delayed, they didn’t get into town until very late, everyone was tired and hungry.  I think they were supposed to drive to the uncle’s house that night, but it was far too late for that.  So they came to our house.  My husband and I fed them a spaghetti dinner, put them all up for the night, and took care of them.  It wasn’t that much to do, but they were, naturally, very grateful.  I was so pleased to be able to do something for them, and be appreciated in return.  And it was perhaps the only time I can remember feeling like an adult, an equal, around one of my siblings.

The environment necessary to create a trauma bond involves intensity, complexity, inconsistency, and a promise.  Usually trauma bonds occur in relationships involving inconsistent reinforcement… Dysfunctional marriages also cause trauma bonds because there is always a time when things seem to be “normal.”

There were always times when we seemed to be a fairly normal, even happy, family.  There were good times.  There was fun and laughter.  My sister remembered birthdays and sent presents and so on.  There was enough of a “keeping up appearances” to fool me.  Then again, there was the lack of warmth, my inability to make her laugh, the casual remark by one of her daughters that made it clear she did not like me.

So often, those in a traumatic relationship are “looking right at it, but can’t see it.”  Only after time away from the unhealthy attachment can a person begin to see the destruction it caused.  In essence, people need to “detox” from trauma bonds by breaking them and staying away from the relationship.

An interesting list:  again, written about women in abusive spousal relationships but I can see some connections.

1. You think being treated badly is normal.

2. You have repetitive fights about the same thing, over and over, and no one ever wins, there’s never any insight.

5. You’re in love with the fantasy, not the reality.

6. “Auuuughhh!!!” You often feel like Charlie Brown, who repeatedly kicks the football that Lucy holds, only to have her pull it out at the last minute. The idea that THIS TIME he won’t pull the football continues to have power despite his always pulling the football and you always landing on your back.

I kept going to the reunions for a few years, thinking that things would get better.  They did not.

7. Conversion. You keep trying to “convert” your spouse into someone who treats you right, “convince” him to behave differently, or “prove” yourself to him. You think if only you can “prove” yourself, everything will be different. You try to get him to “understand” that what he does/says is hurtful to you. If only he would “understand”!

Probably what this blog is about.  Also, “You continue to ruminate over the hurtful things your partner did, even though they might be out of the picture now.”

8. You don’t like him. You “love” your spouse, but you don’t like, respect, or even want to be around him.

They are all conservative; religious; some are bigoted and racist and mysogynist.  As my husband pointed out, they aren’t people I’d choose to socialize with.

10. Obsession. If you do manage to break away from your spouse, you obsess and long to the point of nostalgia about the horrible relationship you got away from and that almost destroyed you.

It’s not this dramatic, but I do get nostalgic and lonely at holidays and birthdays and so on.  Another source says “obsess means to be preoccupied, fantasize about, and wonder about even though you do not want to“.  That is a lot closer to my experience.

That same source lists these symptoms, among others:

  • When you want to be understood by those who clearly do not care.
  • When you choose to stay in conflict with others when it would cost you
    nothing to walk away.
  • When you persist in trying to convince people there is a problem and they
    won’t listen.
  • When you continue contact with an abuser who acknowledges no
    responsibility.

Of course, the first item in the list of strategies is “no contact”.

Strangely, growing up in an emotionally unsafe home makes later emotionally unsafe situations have more holding power… traumatized people often respond positively to a dangerous person or situation because it feels natural to them.

I don’t know that it is so strange though.  What is familiar always feels comfortable, on some level.  Why is Susan such a natural fit for that family?  Because she is as unhealthy as our mother was.  I’m not the only person in this group who has a trauma bond.

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More on Toxic People and Maladaptive Behaviors

Notes from here:  20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You

Toxic people… engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and friends.

1. Gaslighting

a manipulative tactic that can be described in different variations of three words: “That didn’t happen,” “You imagined it,” and “Are you crazy?”

2. Projection

One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.

Narcissistic abusers love to play the “blameshifting game.” Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and you or the world at large is blamed for everything that’s wrong with them.

Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in self-insight or change. It’s important to cut ties and end interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your own reality and validate your own identity.

3. Nonsensical conversations from hell

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way… In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist…now your entire childhood, family, friends, career and lifestyle choices have come under attack. That is because your disagreement picked at their false belief that they are omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in a narcissistic injury.

4. Blanket statements and generalizations

…they generalize anything and everything you say, making blanket statements that don’t acknowledge the nuances in your argument or take into account the multiple perspectives you’ve paid homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on you that dismisses your perspective altogether?

…invalidate experiences that don’t fit in the unsupported assumptions [and familial beliefs] … they are also used to maintain the status quo.

…“You’re always too sensitive” rather than addressing the real issues at hand. It’s possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.

5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity

…your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your irrationality… Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe what you’re actually saying [or what you actually did] as a way to make your opinions [or you] look absurd or heinous…This enables them to invalidate your right to have thoughts and emotions about their inappropriate behavior…

This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as “mind reading.” Toxic people… chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or outlandish viewpoint you didn’t possess…they have succeeded in convincing you that you should be “shamed” for giving them any sort of realistic feedback.

6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts

The difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism is the presence of a personal attack and impossible standards… they just want to nitpick, pull you down and scapegoat you in any way they can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths employ a logical fallacy known as “moving the goalposts” in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after you’ve provided all the evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand more proof [or just declare that you’re still wrong].

…able to instill in you a pervasive sense of unworthiness and of never feeling quite “enough.”…they aren’t acknowledging the work you’ve done to validate your point or satisfy them, their motive isn’t to better understand. It’s to further provoke you into feeling as if you have to constantly prove yourself.

7. Changing the subject to evade accountability

It is a literal digression from the actual topic that works to redirect attention to a different issue altogether [which is always The Divorce]… they will reroute discussions to benefit them… This type of diversion has no limits in terms of time or subject content, and often begins with a sentence like “What about the time when…”

On a macro level, these diversions work to derail discussions that challenge the status quo [the beliefs that Dad was a bastard and Mom was a saint].

8. Covert and overt threats

…instill fear in you about the consequences of disagreeing or complying with their demands… If someone’s reaction to you… having a differing opinion from your own is to threaten you into submission… this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and has no plans of compromising.  We can never have the reunion anywhere else but on my sister’s turf.  Deciding not to come is met with hysteria.  No one can call Susan or Joe on the carpet because there is some unstated threat there.

9. Name-calling

Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage.

…A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly becomes “silly” or “idiotic” in the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can… realize that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in higher level methods.

10. Destructive conditioning

Toxic people condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits they once idealized as well as… sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your… family…
[Mom telling me repeatedly that people weren’t going to like me because of all my positive qualities.  Susan sabotaging the meal-planning.  Everyone else being free to talk about how awful Dad was at any family get-together.]

11. Smear campaigns and stalking

…they start to control how others see you; they play the martyr while you’re labeled the toxic one. A smear campaign is a preemptive strike… so that you won’t have a support network to fall back on…

A victim… often doesn’t know what’s being said about them during the relationship, but they eventually find out the falsehoods…

Toxic people will gossip behind your back (and in front of your face), slander you to your loved ones or their loved ones, create stories that depict you as the aggressor while they play the victim, and claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that they are afraid you will accuse them of engaging in.

12. Love-bombing and devaluation

…the saccharine sweetness a narcissist subjects you to…

13. Preemptive defense

…a high level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning of your relationship to dupe you… Genuinely nice people rarely have to persistently show off their positive qualities…

14. Triangulation

Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as “triangulation.” Often used to validate the toxic person’s abuse while invalidating the victim’s reactions to abuse… They also use the opinions of others to validate their point of view… Everyone is essentially being played by this one person.  Susan using Joe to support her view of things.  Mom using my sister for the same purpose.

15. Bait and feign innocence

Baiting you into a mindless, chaotic argument [like the one over turning off the oven] … it becomes clear that the person has a malicious motive of tearing you down [more like making sure I was the one seen as being at fault].

16. Boundary testing and hoovering

…The more violations they’re able to commit without consequences, the more they’ll push the envelope… [my brother refusing to respect my wish for no contact]

17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes

Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at your expense. These are usually dressed up as “just jokes” so that they can get away with saying appalling things… a way to divert from their cruelty and onto your perceived sensitivity.

18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone

So long as you’re treated like a child and constantly challenged for expressing yourself, you’ll start to develop a sense of hypervigilance about voicing your thoughts and opinions without reprimand… you begin to silence yourself.  [This is less about sarcasm and more about simply not being able to express an opinion that goes against the grain, such as not agreeing that Mom was wonderful and Dad was shit, or being atheist or progressive.]

19. Shaming

…It can also be used to destroy and whittle away at a victim’s self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of something, shaming the victim for that specific trait, quality or accomplishment can serve to diminish their sense of self and stifle any pride they may have.  [Back to mom telling me people weren’t going to like me]

20. Control

…manufacture situations or conflict out of thin air… engage in disagreements about irrelevant things and rage over perceived slights.

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Invisible

I found out yesterday that a high school friend of mine suffered a serious stroke in late April.

Of course I hope she fully recovers, which it appears she is well on the way to doing.  I feel sad for her, and glad that she obviously got prompt medical attention and her life was saved.  Those are normal feelings that healthy people with empathy have for other people in misfortune, and of course I have those feelings for her.

That isn’t what this post is about.  It is about the other feelings that have come up for me with reading about this news.

My friend’s Facebook page, and the website they set up to keep everyone updated, is chock full of family and friends writing things like, “I love you so much” and “Thinking of you every day” and “Love love love to you and to your family” and “I’m so proud of you”.

All that tangible, visible proof that the people around her love her and care about her, in the biggest crisis of her life.

Her mother.  Her mother-in-law.  Some of our other high school friends, who are like sisters to her.  REAL sisters, I mean.  The kind that don’t heap a lot of shit on you that isn’t your fault, but just love you instead.

They just love you.  Out loud, in writing, with a little note or a phone call or a comment on a web page.

I have another high school friend whose Facebook page often shows a comment from someone in her equally large and extended family.  A niece, or her sister, or a brother, or a sister-in-law.  Always something loving and kind, and obviously not there because it’s a birthday or something — just because they felt like saying it.

I don’t know what that’s like.  I see it, and it looks wonderful.  I wish I did.

I actually can’t imagine my sister writing anything like that to me, ever.  “I love you so much.”  I challenge anyone who knows both of us to try it.  You can’t picture it, because IT NEVER HAPPENS.

She has excuses — there are too many years between us, she was busy raising a family, we are poles apart on many things — but shit, it’s not like she ever tried.

I did, once upon a time, but after enough failures, eventually even I got the message.

PiPhiMom1Nor did I get that kind of love from my mother.  Facebook wasn’t around 30 years ago, but the one time that I know of where my mother was invited to write a letter about why she was proud of me, what I got was a chilly, formal letter.  It was so bizarre, I don’t think they even read it at the pledging ceremony — or if they did, it was in such contrast to everyone else’s letters that I have blocked the memory, out of embarrassment and shame at how impersonal my mother’s letter was.Mom2

She didn’t even write it by hand — she typed it.  In the handwritten note that accompanied it, she even wrote “end”, as if it were a business communication.  And of course, she had to make it about a topic that was important to her:  religion.

Years later, my sister defended my mother’s coolness on this occasion with a bunch of bullshit about “she didn’t know who was going to read it” and so on.

Fucking hell.  Someone who loves you doesn’t CARE who reads it.  THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT.

But that’s the way it always goes.  I expressed my disappointment in the way my mother wrote this letter — because it hurt me to be shown so starkly the contrast between the chatty, friendly letters that she wrote to my sister when she was in college, versus the one that I got when I was in college (by the way, there aren’t any personal letters from my mother from my college days, because I was expected to call HER every week).

And my sister didn’t say, “I’m sorry she couldn’t love you.”  My sister didn’t say, “I bet that was important to you.  I’m sorry you were disappointed.”

No, what my sister did was defend my mother’s abnormal behavior.  Because my sister has apparently inherited that abnormal behavior, that unwillingness to love me, or to let anyone else love me.

This is very similar to my mother-in-law, who was the oldest daughter of an alcoholic mother, and also strongly parentified.  And while she couldn’t stop her son from marrying me, she wouldn’t let her husband be too nice to me, either.

Once she was gone, he spent his few remaining months trying to finally be friends, but he didn’t have much time to work with.  But we could have had a loving relationship, I think — if it hadn’t been for my MIL, and the anger she directed towards me for us making a life decision that she didn’t approve of, and as she saw it, depriving her of her “right” to grandchildren.

Because of course she can’t direct that blame at her son, and besides, women are “supposed to” have kids — even if they are women as fucked up as her own mother, and my mother, I guess.  See how well that worked out.

Over the 20 or so years that I knew her, she did her best to retain some control and undercut me with “her” son as well — even criticizing me to him under our own roof — and often she pretended I didn’t actually exist.

I remember one time they visited us, and she and I went to buy tickets for a ferry.  The woman at the kiosk asked my MIL why she was here, and she replied — with me standing right next to her — “We’re here visiting our son.”

Another time we were all out at a garden, and my husband and I went for a walk while his parents sat on a bench.  When we came back, she looked directly at him and, using his name — so it would be clear that I was not included in the caring, no matter how trivial — she asked him, “How was your walk?”

On another memorable occasion, his dad left a phone message wishing him — specifically and only him, again by name — a “happy anniversary”.

Kind of like my sister not even giving me a welcome hug, or noticing that I’m in the room.  (At the same time that she can sure as hell notice that I failed to ask her about being a grandmother.)

Little wounds.  Over 20 or 40 years they add up to big ones.

It would be one thing if the people involved were like this to everyone, not just me.  But they hurt even more when, after she’s gone, you get to hear from the neighbor how wonderfully warm and loving your MIL was to her — treated her “like a daughter,” in fact.

So eventually you learn that no matter if you are nice, and caring, and give love to others, they don’t give it back.  And you learn not to make the effort any more.  That’s the person I’ve become.

Which is why my siblings will say – have said, in fact – “Well, but YOU don’t show love to US!”

Because of course, to them, it’s all about them.  (Except the part about who’s responsible.  That is most definitely not about them.)

We are each too wounded to put our own pain aside in order to love the other person.

The difference here is, my siblings’ wounds were not inflicted by me — but mine were inflicted by them.  I don’t have anything to apologize for, but they do.

I tried for years and years, and got rejected over and over.  And the ultimate wound, of course, was the moral injury of the night my father died, and the morning after.  And the lies about it, and the believing the lies, and the not upsetting Susan and Joe, because it was easier and simpler to upset me.

Their wounds were not inflicted by me.  Theirs were, at the heart, inflicted by a mother who was selfish and sick and couldn’t let anyone else have love.  Our mother’s version of the control was to not let “her” children love their father.  She deprived them of that hugely important relationship, for her own selfish reasons.

See the pattern here?  Selfish, angry, injured women, deliberately ruining relationships between others.  I’m not the one who’s doing that.

I used to have brothers, and even a brother-in-law, who at least appeared to care about me, but they are no longer allowed to do so.

My brothers have said some nice things to me in the past.  One of them once said he enjoyed conversations with me, but of course that was said in the context of the rest of the sentence, which was that he refused to discuss the family issues any longer.  So yeah, he enjoys conversations with me as long as they are on his terms.

I have other brothers who probably couldn’t say a nice thing about me if their lives depended on it.

My sister won’t let her husband speak to me any more.  Nor, I suspect, are her kids (and eventually, their kids) allowed to contact me.  Once in a great while, as on the actual birth of a child, I get a picture or two from a niece – that’s the return I get now on the investment of years of caring about my sister’s kids.  Of course my sister never had to put out anything for the ones I didn’t have.  And we aren’t even told about their weddings any more.

This isn’t exactly new:  we have been left out before, not told about get-togethers until someone lets it slip after the fact, not invited until it’s too late for us to come.

This is controlling and dysfunctional and fucked up, of course, but it kind of works.  It’s easier than the alternative.  Can’t do anything to upset my sister and SIL, or there will be hell to pay.

As my father used to say, and I know where he learned this lesson:  “In an argument between a reasonable person and an unreasonable person, the unreasonable person will always win.”

They are the ones who have won, by being unreasonable, by being the bigger threat to familial harmony.  By having the power to throw the bigger tantrum.  Me leaving is no big deal, compared to what they could pull off.

Another Facebook friend has a son who is getting married this fall.  All week her posts have been about planning the wedding, her excitement, her happiness about having a new daughter-in-law to love.

It’s hard to read those posts.  I actually don’t like to think about my own wedding, because even for the one fucking time it was supposed to be all about me, it wasn’t.

Not for my mother.  My mother wouldn’t even shop for her own dress. I had to go shopping for her in Dallas, buy and ship a few dresses to her, and then harp on her to send the others back so I could return them.

For context, up until my wedding, my mother’s immediate first concern about any such event was what she was going to wear, down to shoes and accessories, and she often sewed her own dress for such occasions.  I had to hem her fucking skirt myself, the night before the wedding.

In hindsight, the complete lack of giving a shit is crystal clear.  And, I suspect, it also sent a subtle message to everyone else that this event wasn’t something they needed to care about.

The excuse made for her is that she was getting sick at the time, but I defy you to show me another loving mother who lets physical illness get in the way of caring about her daughter’s wedding.

Not for my MIL.  I recently found out from that same neighbor that my MIL never spoke about our wedding.  “You could have gotten married in Jamaica for all I know,” she said.  The only thing she ever heard about our wedding was that at some point, apparently my father asked where my FIL was, and said he needed to talk to him, and went to find him.

Somehow that offended my MIL.  What she had to say about our wedding day, after the fact, was vague criticism for my father.

Before the fact was worse.  The planning was a nightmare.  She had her own separate guest list.  She literally doubled the budget for the reception dinner.  She used the same pattern that I chose for the bridesmaid’s dresses for her own dress.  At one point she told me directly that what I wanted didn’t matter.  And there are weirder parts that are too long to tell here.

It would have been awesome to have a sister and a mother or even a matron of honor who was on my side through all of that, who could have been a reality check, but no.  It will be no surprise that my matron of honor was also a narcissist, who was also no help to me at all, and actively contributed to my problems, instead of helping.

[Side note:  A few years later, when we told her and her husband that we were leaving Texas and moving to Oregon, the first words out of her mouth were “Oooh, I’ve never been to Oregon!”  The first thing she thought about was herself and what good we could be to her.  Classic.  We never gave them our new address.]

And not for the rest of my family, either.  Ask them about my wedding, and you will hear about how much fun they all had in Boston together the day after, without me or my husband.

But, they will say, you had just gotten married.  You were busy.

Of course, that’s not the fucking point, but that is seriously how they see it.  That’s their excuse.  To all of them, the important thing about that event was not their sister (their daughter, their son, their friend) getting married.  It was not welcoming their new brother-in-law.  It was about them, having fun doing something else.  Something that, in fact, specifically didn’t involve me, or us, because I was “busy”.

The “something else” that I was busy with was, in fact, supposed to be the center of attention and the whole fucking point.  That’s how it is when people love you and are happy for you, anyway.

They didn’t ask us what we would like to do that last day.  I don’t think we had anything specific planned, but it’s not like anyone said, “Hey, what is the plan for Sunday?  What would you like to do?  Oh, there’s nothing planned?  Well, here’s what we thought we could all go do.”

They didn’t even ask us if we wanted to go along.  They just assumed, I guess, that we wouldn’t want to go?  I don’t know.  I do know we didn’t get invited, even though it was the last day everyone would be there and we all knew that and it was MY FUCKING WEDDING.

“Often clients tell me that they felt that their family didn’t understand them, that they felt different from the rest of the family or like an outsider. What is being described is the trauma of invisibility.”

That doesn’t even come close to describing it.  It’s not so much being invisible – it’s that they see you, and they don’t care anyway.  They don’t love seeing your face, or think of you “just because”.  In fact, they hate the sight or the thought of you so much they will pretend you aren’t there.

Years and years and years of being rejected by the people, especially the women, closest to me — being met with criticism or disdain, or  unacknowledged or taken advantage of, every time I tried to reach out and build relationships — has taken its toll.

I don’t reach out to anyone any more, because my love kept getting met with rejection.  Rejection from my mother, from my sister, from my mother-in-law:  all women in my life that you would think would have been a bedrock of love and support.  The kind of love that is visible, the kind I see other people getting.

Love that is allowed to be expressed, and doesn’t have to hide for fear of pissing off some fucked-up, controlling, unhealthy person, who can’t stand to see someone they hate being loved.

I don’t know why I ended up with so many of these women in my life.  Some sources say that being trained by one narcissist leads you to attract others.  Certainly I think the familiarity factor is how my SIL ended up in the family, and why she is so welcomed.

Intellectually at least, I realize now that they all had issues.  Just as I now have issues, and am unable to simply feel for my friend, without also being envious of what she has that I don’t have.

I don’t have the capacity to just be openly loving and caring, without these other feelings getting in the way.  I don’t have enough logs in my raft, the hole hasn’t been filled enough.

I could have been that person, though.  It’s what I wanted to be — still wish I could be.  A healthy, loving person, with people to love, who love me back.

But at least I have the guts to work on my issues, and not perpetuate the bullshit.

Sometimes I am that person.  For example, one thing I have noticed in the past couple of years is that I don’t do art unless it is something FOR somebody.  I am not an artist for myself.  I don’t make time to draw, or paint, for my own enjoyment.  But let me get an idea for something someone I care about would like, and I am all over it.  I love to make art that will make someone I love happy.

There have been loving women in my life, here and there:  a housekeeper, a friend’s mother, a junior high school teacher — but they all fell away, one way or another, because they just didn’t have the same tie, day in and day out, that you get with a mom.  You don’t get a second chance at having a mother or a mother-in-law or a sister, someone who’s been there your whole life, who just loves you.

I did have Dad.  I got about 15 years less of him than I should have, but I did have that.  I have loving notes, and letters from college, and some saved emails, and a box full of other things that I still haven’t gone through in the 15 years since his death.  In the absence of a loving mother, that’s what saved me, but it’s still not the same.

Mostly, it’s just too late.  I don’t see where I will ever find that kind of love at this stage, or people TO love.  I’ve been cut off from the next generation of my relatives.  And the healthy people all have wonderful loving families of their own.  There’s no room in them for a couple of strays, and there’s no replacement for those 40 years of shared history that we wouldn’t have.  I don’t see any way now to find or make a place like that where I really belong.

Maybe if I’d had kids, I’d have one.  More likely, in my 20’s I’d have been the lousy mother that I suspected I’d be, even though I didn’t quite know why.  I understand why a lot more now, and I even think I’d be a decent mother now.  But it’s pretty late for that, and “to not be alone” is a shitty selfish reason to have kids anyway.

At least I’m not carrying on the tradition.

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Dysfunction 102

Notes from here.

“In dysfunctional families members have lower self-esteem and tend to be codependent. Some of the symptoms are described below, but not all are necessary to create dysfunction.

1. Denial.

Denial is a way to ignore or pretend that a painful reality doesn’t exist. Parents try to act normal amidst family problems and crises – such as a parent’s absence, illness, or alcoholism. It never gets talked about, nor the problem solved. This makes children doubt their perceptions and sends a message that they can’t talk about something strange and frightening – even to each other.

2. A Closed System.

A closed family won’t allow differing… ideas to be discussed among members or with outsiders. Members aren’t allowed to talk about the family to others, and might not allow guests from another race or religion. Some families are isolated and don’t interact with the community. Others do, but appearances are everything, and the truth about the family isn’t shared. At bottom are fears of dissimilar ideas and shame.

3. Secrets.

Some secrets are kept for generations about a family shame – whether addiction, violence, criminal activity, sexual issues, or mental illness. The shame is felt by children – even when they don’t know the secret.

4. Dysfunctional Communication.

This can take many forms – from an absence of communication to verbal abuse. Talking is not the same as functional communication, which involves listening, respect, assertiveness, and understanding. In dysfunctional families, communication is neither assertive nor open. People don’t listen and verbal abuse predominates.  Children are afraid to express their thoughts and feelings, and are often blamed, shamed, or scolded for self-expression. They are told directly or indirectly not to feel what they feel and may be labeled a sissy, bad, dumb, lazy, or selfish. They learn not to question their parents and not to trust their perceptions and feelings.

5. Rigid Rules.

In some families where there is physical or mental illness, parents are too lax or irresponsible, children lack guidance and don’t feel safe and cared for. Generally, however, there are restrictive and sometimes arbitrary rules. Many are unspoken. There’s no room for mistakes. Some parents take over decisions that children should make and control their hobbies, school courses, friends, and dress. Natural independence is seen as disloyalty and abandonment. They prohibit talking about things deemed “inappropriate,” such as sex, death, the holocaust, grandpa’s limp, or that father was married before. Some families have rules restricting the expression of anger, exuberance, or crying. When feelings can’t be expressed, children learn self-control and become overly controlled or controlling adults, all contributing to low-self-esteem.

6. Arbitrariness and Inconsistency.

What are worse than rigid rules are arbitrary and inconsistent rules. Children never know when they’ll be punished. Rules that don’t make sense are unjust. This is cruel and breeds learned helplessness and rage that can never be expressed. Children are in constant fear, walk on eggshells, and feel hopeless and resentful because of the unpredictability and unfairness. Their sense of worth and dignity is violated. They lose respect and trust in their parents and authority in general. Because they’re forced to comply, some act-out with rebellious or delinquent behavior, by doing poorly in school, or by using drugs.

7. Role Confusion.

This happens when a parent is emotionally or physically absent or is irresponsible and a child takes on parental responsibilities or becomes a companion or confidante to the other parent. This is frequently the case after a divorce, but also happens in intact families where parents lack intimacy. This is age-inappropriate and damaging to the child psychologically, who must now act like a little adult, repress his or her needs and feelings, and may feel that he or she is betraying the other parent.

8. Unpredictability.

People feel safe when family life is predictable. If children never know what mood Mom or Dad will be in, they can’t be spontaneous and are always anxious. Even worse is chaos, where the family is in constant crisis, often due to addiction, mental illness, or sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Instead of a safe haven, the family becomes a war zone to escape. Children may take develop somatic complaints, like headaches and stomach aches.

9. Inability to Problem-Solve.

Resolving problems and conflicts is key to a smooth-running organization. But in dysfunctional families, children and parents are blamed repeatedly for the same thing and there are constant arguments or silent walls of resentment. Nothing gets resolved.

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Confrontation and Caring

Full article here.

“In fact, talking to our [family] about the things they’ve done to upset us is one of the best ways for us to discover who they really are. If our [family] are compassionate and responsive to what we tell them and are willing to change the problematic behaviors, it’s proof that they truly care about us.

“If, on the other hand, they deny what they’ve done, get angry at us for bringing it up, or tell us that we’re over-reacting [trifecta!], this demonstrates that they aren’t willing or able to negotiate the relationship in good faith. Confrontation, for this reason, is an ideal way of distinguishing between our real and false [family].

The only relationships at risk from confrontation are the ones not worth maintaining.”

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More Narcissism Notes

Notes from here.

“…the clinical definition of narcissistic personality disorder.”

  • An exaggerated sense of self-importance.
  • An unwarranted belief in your own superiority.
  • A preoccupation with fantasies of your own success, power and brilliance.
  • A craving for constant admiration.
  • A consuming sense of entitlement.
  • An expectation of special favors and unquestioning compliance.
  • A penchant for exploiting or disparaging others.
  • A total inability to recognize the needs of anyone else.
  • An incapacity to see those you meet as separate human beings.
  • An unreasoning fury at people you perceive as thwarting your wishes or desires.
  • A tendency to act on impulse.
  • A superficial charm deployed to disguise a gift for manipulation.
  • A need to always be right.
  • A refusal to acknowledge error.
  • An inability to tolerate criticism or critics.
  • A compulsion to conform your ever – shifting sense of “reality” to satisfy your inner requirements.
  • A tendency to lie so frequently and routinely that objective truth loses all meaning.
  • A belief that you are above the rules.
  • An array of inconsistent statements and behaviors driven by your needs in the moment.
  • An inability to assess the consequences of your actions in new or complex situations.
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There’s A Name For It

In the 4 years or so that I have been working on this family’s problem — researching, learning about relationships and what can go wrong with them, trying to find the truth of things or at least exposing the biases — I have often had the experience of coming across a new word or phrase that perfectly describes something that happened in my FOO.  And every time, I think, “There it is.  It has a name.”

Names are important.  Their existence shows that these things do happen, and they happen regularly, and they happen to other people, other families, as well as ours.

We are not “special”.  Our family’s story is not some weird anomaly that can’t possibly be understood by anyone else — it is in fact very well understood, and it is pathological.  It is not some unique form of “normal” that can only be understood, in Joe’s words, by someone who knows the “history of the family and personalities involved”.

If the story that’s being told can’t stand up to impartial, outside scrutiny, it’s not normal.  (But abused children often think abuse is “normal”, because abuse is all they know.)

Not only do these things happen — they are known to have harmful, lasting effects.  I am speaking of narcissism and NPD, parentification, parental alienation, blame-shifting, invalidation, scapegoating — just to name a few of my new words.  Narcissism and blame-shifting are known to be damaging to relationships.  Scapegoats are known to be the ones who seek out the truth.  Parental alienation is destructive to a child who naturally wants to love both parents.  Invalidation disrespects and destroys a person and a relationship.

Parentification often happens to the oldest child – especially if they are the same sex as the parent who is abdicating their proper role – and “The adultified child takes on responsibilities in the hope that it will hold the family together by keeping mom and dad around.“

My siblings manage to ignore all this information, or explain it away somehow.  I don’t know how most of them do it;  there is one brother who simply insists that I am wrong about practically everything I write.

Which leads me to another term I learned in all of this:  “cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who… is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values,” and that one of the four methods of dissonance reduction, and probably the simplest, is to “Ignore or deny any information that conflicts with existing beliefs.”

Ta-da.  There it is.  It has a name.

Anyway, the point is, I’ve learned about a lot of concepts that definitely do exist, that are studied and well understood, and that explain most, if not all, of what happened in my FOO.

Up until now, though, I never had a word for what happened to me the morning after my father died, when Joe and Susan attacked me for daring to complain about Susan’s inappropriate behavior the night before — other than that I found out it is called a narcissistic rage attack, which explains what they did, but not what I experienced as a result.

Neither of my therapists diagnosed me with anything very specific.  “Therapeutic services” was the billing code the second, better and more experienced one, used.

“Adjustment disorder” was the billing code used by the first one — who I went to for grief counseling, and who I think was not familiar with NPD, and the complicated family problems I presented as a result.

“Adjustment disorder is a group of symptoms… that can occur after you go through a stressful life event… Your reaction is stronger than expected for the type of event that occurred.”

I still remember how she was as mystified as I was, the day she exclaimed, “But you’re not even allowed to defend yourself!”  Knowing what I know now, it is clear that what I was going through was more than just normal grief over the loss of my parents — and to someone who did not understand NPD and its effects on others, of course it would appear that my reaction was stronger than expected.

It is obvious that the initial experience was traumatic.  There was, of course, the death of the only real, caring parent I had.  Then being yelled at, at the top of their lungs, inches from my face, less than 12 hours after the death of my father, by two members of what was supposed to be a family, who all claimed before the fact that they were going to be supportive, especially of me – pretty damned traumatizing, I should think.

And then the aftermath, where they lied to everyone else, blamed me, threw me under the bus, and no one thought twice about what might have really happened – also pretty damned traumatizing.

And finally, that last reunion – when I was physically ignored, yelled at again, and began to understand just how the rest of the family actually viewed the whole incident.  Up until then, I had thought that they knew what really happened, but chose to simply sweep it under the rug for Joe & Susan’s benefit.  (That would have been bad and unhealthy, sure — but it would also have been “normal” in the context of our family and the ever-present hierarchy of age.)

I didn’t realize until then that Joe and Susan had lied about what happened, and that they all believed those lies:  they believed that I had started it, deliberately picked a fight, that I was entirely to blame for it, and that they in fact believed they were being rather magnanimous in not holding my supposed behavior against me!  Rather traumatizing to not only have the original incident thrown back in my face, but to realize that their view of it, and me, was even worse than I had thought.

So, for a while, I looked at the idea of PTSD.  I found out there is something called “complex PTSD“, which is quite different from “classic” PTSD.  “Situations include… psychological manipulation (gaslighting and/or false accusations)… Forms of trauma associated with C-PTSD… [include] emotional abuse…repeated or prolonged traumas in which there is an actual or perceived inability for the victim to escape.”

That had some commonalities with what I had experienced, and for a while I wondered if I had been a whole lot more screwed up than I realized, by the early separations from my mother, and her neglect and disinterest — but it didn’t quite fit.  PTSD is a fear-based reaction, and I’m not afraid.

Now, I think I’ve found it.  It even fits in with PTSD, in a way, but it is different.  By reading about PTSD and soldiers and veterans, I learned about moral injury.

Depending on who you ask, this idea is either new or old.  “It’s a new term but not a new concept.  Moral injury is as timeless as war — going back to when Ajax thrust himself upon his sword on the shores of Troy…“

Yet the term, and the idea, is very new, at least in the treatment of PTSD and other mental health issues of soldiers and veterans.  Most of the work I have found on this is written in this context (probably because the military is where there’s plenty of funding, and by the nature of the beast they are at least somewhat focused on mental health).

One definition is “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”  However, this definition doesn’t take into account the effects on the person who actually experienced the act.

Another definition doesn’t rule it out:  “Like psychological trauma, moral injury… describes extreme and unprecedented life experience including the harmful aftermath of exposure to such events. Events are considered morally injurious if they “transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” Thus, the key precondition for moral injury is an act of transgression, which shatters moral and ethical expectations that are rooted in religious or spiritual beliefs, or culture-based, organizational, and group-based rules about fairness, the value of life, and so forth.”

Moral injury is … a sense that their fundamental understanding of right and wrong has been violated, and the grief, numbness or guilt that often ensues.

“…the pain that results from damage to a person’s moral foundation... Moral injuries… have to do with failing to hold yourself or others to account.“

“…[people] can be morally injured by the transgression of peers and leaders who betray expectations in egregious ways.“

One expert is a Dr. Shay, who introduced the clinical concept.  And his definition is that moral injury can happen when “there is a betrayal of what’s right by someone who holds legitimate authority in a high-stakes situation.”  Bingo.

Dr. Shay also talks of “authority perceived as violating what is “right” or “fair,” keeping in mind the extreme dependence combat Veterans have upon one another for survival.”  Well, when I was very young, and my mother was hospitalized, I learned on some level that I had to depend on these people for survival.

Finally, this definition actually includes a potential victim:  …“moral injury” refers to the emotional and spiritual impact of participating in, witnessing, and/or being victimized by actions and behaviors which violate a [person’s] core moral values and behavioral expectations of self or others.

What happened the night my father died, and the day after, pretty much blew away the concept I had had of my “family” as a group of decent, healthy, moral people who could hold it together and maintain a reasonable amount of self-control in a time of crisis.

I never thought they were people who would treat a family member the way they treated me:  screaming at me, leaning down to shout directly in my face, with the accompanying threat of physical violence implied by that invasion of personal space.

Or, if they had been triggered by that crisis, and did behave so badly, they would own up to it, apologize, and try to make amends.  They would be honest, responsible adults.

I never thought that my “family” were people who would ignore what I politely asked for in a time of crisis.  That they were people who would deliberately lie about another family member to cover up their transgressions.

And what happened at and after the 2012 reunion destroyed the idea that my “family” would at least TRY to step up and do the right thing in a difficult situation.

That was when I found out that whatever else they might do in other situations, whatever else they might be capable of, however moral and decent they may be in other facets of their lives — they won’t do it for me.

That was when I figured out that I didn’t have a “family”.  At least, not one that was healthy enough to give me the respect, love, and acceptance that I was asking for.  My FOO was one where, when I asked for these things, instead I was ignored, invalidated, or criticized.  Maybe it is a functional family among the “right” people; I wouldn’t know, because I’m not in that club.  What I know is that it is a group of people who are incapable of doing the right thing for my sake.  I’m not important enough to them.

“disruption in an individual’s confidence and expectations about one’s own or others’ motivation or capacity to behave in a just and ethical manner”

“Moral injury does not, by its nature, present itself immediately. Some will experience questions of moral injury days after an incident; for many others, difficulties will not surface for years.“

“Moral injury usually stems from a precise moment in a [person’s] experience… It’s about reconciling that event that sticks with you… And it’s also about reconnecting with a moral community, feeling connected to your fellow man.“

Between those two experiences — that day in 2000, when my dad died, and that day in 2012, at the reunion — I lost my whole experience of “family”, the people I was connected to by blood, that I had been connected to for my entire life.

Two dozen people, gone from my life.

“Transgressions can arise from… the behavior of others… An act of serious transgression that is at odds with core ethical and moral beliefs is called moral injury… Betrayal on either a personal or an organizational level can also act as a precipitant.”

It’s not a mental illness or failure to cope:

“Distinct from pathology, moral injury is a normal human response to an abnormal event.“

It is the loss of trust:

“Both flavors of moral injury impair and sometimes destroy the capacity for trust. When social trust is destroyed, it is replaced by the settled expectancy of harm, exploitation, and humiliation from others.“

In my case, I got the reality first, and now I have the settled expectation.

I got the reality of being treated like shit at the worst time in my whole young life, by the one group of people in your whole life that you’re always, ALWAYS supposed to be able to count on, for anything, any time, anywhere.  The ones who were older and supposed to be oh-so-much wiser.

And, I got the reality that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

“With this expectancy, there are few options: strike first; withdraw and isolate oneself from others (e.g., Achilles); or create deceptions, distractions, false identities, and narratives to spoil the aim of what is expected (e.g., Odysseus).”

I tried the latter option — to “get over it” — hiding my pain from the wrongs done to me, censoring my feelings, my thoughts, my opinions, my beliefs, in order to “fit in” and not do damage to the “family”.

To accept the act of Susan violently, viciously vomiting her psychological shit all over me RIGHT AFTER THE DEATH OF MY FATHER — traumatizing me, leaving me to deal with it for years and years — and to pretend that it never happened — so that she, and everyone else, can also pretend that it never happened (or if it did happen, it was my fault) and she can pretend that she’s still perfectly perfect.

Never mind that it DID happen.  Never mind what it did to me.  Never mind that if she gets to be perfect, what’s left for me to be is only the flaws.

I was supposed to allow them to continue to treat me as second-class, as a scapegoat, as if my feelings and my pain and my trauma and my humiliation didn’t matter as much as hers.  When it was MY father who had died – MINE.

What is misunderstood is that if this is what the group needs me to do in order to not sustain damage, it’s already really, really fucked up.

After realizing this painful truth, I finally chose the other option, to get away from the toxic people, and the ones I no longer trust, the ones who consider themselves above wrongdoing, the ones who are so very perfect that they would never humble themselves so far as to apologize to ME.

Because to the special arrogance of the Triumvirate, that would be unbelievably humiliating.

And finally, one bullet point that sums up most of what I have felt about this for the past 4 years:

“Emotional responses may include… Anger about betrayal-based moral injuries.”

It feels so good to finally have a name for it.

Even better, it feels GREAT to discover that I’ve been doing all the right things, in terms of healing myself.

Not ignoring a problem usually helps, and this one is no exception.  Also trying to understand what happened, analyzing it, looking at evidence.  Guess what I’ve been doing?

“People mostly try to push those experiences away and not look at them, and they inevitably end up with an oversimplified conclusion about what it all meant,” he said. “We’re trying to get them to unearth the beliefs that are causing their distress, and then help them analyze it, consider the evidence…therapists focus on helping morally injured patients accept that wrong was done [though not by me!], but that it need not define their lives.”

And then there’s this idea:

IMG_20160120_162242“…some have devised makeshift rituals of cleansing… At the end of a brutal 12-month combat tour in Iraq, one battalion chaplain gathered the troops and handed out slips of paper. He asked the soldiers to jot down everything they were sorry for, ashamed of, angry about or regretted. The papers went into a makeshift stone baptismal font, and as the soldiers stood silently in a circle, the papers burned to ash.

“It was sort of a ritual of forgiveness,” said the chaplain, Lt. Col. Doug Etter of the Pennsylvania National Guard. “The idea was to leave all the most troubling things behind in Iraq.”

And, I knew that I needed to write this blog.

“Dr. Shay places special importance on communication through artistic means of expression. Moral injury can only be absolved when “the trauma survivor… [is] permitted and empowered to voice his or her experience…”

“We favor the tenet that “treatment” of moral injury must be defined by the individual according to their beliefs and needs. Outlets for acknowledging and confronting moral injury include talk therapy, religious dialogue, art, writing, discussion & talking circles, spiritual gatherings, and more.”

Of course, it’s still a bit of a mixed bag.  For one thing, it has occurred to me that at least part of what the rest of my FOO is doing is actively avoiding EXACTLY THE SAME MORAL INJURY that I received.

Those cowards don’t want to believe that Joe and Susan could really, truly have done what Joe and Susan did.  They don’t want me to describe it:

 Imagine what it felt like to see Susan’s horrible, ugly, angry face two inches from my own, bending down so she could scream right at me, to feel her spittle on my face, to wonder if she was going to physically attack me, to hear the shouts from both of them ringing in my ears — their words just so much angry, hateful noise, because both of them were shouting nonstop, at the same time.

And she lost her shit like that over the idea that I had dared to criticize her selfish behavior of the night before, when she refused to do something I asked for right after my father died.

I didn’t want to believe it either.  The difference is, I don’t have the luxury of not believing it, and I don’t have to imagine what it was like, because I’m the one they did it to.  (And my husband witnessed it, and he has some moral injury from it too, you fucking bastards, because he feels like he ought to have done something to stop it.)

And I didn’t want to believe that they could lie like they did, and that everyone would believe them like they did.

This would be bad enough on its own – but now add that this was only hours after I watched my beloved father die, and then sat by his dead body, waiting for the ambulance to take him away, all the while forced to listen to her LOUDLY LAUGHING AND JOKING WITH A STRANGER IN A ROOM WITH A CORPSE.

This is in stunningly bad taste no matter how you slice it.

And this was after I even specifically and politely asked them to go somewhere else with their jolly conversation.

Yet, in the presence of that obscene behavior, that outright disrespect and provocation, I STILL managed not to scream at her, not to get up in her face and shout and spit and threaten.  I certainly FELT like it, but I controlled myself.  Because you just don’t do that shit to people.  Not if you are a decent person.

Good thing it happened to the strong scapegoat, I suppose, because having lived through the past few years, if I’m truly the strong one then I don’t know what the hell it would do to any of them.

And, this is never going to happen:  at least, I’m not going to get it from my FOO.

“…moral injury affects, and is affected by the moral codes across a community [in this case, a family]… moral injury stems in part from feelings of isolation from [the family]. Moral injury, then, is a burden carried by very few, until the “outsiders” become aware of, and interested in sharing it.“

Finally, this quote was written in terms of therapy, but it works on another level with my own story.

…by and large, those with moral injury are on their own.

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“But the Us in blind tribalism is creepy. In blind tribalism, the tribe’s guiding dogma doubles as the identity of the tribe members, and the Us factor enforces that concept. Conscious tribe members reach conclusions—blind tribe members are conclusions. With a blind Us, if the way you are as an individual happens to contain opinions, traits, or principles that fall outside the outer edges of the dogma walls, they will need to be shed—or things will get ugly. By challenging the dogma of your tribe, you’re challenging both the sense of certainty the tribe members gain their strength from and the clear lines of identity they rely on.

“The best friend of a blind Us is a nemesis Us—Them. Nothing unites Us like a collectively hated anti-Us, and the blind tribe is usually defined almost as much by hating the dogma of Them as it is by abiding by the dogma of Us.

And if there isn’t a Them around anymore — perhaps because he has just died — they will find a new Them to attack.  The one that was associated most strongly with the old one, perhaps.

“Whatever element of rigid, identity-encompassing blindness is present in your own tribal life will reveal itself when you dare to validate any part of the rival Them dogma.

“Give it a try. The next time you’re with a member of a tribe you’re a part of, express a change of heart that aligns you on a certain topic with whoever your tribe considers to be Them. If you’re a religious Christian, tell people at church you’re not sure anymore that there’s a God. If you’re an artist in Boulder, explain at the next dinner party that you think global warming might actually be a liberal hoax. If you’re an Iraqi, tell your family that you’re feeling pro-Israel lately. If you and your husband are staunch Republicans, tell him you’re coming around on Obamacare. If you’re from Boston, tell your friends you’re pulling for the Yankees this year because you like their current group of players.

If you’re me, try saying that your reality is that Mom was selfish, lazy, neglectful, and disinterested, but Dad really loved you.  That Joe & Susan were shitty, and they should feel bad about what they did, and apologize.  Try saying that you don’t want kids to your family and your MIL.

“If you’re in a tribe with a blind mentality of total certainty, you’ll probably see a look of horror. It won’t just seem wrong, it’ll seem like heresy. They might get angry, they might passionately try to convince you otherwise, they might cut off the conversation—but there will be no open-minded conversation. And because identity is so intertwined with beliefs in blind tribalism, the person actually might feel less close to you afterwards. Because for rigidly tribal people, a shared dogma plays a more important role in their close relationships than they might recognize…

“As far as society is concerned, when you give something a try—on the values front, the fashion front, the religious front, the career front—you’ve branded yourself. And since people like to simplify people in order to make sense of things in their own head, the tribe around you reinforces your brand by putting you in a clearly-labeled, oversimplified box.

“What this all amounts to is that it becomes very painful to change. Changing is icky for someone whose identity will have to change along with it. And others don’t make things any easier. Blind tribe members don’t like when other tribe members change—it confuses them, it forces them to readjust the info in their heads, and it threatens the simplicity of their tribal certainty. So attempts to evolve are often met with opposition or mockery or anger.

But without change there is no possible growth, personal or otherwise.

“…when you are the experiment, negative feedback isn’t a piece of new, helpful information—it’s an insult. And it hurts. And it makes you mad. And because changing feels impossible, there’s not much good that feedback can do anyway—it’s like giving parents negative feedback on the name of their one-month-old child.

Which basically explains why nothing I’ve ever said has been taken on board by anyone.

“…they were “trapped in their own history.”

“…Being trapped in your history means you don’t know how to change, you’ve forgotten how to innovate, and you’re stuck in the identity box the world has put you in.“

More confirmation that mostly, I’ve made the right choices:  to be myself, to speak what I believe to be the truth, and to rid myself of a whole litany of dogmas:  Catholicism, mother-worship, career choices, patriarchal thinking.  Phew.

The price has been what it was always going to be.  It’s a steep price tag, but it’s been worth it.

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