James Ballantyne

Tag: Alone

  • The (not so) wonderful thing about Tiggers

    Without question this was my favourite Disney song. My beautiful Auntie Heather, only 10 years older than me, had in her record collection circa 1982 a Disney compilation, as well as probably a whole load of other cool music that I had no idea of (or wasn’t allowed to hear).

    But the second track on the Disney album, moving the record player arm to the first groove on the record, was the one. The Original Tigger song.

    And probably to my Aunties great torment I wanted it to be played it over and over and over again in her bedroom when I stayed at my Grandmas house, I was about 3 or older…

    Fast forward 43 years.

    I currently am one of the lead trainers for safeguarding in the Methodist Church, and this week led a face to face session. In it the participants get the opportunity to use a variety of cuddly toys to explore how people respond in places if they feel unsafe or been abused, so there’s the turtle (retreat into hard shell) the hedghog (prickles), you get the picture, and there’s also the Pooh bear characters. The brilliant thing is that every time there’s always one new piece of insight from each group.

    The group had done all of the characters, except our friendly bouncy one.

    So, I from the front went ‘which table has got the tigger, as we all know the wonderful thing about tiggers….’

    And they sang along…

    Then a lady on the table said.

    ‘The thing about tiggers, its like the song, they are bouncy, they are fun, they are smily, but like anyone who is an abuse situation, they believe they are the only one’

    And the lady looked me in the eye, and I looked back, and a shared tear I think appeared in both. My little heart had a moment, when I just realised.

    I believed I was the only one.

    For so so so long.

    If I could see what was happening as abuse, I believed in the shame and isolation of being the only one.

    No one else was telling me that it might not be the only one who could have an abusive mother. And weak as a boy/man for this being the case.

    I felt I was alone and the only one who might be in an emotionally unhealthy/damaging marriage…as a man.

    I felt I was alone when women in work places bullied me – and that I should just ‘get over it’

    I felt I was the alone, the only one.

    I felt that I just had to survive it, that I had no choice but to cope.

    It was so confusing and bewildering that it was impossible to explain, and no resources to.

    Believing I was the only one.

    So in that moment in safeguarding training, I realised quite how much that Tigger song resonated, and as it did so gave me the opportunity to see, to know and to feel, and also to perform in the moment the self love and acceptance required.

    I wasn’t the only one.

    I wasnt.

    So many people had been damaged by her that I wasn’t unique in this.

    I wasn’t the only person to have narcissistic parents, as the book that saved my life testifies to.

    The day I realised my mother is a narcissist

    I wasn’t the only man to be hiding and surviving in an emotionally unhealthy/damaging marriage

    I wasn’t the only man feeling shame and the weight of responsibility

    I wasn’t the only man to feel on the run, incapable of being myself in relationships, just reverting to the hurt wounded teenage persona – there was a reason for this… it was the wounded me.

    I wasn’t the only man who who felt that going to therapy was weak..

    I wasn’t … but I felt it…

    And if this is you, neither are you, even if you feel it.

    Tigger needed friends to help him out of his uniqueness, the projection of being ok and not needing help or have someone else care, all hiding deep insecurity and potential counter- dependence.

    Friends with experience, friends with experience and books, the spaces online that I found eventually where groups talk about this and have resources are all healthy ways of undoing the alone thinking.

    And this week, the feedback was that it was one of the best training sessions they had had, and that it was led with sensitivity and depth. I wonder why.

    I wasnt triggered, (though maybe tiggered) it was just a gulp of realisation of the light shining on the whole, and the opportunity to hold and love that wounded little boy all over again. Yes the tears flowed on the journey home, but thats to be expected with me at the moment, love feels strong.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 29) Actually I nearly didn’t.

    (Trigger Warning: Suicide)

    I wanted to die at 9

    I was 9 when I had had enough

    9

    At the age of 9 years old I was desperate to get out, get out of the life I was in

    9 was the age I contemplated ending it all, suicide.

    At the age of 9, when my blonde hair was barely tinting itself brown.

    9 is the age of fun, playing out, bmx, bikes, games, toys, lego and the rest – and it was

    But it was also the age when I wanted out.

    I had something else to carry, that haunted me.

    Not 13, not mid teens, not early 20’s.

    Before being bullied at high school…

    But at 9.

    Who does that? Who wants to die at 9?

    I wanted to end it all, or end the part I was living in it

    I wanted to sleep and never wake up – or even wake up as someone else – someone famous, someone who wasn’t in my life – anyone, but just not me.

    Im not sure I would have gone through with it, but as the intercity 125’s roared past the bottom of my garden, I wondered if that might have been the place to go – but I couldnt

    Or what about from the upstairs window, would I die if I jumped out and landed through the shed roof?

    Im not sure I could do it – why? for the very reason that I wanted to do it. I’d be responsible.

    I would be responsible. I was already responsible. I was already too responsible, aged 9.

    I was just hoping I didnt exist anymore.

    At 9

    At fucking 9

    Who else thinks this at 9?

    Other people do – other people in so called ‘broken homes’ and ‘non christian ones’ – but not 9 year olds in a ‘stable family’.

    I was 9, and I wanted to not exist any more.

    Because of the weight of responsibility – I had and knew I had

    Because of the criticisms of being messy, being silly, being not good enough

    Because i felt utterly alone. At 9 there was no one to cry for help to – teachers wouldn’t have understood (mum was a dinner lady), church wouldn’t ( parents we’re involved) , and relatives were disappearing from the scene, one family row after another. So who would believe me, even if I could articulate it?

    Alone, cut off and carrying shame, guilt and responsibility

    Aged 9

    I was 9, but hated the responsibility of the drama queen, she who must be obeyed

    I was 9, and unable to ask – for fear of being demanding, spoilt or disruptive

    I was 9, and expected to know things, and so patronised if I did ask?

    I was 9, and bereave of guidance, nurture, or any physical close intimacy

    I was 9, and blamed

    I was 9 and internalised every thought and action I had done – to cause them grievance – I carried shame that stuck in the back like the metal frame of the awful rucksack they once bought me.

    I was 9, and facing the daunting life ahead of me, alone, responsible, frightened, – life was not worth living. Nothing to look forward to.

    I was 9 and had had enough

    I was 9 and not a child anymore and told not to be

    I was 9 and little professor was trying to work out how to survive, and how to respond to feelings of hurt, anger, shame, pain and fear that were continually emerging.

    I was 9 and took it all on myself.

    At 9.

    I would be in my room, waiting for a miracle to happen, waiting for the escape. Hoping beyond hoping.

    At 9 something was wrong. I was wrong.

    At 9 realising that these were my parents and were going to be for the rest of my life, this was going to be my life for another how many years, not something I could conceive of wanting to.

    At 9.

    What would have happened if I had done it? What would the story have been – What kind of narrative would have spun? ‘He was a happy child and no one expected this’ ‘He just couldn’t deal with not being spoiled’…

    In side my head at 9 so many voices. The one that was telling me that I could end it all, the other trying to survive, the other trying to work out what to do, what a solution was.

    What stopped me going through with it? I wasnt brave enough, I was too responsible already.

    Even when I kicked and screamed and tried even to pray – there wasnt any answer. Not even the God of Sunday school was any good. God wasnt doing anything. Yet.

    This is what I felt – these were the swirls of my thoughts at the ages of 9 and onwards.

    Then I felt shame for having them. The thoughts.

    A number of things did start to change for at around this time. One was that I started to realise that I accepted that if was going to make it in life – I was going to have to do it alone. The other was that I was beginning to see that some of those messages of ‘Im not ok’ from that parent – were slightly less valid – my teachers were saying good things, as were people like my Cub Scout leaders, and I started to dedicate myself to sports, and from nearer 10 or 11, to taking more care over myself – academically.

    I tried to keep trying to understand things or fix things – but thats another story. I took on the responsibility for my awful family – yet whilst they were destroying me.

    At 10 I became a Christian – because I wanted the sin and guilt ‘for what I had done wrong’ to disappear – be carried by someone else – because I was responsible. Further safe places emerged in my teenage life, places of rescue, further from the monster. I was crying out for love and nurture but projecting that I didn’t need help and I could deal with things.

    I only ever gave this part of me away twice. Both a few years later. At 14 I wrote a poem in English class in which I wrote it in the first person and then I died at the end , I think my American English teacher was a little surprised and also told me that I wasn’t allowed to write a poem in which I died at the end. And then maybe a year or two later, I was given the opportunity to share my testimony at the church, in it I revealed that as a child I felt suicidal, but wasnt successful. I was partly saying this because there’s a thing about making a testimony sound more dramatic, but also actually because it was true. I waited for feedback, or support or a space for someone to listen to me afterwards, but none came. Maybe they were just relieved that I didnt go through with it, or that I was lying.

    So I started to disbelieve my own story. Started to distance myself from it, shut it away, never to be seen again. Avoid and run. Survive meant blocking it out.

    But now as I listen to that inner child within, I see that 17 year old, the 12 year old, and also that 9 year old, and wonder what he needed, what he didnt have, and completely see how lost, alone, fearful, frightened, despairing and responsible he was feeling. At 9 I seriously wanted to end it all.

    So, when I think about ‘How I Survived psychopathic parenting’ – I actually nearly didn’t.

    Why am I writing this today? For a number of reasons, mostly because the memory of this came to me over the last few days, as I delved into the different ages of my inner child, partly as I read Stewart and Joines book on TA, I realise how many messages I heard that accumulated to ‘Do not exist’ , `Don’t stay a child’ and ‘Dont be important’ – and it took me to the time when I didnt want to carry on any more. I just knew from that moment on, or already, I was in survival mode. Digging deep. The other reason is that I have never spoken about this before to anyone, does anyone want to hear about the damage emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse does to children, to the point where they want to end it? Well, that was me. Im glad I didnt, but I still had a whole lot more to endure that I didnt know at 9, and it would take a long while to unravel the damage.

    Thank you for reading, sharing, and do seek help from specialists if my story at any point has affected you. You Are Valuable, You are worthy, and the world is a better place with you in it.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 23) Growing up Emotionally Alone

    We are all together alone, and these are just wishes, and I am just dreaming

    Perfect Place, Voice of the Beehive 1991

    That was one of my favourite songs as a young teenager. I still have the cassette tape.

    Something clearly resonated.

    A song that said something about being together, and alone.

    Thats what my family was like.

    We are all together, alone.

    Growing up alone.

    Thats what I had to do.

    People dont spend time with you in your family home when your Mother is a monster.

    People stay away.

    There are rare family get togethers, where everyone treads the same ongoing eggshells. Waiting for the landmines to be walked on.

    And when you do spend time with people – as soon as they leave the house

    Monster mother invalidates them.

    ‘They’re only here to sell something’ or ‘They should make more effort to see us’ or as they leave, after an argument, an abrupt ending – then they never come back.

    Then theres the role playing.

    The Categories that everyone in the family is given and has to fit into. So and So is ‘always’ doing this, or ‘________ is such a bully’ or ‘do you think _______ will ever grow up?’ Roles of scapegoat, bully, favourite etc played out all around – that as a child I couldn’t see. But it meant there was little connection.

    So people stay away.

    But its not just the extended family who stay away.

    Within the family – its wholly divided up.

    Its the only way a monster maintains their power.

    Dad cant be trusted, as he’s her helper and investigator – and sworn loyalty

    Siblings hide too. They, she is as alone as I am.

    And then that leaves me.

    Growing up alone.

    Finding family in the books, Charlies Family with a chocolate factor, Matildas School teacher, Dannys practical fun dad Dad with the sparkling eyes. Finding Family in other peoples families, the youth leaders and their foster children (and their own), finding family with other adults in the church. These were the safe people to have family with.

    Friends weren’t safe, not all the time.

    Unless a friend didnt want to come back to my house. Then it was ok.

    ‘Why doesnt ________ come back to the house?’ – err no, why should they? – I prefer being at theirs being anywhere but here She would play nice with them in person – like the Birthday parties from when I was 8, or when id here ‘Your mum isnt as bad as you say she is’ – nope – thats because in that hour she kind of put on a false mask.

    So, in the end, I avoided having friends, close friends too. It was kind of a safety mechanism, for me, and for them. Id have friends that we would do school together or where they didnt mind me going to their house, their park/community etc. But id learnt very quickly that the only way to be safe was to keep these people away, keep secrets.

    I have been describing this series as surviving psychopathic parenting, and I think after 23 parts to it, you have been able to tell what its like, and, piecing together all the parts, will create a picture, do look up the menu above for parts 1-22.

    It is growing up alone.

    And strangely, also, growing up in a false type of alone as no one actually realises or can comprehend that you are alone. ‘But you have both parents’ or those few moments of ‘being family’ and everyone is together. There is no happiness or joy in any family photos. Nothing. Hiding behind the surface of what ‘looks’ like a normal, nuclear, are people, victims of abuse, children, who are utterly alone.

    The double whammy of not being able to describe it, but feeling that constant ache, that constant emptiness of being completely utterly emotionally alone.

    Emotionally self dependant. Had to rely on whatever I knew of myself.

    It’s so multilayered, that even now its hard to describe. How a monster in one family divides everyone up, how they offer nothing but neglect, how they project behaviours, how they make accusations, so that you recoil, how they play victim when threatened, how they dominate, so that in reality, everyone feels alone – no one can trust anyone, the rumours go all around…

    I mean: How on earth can a child describe emotional aloneness that pervades everything? – when it looks like the ‘family’ is together.

    If this ring true for you, in a domestic abuse relationship, with either partner or parents do seek help, and if this provokes thoughts that you would want to investigate further, do look up the resources on the menu page above.